Those poor bastards in the water were really in the soup. Too bad the action was on the other side of the ship, where he couldn’t see it. The scuttlebutt on the sound-powered circuit was that they were drunk. So if they don’t drown, they’re going to be shoveling shit when old man James gets through with them. Serves the bastards right, Porter decided. He hadn’t been ashore for the last two nights. Envy wrapped its slimy fingers around his heart.
The corporal should be around in a few minutes. Maybe he could get the corporal to go down to the berthing spaces and get his slicker for him. Naw, not Simons, that prick. But maybe Simons would relieve him for a few minutes and let him go get it. He sourly contemplated the odds of talking the corporal into that.
Simons was an asshole, no question. Two little red chevrons and he acted like he’d been promoted to disciple. Why in hell the corps ever promoted a cock-stroking butt-licker like him was a good question to contemplate on a bad night. Aagh, it’s enough to make you puke. You work your ass off spit-shining your fucking shoes and polishing your fucking brass and cleaning your fucking rifle, and then Hershey-bar lifer pricks like Simons …
Someone was coming down the catwalk. Damn! Couldn’t be Simons. Not five minutes early. Oh, it’s some dirt-bag sailor, probably drunk, out wandering around after a big night in town, out to give the corps some shit.
“Hey Dixie-cup, you—”
The first bullet from the silenced 9-millimeter hit Private Porter in the throat. The wind swallowed the muffled report. As the marine’s hands went to his throat, the pistol popped twice more, and the now-lifeless body slumped down into a sitting position.
The assassin opened the breech of the big fifty and the ammo feed box. He lifted out the belt of shells and fed it over the rail, between the big gray canisters that contained the fifty-man life rafts. The ammo belt fell into the blackness. The killer bent over the open breech. In a few seconds he snapped the weapon’s breech and the ammo-box lid closed, and walked forward toward the bow.
Lance Corporal James Van Housen was bored. And when he was bored, he entertained himself with isometric exercises. He strained at the top bar of the catwalk rail, trying to curl it. He counted the seconds: … fourteen, thousand, fifteen, thousand, sixteen, … When he got to twenty, he relaxed and counted his pulse while he examined the sweep second hand of his watch, just visible in the red lights of the ship’s island.
The rest of these guys, they just stand around and get fat while the sergeants kick their asses. Van Housen was staying in shape. He was taking advantage of every opportunity to exercise. That’s what the corps is all about, staying in shape, ready to fight. If they wanted to be marshmallows, they should have joined the fucking navy. The sailors all think exercise is what they do to their dicks in the shower.
Van Housen saw the chopper cross the fantail and make its approach to the helo spot on the angle. The sound-powered circuit talker said the angel had picked one guy up from the liberty boat, which had pulled him from the water. A damn bad night for a swim. The talker didn’t know about the other guy in the water. Van Housen watched a team of corpsmen with a litter run toward the chopper as soon as it touched down.
The lance corporal seized the top rail and lifted again, counting to himself. He finished this set and was flexing his arms, trying to pump out the fatigue toxins, when he saw a sailor come up a ladder from the O-3 level, fifty feet aft, and turn toward him. He first glimpsed the man from the corner of his eye, then turned to watch him.
What the hell is he doing out here at this time of night?
The sailor had something in his right hand, down against his leg. He was concealing it behind his thigh. A doper? Carrying a joint? Naw, it was an object of some kind.
Van Housen stepped back against the bulkhead, partially out of sight because of the way the catwalk zagged outboard around this nearest ladder up from the O-3 level.
As the sailor in a sweater came around the corner, Van Housen was watching his hand. It swung up. A gun! It flashed — Van Housen heard the dull pop — and the bullet rocked him, but he had already launched himself forward. His momentum drove the sailor back against the rail, stunning him. Van Housen wrestled for the gun. There was a silencer on the barrel. He smashed the sailor’s arm against the railing. The pistol fell. Van Housen punched his assailant in the stomach, then again. The man doubled over.
Van Housen could feel himself weakening.
Got to stop this guy! Got to! Before I go down.
He seized the man by the belt and one arm and heaved him up and outboard as he exhaled convulsively from the exertion. The man sprawled on top of a life-raft canister. Van Housen tore the wool cap off and grabbed him by the hair. He smashed his fist into the sailor’s face.
No strength. The blow was weak. His legs were buckling.
The marine summoned every last ounce of strength and hit the man again in the face, swinging with his weight behind the blow. The man slid backward off the canister and disappeared, falling toward the sea.
Van Housen collapsed on the catwalk grid. His sound-powered headset had come off in the fight. He felt his stomach. His hand was warm and black and wet. Blood!
He was fainting. He lowered his head to the grid to stay conscious and felt for the headset. He pulled it toward him and fumbled for the mike button. “This is gun one …”
Then he passed out. He was unconscious when another sailor in a sweater with a pistol in his hand emerged from between the planes on the flight deck and stood looking down into the catwalk.
Lance Corporal Van Housen never felt the next bullet, which killed him.
Admiral Parker was wearing white uniform trousers and a T-shirt. Apparently he had just pulled the trousers on after his orderly woke him. Jake told him about the incident at the Vittorio, and Judith Farrell and Toad Tarkington’s involvement.
“Hell yes, I’ll release a flash message. You briefed Captain James on this yet?”
“Not yet, sir. I just heard this from Tarkington and the captain’s busy with the man overboard.”
“The captain called me just before you knocked. One man’s still in the water and one’s on his way to sick bay, half dead.” Parker turned to his aide, Lieutenant Franklin Delano Roosevelt Snyder. “Get my clothes, Duke. It’s time we went up to the bridge.” As he dressed the admiral told Jake, “Tonight’s Shore Patrol officer has been found dead on the quay. Neck broken.”
“What?” Jake said.
“Murdered.”
“Where?”
“Right in the Shore Patrol office. He was found just a few minutes ago.”
Jake Grafton seized the arms of his chair and leaned forward. “Lieutenant Flynn?”
“Yes.”
“I saw him go toward the office just before I boarded the mike boat to come out to the ship. He went down there with a chief who was on Shore Patrol duty tonight. The chief came back down the quay alone and rode out to the ship on the boat with me. He’s aboard.”
“Did you ever see the chief before? Know his name?”
Jake tried to remember. “Duncan? No … Dustin, I think. Dustin. And I can’t recall ever seeing him before.”
The admiral finished lacing his shoes, straightened and started for the door. Jake and Duke Snyder followed him. “Here we sit,” the admiral muttered, “three miles from the beach on the most valuable target in southern Italy. And we may already have an intruder aboard.”
“Or more than one,” Jake said, recalling the unusual number of drunks on the boat this evening and the confusion on the fantail when the two men went into the water.