“How do they know it was an accident?” I asked.
“They don’t know for sure,” Patterson said. “But these older boats… you have to understand, this submarine is just barely a step up from a World War II U-boat. Chlorine gas is a pretty common danger because it forms whenever seawater comes in contact with the ship’s batteries.”
“So everyone on board was killed in the accident.”
“Well… no. Everyone was dead, but not from the gas. The boarding party sent in one man wearing protective gear to search for survivors. He only looked through part of the ship and didn’t find anyone alive. He did, however, find a North Korean crewmember shot to death in the conning tower.”
“Shot by whom?”
He laughed, and I tilted the phone away from my ear as the unnatural, gravelly sound burst through the receiver.
“That’s why I’m calling you. We’re going to send a skeleton crew onto the boat to get it submerged and into port. Once it’s there, I need you to tell us what happened last night. Be ready to go by six. That’s about three hours from now.”
“Wait, that won’t work.”
“Dr. Myers, it will have to work. If that’s too early for you, I suggest you start making coffee now.” It was tough to tell whether I had pushed him beyond his usual irritated demeanor, but it was clear he was a few seconds away from hanging up on me.
I was sitting up in bed now, the covers bunched around my waist.
“No, listen. It’s not too early, it’s too late. If your crew has been aboard the sub for three hours, they’ll have disturbed the crime scene. I don’t even know how much the man in the boarding party did, what he touched or rearranged. I can’t accurately reconstruct anything if I’m working with a dirty scene.”
“So what would you suggest? The ship has to be submerged when the sun comes up, and it is imperative to get it to port soon.”
“Where is the ship right now?”
“About forty-five miles off the coast. It was headed here, to Norfolk.”
“How will your crew be getting there?”
“We’re going to insert them by helicopter. Everything’s below the radar.”
He already had formulated a plan, and shoehorning new ideas into it had not been his intent when he called me. I didn’t need to give him any reason to dismiss my suggestions. I spoke fast, trying to convey my urgency without sounding desperate.
“Then let me go with the crew. I can get to the base in fifteen, twenty minutes. Once we’re onboard the sub, I can see what they’re doing and make sure they don’t disturb anything vital. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than looking for evidence after they’ve contaminated the scene for hours.”
For a few moments, all I could hear was Patterson’s breathing.
“That’s a good idea,” he said. “Be here in twenty minutes. The guard at the gate will tell you where to go. I’ll fax you condensed dossiers of the crew and an overview of the submarine.”
I replaced the phone on the bedside table, its glossy brown surface empty of pictures or decoration. I knew better than to wait for him to say goodbye.
There was no moon, but the indistinct glow of the streetlights caused a shifting lattice of shadows to dance through my bedroom. The shapes were just gnarled tree branches undulating in the wind, but the effect was unsettling.
Without thinking about it, I reached for the light switch next to the bed. The black-and-white mysteries of the dark room gave way to a pleasant, familiar mix of colors and objects as the overhead fixture clicked on.
And the last shreds of discord were washed away by the trilling of my fax machine down the hall. Patterson was moving fast.
No time to clean up. After hopping out of bed, I threw on some jeans and a Georgetown sweatshirt over a sports bra. I winced at the mirror as my reflection tried to make its unkempt black hair look presentable. In the end, a ponytail carried the day. And as a final, habitual touch, I slipped a worn rubber band into a familiar position around my left wrist.
At the bottom of my closet was a bag I kept for nights like these, when a phone call could pull me into someone else’s violent world. It contained everything I would bring from my office to a crime scene: A fluoroscope for revealing stains and fingerprints. Fingerprint-collecting materials. A portable fuming chamber for latents. Evidence bags, tweezers, magnification devices, a ruler, an angle-finder, calipers, scales, chemical ID tests. A Nikon digital and a Polaroid, a Radio Shack microcassette recorder for notes. A flashlight and a box of latex gloves.
I slung the duffel over my shoulder and jogged down the hallway into my office, the faux-Persian carpet muffling each sneaker-clad footstep. The fax machine had just finished spitting out the last page. I hadn’t bothered turning on the light, but the illumination spilling through the doorway showed the printout tray was full of paper. I rolled its contents up and shoved them in the duffel bag. Although Gen. Patterson could hand me all of these documents in his office, he might have thought I had someone to drive me to the base, allowing me to read them en route. But my bag would be the only passenger on this trip.
As I turned to leave, the phone warbled again. I picked up the extension in my office, looking out into the hall. Now that I was in motion, the comforting wood-and-leather interior of my workspace seemed to be clutching at me, keeping me from more important business.
“Christine?”
“Hello, Charlie.” It was my division supervisor, Dr. Charles Weber.
“I guess you’ve already talked to Patterson, huh?” he said. His voice was shot through with fatigue.
“Yeah. Just got off the phone. I’m on my way to the base now.”
“Now? I thought.
“He wanted to have a bunch of sailors on that boat for hours before I got a chance to look at it. There’s no way I could have done anything useful after that. So they’re going to put me on the sub with the crew, and I’m going to start working immediately.”
“Christ, Christine,” he said, then chuckled. “I’m glad one of us is awake enough to think clearly. OK, go get this submarine mess figured out for Patterson. He seemed pretty pissed that he had to ask for help on this one. Of course, he seems pretty pissed all the time.”
“I don’t think he knows how not to be angry. But we’re all on the same team, right? I’ll give him answers, Charlie, don’t worry.”
“I know you will. Be safe, Christine.”
And we hung up.
Then: Down the carpeted stairs, turning off lights as I went. Past the picture of Stephen, his wife, his two kids. Then Mom. Then Stephen by himself. Then the three of us together, a happy family grinning in front of a neutral background that almost matched my walls. Through the foyer and dining room, dodging the island in the kitchen. Out the back door and into the garage, where my Jeep waited next to cabinets of power tools, two bikes and a red canoe.
I tossed the bag in the passenger seat and pulled out of the garage.
I wish I could say the night seemed evil. In hindsight, it would make sense to have left the house in the middle of a storm, with vicious bolts of lightning exploding in the sky. And maybe if nature had tried harder to persuade me, I would have changed my mind and stayed home. Pored over Patterson’s reports with a cup of coffee warming one hand.
But it wasn’t like that at all. It was beautiful. Maybe sixty degrees, with just a sprinkling of moisture in the air and dew on the ground. I remember rolling down the window as I backed out of the driveway and inhaling that clean, damp smell.
The house was dark. I hadn’t left any lights on. The two-story Victorian farmhouse was lit only by the arc-sodium streetlights, which gave its white exterior a pale orange cast. It was too much space for me-it had been for years-but it was home. As I pulled away through the tree-lined neighborhood, yards full of coifed bushes and dormant sprinklers, the building seemed comforting and solid in the rearview mirror.