“You all right, Dan?”
“Yeah… yeah,” he wheezed. “Uh, about air support… above my pay grade, Chip. Like I said, we’re about out of ordnance. And low on fuel again too. Any possibility we can get another drink from that tanker?”
“Bao Shan was lost, Dan. Torpedoed and sunk on the way back to Hualien. Did I not tell you that?”
“Oh — yeah, guess you did. Well, Roosevelt will have a combat-support ship. We’ll refuel from her. Offload you, maybe to the battle group commander’s staff? To be his liaison.”
“It is possible. I’ll check with my command. They may want me back to fight.”
“Then we’ll probably be heading to Guam. Rearm, and get our bow repaired.” He sighed, thinking, And maybe get some sleep, too.
“Just a minute, Captain. The TAO wants the phone back.” A rattle, then: “Captain?”
“Still here, Amy.”
“Just came in. Chinese special forces have occupied Socotra Rock. The Ieodo Ocean Research Station.”
“Socotra… where the hell’s that?”
“There’s another island by that name off Yemen, but this one’s north of us. Halfway between the Chinese coast and Cheju-do, off Korea.”
“All right… call me in an hour. Or if anything changes.”
“Yes sir. Please get some sleep. You sound terrible.”
He fumbled the handset into its socket, then lay back in the dark. But far from relaxing, his mind tumbled and whirled anew.
Zhang wasn’t limiting the war, but widening it. Grabbing another advanced position. This time from the Koreans.
To punish Seoul for Jung’s attack? Or just to strike at another U.S. ally?
To intimidate Congress, meeting to vote on the force authorization?
Or just to stake another claim for the Greater China this new president and generalissimo had sworn to his troops was in their grasp?
He lay staring at the overhead, sweating, fighting down the cough. And gradually began the long dark oiled slide down into sleep. He turned over, rearranged his pillow.
Into blackness, at last. Here it came. Thank you. Thank you.
Then someone tapped on his door.
The CO’s at-sea cabin was smaller than the scientist’s, Aisha noted, and looked far more lived-in. Dirty laundry was stuffed into a corner. Books, binders, and papers were stacked under the folded-down desk, nearly to toppling.
Lenson stood in the doorway, a blue robe with yellow piping pulled over his underwear. His hair was rumpled and looked wet. He tapped the back of a fist against his mouth. “XO. Agent… Sheriff Toan. Fuck’s going on?”
“Sorry to disturb you, sir.”
“Whatever. I wasn’t… well, I wasn’t all the way asleep. Come on in.”
After telling the chief to close the door, the exec briefed him in short sentences. Toan held up the evidence bags. Lenson’s face grew stony. “In his stateroom? But… a lot of people carry knives aboard ship. And an old blanket… Not exactly open and shut. Is it?”
“The DVDs probably show the rapes,” Aisha said. They’d tried to view them on a computer in Staurulakis’s office. “But they’re encrypted. We tried the numbers on them as passwords, but they didn’t work. We know he’s got a camera. If it has an infrared setting, that might be how he took video. We have cybertrained agents in the field offices; they can examine them. Or DCFL — the Defense Computer Forensics Laboratory.”
“I told her she needs your permission to take him into custody,” the exec added, slouching against the bulkhead as if her bones had softened.
Lenson fingered his chin. “But if they’re encrypted… in MDA jewel boxes? Could be diagnostic software. Aegis patches.”
“But those would be classified,” Aisha said. “Should be in his safe, right? Plus, Longley’s seen that same blanket every time he’s picked up laundry. Terranova and Colón confirm it sounds exactly like what the rapist seated them on. Soft, with a satin border. Circumstantial, so far, but I’m convinced.”
Lenson groped for a chair. “He’s always had an attitude, but I never thought Noblos was capable of this.”
“There’s a shadow side to these guys,” Aisha told him. “It’s almost a cliché to say they seem like they couldn’t do it. We need to make an arrest. Take him into custody before he attacks another girl.”
“You think he would?”
“I guarantee it.”
The CO rubbed his face with both hands — a habitual gesture, she’d noted, when he was buying a couple of seconds, especially when he was tired. If not sick, too. The cramped space smelled of sweat. “Is there still room for doubt? I mean, that he might not be our guy?”
“Not much,” Aisha said. “The blanket, the knife, the disks. Once we break the encryption, that last two percent will disappear.”
Lenson looked troubled. “The thing is, right now — I hate to say it, but we need him. We’ve got to keep those system numbers up. Under normal conditions, I’d notify Fleet Forces, get a replacement in the pipeline, and fire him off the ship. But that’s not gonna happen. Not now.”
“Operational necessity,” Staurulakis said, not looking at Aisha. “I agree, sir. At least until we’re out of the combat zone.”
Lenson nodded. “Uh-huh. Also, now that I think about it… is he even under Navy jurisdiction?”
They all looked at Aisha. She said, “Um, to be honest, that’s not a black-and-white situation.”
Lenson closed his eyes. “What kind of ‘situation’ is it, then?”
“Well, Captain, first of all, you’re right. He’s not under UCMJ. Not as a civilian.”
“He’s a contractor, aboard a U.S. ship in international waters,” Staurulakis said.
“That’s true, yes ma’am. Which means we can possibly charge him under U.S. Code, under MEJA—”
Lenson interrupted, “Which is what?”
“The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act permits federal prosecution of crimes committed abroad by DoD civilian employees, or contractors thereof. There’s also CEJA, the Civilian Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which lets us prosecute employees of non-DoD federal agencies. I’m not clear yet who his employer is, or who he’s subcontracted from.”
Lenson said, shading his eyes, “Johns Hopkins, I think via the Missile Defense Agency. We can get the specifics off his clearance. Pull that from Radio, XO.”
“Good, but it can be hard to get a case tried under either statute,” Aisha added. “If we still had the DNA evidence, it would be easier.”
“You just said you were ninety-eight percent certain.” Staurulakis frowned.
Aisha smiled painfully. “My being sure, and persuading a prosecutor to take a case to trial, are two different things, Commander.”
They gave her the same disbelieving stares she was used to from military people whenever she tried to explain civilian law. At last the captain sighed. “I don’t doubt you’re right. And I agree, we need to protect our female crew. But I just can’t take him out of circulation right now. We’re still on the firing line here.”
“I understand you need him. But you’ve got to restrict his movements in some way,” Aisha told him. “I can keep tabs on him if you want me to, but he’s going to notice things are missing. Then what?”
Outside, in the passageway, the 1MC crackled. “General quarters. General quarters. All hands man your battle stations.” Simultaneously the 21MC on the bulkhead said, “CO, TAO: major movement here, multiple incomers. Need you in CIC, right away.”