the ship's darkroom during his free time. Developing pictures, incidentally, is one of his regular duties.' Weston reached out and picked up the pencil-slender tube on the podium. 'To take the pictures without the ladies' knowledge, he used this. It's called an endoscope, and it's a special lens attachment for his 35mm camera. As you can see, it has an extremely narrow bore, allowing him to take photographs through a thumbnail-sized hole poked through an overhead panel without the subjects' knowledge.'
Brandt held out his hand, accepting the endoscope from Weston.
'Chief, is this thing government property?'
'No, sir. It's a surveillance device sometimes used by the police or FBI personnel ashore, but it is not illegal for other people to own them. He says he got this one from a friend in Norfolk. He was keeping it in his locker.'
'I see. Go ahead.'
'Margolis told me that he lay hidden in the overhead crawl space for the two hours while the shower area was secured to male personnel, watching the women and taking pictures of them. He says he shot two rolls, seventy-two shots in all, but that since then he's only had time to make these twenty-eight enlargements.'
'I see.' To give himself time to think, Brandt returned his attention to the photos in the folder once more. None of the shots, not even that one of Flynn, had the same erotic quality as, say, a photo spread in a typical man's magazine. All were simply hidden-camera pictures of naked or half-dressed women in a locker room, and there was nothing seductive or sexy about their expressions or their poses. Hell, Brandt had seen more exciting stuff in Playboy, and there were certainly plenty of copies of that publication already aboard.
The real excitement, he thought, and the worst aspect of the problem, was generated by the fact that these photographs were not of some anonymous pretty face and body in the pages of a magazine but were all-too- identifiable images of real people, of women literally living and working right next door. Any of Jefferson's men who saw Margolis's pictures would know that it was, say, Lieutenant Joyce Flynn that they'd seen naked… and that could only increase the titillation for them. Hell, every time they met her in a passageway, they'd be thinking about that damned photo.
It made this violation of the women's privacy that much worse, a kind of sneaking, nonphysical rape.
Disgusted, he closed the folder with a snap. 'Do you think you got 'em all, Master Chief? Could he have made more?'
'That's all we found in his locker, Captain,' Weston replied.
'The negatives from two rolls of film, two contact sheets, and twenty-eight enlargements. We checked the prints against the negatives. He could've made additional prints, of course, but there are no enlargements in that stack that aren't accounted for among the negatives.'
'How about it, Margolis? Are these all of the photographs? Or did you already sell some of them to your buddies?'
'Th-those are all, sir. I swear! Two rolls of thirty-six. And I wasn't gonna sell them, sir. They were just… just-'
'Just for the amusement of you and your 'buddies.''
'That's right, sir.'
'Did your friends put you up to this?'
Margolis looked uncomfortable. 'No, sir. Not really, sir. It was all my idea.'
Brandt suspected he was lying, or at least shading the truth a bit.
Margolis didn't fit the profile of the typical shipboard troublemaker, and from the look of him he must have been scared to death throughout the time he was up there in the overhead. He could have done it all alone, but it would have helped to have someone to help boost him up into the crawl space, and to come in and tell him the coast was clear afterward.
Chances were, though, he'd never admit to having accomplices.
He wouldn't want to be seen as a guy who would rat on his shipmates.
Brandt doubted that it would be productive to question him further along those lines.
He tapped the folder with an ominously slow meter for emphasis.
'Son, this had damn well better be all of these. If there are any more, negatives or prints, or if any of your buddies already have some of these, you tell me right now. You won't be in any worse trouble than you already are.'
Margolis hesitated, then swallowed. 'There aren't any more, sir.'
'If I find out that there are more of these floating around this ship, I am going to smack you down so hard that when you look up, whale shit's going to look like shooting stars to you.'
'I swear, sir! Really! That's all there are. Two rolls, and I didn't have time to make up any more than those prints you have right there. I gave everything to the COB when he asked me.'
'Very well. What do you have to say for yourself?'
'Uh… no excuse, sir.' The standard Navy all-purpose statement for when you were caught red-handed. Attempts to make excuses in such circumstances generally backfired.
'You sure, son? I'm not sure you realize just how much trouble you're in because of this.'
'I… uh, sir, I mean… I didn't mean any harm by it, sir. Honest to God I didn't!'
Brandt looked at the officer behind Margolis. 'Chief Warrant Officer Dupuy? Do you have anything to add in this man's defense?'
'Sir, PH2 Margolis has been in my department since he came aboard. He does what he's told, and he's never given me any trouble. Three-eights and four-ohs on his last fitness report. He does his work with a minimum of supervision and he does it well.'
'A little too well in this case,' Brandt said. 'I'd feel better if these things weren't so damned professional- looking. If he'd just cut their heads off or overexposed them or something.'
Michener coughed suddenly, and Brandt looked up. He caught a tightening of Weston's jaw, a narrowing of his eyes, and realized the COB was rigidly stifling a laugh. Same with Dupuy.
He replayed what he'd just said in his mind, then groaned inwardly.
Overexposed! Yeah, these women were overexposed, all right, though his pun had been completely unintentional. Damn it all, there were aspects of this mess that were hilarious, but it could lead to bad, bad trouble aboard his ship.
Turning slightly, he waved Tombstone closer. 'What do you say, CAG?
These are your people involved. Should we talk to them? Show them the pictures?'
Tombstone caught his lower lip between his teeth, then shook his head.
'Hard call, Captain. But I think maybe not. It wouldn't help anything, and it might hurt morale if the women involved know about this.'
'They won't feel like victims if they don't know they've been victimized, that it?'
'Something like that, Captain.'
Brandt sighed, then turned back to Margolis. He picked up the folder.
'Son, needless to say, I am confiscating these. MAA, you will see to it personally that these are destroyed at once.'
Michener accepted the folder. 'Aye, aye, sir.'
Brandt picked up the endoscope. 'I am also impounding your toy here. It will be locked up in the MAA's office for the duration of the cruise.'
He leaned forward over the podium, facing the kid square-on.
'Margolis, the men and women who serve together aboard the Jefferson form a community far more closely knit than any similar community ashore. Such a community works only through the establishment of certain social customs, responsibilities, and most important of all, through the mutual trust between the members of that community.
'By taking these photographs and by attempting to distribute them among your shipmates, you have betrayed your responsibilities as a photographer's mate in Chief Warrant Officer Dupuy's division, and you have betrayed the trust of the people serving aboard this ship with you. Let me ask you something, Margolis. You know it's wrong to rob your shipmates, don't you?'
'Huh? I mean, yeah, sure!'
'Say 'yes, sir,'' the MAA rumbled at his side.
'Yes, sir!'
