Top Hook. Gordon Kent

her children and then went downstairs, the dog padding beside her, and by the time she reached the bottom tread, she knew what she was going to do.

      She was going to scream for help.

      She took the dog out into the cool night and, again leaning against the rear of her car, got on her cellphone. She called a duty number of a war crimes unit in Sarajevo, where Mike Dukas, who loved her and was her husband’s friend and was an NCIS agent on loan to the International War Crimes Tribunal, was officer-in-charge. What she got was a gravel-voiced Frenchman named Pigoreau who wanted to flirt with her and who finally told her that Mike was in a grande luxe hotel in Holland, The Hague, “being kicked up the stairs.” He gave her a phone number.

      His flirtatiousness made her numb. Some other time—She punched the numbers into the phone and pulled her robe tighter around her. The cool air felt good on the hangover, but parts of her were a little too cool.

      Pigoreau had been right. The hotel was very grande luxe. It was so grand she thought she was never going to get past reception, but finally a somewhat too elegant female put her through, and she heard one ring and then Mike Dukas’s growl, and, before she could think, she cried, “Oh, Mike, thank God!”

      “Hey! Rose? Rose?”

      “Oh, Mike, goddamit, I’m so happy to talk to you! Mike—I need help.”

      “What the hell. Help?”

      So she told him. Two sentences, bam, bam.

      “What, you got bounced from the program and sent to some nowheresville, and the orders came out of CNO?”

      “You got it.”

      “Where’s Al?”

      “Somewhere between Aviano and the boat.” She told him about the change to Alan’s orders. “First him, now me.”

      “Which I don’t think is a funny coincidence, babe. You with me? You know the Navy—they get on one of you, you both go down. You need somebody to find out what the hell’s going on. I don’t think it’s us—NCIS, I mean. Could be Navy intel, but they don’t work like that; they’d come to you and do stuff—investigation, interviews, maybe polygraph.”

      “But why?”

      “Because either you or Al is a security problem, is why. That’s all it can be.”

      “My dad thinks I have an enemy.”

      “Your dad may not be so far wrong. But maybe Al has an enemy and you’re getting the backlash. But this has a kind of stink. Like, it sounds very quick and very from the top down, not by the book. And not the Nav, you know? But I’ll check. Listen, give me an hour or two, shit, what time is it there—? I’ll check to see if the Navy’s involved, other than issuing the orders. But what you gotta have is information. What you do, call Abe Peretz and tell him to find out what’s up.”

      “It’s two a.m.”

      “What are friends for? He’s FBI, he’ll have an answer by the time you’re eating breakfast. Then call me back and we’ll talk about what happens next. Okay?”

      “I hate to wake people up.”

      “Oh, do you? Your life is shit, your career is ruined, and you hate to wake people up. Come on, babe, get with the program. This is war.”

      “You’re the best, Mike.”

      “No, I’m a mediocre Navy cop, but I’m crazy about you, so you bring out the best in me. Now go call Abe and let me get some breakfast.”

      “You sound grumpy.”

      “Wait until you hear Abe.”

      Abe Peretz was a former naval officer who had joined the FBI. Like Dukas, he was an old friend, a kind of mentor to her husband and a counselor to her. He was only a little pissed at being waked up; once he understood the problem, he gave her some hard advice: come to Washington, where the action is.

      Half an hour later, she was on the road.

      USS Thomas Jefferson.

      His first official act on the carrier was supposed to have been a brief to the admiral on the purpose of his detachment. The briefing was out the window, however, because of the Trieste mess, and when he showed up on the flag deck at 0800, he was met, not by Admiral Kessler, but by Maggiulli and the flag captain.

      “Have you reached your NCIS guy yet?” Maggiulli said. He looked as wasted by lack of sleep as Alan, but he was certainly more nervous.

      “I filed a contact report at the NCIS shack on the boat. I keep missing my guy when I call—I got the runaround in Bosnia, where he’s detached to a war crimes unit, and I just found out ten minutes ago that he’s in The Hague. I’ve got a call in to him there.” He turned to the flag captain. “Am I briefing on the MARI project this morning, sir?”

      “The admiral would prefer that you straighten this other matter out first. Commander, it still appears that you’re withholding evidence from the Italian police. You haven’t offered us any reasonable explanation. People were killed, Commander.”

      “This is a change from two hours ago.”

      “It is not a change!” Maggiulli looked at the flag captain, thus proving that this was a change.

      “John, I will continue to make contact with the special agent in charge of the investigation my first priority. He’s at a hotel in The Hague, and I expect to talk to him as soon as I leave this meeting.”

      “Admiral Kessler wants somebody with some authority at NCIS to explain this matter to him, as you don’t seem prepared to do it yourself. It looks like you’re jerking us around, Craik.”

      His anger almost exploded, and his face went white.

      Clenching his fists, Alan said in a dead, rigidly controlled voice, “It looks like you’re jerking me around, John. Two hours ago, you seemed to accept my explanation and told me to call my guy; now you don’t accept my explanation! Listen to me—and you, too, sir—because I’m in the right on this and I know the code, too! I am doing my goddam level best to satisfy you and the Italian police and my responsibility to a classified investigation! If you want to take me to the mat on it, you do it! Call me on it!”

      With a gesture, the flag captain silenced Maggiulli. To Alan’s surprise, he spoke quite gently, as if, all along, he had simply been hearing how it would play. “I’ll forget the tone of voice you just used, Mister Craik, but you gotta remember the seriousness of this from our point of view. We got a capital ship here in a foreign port where we’re not deeply loved to start with. So you just do nothing but work at getting on the blower to your man and make it right, okay?”

      “Sir, I also have a detachment to run, and I haven’t even met all my officers yet.”

      The flag captain nodded. “I think that can wait for twenty-four hours.”

      The man seemed to be saying that his whole detachment could sit on their thumbs until he got hold of Mike Dukas. And then he got it, through the fog of fatigue and anger: if he didn’t get Mike Dukas and satisfy the admiral, there wouldn’t be any detachment—at least not for him. That’s why Maggiulli was the attack dog—to give legal cover if Kessler decided to kick his ass off the Jefferson. That really would end his naval career. And Kessler knew that, too.

      “Sir, with all respect, I request permission to continue with my detachment while trying to locate Mister Dukas.” He rushed on almost boyishly. “There’s no point in me sitting on a phone if he’s at breakfast and doesn’t have a telephone handy.”

      The flag captain thought about that and actually smiled. He picked up his hat, a signal that the meeting was about over. Again, his voice was almost soft. “I appreciate your position. You please try to appreciate ours.”