“Well, you’d be half-right, Jim. He did jump on his own. Where are you, exactly?”
Jim backed up to the door of the opposite room, pushed it open with his left foot, and tripped the doorstop. Holding the Yard police radio in one hand, he backed into the empty room, keeping an eye on the frosted-glass surface of the door on Booth’s side of the corridor. He pulled a chair over, twisted one of the desks sideways, making lots of noise but never taking his eye off that glass partition, and sat down. Then he laid the secure radiophone down behind a book on the desk. “I’m right across the passageway, Booth,” he called, using the unsecure radio. “Like I said I’d be. The door’s wide open. I’m sitting in a chair. No gun. No tricks. Just want to hear your story. Check it out.”
He made sure the radiophone was showing a red transmit light; then he hunched forward in the chair, watching that frosted-glass panel. Booth could just make a judgment about where Jim was sitting and try a shot, but Jim didn’t think so. He was pretty sure Booth knew he was trapped and had made some decisions. What he’d want now was an audience. Someone to listen to him. What Jim had to do was occupy Booth while the Annapolis TAC guys, who could listen in on whatever dialogue he got going, tried to recover Julie from the window.
The room was hot and stuffy, and Jim fingered his collar. Nothing moved visibly behind that frosted-glass pane across the corridor. No shadows and no noises. He had to speak loudly enough that Branner and the cop across the hall could hear. He was trying to think of something to say, when the frosted pane across the hall exploded with the boom of a large-caliber pistol, blowing fragments of glass all over the corridor. Jim ducked instinctively, then looked back over the edge of the desk. Booth was finally visible through the shattered panel, sitting at a desk that had been turned sideways to face the door, just like Jim had done. What looked like a. 45 auto rested on the desk, pointing casually in his direction. Behind Booth, the window was closed and the tan roller shade was pulled down all the way to the floor. Something bulged the bottom of the shade.
Jim straightened up and nudged the secure radiophone closer so the others could hear him. “Well, Mr. Booth,” he said as casually as he could. “That was a dramatic way of opening the door. Guess you do have a gun. What is that, a government forty-five?”
Booth bared a mouthful of large square teeth at him, teeth that Jim remembered from the first night’s encounter with the vampire in the tunnel. Booth’s face was gray with fatigue, and there were dark pouches under his eyes. His head was entirely shaved, making him look bald and almost too old to be a midshipman. For a moment, Jim thought he saw the bottom of the shade move.
“So, you’re here to talk me down, Mr. Security Officer?” Booth asked. His voice was raspy, and pitched higher than Jim had expected. He was wearing Marine camo trousers, highly polished combat boots, and a green T-shirt.
“Here to find out what you’re so pissed off about, Mr. Booth. Here it is, almost graduation day, and you’re flooding out the utility tunnels, taking people hostage, doing God knows what to plebes. Regular one-man wrecking crew. Think of what you’re doing to the Academy’s image.”
“ Fuck the Academy’s fucking image!” Booth shouted. “You think I give a rat’s ass about the Academy’s image? Didn’t give a shit about me. All these years, winning N-stars in swimming, hundred and ten percent on the PFTs, perfect conduct record since plebe year, top ten percent of my class in math and engineering, and half my fucking class crosses the street when I come down the line?”
“Maybe they know something, Mr. Booth. Or maybe they just feel something. I don’t know. That you in the vampire getup, knocking heads out in Crabtown?”
“Fucking A. Got behind you, too, didn’t I?”
Jim thought he heard something moving along the ledge outside his window. No noise, he prayed. Not a sound. “Yeah, you did. Have to admit, you’ve got vampire makeup down cold. So what was up with all that? You pissed off at civilians in general, or just townies?”
“Practicing for the Corps, man. Plus entertaining my pussy posse.”
“Oh, yeah, the Goths; I’ve seen them. Coyote-ugly, most of them. Tell me you’re not into all that bullshit, are you? Drinking blood? Worshiping at the altar of Death? Somehow, I can’t quite feature you and Marilyn Manson on a date.”
Booth laughed. “Fuck no, the only part of the Goths I was into was between their legs. They’re professionally bored, so I had to play the part to get it on with them. You know, here’s an Academy dude, only he’s back in black. Had my pick, man. Had my pick.”
“It was me, I’d have to be a little drunk, do one of those weirdos. I mean, like that whiteface shit? They always look like they’re about to puke right through their nose rings.”
Booth grinned, showing all those teeth again for just a second longer than necessary. It was obviously a move he’d perfected. Jim could just imagine what that would be like underwater. Then he heard another sound, above his head. He was sure of it this time. The TAC squad must be moving, trying to get a line on Julie Markham before Fuck Face there opened the window and let her drop. He wondered where Branner was, and whether or not the listeners on the radio circuit could hear Booth. He had to keep Booth’s attention. “That shit in the tunnels-that was pretty impressive. How long have you been running?”
“Since youngster year, Mr. Security O. Just like I’ve been into the Brigade intranet since youngster year. And the faculty LAN, too. Shit, I had the exams before the head of the department. Then I found that old magazine space, got it set up for my computer lab. Dumb-ass PWC dudes were too scared to go down there. Especially after I showed up one night in the Drac rags and ran off a coupla their guys.”
“They never mentioned that, although you’re right-they weren’t too keen on going down there. But I thought you were a supergeek. What’d you need the exams for?”
“Two reasons. One: to sell them. Oh, that surprises you? Think there might be a little ethics problem out there in the Blue and Gold Brigade?”
“I suppose there are always some rotten apples in the barrel. What was your other reason?”
“I’m a data dink. Couldn’t do bull. They told me it’s a brain thing. The bull department cut me no slack. Always with the fucking essay questions. So I’d get the questions, pay some smart dude to write me up some answers, all hypothetical, and do it that way.”
“And you’re telling me that midshipmen are buying and selling exams?”
“Guys in trouble are. It’s a little like loan-sharking-only guys in trouble come to the Shark. Shit, the rest of these dudes are so square, they’d faint dead away at the thought. Got that honor bug so far up their asses, they can’t walk and fart at the same time.”
“And you got Markham’s father to tutor you in reading?”
Booth’s expression changed slightly, with some of the arrogance draining out of it. “So what if I did?” he said. “I lusted after her sweet ass, figured it wouldn’t be a bad move to get close to her old man. Find out where she went weekends. Where home was. Had a feeling about her, that maybe she wasn’t the straight-arrow chick everybody thought she was.”
“She told us about the UVA meet. The party.”
Booth grinned, back in the driver’s seat again. Jim wanted to look at his watch, but he didn’t dare distract Booth.
“I won everything down there. Clean sweep. I think maybe that’s why she finally came across at that UVA party. Or maybe it was the roofie I put in her drink. Don’t remember. I do remember her, though. Hot and sweet. Did she tell you there was a video? Talk about a starring role.”
“So what the hell was the big deal about Brian Dell?” Jim asked. “Seems like kind of a little guy for someone your size to be running.”
“You go here?” Booth asked. He appeared to be listening. Had he heard the team on the roof? Jim shifted in his chair, which brought Booth’s full concentration back to him.