“Sir, there’s more,” Goodrich said, swinging his lantern over to the stainless steel sinks at the far end of the room.
The mirrors above the sinks had been shattered. Someone had put a fist through them, leaving round spiderweb fractures in the silvered glass. The sinks were filled with fallen shards and spatters of blood, and more broken glass littered the floor below.
Gordon was flummoxed. How the hell had the culprit gotten away with it? Breaking the light fixtures and the mirrors? That would have taken time. White had heard it, but he hadn’t investigated right away. Surely, someone else must have heard the racket and come looking. Only a third of the submarine’s crew was on duty at any given time. That left a third of the crew on their racks right next to the head, and another third milling around the deck. The head was never empty for long, and there was no way to lock everyone out—no sign, like those on a commercial airplane’s lavatory doors, that he could turn to occupied. With no way to keep it quiet and no way to keep people out once he started making noise, how had the vandal done it? Gordon supposed that if the head’s hatch to the corridor and its hatches to the berthing areas were shut, it was possible the noise would be dampened. Still, the vandal would have had to be fast to escape without being spotted—faster than Gordon could imagine anyone moving.
But the question of how paled beside the question of why. Why break the light fixtures and the mirrors?
“Sir, what do you think it all means?” he asked.
Jefferson shined his lantern at the shattered mirrors, then back up to the smashed fixtures on the ceiling.
“It means the people on this boat are losing their goddamn minds,” Jefferson said. “They’re breaking lights, mirrors, the radio, and God knows what else.”
“Sir, do you think the captain will cut the op short?” Gordon asked.
“I doubt it,” Jefferson said. “As far as the captain’s concerned, this op is too important to abort. He wants to hang tight and see if the techs can fix the radio, but Coms doesn’t think they can.” He sighed and shook his head. “Frankly, we’re hosed. We can’t radio COMSUBRON for instructions, some crazy son of a bitch is breaking our lights, and we’ve got two sailors dead from bubonic plague or whatever the hell it is.”
“Two, sir?” Gordon asked. “Someone else died?”
“Steve Bodine,” Jefferson said sadly. “He passed a few hours ago.”
“What, sir?” White said.
At the same time, Gordon asked, “Are you sure, sir?”
“Of course I’m sure!” Jefferson snapped, looking at them both. “What’s gotten into the two of you? Matson called me himself over the circuit to inform me.”
“Sir, I’m confused,” White said. “I could have sworn I saw Bodine when I woke up, before I left the berthing area.”
“Impossible,” Jefferson replied.
“Sir, I’m not so sure about that,” Gordon said. “Oran Guidry told me he saw Bodine earlier too. Ensign Penwarden was talking to him outside the auxiliary engine room. And, sir, didn’t you mention the lights had been broken there too?”
Jefferson stared at Gordon. “It’s impossible. Matson told me that Bodine died.”
“Sir, if Bodine is dead, then who did I see?” White asked. “And who did Oran see, sir?”
“That’s a damn good question,” Jefferson said.
Leaving the aux techs behind to clean up the glass, Jefferson led Gordon and White back to the galley. He questioned Oran on exactly what had happened in the auxiliary engine room. LeMon watched nervously, stirring his pot as Oran related his story. Gordon listened intently too, but nothing Oran told the lieutenant commander differed from the story he had told Gordon earlier.
“So you didn’t actually see Bodine yourself?” Jefferson asked.
“No, suh,” Oran replied, “but Ensign Penwarden did. I heard him say Bodine’s name twice, suh.”
“And where is Ensign Penwarden now?” Jefferson asked.
“I don’ know, suh,” Oran said. “He was gone already when I come back up to the galley, suh.”
“What about you, White?” Jefferson asked. “Have you seen Ensign Penwarden since you left the berthing area?”
“No, sir,” he replied.
“Lieutenant Abrams?” Jefferson asked.
Gordon shook his head. “No, sir. If you like, I can keep an eye out for him during first meal.”
“Please do,” Jefferson said. “I want to talk to him.”
“Sir,” Gordon said, “two sightings of Steve Bodine alive and in places where the lights have been purposely broken—it can’t be a coincidence.”
“But it doesn’t make sense,” Jefferson said, though his words held far less conviction this time. He thought a moment, then said, “All right, Guidry, White, come with me. Lieutenant Abrams, let me know if you see Ensign Penwarden.”
“Where we goin’, suh?” Oran asked.
“To the torpedo room. You both think you saw Bodine, but Matson told me he’s dead. I intend to put this matter to rest and, with any luck, get to the bottom of whatever the hell is happening on this boat.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Jerry climbed down the main ladder, following Oran Guidry and Lieutenant Commander Jefferson to the bottom level. Jefferson was already walking up to the torpedo-room hatch when Jerry reached the bottom. He hurried to catch up. Oran, hanging back behind Jefferson, looked nervous. He kept chewing his lip and staring at the door as if he expected floodwaters to come surging through.
“You okay?” Jerry asked him.
Oran nodded, though not very convincingly. “It’s just that I get a real bad feelin’ down here. Felt it earlier this mornin’, and I got it again now.”
“What kind of feeling?” Jerry asked.
“Like we better off keepin’ that hatch shut tight.”
Ever since they found Stubic’s dead body in the freezer, Jerry had felt something too: an unease lurking like a shadow in the back of his mind, making him feel like an animal that could sense a predator hiding in the tall grass but didn’t know exactly where it was. After discovering the smashed lights and mirrors in the head, the feeling had only gotten worse.
Jefferson stood in front of the torpedo-room hatch. “You’re both certain it was Bodine you saw?”
“Sir, I know it sounds impossible, but I would swear to it,” Jerry replied. “I sat right next to the man in the control room for every one of my watch sections. I’d recognize him anywhere, sir.”
“What about you, Guidry?” Jefferson asked.
Oran shrugged. “I didn’t see hide nor hair, suh. Was Ensign Penwarden who saw Bodine. I only know what I heard. The ensign called out Bodine’s name twice. When I left the auxiliary engine room two shakes later, they was both already gone, suh.”
Jefferson shook his head. “It can’t be him. There’s no way.” He banged his fist on the door and called, “Matson? It’s Lieutenant Commander Jefferson. I have some questions I’d like to ask you.”
When there was no answer, he knocked again. A few seconds later, the door opened, swinging outward. Senior Chief Sherman Matson poked his head out. He looked pale and groggy, his hair tousled and sweaty. Jerry knew that Matson had quarantined himself just to be on the safe side, but now he wondered whether prolonged exposure to Bodine had made him sick.