Breakpoint (28 page)

“Whoever killed Lieutenant Murphy. It’s not that easy strangling someone. Even if you know what you’re doing.” Which Dallas did. “Especially someone who’s going to fight back. Then, to lift them up onto a chair and tie a belt around their neck to fake a suicide ... well, that’s gotta involve some major muscle groups.”

“Which would put nearly everyone on this boat at the top of the list,” she pointed out.

“True. Including her roommate. Who was, you may have noticed, really, really ripped.”

“I noticed.” Something sparked in Julianne’s eyes. Something that looked an awful lot like jealousy. Interesting
.
“And it figures you did.”

“Would’ve been hard not to,” Dallas said mildly, “seeing how she took off her clothes in front of me.”

He wasn’t certain exactly what she muttered as she returned to climbing the ladder, but Dallas thought he’d heard, “Is there a female alive who hasn’t?”

He might have been a big, tough Air Force CCT in his former life. But no way was Dallas going to touch that line.

Captain Ramsey was perched in his seat—which was covered in navy blue-dyed sheepskin and, probably due to the fact that it was elevated, was known as a barber’s chair—on the navigation bridge, overlooking his domain.

The bridge—lighted in an eerie blue, which Juls’s list of Navy info had told him was to prevent enemy ships from spotting the ship at night—was filled with all sorts of cool computer screens, control panels, and other tech toys, many of which lined the steel walls. It reminded Dallas of a video arcade, though he understood that, unlike a video game, decisions made here affected real lives of real people, not two-dimensional action figures.

Even so, thinking the equipment looked a lot more fun than what THOR had him currently doing, Dallas would’ve given his left nut to play with it.

Unfortunately, none of the sailors manning the scopes offered. And he wasn’t about to ask.

A new stormfront that appeared to have been gathering as they’d approached the
O’Halloran
—and damn, he couldn’t help it; he still got a secret kick from the boat’s name—was causing the swells, which had been glass back in Hawaii, to rise in height. As the boat began to seesaw over the swells, he ran a quick transit calculation in his head and decided they were now reaching thirty-five feet high.

Like anyone alone in those waves could survive.

If the captain was surprised to see them, he didn’t show it. He merely glanced over and said, “You’d make my day if you’re here to tell me you’ve closed the case and are up here to request a COD back to shore.”

“Not yet, sir,” Julianne said.

“But we’re getting closer,” Dallas tacked on. It was a lie. But a calculated one.

If this were one of those movies made from the Tom Clancy novels, at this moment, sensing the case was about to break wide-open, the guilty party would suddenly fall apart from the stress and confess, singing like the proverbial canary.

Unfortunately, Dallas didn’t see so much as a glimmer of anything resembling apprehension or guilt in the captain’s steady gaze.

Which should have taken the guy off the hook. But then again, over all the past years of fighting bad guys in even worse places, Dallas had met a lot of stone-cold killers who could take a life without so much as blinking.

“That’s what we’re here about, though,” Julianne said. “This is turning out to be a bit more complex than we’d originally thought. It would facilitate the investigation if we could have someplace to work, which would allow the people we need to talk with to come to us.”

“Instead of us wasting time traipsing all over the carrier. Not that it’s not a cool ship,” Dallas said. “But it does take a long time to get around.”

“It’s a city,” another man, whose uniform bars denoting him as a lieutenant commander and name tag reading
WRIGHT
revealed him to be the CDO, said. “It’s as big as it needs to be.”

“We’re not arguing that,” Juls jumped in. “We’re in just as much of a hurry to clear things up as you are. Sir.”

The captain rubbed his jaw as he considered the problem.

A long way down below on the flight deck, one brown shirt was doing a final check on a jet, while another handed it off to a yellow shirt, who guided it from its parking space into sequence for launch.

The plane was in place. From this viewpoint, Dallas saw the pilot, who’d climbed into the cockpit, salute. The guy in the yellow jersey hit the deck and, with an ear-shattering roar, the plane, afterburners blazing, was literally catapulted off the deck.

It dipped slightly. Dallas felt Julianne tense. Then, as the jet streaked off into the storm-darkened sky, he felt his heart begin to beat again.

“That was,” he said, “f-ing impressive.”

“It takes between fifteen and twenty minutes to launch an aircraft,” the CDO said. “With two catapults working at the same time, the
O’Halloran
can launch every jet on board in a matter of minutes.”

Which, apparently, they had, because after two additional fighters took off, the captain turned toward the CDO.

“Tell PriFly that’s the last F-18 run,” he instructed the CDO. “We’ve covered nearly two thousand square miles. We’ll keep the helos flying as long as possible, but with this new damn storm coming in, there’s no point in risking any more planes or pilots’ lives.”

“Yes, sir, Skipper,” the CDO said without hesitation.

It was, Dallas allowed, the absolutely proper thing to do. But he still understood why the conversation around them went absolutely silent for a moment as every sailor contemplated the meaning of calling off the search.

By calling off the jets, they’d come closer to accepting what Dallas suspected many of them saw coming—short of a miracle, they were going to end up leaving one of their own behind.

The captain’s tone had been matter-of-fact. But he allowed himself to drag a hand down his face before he swiveled in the chair and finally gave Julianne and Dallas his full attention. And when he took his eyes away, for a brief moment, Dallas viewed the heavy weight of command.

“As soon as Manning was reported missing, we started out the search with the helos,” he said.

“You’d have to work your way back,” Dallas said, “given that he may have fallen off last night. And the carrier’s moved on.”

“Exactly. We divided the space into a box, then the box into thirty sections, and assigned the search copters to each section. After they’d done one swing, we’d change directions and work the other way.”

“Because things look different from different directions. Depending on the swells.”

Both the captain and the CDO shot him a look of surprise.

“I was a CCT,” he said. “I’ve helo’d out of a lot of birds over water.”

“I suppose you have,” the captain allowed. “Well, although the one thing Manning’s got going for him is that salt water is easier to tread water in, what with the storm coming in, and the sharks and jellyfish, I decided to send the planes up, too. But I can’t risk my pilots, not to mention the Navy’s planes, for one man.”

His eyes were bleak. A little lost. Dallas wondered if that was because he was sick that he’d lost one of his sailors. Or that he saw his promotion possibly slipping away, like sand through his fingers.

“As soon as we get everyone back in, we’ll talk about your situation,” he told Julianne and Dallas.

As the waves got higher and the sky grew even more inky and threatening, Dallas wasn’t about to argue.

It was a tense time. Whenever a big swell came under the bow of the
O’Halloran,
the stern would tip down so far Dallas was amazed the sailors on deck didn’t slide right off the flattop into the drink.

Then, as the swell switched directions, the ship tilted the other way, at times totally obscuring the horizon.

But that didn’t stop the pilots from flying toward the ship at one hundred and fifty knots, bringing their F-18s down on a moving piece of steel a few hundred yards long, and being yanked to a controlled crash as the cable caught their tail hook.

Finally they were down to one.

“Campbell’s the skipper of the airborne team,” Wright informed them in the same low, almost reverent tone one might expect to hear in church. “He’s flying the refueling tanker today, giving a safety net to his teammates, who could end up running low on fuel because of not being able to land on the first attempt.”

“Murphy was running low when she landed,” Julianne remembered.

“So she said,” the captain agreed.

“There’s some question?”

Dallas wasn’t surprised Juls leaped on what seemed to be a qualification on the captain’s part like a terrier spotting a juicy bone.

“No,” the CDO said quickly. “She was lower than she might have wanted to be. But she was never in any danger.”

“Until she got herself killed,” Dallas said.

The captain’s head swiveled toward him. He bit down on the unlit cigar he’d stuck in his mouth during the landings. “You’re implying she was murdered?”

“Not implying. Stating a fact.”

“Fuck.” The captain shook his head. “Hell, I can’t think about that now. Not until all my pilots are home.”

Topic dropped, they all watched as the man Dallas remembered Murphy’s roommate suggesting she might have been sleeping with approached. The ship was pitching so wildly now, Dallas felt as if he were on a carnival ride.

“If he’s flying the refueling tanker, he doesn’t have a safety net,” Dallas realized.

“That’s why he’s the skipper,” the CDO pointed out. “This is my third carrier deployment, and Campbell is, hands down, the best in the business.”

“What happens if he can’t land?” Julianne asked.

“Then he’ll eject into the ocean,” the captain responded.

“And ditch a forty-million-dollar jet,” the CDO said. “Which isn’t going to happen.”

In the end, despite a sky that had now turned midnight dark, the pilot threaded the needle, and hit the second cable as if he’d merely been out for a lazy Sunday-afternoon flight over the Pacific.

Cheers broke out as he jumped from the cockpit and shook hands with the crew that had gathered around to congratulate him.

“Definitely a
Top Gun
moment,” Juls murmured.

“Absolutely.”

It did not escape Dallas’s attention that once more they were in perfect sync. He’d never met any other woman whose thoughts so often mirrored his.

Which was both cool and a little scary at the same time.

“So.” The captain’s composure explained why the Navy put aviators in charge of carriers. “You need a private place to conduct your interviews.”

“That would be very helpful, sir,” Julianne said.

“Allow us to wrap it up before Pearl,” Dallas added.

“Which is definitely the goal,” Ramsey said. “The problem is, if you can’t resolve what happened to Lieutenant Murphy—”

“And LSO Manning,” Juls interjected.

The fact that she’d actually interrupt a senior officer, one who just happened to be the most senior on the ship, suggested how frustrated she was becoming.

“Manning?” the CDO asked. “That was a tragic accident. Unfortunate. But an accident just the same.”

“There’s no proof either way,” Dallas said. “But in order to do our job, we’ve got to cover all the bases.”

The captain’s curse, muttered beneath his breath, but still audible, was as pithy as Dallas had ever heard. Having spent all those years with SEALs, he knew that was another thing the Navy excelled at.

Ramsey rubbed his jaw. Stared out the window at the roiling clouds. “I suppose we could put you in the Internet café.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Wright said, “that’s the busiest place right before we reach port.”

“Good point.” The captain thought a moment longer. “How about the chapel?”

“Another busy place, Skipper, given that the chaplain’s always said that along with Christmas, the end of a cruise is his busiest counseling season.”

“Well, since you keep shooting down my ideas, do you have any suggestions?” The captain’s acceptance of the CDO’s arguments revealed the two men’s long-term relationship.

“I was about to suggest my quarters,” Wright said. “My roommate mustered out three weeks ago,” he told Dallas and Julianne. “So I’ve had the place to myself. Since I’m on twenty-four-hour duty, it’s going to be free for the next six hours.”

“We’d appreciate that,” Julianne said.

“Roger that,” Dallas seconded.

The CDO handed Dallas the key to the hatch. “I’d appreciate your locking up when you’re done,” he said. “The ensign can return the key.”

“Chow,” the captain said suddenly. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?” he asked.

“A while,” Julianne said.

“Well, you’re in luck, because we run a twenty-three-hour kitchen on the
O’Halloran
, so food’s available nearly all the time. You’re welcome to eat in the officers’ mess. Or you might prefer the dirty-shirt mess.”

“Given that I wasn’t an officer, I think I’d be a little uncomfortable there,” Dallas said.

“You’re a guest,” the CDO pointed out. “Under direct orders from the commander in chief. Which means you’re welcome to eat anywhere you like.”

“And you’re eating in the flag mess tonight,” Captain Ramsey reminded him.

Which was, Dallas knew, a command performance. He still hadn’t figured out whether they were eating with the muckety-mucks because the admiral wanted to visit with his goddaughter or if they were going to be pumped regarding their investigation.

“Still, I think I’d prefer the galley with the enlisted ranks,” Dallas argued politely. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

The captain shrugged. “Write them up some chits for the galley,” he instructed one of the junior officers standing nearby.

“The Marines will have already been through,” the CDO warned. “They’re like a swarm of locusts.”