When my shift was over, I was supposed to go directly to the galley and help make lunch. I did go down there, intending to do just that, but when I arrived on the third deck and didn't see Mr. Monte, I loitered around for a while, feeling tense and fidgety, then found myself walking straight through the enlisted mess and the wardroom to the deserted CPO quarters. It was not a conscious decision so much as a deliberately unconscious one. With the blood pounding in my head, I strode at that orange warning sign and stabbed the key into the lock. It went in smoothly. I turned the knob and opened the door.
'Mr. Cowper,' I said. 'Fred?'
The goat locker was empty.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I stood in the room for a few minutes, staring blankly around at the brown Naugahyde couches, the TV and VCR, the cof feemaker.
'I told him he couldn't trust you,' said Kranuski from the corridor. 'You just won me fifty bucks.'
I turned around, not even surprised. The burly Alton Webb was with him, holding a flashlight. 'Why not a million?' I asked. 'It's all Monopoly money now. Where's Cowper?'
Webb roughly grabbed me by the arm, saying, 'Come on, we'll take you to him.' When I broke his grip and tried to use some of the other techniques I'd learned in self-defense class, he caught me much harder, and grunted, 'Keep it up, and I'll break it.'
'Why are you doing this?' I cried in pain. I couldn't believe they were laying hands on me.
'There's been enough child's play on this boat.'
Webb dragged me forward to a small round hatch and held me tight while Kranuski opened it up. I knew from my studies that this was the terminal end of the CCSM deck-beyond was hydraulic machinery, then the great sonar dome at the bow. It was cold and dark in there.
'I'll be goddamned if I'm going to keep up this charade,' Kranuski said. 'This vessel is not fit to be at sea, and never was. We dodged a bullet, but it's high time we submitted to military authority instead of trying to train a bunch of jack-asses who couldn't get a learner's permit, much less master basic seamanship. Air Force, Navy- what the hell difference does it make at this point? We're here, we made it, it's over.'
'Good! I agree with you! So let me go!'
He paid no attention, shoving me through the hole. It opened into a crevasse full of mammoth pumps and the forward main ballast tanks. Above I could make out the access tunnel to the enclosed sonar sphere. I was standing on a grate above a twenty-foot drop to the bilge, and down there, hog-tied and handcuffed to a pipe in the shadows, was Cowper.
'Oh my God,' I said, tears springing to my eyes. 'Mr. Cowper!' As Kranuski came in behind me, I yelled, 'What are you doing to him?'
The old man could see me clearly enough up on my lit perch, but he was gagged and couldn't speak. There was no way to tell if he was hurt. Kranuski left Webb guarding the door and stood next to me, gazing down at Cowper with a nasty look of disdain. I couldn't believe I had ever found him handsome.
'This is what happens when order breaks down,' he said. 'I'm a Navy officer-this doesn't come easy to me. But I know that once order breaks down, it's sometimes necessary to use harsh measures to restore it. Read Clausewitz. I haven't been able to make the commander understand that, and the result has been this ridiculous stalemate.'
Without warning, he slapped me so hard I collapsed on the grating and would have bounced over the edge if he hadn't snatched me back. I was a rag doll, my mind spinning with hurt and confusion. The skin of my cheek felt flayed.
'I don't like this any more than you do,' Kranuski said, breathing hard. Was he talking to me or Cowper? 'But I'm not just going to curl up and die. For what? Chivalry? I'm thirty-four. I'm a young man, goddammit! Do you have any idea what it means for me to know this is the last piece of ass I may ever see? Try to look at it from my point of view. All the rules have changed, Cowper-everything's strictly cash-and-carry from here on out. I'm only human. You want to protect this girl, you have to make it worth my while. A trade. No more bullshit-I know you've got it stashed away somewhere. Even you wouldn't be stupid enough to let something like that be thrown overboard, not when you had to cut through the safe to get it. Just nod, and we'll call it quits.'
Cowper's face was turned away. He didn't nod.
Kranuski tore at my clothes, first yanking down the blue coveralls, then the thermal wet-suit pants I was wearing underneath, and finally my T-shirt. It was so cold in there I could see my breath. As he stripped me to gooseflesh, he said, 'You see this? Look at her! Look what she has to go through because of your stupid power trip. You think you're holding something over our heads? You're crazy! Look.' He ran his free hand down my white torso. 'What is all this leverage buying you? Is it worth it?'
'Stop,' I said.
'She says to stop,' Kranuski yelled down. To me, he said, 'It's his own stubbornness, honeybun. Tell him to stop.' He couldn't look me in the eye.
'What is it you want?'
'Ask him.'
He bent me forward over a cold steel bar and smacked my behind. 'This is your last chance,' he said, voice quaking. 'Tell me, and it ends now.' I heard him open his zipper. All I could see, bent double, was my pink knees and the clothes around my ankles.
I grimaced in preparation for what was to come, unable to imagine whatever pain it might bring… to both me and the helpless old man below. What in the world did they think Cowper had done? Kranuski was taking a long time, really milking the suspense for all it was worth, and somehow this seemed the ultimate cruelty.
'If you're going to do it, just do it,' I said.
The XO wavered another few seconds, then let out his breath, and snarled, 'God damn it!' He zipped his pants and clambered away through the hatch. It became very quiet. When nothing happened for a moment I hurriedly pulled up my clothes and looked out after them, but Kranuski and Webb were nowhere to be seen.
Like a shot I was down by Cowper, peeling dark green duct tape off his mouth and trying to lift him out of the freezing bilgewater. 'Are you okay?' I cried.
His skin was colder than mine, and he looked half-dead, but he was laughing-a dry husk of a laugh. 'Sons a bitches couldn't find their asses with two hands,' he mumbled. 'Too afraid a getting their feet wet…' His eyes lit with a dull flame of recognition. 'Lulu, don't show 'em. Use it… use it to save yourself…' His voice trailed off.
They had done an incredible job tying him up-I couldn't undo a single knot. Well duh, I thought frantically. Sailors. And even if I did get the nylon cords off, there were still the handcuffs to contend with.
'Mr. Cowper,' I said, 'I have to go get help. Just hang on a little longer, and I'll be right back!' I pressed his icy, limp hand and started up. My mind was skittering like a pinball thinking of how to free him. The galley seemed like the best bet: all those heavy-duty kitchen tools and Mr. Monte to lend a hand, plus it was closer than-
The lights went out. A velvet cushion of blackness pressed to my face, and I groped in limbo for something to cling to. Fortunately, I had just cleared the hatch to the goat locker. 'Mr. Cowper!' I called down behind me. 'The lights just went out up here, but I'm all right. I'm still on my way!' His reply was unintelligible.
Feeling my way forward, I found the wardroom, then the mess. It was strange that there wasn't a soul around. People should have been in full cry about the blackout, but there wasn't a peep from anywhere. I couldn't even smell food cooking, as I should have by this time, and Mr. Monte was not banging around in the galley. 'Monte?' I ventured. 'Is there anyone in here?'
From back behind the galley, in the vicinity of the cold storage lockers, I heard something moving. It was an animal sound, furtive and fast, loping forward in a stop-and-go pattern as if searching every inch. As the sounds drew near, I could tell there were others behind the leader… all hunting.
Not knowing what else to do, I querulously said, 'Hello?'
There was no answer. I became very unnerved, feeling a queasy sense of deja vu. Having needlessly panicked once before, I was holding myself in check, but all my instincts screamed, Xombies! It was the only
