Girl Takes The Oath (An Emily Kane Adventure Book 5) (27 page)

“Hey,” she yelled. “Get off her!”

The words had barely passed her lips before she felt a heavy, dull pain radiate along the side of her head and ring through her ear… and then the scene tilted into a desperate angle and spun out of her control, until it went completely dark.

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Chapter Twenty Four

AWOL

“How on earth do you get that?” Zaki asked, still rubbing his eyes, and unused to being summoned from his bunk in the middle of the night. Maybe something about the manner of the two NCIS agents interrogating him just rubbed him wrong. “Is everything automatically Tenno’s doing now?”

“Look, Midshipman Talib, you were seen with Carnot last night just before Gunderson disappeared,” Agent Everett said. “Where was Tenno at the time? We already know she had it in for Gunderson. Now’s your chance to show that you aren’t involved.”

“I already told you, Tenno wasn’t with us. She hasn’t shared a liberty with any of us in weeks. What makes you think Stacie had anything to do with it?”

“We’ll ask the questions. When did you last see Carnot?”

“She went to the head around twenty-hundred hours, I guess, and we got curious maybe ten or fifteen minutes later, and CJ, I mean Miss Tanahill, went to look for her. I still don’t see why you think Stacie’s got something to do with it. We didn’t see Gunderson all evening.”

Agent Horton started a video on the tablet in his hand and showed it to Zaki. On it he saw grainy images of two midshipmen, and there was no mistaking Stacie, and the other one could easily have been Gunderson. Judging from the second girl's hand gestures, it looked to be a heated discussion, and then suddenly she ran out of the screen on the left, and Stacie took off after her. The feed from a different camera showed the girl running along the Market Space in front of several other restaurant windows, and then turn up a side street, followed closely by Stacie, before the camera lost its angle on both of them. The final timestamp read nineteen-fifty-eight hours. Zaki's shoulders slumped.

“But that doesn’t mean anything,” he said a moment later. “There's nothing in that video to suggest Tenno was even there.”

“If you know anything about Midshipman Tenno’s whereabouts last night and don’t tell us now, you may be treated as an accessory to whatever crimes have already been committed or may be about to be committed,” Agent Everett said.

“I don’t know anything, and I’m confident there’s nothing to know.”

On the way back to his bunk, with the sky too light already to suggest that he would get any further shut-eye, Zaki wondered how McDonough and CJ had responded. McDonough knew nothing about Em, just as he didn’t. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t get flustered and say something he didn’t mean. Even McDonough would admit words weren’t his element. CJ, on the other hand, could be counted on to hold the line. Whatever had spooked her about Em in recent weeks, and however much other people thought she was a lightweight, he knew different, and he also knew she was the only mid in the Brigade—other than Em herself—who’d actually experienced battlefield conditions.

Ninety minutes later, all he heard in the chatter making the rounds of King Hall was how NCIS had arrested Em, how she’d killed again, and how her friends were all under suspicion, too. He knew none of this was true, or at least that some of it was absolutely false, and he hoped that the rest was, too. When Em walked in and took her seat among the plebes, he breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

When he saw Trowbridge walk over to her table and whisper something to her, he had to do something. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as Bauer’s other friends, but Zaki didn’t want to see her mocked openly in the galley by a member of the Seventeenth, and whatever he had to say to her, it could wait for a less showy moment.

By the time he managed to put his hand on Trowbridge’s shoulder, somehow the scene had changed into something Zaki hadn’t anticipated. When he yanked him around, the expression he saw wasn’t one of contempt or surprise. Trowbridge appeared to be offering her some sort of sympathy. They stared at each other for a brief moment, until Em stood up and pushed them apart.

“Nothing’s changed,” she said. “This isn’t your fight, either of you, so stay out of it.”

Of course, her tone of voice was unanswerable, as always, but this time the edge on it seemed much sharper. The expression in her eyes as she pushed them away, well, it was truly daunting. Zaki couldn’t remember ever experiencing anything like it before, and judging from Trowbridge’s face, neither had he.

“We’ve got to do something,” Trowbridge said.

“You heard her,” Zaki said, no longer even questioning why he seemed prepared to trust him. “She wants us to steer clear.”

“I don’t mean about NCIS. We can’t do anything there. But these rumors, they’re just inflaming the situation. Maybe we can do something about that.”

“Like what? Rumor is like the wind, if you try to resist it, either you fall on your face or you’re blown over. All you can do is wait for it to blow on by.”

“Is that a Bedouin saying?” Trowbridge asked, and Zaki couldn’t suppress a smile, since he was right. “Because in a sandstorm, the wind leaves scars everywhere, and maybe we can do something to minimize that,” he said, glancing across the galley to the tables occupied by the Seventeenth.

“I’m all ears,” Zaki said.

“I think I know one or two people who might be working the bellows, and maybe we can have a
friendly
word with them.”

“Who are you thinking of?”

“Meet me by the east entrance when my company exits and I’ll show you. See if you can persuade McDonough to come, too, you know, for effect.”

Sure enough, twenty minutes later, Zaki and McDonough found Trowbridge standing just inside the glass doors of the east entrance to King Hall. The three of them stood and looked out for a moment as a stream of mids squeezed by them to exit onto the east patio. Off to one side of the brickwork, under the shadow of the portico, in a sort of eddy produced by the current, a small but growing pool of plebes and youngsters stood listening to someone whose face was obscured by the crowd. Trowbridge stepped outside and pushed through the bodies, who gave way as soon as they recognized him. Zaki and McDonough followed closely behind.

“Make a hole,” he barked, and their passage became much easier. At the center of the mischief they found Caspar and Martens, glaring back at them defiantly.

“What the hell are you looking at?” Caspar brayed, and Martens leaned closer, perhaps hoping to intimidate Trowbridge, who seemed physically slighter than either of them.

“What bilge are you two spewing out here?” he demanded, undaunted.

“Nothing that isn’t true,” Martens said, as Caspar placed a hand on Trowbridge’s chest.

“You don’t even belong here,” he said, pushing Trowbridge away. “Maybe it’s time for you to find another company. Maybe the Twenty Eighth will take you. They seem to like traitors.”

At these words, Zaki and McDonough stepped forward, and pressed Caspar and Martens back, against the wall.

“If you’ve got something to say about the Twenty Eighth, say it now,” Zaki said, looming over Caspar. McDonough grunted some wordless, but menacing support.

“Yes,” Trowbridge said. “Tell us all what you think is wrong with the Twenty Eighth.”

Martens stammered haplessly in front of the much larger men, and Caspar stared defiantly at Trowbridge.

“I don’t know what side you think you’re on, but it sure doesn’t look like our side,” he said.

“If you’ve got something to say, say it.”

“It’s all her fault, Tenno. She’s behind all the violence. Everybody knows it. Now one of our own is dead and another’s missing.”

“NCIS doesn’t seem to think so,” Trowbridge retorted. “There she was at breakfast, eating with the rest of us. If there was any evidence against her, they’d have arrested her already.”

“Just because NCIS can’t find the evidence doesn’t mean she didn’t do it,” Caspar said.

Zaki grabbed Caspar by the front of his shirt and yanked him away from the wall.

“If you know something you’re not telling,” Zaki bellowed, “let’s go over to NCIS right now and fill ’em in.” McDonough did the same to Martens.

“Let me go, you big ape,” Caspar squealed.

“A Midshipman makes the truth known,” Zaki said. “That’s the Honor Code.”

“He’s got a point, Caspar,” Trowbridge said. “Anything you can whisper in dark corners, you can say to NCIS. You shouldn’t have any objections to living up to the code.” When neither of them had anything to say, Trowbridge continued. “I thought so. Just the usual lies spread in private, but nothing you’d dare own up to.”

Just then, Lt. Commander Gangalal, the company commander of the Seventeenth happened by and cast his eye upon the central participants in the little morality play outside the galley. Zaki and McDonough released their grip, and Caspar and Martens straightened themselves up with everyone else. “You there, Mr. Trowbridge, what’s going on here?”

“Just reviewing the Honor Code for the benefit of the plebes, sir,” Trowbridge replied.

Gangalal said nothing for a moment, and looked sternly at Zaki and McDonough, who one might deem interlopers in the little family drama of his company. Then he cast a damned disinheriting countenance on Caspar and Martens.

“Carry on, Mr. Trowbridge,” he said, and walked on.

Trowbridge turned to face the crowd of plebes and youngsters that had only grown larger in the intervening minutes since they’d arrived, and said, “Next time your ears are tempted by some delicious news about someone in your own or another company, consider the source and draw your own conclusions. Your judgment is your most important weapon in battle. Don’t surrender it so easily to idiots like this.” He sneered at Caspar as he said these last words, and walked away. Zaki patted McDonough on the shoulder and the two of them followed after him.

~~~~~~~

Finding Emily anywhere was never easy, unless you already knew where ‘her’ children were, at least during leave time. But in the Yard, Connie knew it would be more difficult, especially since she’d undoubtedly gone to ground after recent events. She thought going to the Deputy Commandant and flashing an Intelligence ID would probably achieve the desired result. But she also fully expected to have to encounter NCIS at some point in the course of the visit.

Captain Crichton made some time for her in his office on Buchanan Road, and she wondered what information he might try to extract in recompense for his help. Not that her request required much from him, just a class schedule and a few minutes of her free time. If the girl ever used a cell phone or took emails, his help wouldn’t be needed at all.

“What, exactly, does Naval Intelligence want from our Miss Tenno?” he asked. That he said ‘our’ seemed like a good sign. At least he hadn’t disowned her yet.

Connie stared across his desk blankly, determined to reveal nothing through her facial expression. Her training in this tactic had been extensive, and she knew if he thought his question presumed too much, he’d back down before she’d have to respond.

“From your silence, can I assume that this is a national security matter?”

Damn, he’s good
, she thought. But how exactly had he broken through? Perhaps he just recognized the familiar tones of a fellow admirer of ‘their’ girl.

“No, sir,” she said. “It’s a family matter.”

“Are you a member of the family?”

“No, sir. Just a friend.”

“Thank goodness,” he said, and ran a hand through his hair. “I mean, it’s just that so much of the mysterious has beset her these last few months. I’m relieved to hear that you’re not here to add yet another layer of mystery.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, but still in the stone-cold expression that had become habitual for her. Too late, she realized he would draw the wrong conclusion, or any conclusion from her manner, and feel the need to press her further.

“It’s not bad news, I hope.”

“No, sir. Just news.”

“I only ask because I suspect she could really use some good news right about now.”

The more they talked, or the more he talked and she grunted out monosyllabic replies, the more she wished she could trust him. His concern for Emily seemed genuine, as far as she could determine.

She found Emily outside her last class that afternoon, just inside the east entrance to Chauvenet Hall, and seeing her brought the same emotions to the fore that it had every time in the past: the girl was hard, impenetrable—she couldn’t help respecting that—but also warm, even welcoming. Understanding her was like trying to see through a chunk of obsidian; the surface seemed translucent, but if any light penetrated, it didn’t illuminate anything. The startling thing about her, at least for Connie, is that her inscrutability came naturally to her, not through training.

“We need to talk,” she said, and pulled her to the side to let a crowd of midshipmen file by. “There’s a private nook in one of the Mahan Hall stairwells.”

“You mean the ‘make-out’ closet?” Emily said with a laugh. “The top of the bleachers in Halsey is a better choice. No one will hear us up there.”

Once the hallway had emptied, she threw her arms around Connie and held on a bit longer than she expected.

“Are you okay, kiddo?”

“I’ve had to build myself a fortress of solitude over the last few weeks,” she said. “It’s good to feel the warmth of a kindred spirit.”

The irony of this remark did not escape Connie’s notice. No one had ever called her warm before.
What a strange life Emily must lead, if a stone-cold assassin is all she has to turn to for warmth
, she thought.