“Ah, Jesus, that guy?” Kealty said, flipping through the file. “We’re still wasting resources on him?”
“Yes, Mr. President. Anyway, the team’s CO was injured, so his first sergeant took over—Driscoll, Sam Driscoll. Got to the cave, took out a couple guards, but when they went inside there was nothing.”
“No big surprise there.”
“No, sir, but if you’ll take a look at page four ...”
Kealty did so, his eyes narrowing as he read.
Kilborn said, “As far as we can tell, none of them were armed, per se, but they were certainly sleeping.”
“And he just shot ’em all in the head,” Kealty grumbled, shoving the file aside. “It’s sickening.”
McMullen said, “Mr. President, I’m clearly a little behind here. What’re we talking about?”
“Murder, Wes, plain and simple. This sergeant, this Driscoll, murdered nine unarmed men. Period.”
“Sir, I don’t think—”
“Listen, my predecessor let the military run rampant. He got them all jazzed up and let them off their leashes. It’s high time we put the collar back on. We can’t have U.S. soldiers going around shooting sleeping men in the head. Scott, can we do it?”
“There’s precedent both ways, but I think a case can be made to stick. We’d have to start the ball at the Pentagon, then have it bumped to justice, then bring in Army CID.”
Kealty nodded. “Do it. Time to let the grunts know who’s in charge.”
A damned fine day for fishing, Arlie Fry decided, but then again, just about any day was a fine day for fishing—at least here, that was. Not like Alaska, where they shot that show, Deadliest Catch. Fishing there had to be hell on earth.
The fog was thick, but it was a Northern California morning, after all, so a little muck was to be expected. Arlie knew it would lift within a couple of hours.
His boat, a twenty-one-foot Atlas Acadia 20E with a Ray Electric outboard motor, was just three months old, a retirement gift from his wife, Eunice, who’d chosen the inshore saltwater launch model in hopes of keeping him close to dry land. And there the blame lay again at the feet of the boob tube, specifically that George Clooney movie, The Perfect Storm. In his younger days he’d had dreams of sailing across the Atlantic, but he knew the stress of that would outright kill Eunice, so he satisfied himself with biweekly coastal fishing trips, most often alone, but today he’d talked his son into coming along. Chet, now fifteen, was more interested in girls, his iPod, and when he could get his learner’s permit than he was in catching yellowtails and lingcods—though he did perk up when Arlie mentioned having seen a shark on his last outing. The story had been true, but the shark was only two feet long.
Currently Chet sat in the bow, earbuds in his ears, as he leaned over the gunwale and trailed his hand in the water.
The sea was mostly flat, with a slight chop, and high above Arlie could see the sun, a fuzzy pale circle, trying to burn its way through the clouds. Be bright and hot within the hour, he thought. Eunice had packed them plenty of soft drinks, half a dozen baloney sandwiches, and a plastic Baggie filled with Fig Newtons.
Suddenly something thumped against the Acadia’s hull. Chet jerked his hand out of the water and stood up, causing the boat to rock. “Whoa!”
“What is it?”
“Something hit the side. . . . There, see it?”
Arlie looked where Chet was pointing, just off the stern, and caught a glimpse of something orange just before the fog swallowed it.
“You get a look at it?” Arlie asked.
“Not really. Scared the shit—heck—out of me. Looked like maybe a life jacket or bumper float.”
Arlie briefly considered continuing on, but the object, whatever it was, hadn’t been just orange but international orange, which was generally reserved for distress and emergencies. And life jackets.
“Sit down, son, I’m coming about.” Arlie turned the wheel and brought the Acadia back on a reverse course, slowing as he did so. “Keep an eye out.”
“Yeah, Dad, I am. Jeez.”
Thirty seconds later Chet called out and pointed off the port bow. Just visible through the fog was an orange blob about the size of a soccer ball.
“I see it,” Arlie said, and steered that way, bringing the object alongside. Chet leaned over and snagged it.
It wasn’t a life jacket, Arlie saw, but a diamond-shaped rubber float. Attached to it was a two-foot painter line, and attached to that was a black metal box,