Jefferson laughed and lifted his glass. “You’ve got yourself a deal, sir.”
As XO, Jefferson had his own stateroom in Officer Country, which also happened to be the forwardmost room on Roanoke. Beyond it was only the fore ladder, which led up to the captain’s egress, and the bulkhead that separated the forward compartment from the submarine’s water-filled nose cone, where the sonar sphere was housed.
By the time he returned to his stateroom, he was feeling happily warm from the Scotch. He took down the folding bed from the bulkhead, sat on it, and began unlacing his boots.
Damn, he was going to miss Bodine. He had the nagging sense again that he had ridden the young man too hard, been too stern with him in his effort to make him the best sailor he could be. But it had been born of good intentions, and that had to mean something, didn’t it? Sometimes, it seemed as though white sailors in the US Navy were given as many second chances as they needed, but a black sailor had to mess up but once before others started talking in hushed tones about whether “his kind” belonged in the navy at all. And that was why he had been so tough on Bodine. Surely Bodine had known that and hadn’t blamed him. Right?
He thought it was his own drunken imagination when he heard Bodine’s voice just then, softly calling him.
“Lieutenant Commander…”
Jefferson shivered and pulled off his boots. It was just his imagination running away with him. Bodine was on his mind, after all. He was exhausted from a long day, and his mind was drifting pleasantly from the Scotch. Was it any wonder he was hearing things?
“Lieutenant Commander,” came the voice again.
This time, Jefferson sat up bolt upright. That wasn’t his imagination. He really had heard something, but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Close enough to be heard clearly. Was someone hiding in his stateroom with him? But where? There was no place to hide.
“You should hear what they call you behind your back, Lieutenant Commander,” Bodine’s voice continued.
Jefferson stood up. “Who’s there?”
“The captain, the other sailors—you should hear the names they have for you when you’re not around. Jig. Sambo. Spade. Shine.”
Jefferson turned in a circle, looking into the corners of the stateroom, but no one was there. He was alone.
“They can’t stand you. They can’t wait until this underway is over, so they can get away from your uppity black ass. It’s all they talk about when you’re not there.”
“You’re wrong,” Jefferson said loudly. Was he going crazy? First, he was hearing voices, and now he was talking back to them? But Scotch had a way of replacing one’s common sense with fearlessness. “I just spoke with the captain. He’s not like that.”
“They’re all like that.”
Jefferson put his hands over his ears and shook his head. He had to be losing his mind. Or maybe this was a delusion brought on by the fever that was going around. Damn it, had he been infected when he went down to the torpedo room earlier? Matson had warned him it could happen…
The sound of breaking glass outside his stateroom startled him out of his thoughts. One of the light fixtures outside? He turned toward the door.
“Do you know what the best thing about being on a submarine is, Lieutenant Commander?” Bodine’s voice asked. “There’s no sun. Down here, it’s always night.”
Another crash, closer now, followed by the tinkle of glass shards falling to the deck.
“Who are you?” Jefferson shouted.
“Don’t you know your old friend Steve Bodine?”
No, it was impossible. He was dead. And yet, that voice…
Fuck this. Someone was playing a nasty prank on him, and he was going to have the son of a bitch’s hide for it. He walked to the door and reached for the handle.
Another crash came from outside, making him pause. More glass fell tinkling to the deck. Christ, the three light fixtures in the Officer Country corridor.
“I’m just outside your door, Lieutenant Commander.”
Jefferson stared at the handle.
“Why don’t you come out and say hello?”
To hell with this sick bastard, whoever he was. Come out and say hello? That was exactly what Jefferson was going to do. And when he caught the son of a bitch, he would give him an ass-kicking to remember. He gripped the knob, turned it, and yanked the stateroom door open.
The corridor outside was dark. He was right: all three light fixtures had been smashed. The light from his stateroom bled out into the shadows before him, falling across bits of shattered glass on the deck. Beyond where the light reached, he saw a shape in the darkness—the silhouette of a man. It had Bodine’s posture and stood at Bodine’s height, but it couldn’t be Bodine.
The silhouette’s eyes glowed brightly out of the darkness as if they were reflecting the light, like a cat’s.
In a harsh, inhuman whisper, Steve Bodine said, “Hello, brother.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
When Jerry White showed up for his watch section in the control room, he was pleasantly surprised to find that Lieutenant Duncan was not on duty as the diving officer. Unsurprisingly, in Duncan’s absence his watch went more smoothly than ever. The new diving officer didn’t ride him the way Duncan did, didn’t look for tiny things to criticize, or, worse, fabricate them as an excuse to dress him down in front of everyone. When the watch was over six hours later, Jerry left the control room actually feeling good about himself for a change, basking in the feeling of a job well done.
He climbed down the main ladder to the middle level, planning to get some chow and maybe finally start that book he had brought along. But as soon as he stepped off the ladder, Senior Chief Farrington came walking up to him and said, “White, come with me.” Without breaking his stride, Farrington continued toward the mess.
Jerry hurried after him. “What’s this about, COB?”
Farrington didn’t answer. They entered the mess, and Farrington went to the closest table, where four enlisted men were eating a seafood gumbo that smelled tantalizingly good.
“Gentlemen, I need this table for a few minutes.”
If it were anyone else below the rank of ensign, the men would have scoffed at the request, but for the chief of the boat they got up with their trays and took another table. Farrington indicated that White should sit down. Then the COB sat across from him.
“How would you describe your relationship with Lieutenant Junior Grade Charles Duncan, White?”
Jerry frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Lieutenant Duncan has vanished. Were you aware?”
“What?”
“When he didn’t show up for his watch section, someone was sent to his stateroom. He wasn’t there, either. The officers he shares the stateroom with say he wasn’t present for his usual sleep section. I’ve had men searching the boat for the whole past section, and more searching now on the top level. Something tells me they won’t find him there, either.”
Jerry stared at the COB. How could anyone go missing on a 300-foot submarine? There was no place where you wouldn’t be seen by someone. Hell, Jerry couldn’t even take a piss in private most days. Then he remembered how Bodine had evaded them during the boatwide search for him. How had he done that?
Farrington interrupted his thoughts. “It’s no secret there was friction between you and Lieutenant Duncan. How did that make you feel? Angry?”
“Hold on a minute, COB,” Jerry said. “You think I had something to do with it?”
“I’m just asking questions, White. Did it make you angry?”
“Yes, it made me angry, but not enough to… to do something to him. Look, I never wanted any trouble. I just wanted to keep my head down and focus on my duties. I never so much as talked back to Lieutenant Duncan, even when he was treating me unfairly.”