Darkside (2002), page 1
OUTSTANDING PRAISE FOR P. T. DEUTERMANN AND HIS NOVELS
DARKSIDE
“A dead-on sense of place and appealing characters in tight corners…satisfying.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Deutermann has now published seven pounding-pulsers. For this book, he was back at Dahlgren and Mahan, updating his reef points.”
—Baltimore Sun
HUNTING SEASON
“[An] explosive tour de force…the author exceeds his near-perfect Train Man with this ripped-from-the-headlines plot pitting a middle-aged Rambo with a small but deadly arsenal of spy gadgets against spine-chilling villains, corrupt agency brass and powerful political forces. Deutermann never sounds a wrong note in this non-stop page-turner.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The tale is loaded with political and bureaucratic skullduggery, and there are plenty of well-banked curves and clever twists. A solid read from an author whose own tradecraft is every bit as good as that of his characters.”
—Booklist
“You think you have read this before. Trust me. You haven’t. And you should…a great read.”
—Tribune (Greensburg, PA)
“One of the lasting conventions in thriller-writing involves putting the hero in a situation where the reader is forced to ask, ‘How can he possibly get out of that?’…Deutermann…exploits that convention to the hilt in Hunting Season.”
—Houston Chronicle
“Enough techno and black ops to satisfy Clancy fans, enough double-dealing, back-pedaling internecine treachery to keep Carre fans reading, and enough plot turns and suspense to keep Crichton and Higgins Clark devotees guessing.”
—The Florida Times-Union
“Deutermann’s previous novel, Train Man, was a marvelous, bang-up action novel…in Hunting Season he equals the thrills…Deutermann writes with authority and inventiveness. Add in top-secret gizmos, heroes meaner than villains…and you’ve got one of the best by one of the best at what he does.”
—Telegraph [Macon, GA]
“Deutermann has sold three novels to Hollywood already. They’re blind if they pass on this one.”
—Kirkus Reviews
TRAIN MAN
“Deutermann delivers his most accomplished thriller yet. Intelligent, expertly detailed and highly suspenseful.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Another solid performance from Deutermann, this time about a train-hating, vengeance-hungry madman and the FBI agents seeking to derail him. Quality entertainment: the details convince, the people are real, the plot twists legitimate.”
—Kirkus Reviews
ZERO OPTION
“Zero Option delivers…[Deutermann] keeps his story moving briskly.”
—Proceedings
“Exciting, moving…a top-notch topical thriller.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[Deutermann] returns in top form with this gripping tale…intensely plausible entertainment.”
—Kirkus Reviews
SWEEPERS
“An explosive drama…Deutermann fans like myself will be thrilled to see that he keeps getting better.”
—Nelson DeMille
“Deutermann’s inside knowledge of the Navy and Pentagon politics, coupled with his likeable protagonists, make this a gripping new addition to his line of naval mysteries.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A fine page-turner.”
—Library Journal
OFFICIAL PRIVILEGE
“A tight story line…An attractive combination of murder mystery and naval politics.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“P.T. Deutermann has become one of our best thriller writers…A keenly entertaining, fascinating mystery.”
—Observer (Florida)
“Superb plotting and characterization are here, as is suspense and a clear awareness of the dangers and dalliances that can thrive in official Washington…Official Privilege is more than just a whodunit and a Navy story; it is a suspenseful indictment of power politics.”
—Florida Times-Union
THE EDGE OF HONOR
“One heck of an exciting voyage…P.T. Deutermann ships a reader onto the bridge in that special place—where men go down to the sea in ships. He adds a first-rate suspense novel as bargain.”
—Tampa Tribune and Times
“The Edge of Honor is the rare book that addresses the complexities of war at the front and also at home. The author captures the Vietnam period and its confusion perfectly. Particularly interesting—and horrifying—is the culture depicted on the Hood, a real-life ship around which the novel is set.”
—The Baltimore Sun
“The Edge of Honor… is headed up the bestseller list.”
—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Utterly convincing…Unlike many technothriller writers, he has as good a grasp of what makes people tick as of what makes a modern warship function. Deutermann’s clear mission is to picture Navy life in a depth we have not seen before, and he succeeds brilliantly. His craftsmanship is amazing.”
—The San Diego Union-Tribune
ST. MARTIN’S PAPERBACKS TITLES BY P. T. DEUTERMANN
Hunting Season
Train Man
Zero Option
Sweepers
Official Privilege
The Edge of Honor
Scorpion in the Sea
DARKSIDE
P. T. Deutermann
This book is dedicated to the Brigade of Midshipmen at Annapolis, who inevitably rise to the standard of personal and professional ethics set for them by the example of their superior officers.
Acknowledgments
It’s been almost forty years since I graduated from the Naval Academy, so I needed a lot of help to get abreast of the many institutional changes. My special thanks to Pamela Warnken, formerly of the Academy’s public information office, for fielding countless E-mails and getting me to the right people for answers. My thanks also to the superintendent at the time of my research, Vice Admiral John Ryan, USN, for arranging my initial tour of the contemporary facilities. The academy hosts 1.5 million guests each year, and I certainly appreciated the degree of access extended to me in preparation for this story. Thanks to Don Schwartz for expert advice on firearms, and to “Doc” Bellows of Schurr Sails for help with yachting details. I also received a great deal of useful insight from both academic faculty members and officers of the Academy’s executive department. They might not recognize what they told me once they read the book, but, as always, I pick and choose what I need to best enhance the story. Any resulting errors in Academy procedure or organization are, happily for them, all mine.
Solo
He floated at the top of the dive for what seemed like forever. Perfect takeoff, his legs delivering just exactly the right amount of spring, his arms balanced level with his chest and slightly behind, fingers webbed together, hands slightly cupped, eyes wide open, grinning nemesis back on the ledge, helpless to hurt him anymore. For what seemed an eternity, he hung suspended, and then, instinctively, as gravity beckoned, he tucked, arcing down through the calm morning air, his body aligning itself perfectly with the gathering slipstream, the darkened windows beginning to blur, a reflexive keening noise rising in his throat as he saw the diamond pattern of the plaza below coming into incredibly sharp focus as he held his breath and his perfectly vertical position in midair, no imbalance this time, no wobble in his legs or hips, statue-straight, rigid, accelerating, his best dive ever, the diamond pattern dissolving into individual segments of polished granite, bits of mica gleaming wonderfully clear, beckoning him to join them in their crystalline perfection, his eyes tearing from the rushing air. Time to go. Close your eyes, time to close your eyes. Inhale for the entry, your most perfect—
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Author’s Note
1
The ashen-faced cook was close to hyperventilating. He was sitting at the first table inside the mess hall, hands clamped down on spread knees, eyes bulging wide open, staring straight ahead, as if not wanting to see the red stains all over his whites.
“Hey, man, it’s okay,” Jim Hall said. “Just take it slow. Breathe. No, slower. Deep breaths. Slower. Yeah. That’s it. Take a minute. It’s gonna be okay.”
The cook, a pudgy white guy in his forties, didn’t respond, but he began to get his breathing under control. Jim looked at his shoes. He, too, did not want to dwell on the cook’s gore-spattered uniform. He imagined he could smell it, and felt his stomach do a small flop. Finally, the cook looked up at him.
“‘Okay’? Okay? Hell it will,” he croaked. “It was like…like he was trying to fly.”
“Say what?”
“The guy? It looked like he was trying to fly. I saw him. One split second. Arms wide, like one of those high divers, you know? His eyes were closed, though. Like he knew.”
Well, no shit, Jim thought. Of course he knew. Doing a swan dive from six stories onto flagstone? Yeah, the dude probably knew.
“Young guy?” Jim asked. He’d seen the body. It was actually a reasonable question.
“Yeah, probably a plebe. I mea n, like, a really young face.”
Jim nodded. He tried again to shut out the image of the wreckage out there in the plaza between the mess hall and the eighth wing. Wait till the breakfast formation gets a load of that. He felt his stomach twitch. People had no idea.
He made a couple of notes, waiting to see if the cook had anything more to add. Then he heard one of the EMTs outside call in the DOA code. Got that right, he thought. The semirigid cook now had beads of sweat all along his forehead, and his lips were turning a little blue. Jim stepped over to the double doors and called the EMTs to come over. One pushed through the doors of what was formally called King Hall, the Naval Academy’s hangarlike mess hall. The cook looked like he was about to flop and twitch on them.
Jim motioned with his chin. The medic took one look and went right to work. Then a short, scowling Navy captain came through the doors and signaled that he wanted to talk to Jim. And here we go, Jim thought, closing his notebook. Here we go.
As he headed back through the doors, he wished the NCIS agents would hurry the hell up. He definitely did not want to deal with Capt. D. Telfer Robbins, the commandant of midshipmen, all by himself, no way in hell. And he really didn’t want to see any more of that mess out there in the plaza.
He scanned the small crowd outside. As the Naval Academy’s civilian security officer, he was nominally in charge of the scene until the Naval Criminal Investigative Service people showed up. There were the Academy’s own police, a couple of Annapolis cops, and some shocked-looking naval officers. The impatient captain was waiting for him next to his official sedan, rising up and down on the balls of his feet, a cell phone in his hand and anger bright in his eyes. Jim resisted the urge to page the NCIS office again, just as the 6:30 reveille bells began to ring throughout the eight wings of Bancroft Hall. He was pretty sure he knew exactly what the commandant was going to say to him.
2
Everett Markham, full professor of international law and diplomacy in the Political Science Department, Division of Humanities and Social Studies, United States Naval Academy, banged his head on an open cupboard door and dropped his coffee mug, all in one graceful move. He swore as he batted the offending door shut, rubbed his head, and groped around the darkened kitchen floor for the mug, which, fortunately, had been empty. He couldn’t find it.
This is what it’s like to turn fifty, he thought. Need coffee in the morning just to get stereo vision, and every supposedly inanimate object in the house knows it and lies in wait for you. Or, you could turn on the damned light, he said to himself. But that would hurt my caffeine-deprived eyes. He realized he was doing this a lot these days, talking to himself, even holding some fairly detailed conversations in his head on the most absolutely inane topics. He gave up, turned on the kitchen lights, opened one and then the other eye, and spied the mug lurking next to the center island. He managed to plug in the tiny Krups coffeemaker without executing himself, rubbed the back of his head again, and went out to the front porch to see where the village idiot had thrown his Washington Post this time.
Ev Markham was a widower. He lived alone in a large two-story house overlooking the head of Sayers Creek, which was an inlet of the Severn River just upstream of the Naval Academy. The house had belonged to his parents, and he’d grown up in Annapolis, in the shadow of the Academy. Like more than a few such kids, Ev had been mesmerized from an early age by the proud ranks of midshipmen bedecked in blue and gold, the midweek parades, the boom of the saluting guns, the thunderous Army-Navy game pep rallies, choral recitals in the cathedral-like chapel at Christmas-time, and those big mysterious gray ships anchored from time to time out in the bay. His father, who had served in the Navy during World War II, had been a doctor with good political connections in both the capital and in the Yard, and he’d eased the way for an appointment for Ev, who had graduated from the Academy himself in 1973.
He retrieved the plastic-wrapped newspaper out of an injured camellia bush, frowned at the broken branches, summoned visions of retribution, and then went back into the house. Maybe if he put up a piece of piano wire across the sidewalk, say about neck-high, Einstein might slow down long enough to put the paper somewhere near the front porch. But then he remembered that the paperboy was no longer a boy on a bike, but an elderly Korean gentleman driving a little Japanese pickup truck. And besides, there never had been sidewalks. He plodded back to the kitchen, poured a mug of coffee—into the cup this time—and went out onto the back porch, which overlooked two hundred feet of lawn and trees descending to the creek. Two sincerely ambitious Yuppies were straining at their oars as they sculled out from the other side in their fancy singles. The water was perfectly still, and they cut through the foot-high mist like competing phantoms under power.
His lawyer and best friend, Worth Battle, harped incessantly on the subject of Ev’s living alone in a house so full of family memories. Worth also kept trying to set him up with lady friends, but, with the possible exception of one really nice lawyer, none of them had raised even a spark of interest. He smiled at the thought of going through life with a name like Worth Battle. Back when they had been plebe-year roommates at the Naval Academy, Ev had appreciated all the hell his roomie caught for having such a name, because it deflected a lot of fire from himself. As early as plebe summer, they had speculated that one day Worth would have to become a lawyer, if only to get even.
The problem was, Ev loved the old house. He lived in it mortgage-free, and now, with five wooded acres directly overlooking Sayers Creek and within healthy walking distance of the Academy and the state capitol, it was worth a small fortune. But more than that, he’d grown up here. It was the only home he’d ever had. It was also the only home his daughter, Julie, had ever known, and during the past four years, it had allowed him to see much more of her than did most parents of midshipmen. It was a place she could bring her friends and classmates, a place where they could act like normal college kids once in awhile instead of spit-and-polish tin sailors. But since his wife, Joanne, had died, he’d seen less of Julie than he’d have liked. And when she graduated in a few weeks, he’d see nothing of her except for the occasional Christmas leave, as she dropped into that same naval aviation pipe he’d been in for so long. The irony did not escape him. Pretty soon, there’d be nothing but memories here. Good ones and not so good ones. Then he might actually have to decide.
The phone rang. It was Julie. Midshipman First Class Julie Markham, United States Naval Academy, he reminded himself. Soon to be Ensign Julie Markham, United States Naval Reserve.
“Dad!” she said breathlessly, scattering his ruminations with her energy. “Have you heard?”
“Heard what, Jules?” he asked patiently. Julie seemed to go through life at full burner lately, as commissioning day approached.
“A plebe. Fell. Or jumped. Off the eighth wing’s roof. Into the road between King Hall and Mitscher Hall. Mega-gross. Like, fire-hose city.”
“Thanks for sharing, Julie,” he said, quickly blanking out the gory image. He’d seen the aftermath of a plane captain falling eighty-four feet from the flight deck of a carrier onto the pier below, courtesy of a jet engine turnup. “What do you mean, fell or jumped?”
“Oh, you know. Dark Side is saying that of course he fell; the word in the Brigade is that he jumped.”
“You’re going to have to lose that ‘Dark Side’ business once you get out there in the fleet, Julie. Your senior officers won’t appreciate that stuff.”
“And they do something about it, from what I’ve been told, which is, of course, why they’re called the Dark Side.”
“Yeah, but think about this: You go naval air, you’re looking at almost a ten-year obligated service. By then, you’ll be up for light commander. How do you make the transition to O-four if you’ve been calling everyone who’s an O-four or above the Dark Side?”
“Oh, Da-ad,” she said. “Ten years? That’s eons from now. Hey, I gotta run—it’s two-minute chow call.”
