Teddy began to detect an unwelcome sensation, as if his guts were about to drop out. He hadn’t had a bowel movement in a week. Why now? But it was undeniable. Immediate. He nodded to Pritchard and Trinh, and approached one of the guards.
The trooper eyed him as he neared, unslinging his AK. The old model with the wooden stock. Every SEAL trained with Kalashnikovs. If he could get his hands on it… He bowed. “Mister Honorable Guard, or whatever. Permission to take a crap.”
“Manwei bowgow.” The guard made a threatening gesture with his rifle.
Teddy cringed. “Take a crap.” He pointed to his ass.
The guard’s eyes widened. “Manwei bowgow,” he shouted, face contorting. “Manwei bowgow!”
Teddy got it that time. He bowed again, lower this time. Murmured, humbly, “Manwei bowgow, you officious cat turd.”
“Zhe shi gang heshi de! Ni zhang yao shenme?”
Teddy pointed to his ass again, then off to behind the coal piles. The guard shook his head, scowling. He nodded to the bare dirt by the rail line, where, Teddy saw, other prisoners had left their meager droppings.
As he trudged up the embankment, the first stars were coming out, low in the west. He blinked up at them, mind empty.
He was squatting, pants down, when shouting erupted. The guards were aiming at a distant figure. Arms pumping, it was shrinking into the desert. At a word of command, four shots popped in the stillness. The figure jerked, then toppled.
As Teddy had hoped, when it was time to reshackle, the guards didn’t bother to match up names. They just counted a hundred heads into each car, and resecured them. He and Magpie drifted together and got locked into the same snaffle. They started a low conversation as the train jolted back into motion. Rolling north.
Away from the sea.
27
Aisha waited outside the unit commander’s stateroom. As the appointed time approached, they showed up, one by one: Toan, the master-at-arms. His burlier assistant. Cheryl Staurulakis, pasty and shell-shocked. The command master chief, leathery-faced Tausengelt. They filed inside, grim-faced and unspeaking.
The news had raced through the ship. Three people had told her at breakfast. Apparently she was one of the last to know, since she hadn’t been on watch, or in one of the berthing compartments, to be wakened and whispered to.
She’d tidied up the front room, and moved all her belongings into the smaller bunkoom. Leaving the coffee table cleared, and the chairs — including the one the intruder had clubbed her with two nights previous — ranged against the bulkhead. She shivered. It was so cold. Was something wrong with the heating? The engine noise seemed louder too, and the ship rolled from time to time, hard and long, as if something monstrous had it in its jaws and was tasting it before biting down in earnest.
Finally Lenson arrived. The CO murmured “Hello, Hal” to Toan, raising an eyebrow. The chief master-at-arms flashed shining metal cuffs from a jumpsuit pocket, then concealed them again. Aisha was wearing a loose flowered wrap over her jumpsuit, and under it, a shoulder holster. She reached in to check the loaded-and-locked 9mm. The baton was in the pocket of her cargo pants. She’d carried both ever since the attack.
A tap at the door. “Come in,” Tausengelt called.
Dr. William Noblos half ducked to enter, then halted, glaring around. His escort, one of the junior masters-at-arms, closed the door and went to parade rest, blocking the exit. Aisha tracked the scientist’s glance. It went around the room and dwelt on her. Then dropped — involuntarily, perhaps — to the knife-gouge in the tile.
“What the hell’s this?” he said angrily. “They’ve left you staked out here, Dan. Roosevelt’s gone. The Philippines are under attack. The only way we’re staying alive is if I can keep those radars going. Keep fighting until Washington gets the picture. We’ve lost, we’re defeated, we have to pull back.”
Lenson seemed to ruminate an answer, but looked to her instead. “Agent? You have the floor.”
She stepped forward as Toan moved in from the other side. “William Noblos, you’re under arrest.”
He grinned. “Arrest? On what specious, idiotic charge?”
“Rape, malicious wounding, and attempted murder.” She glanced at Toan, and nodded.
Noblos stepped back as the chief approached. Under the wrap, Aisha’s hand went for her pistol. But instead of resisting, the physicist raised his voice. “No need. I’m cooperating. But this is bullshit. Captain, think. Your ALIS team can barely read your AREPS data. Your radar’s out of parameters. Mitscher’s gone. The Japanese have pulled out. You’re putting your whole crew at risk. For what? Because some airhead says she got groped?”
Lenson, after a moment, put out a hand. “Chief. Stand down.”
“Sir?” Toan halted, looking puzzled.
“He’s not resisting. Let him have his say.”
Aisha started to object, then glanced at the captain and didn’t. Those gray eyes glittered like sea ice. “So, go on then. What are you saying, Bill? That you didn’t rape Petty Officer Terranova, and try to murder the special agent here? Show me I’ve got the wrong guy. I’ll be happy to call this off.”
The J-phone on the bulkhead squealed, making everyone jump. Tausengelt answered in a low voice. Handed it off to the exec. Staurulakis nodded, glanced at Lenson.
“What is it, Cheryl?”
“They want one of us in CIC. I’ll go?”
The captain nodded. “Call if you need me.… Okay now, where were we?”
As the door closed behind the exec, Noblos smiled frostily. “You were making threats, Dan. Accusing me of something I didn’t do. If I can prove I’m innocent, you’ll call it off? You’ll have to call it off anyway! Why bother with this charade?” He grimaced. “Oh, I see. To rattle me. Make me come clean. Well, I don’t think so.”
He shifted that contemptuous grin to Aisha. “Or, wait. It was her idea, right? I’m going to break down, blurt out a confession. Does that work with the teenaged seamen you usually grill, Special Agent? Frightened ignoramuses who have no idea of their rights? Do you understand who I am, what I’ve done for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, the national missile defense program, the Defense Science Board?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Aisha tapped the toe of her boot on the scarred tile. “We have your knife. Your blanket. Your videos. Very interesting viewing. Plus gun-camera footage of you in the helo hangar, in the supply fan room, and in the Equipment Room on the 03 level with Terranova.”
This wasn’t actually true. The gaps in the taped record, which they were assuming showed him, had been deleted or overwritten. But the point right now wasn’t to stick to facts, but to force an admission. “You were in here two days ago, with that knife. I identified you then. I’d say we’re airtight, without any admissions from you at all.” She paused, reflecting once more that they still hadn’t been able to break the encryption on the files. They were guessing what was on there. To that extent, he was right; she was bluffing, hoping for a breakdown, a confession.
Which she still might get, if she could play on that overweening pride. His conviction that he operated above everyone else’s intellectual level, that they were ants creeping about his feet. “But you deserve to be on the record, Doctor. So what did you want to say? Now’s your chance to tell us.”
Noblos tossed his head, eyeing Toan, who still hovered between him and the captain. “Why should I say anything? As soon as those cuffs are on, I’m entitled to counsel. Correct, Special Agent?”