Chương 7
Keane looked toward Ortega.
“Both deceased?”
Ortega pulled out his phone, stopped, remembered where we were, and lowered it.
“I know Pike died.”
“I’ll verify Corbett.”
Rusk whispered, “My dad carried this for fifty years.”
Nobody answered him.
The security radio spoke again.
A technician had arrived at his office.
The initial door photograph showed pry marks.
Nothing else had been touched.
Keane told Hernandez to keep the perimeter sealed.
Then he turned to Rusk.
“Where are Bell’s original scans?”
Rusk shook his head.
“He made his own copy.”
“On what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Cloud?”
“Maybe.”
“External drive?”
“Maybe.”
“Phone?”
“I said I don’t know.”
His voice cracked on the last word.
Ortega looked at him.
Rusk immediately became angry again because anger was easier.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t give me that.”
“I said nothing.”
“You’ve been doing nothing for two weeks.”
That struck Ortega hard enough that he stepped back.
Rusk regretted it.
He did not apologize.
Human beings rarely apologize at the moment it would do the most good.
Keane stepped between them.
“This does not help Bell.”
Rusk looked away.
“No, sir.”
I said, “Did Bell have family?”
Ortega answered.
“Mother in Oregon.”
“Married?”
“No.”
“Girlfriend?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“What’s her name?”
“Maya Chen.”
“Military?”
“Civilian.”
“What does she do?”
“Physical therapist.”
“Has anyone interviewed her?”
Ward was not there to object, so Keane answered.
“Notification team spoke with her.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No formal investigative interview yet.”
“Why?”
“Because until this morning we had a training fatality under technical review.”
“You still have one.”
Keane stared at me.
I stared back.
Then he nodded.
“Fair.”
A vehicle approached the yard gate.
Boone signaled before anyone tensed.
It was Ward, Vickers, and Vale.
Ward got out first, carrying irritation like luggage.
“I leave you alone for twenty minutes.”
“Nineteen,” Keane said.
She looked at Rusk.
“You.”
Rusk sighed.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do not explain anything to me yet.”
“That’s a first today.”
Ortega almost smiled.
Ward heard him.
“Master Chief, you can enjoy yourself later.”
Vale came directly toward me.
He had the look engineers get when a problem has become offensively interesting.
“Commander Vickers told me about the bypass.”
“Then he talks too much.”
“Can you draw it?”
“Probably.”
“From memory?”
“I spent three days staring at the damned thing.”
“Fifty-two years ago.”
“Yes.”
Vale opened his mouth.
I said, “Make whatever age joke you’re planning and I’ll draw it wrong.”
He closed his mouth.
Vickers handed Keane a tablet.
“The archive office found references to the Valiant investigation.”
“Full report?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Restricted annex missing.”
Keane’s eyes lifted.
“Missing physically or inaccessible?”
“Inaccessible digitally, physical location unconfirmed.”
I said, “It was removed.”
Vickers looked at me.
“You know that?”
“I watched Pell carry the box out.”
The yard went silent again.
Rusk said, “You watched him?”
“Yes.”
“And did nothing?”
His voice was quiet.
That was worse than accusation.
I looked at the brass pin in his palm.
“I was twenty-five.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No.”
I rubbed my thumb against the edge of my jacket.
“I had a wife who was seven months pregnant.”
Rusk said nothing.
“Pell told me if I challenged the report, Danny Keane would be court-martialed for unauthorized modifications, your father would lose his diving qualification, and I would be charged with falsifying inspection records.”
“Were the records falsified?”
“Yes.”
“By you?”
“No.”
“Could you prove that?”
“No.”
Rusk looked away.
The anger remained.
But now it had somewhere else to go.
I continued.
“I told myself I was protecting my men.”
Keane’s face had gone still.
“Were you?”
“Some of them.”
“And the truth?”
“No.”
The word felt small after carrying it for half a century.
Vale broke the silence.
“What happened on the dive?”
I looked at him.
“One man nearly died because a control assembly had been altered after inspection.”
“Who?”
“Corbett.”
“And the six men you mentioned?”
“Six were exposed to the risk.”
“Pell ordered the alteration?”
“We never proved that.”
“But you believe it.”
“I believed he knew.”
Keane asked, “Why?”
“Because when we reported the mismatch, he didn’t ask what failed.”
“What did he ask?”
“Who had seen it.”
Nobody spoke for a moment.
Ward was the first to recover.
“That is suggestive, not proof.”
“Yes.”
“After fifty-two years, it may be impossible to establish anything legally.”
“Yes.”
Rusk looked at her.
“My father died thinking he caused it.”
Ward softened by one degree.
“I heard you.”
“No, ma’am.”
He held up the brass pin.
“You heard words.”
She did not answer.
Her silence was not agreement.
It was restraint.
I respected that.
Vale crouched beside an old equipment case and used it as a writing surface.
“Draw the bypass.”
I took his pen.
My fingers were stiff.
The first line shook.
I stopped.
For a ridiculous second, I wanted to hide my hand.
Then I remembered that everyone there already knew I was eighty-seven.
I drew again.
A main feed.
A regulator.
A secondary path.
A restrictor.
A check valve.
Vale leaned closer.
“Wait.”
I stopped.
He pointed at the page.
“If someone adapted this logic rather than this hardware, they could manipulate sensor agreement during pre-dive checks.”
“That sentence had too many engineer words.”
He ignored me.
“They wouldn’t need to defeat all three sensors.”
Rusk looked at him.
“Just convince the system two agree?”
Vale looked up sharply.
“Exactly.”
Keane said, “Could that explain Bell’s data?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe how strongly?”
“Strong enough that I want the raw file again.”
Vickers said, “You already have it.”
“No.”
Vale stood.
“I have an exported report.”
He looked annoyed with himself now.
“I want the native unit image.”
Vickers frowned.
“Why wasn’t that collected?”
“It was supposed to be.”
Rusk went very still.
Ortega noticed.
“What?”
Rusk looked at Vale.
“Who pulled the data?”
“Your electronics shop.”
“Who specifically?”
Vale glanced at Vickers.
Vickers searched the tablet.
“Technician record says Wynn.”
Rusk shut his eyes.
May you like
Caleb Wynn.
The young technician who had vomited during questioning.
