Dan cleared his throat and sank onto a vacant stool. “Is she all right? I mean, physically?”
“I gave her a sedative,” Schell said. “Examined her. Slight bruising. No permanent physical injury.”
“Thank God for that. Celestina. I’m so sorry this has happened. But we’ll get to the bottom of it.”
He took a deep breath. This had to be done right. “One question first. It’s a formality, but the regs say I’ve got to ask it. We have to report all sexual assaults, but there are two kinds of reports we can make. Restricted, and unrestricted. Restricted is when you, the victim, don’t want your name used, and don’t want command or law enforcement involvement. That protects your name and privacy. The other is unrestricted. That triggers a full NCIS investigation.” He paused. “We’re going to ask you to sign a paper, specifying your choice.”
“She wants an unrestricted report,” Staurulakis murmured.
“XO, I need to hear it from her.”
“Unrestricted,” Colón said.
Dan nodded. “I think that’s the right decision. All right then, I file the reports for the full investigation. So, tell me what happened. From the beginning.”
He knew Colón by sight, had eaten with her on mess decks visits and greeted her in the passageways. She worked in Supply. Slight, brown-haired, with smooth olive skin and a tiny mole near her upper lip. She reported now in spare sentences of careful school English that seemed somehow separate from whatever emotional process was going on behind dark eyes. She’d been in the aft supply passageway when the lights had suddenly gone out. Someone had grabbed her from behind. She was shoved into one of the spaces — she wasn’t sure which — and pushed down onto something soft.
“Then he undressed me,” she said. “And used his fingers.”
Dan looked at Schell, who shook his head no almost imperceptibly and held up a plastic bag containing a swab and gauze. The rape kit, Dan guessed, though he’d never seen one before. But unless there’d been penetration…
“Was there more than one assailant?”
“No sir. Only one.”
“Did you see, or feel, a weapon?”
“I felt a point in my back. He said he had a knife, and would use it if I left before the lights came back on.”
“So he spoke. What did he sound like?”
“Gruff. Deep. But it sounded false. Like he was not using his regular voice.”
“And you say you weren’t actually, uh, penetrated? Even slightly?”
“He had his fingers in me, Captain. I heard him grunting. But I didn’t feel a dick. Then there was a clanking noise. He told me to stay where I was until five minutes after the lights came on.”
Dan looked at the overhead, then to the master-at-arms. “Did you search the compartment yet?”
“Yessir, we conducted a quick search. Whatever this asshole jacked off into, he took it with him.”
“I’ll expect a complete statement by noon. What else, Chief?”
Toan looked away. “We’ll search the compartment again, Captain. See if we can get fingerprints. And yes, we will take a complete statement.”
“Not nearly enough, Chief. This is the second incident. And even worse than the first. You and Lieutenant Singhe were investigating that. I saw one follow-up report. Then nothing. No mess decks scuttlebutt? Nobody bragging to his buddies?”
“We have our eyes on a suspect.” Toan glanced sideways at Colón, who was staring at the door as if hypnotized.
“We’ll talk about that offline. Celestina, what about you? Anyone been stalking, annoying you?”
“I did have one guy.”
“And who was that?”
“The Iranian. Shah.”
“Behnam Shah,” Dan said. One of the castaways they’d picked up in the Arabian Sea. A religious refugee, if you believed their story; an escaped murderer, if you believed the Iranian news agency. Actually, Shah was the one who’d been hanging around outside CIC, before Wenck had told him he wasn’t going to be admitted. “He works in the galley, right? So he’d know the layout back there. He was stalking you?”
“Not exactly. But he kept trying to talk to me.”
“Attempting to get you alone?” Staurulakis asked her.
“No, just to talk.”
“Friendly? Or in a threatening way?”
“I didn’t want to talk to him. I got a boyfriend back in Caguas. I don’t think it was Shah. The man who did this, he did not have an accent.”
Which might mean nothing, if the guy knew more English than he was letting on. Dan asked Toan, “Was Shah one of your suspects in the groping, with Petty Officer Terranova?”
“Not particularly. No sir.” Toan hesitated, then added, “Let me point out one thing, sir. The fact that her attacker turned off the lights.”
“So?”
“He turned off the lights in the helo hangar passageway, too. When the Terror got groped.”
“Which… I’m a little slow today, Chief. Enlighten me as to what you’re saying.”
Toan said, “There’s no topside access from the interior passageway on the Supply Department level. So the lights are always on, and there’s no easily accessible switch. Unless someone knows how to turn them off back at the lighting panel.”
Staurulakis stepped forward, arms still crossed. “So you’re saying, an electrician? Or someone in charge of the compartments?”
“Could be,” Toan said. “Remember, if it’s the same guy, he fiddled with the darken ship switch up on the hangar deck level, too.”
Dan hesitated, then patted the woman on the shoulder. “One more question, Seaman Colón.”
“Yes sir.” A soft voice, but with steel under it. “It isn’t the first time.”
He blinked. Had been about to ask if she’d smelled anything like lime aftershave or cologne, but now said, “What? Not the first… he’s done this to you before?”
“Not him. But it isn’t the first time it’s happened to me. Shit like this.”
She stared ahead as the ship groaned around them. “I was in a foster home… my foster brothers. Both of them. I thought, when I joined the Navy, things would be different. But maybe it’s never going to be.”
Staurulakis stepped forward and put her arm around the girl’s shoulders. Looking up at Dan, she said, “We’ll get this guy. And put him away for a long, long time. I promise you that, Celestina.”
Climbing to the bridge level, Dan had to stop to catch his breath again. The ladderwell reeled. Weird thuds and moans echoed through the steel. With the monsoon, this wind wasn’t going to stop. And given the layout of their patrol areas, they’d be steaming beam to almost all the time. Ticos didn’t have fin stabilizers, like smaller ships, and were tender anyway; she’d roll nonstop.
He felt doomed. And guilty; the girl already hadn’t had a great life, with foster homes and abusive families. But she’d thought the Navy would be different. Better.
Instead… this.
The guidelines were clear. Once the report landed on the CNO’s desk, there’d be an NCIS agent en route at flank speed. Flying out from the nearest office, which was Bahrain, to the carrier, and maybe getting him or her on a helo, if the carrier was close enough. Or, if someone had planned a resupply and refuel, via the resupply ship. They wouldn’t let this stagnate. Too much chance of splatter.