“What are you hoping to find from skin cells?”
“Tell me what you find, and I’ll tell you what I think.” With that, she got up, stretched, and headed for the door, “We’ll see tomorrow — morning, right?”
“You know, for a retired person you are very demanding.”
“You should have seen me when I was on active duty!” She smiled and left.
XXVIII. IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS
With Joey, Brooke and Parnell in Geneva and the Vatican now reluctantly on his side, Bill found no reason to stay in Paris. He was about to make the arrangements to go home when he had a better idea. “Mrs. Hiccock, do you have a free weekend?”
Janice was talking to him from the phone in their kitchen and smiled, “Well, you know I am pretty busy here with my husband away and all.”
“So then why don’t you call your mom, get her to mind Richie and jump on Air France Flight 891 to Paris leaving Dulles at 6:05 p.m. non-stop to the City of Lights. It’s all paid for, just show ’em your passport.”
“Well, I haven’t a thing to wear!”
“Don’t worry mademoiselle, that is why we have French clothes places here… in France.”
“Can’t stay on the phone much longer, ’cause I got to pack! I love you…”
“Love you too. See ya for breakfast, babe.” He hung up and smiled. He had made the right choice.
“Sierra Tango Two in thirty seconds,” the chief of the boat called out.
Mush took one more look at the chart. He was navigating through a tricky part of the undersea ice near the Lomonosov Ridge, which divides the Eurasian Basin and the Amerasian Basin into two deep depressions on the sea floor at the top of the world, under the Polar Ice Cap. Training never stops on a submarine. On every patrol, crewmembers constantly have to qualify at watch stations other than their own specific rate. That means they shadow qualified-at-rate crew member to learn that job. Mush was showing a young ensign the basics of under-ice navigation. “Under the ice, with no satellite penetration for GPS, the only way to survive these transits is to use time and distance as you chart your progress.” He placed the calipers on the chart where a red line zigged through two under-sea mountain ranges. That gave him the point in the ocean where he needed to make the thirty-eight degree turn to port. It was designated Sierra Tango Two, which by his calculations was now five seconds away.
“And come to port zero-three-eight on my mark. Mark!” Mush ordered.
“What’s the next target, Ensign?”
He took the calipers and rolled them point over point to the next zig in the red line that was their safe course thought the range. “I make next target designated as Sierra Tango Three in twenty-two minutes at our present course and twenty-seven knot speed.”
“I concur. Keep it up, Will and you’ll have your Qual Card filled before the halfway party.”
The young ensign smiled, getting his qualifications card filled out in navigation in the first half of the patrol would give him the other half of the trip to qualify in Sonar.
“Exec, you got the boat,” Mush said as he left.
“Yes, sir.” He took a position at the chart table and announced, “Captain is off the conn.”
Mush had time to go back to his compartment and review the promotions list for this patrol. He took off his cap and hung it on the bow of the battleship Nebraska, a scale model which was bolted to a shelf over his desk. On his desk was a picture of Brooke. He had snapped it on his cell phone the morning after their walk through D.C. The sun was rising and her hair had the same glow it had when he first noticed how spectacular she was up on the bridge of Big Red in that late afternoon Pacific sun. He sat back, and for the hundredth time since they shoved off, he thought about what he would say when he got his arms around her again. He touched the picture as if to stroke her cheek, then caught himself, shook it off, and opened the folder filled with assessments of his crew.
A yeoman entered the compartment with an iPad. “Sir, I have that encrypted video file downloaded on your pad. Just enter your password.”
“Thanks, Bob.”
Mush waited until he left the room, then watched a video that had been streamed to the Nebraska encoded over the VLF radio link. This process took a few hours, because very low frequency communications were slow but powerful enough to penetrate the earth. This was a video direct from Commander, Submarine Forces U.S. Pacific Fleet. Mush had never gotten anything like this before, and as far as he knew, no other nuclear sub under the ice ever had. The video opened with the logo of COMSUBPAC. Then Mush’s face became one big smile as the commander of SEAL Team Nine and his men posed for a picture that sport fisherman live for, proudly standing by a landed blue marlin, swordfish or other game fish catch of the day. Only in this case, the catch was a mechanical whale. One of the SEALs was holding up a handmade sign that read what the team yelled out in perfect military cadence, “Ahoy, Captain Ahab Morton, we got the whale what got away! Sir!”
As he read the overnight lab report, Lustig was impressed, but had a problem. The crime scene investigation unit that responded to the hotel murder of the Arab was one of the best in Switzerland. This Burrell woman from the U.S. had stuck her nose into the case and hit on something the Swiss detectives missed. For himself, this was not an issue because in the end, the path to justice was the only road he was on, but for the forensic technician, Armend, who stood before him, it was a hit to the pride of the man and his unit. “Would you like to be there when we show her these results, Armend?”
“Yes. I would very much like to…” See this little bitch, was the thought behind the smile he hung on his face in the presence of his superior.
The minute Lustig and Armend walked into the conference room, Joey could see it all over their faces, a look of contrition, even resignation. He had no idea what it pertained to and was about to ask something like, ‘Hey fellas, why the long faces?’ when Brooke walked into the room, after stopping for her morning cup of wake up.
“Madame, the preliminary result of the skin test you wanted is in,” Lustig said as he handed the translated form to her.
“Is this about your Arab murder, Brooke?” Joey said.
“Yes, Mr. Palumbo.” Lustig answered for her, as she was deep into the report. Somehow he just couldn’t warm up to the idea of calling him Joey.
Armend watched her, this slightly built woman, this American heroine, who walked into his crime scene and had the bad manners to question his findings. Yes, there were two different skin cells embedded in the terry cloth material, but what was she getting at? He watched her as she studied the rendering his department had prepared less than an hour ago with the two different color keys on it showing the location and relative amount of different skin residue. She curled her lip while she read. Armend thought it was the mark of a schoolgirl trying to struggle with algebra; perhaps he should explain the results. Then he thought better of it, Why help her?
Then she asked for the ladies’ locker room. Lustig directed her. A minute later she returned with a towel. Armend scrutinized every step she made. She flattened out the towel on the conference room table and opened her purse. She folded the towel and rolled it long-ways to make it like a rope. She took out an eyeliner pencil and a highlighter and rubbed onto the towel three marks roughly corresponding to the three ‘blue-red-blue’ marks on the diagram of the towel in evidence as yellow-eyeliner-yellow onto her towel.