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Authors: Mike Lawson
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Dave seemed to think. He was upset because these guys were making more money than he was, but…well, that’s just the way Dave was.”
“What about Carmody?” Emma asked. “Does he spend much time here?”
“No,” Shipley said. “He comes up here once in a while— to check on Norton and Mulherin, I guess— but he spends most of his time on the subs.”
“Doing what?” Emma said.
“Part of the training is the book stuff,” Shipley said, “which we do here, and part is shipboard. Carmody is supposedly watching the shipboard training, but my guys say that he seems to spend most of his time just bullshitting with the sailors.”
“But he’s on board the submarines a lot,” Emma said. “On his own.”
“Yeah,” Shipley said. “Is there a problem with that?”
13
E mma led DeMarco to a café on Bremerton’s waterfront. The place smelled of incense and flowers and served fifty varieties of herbal tea. The cheerful lady who ran the café sported John Lennon–style wire-rim glasses and had straight, gray hair that reached the small of her back. She wore what DeMarco thought of as a granny dress, a long shapeless thing as glamorous as a flour sack that touched the tops of her Birkenstock sandals. DeMarco had thought that hippies were extinct, but apparently not.
Emma ordered an exotic tea, something with ginseng in it. DeMarco asked for coffee, then a Coke, then a plain old Lipton’s and each time was informed by the woman— not only a hippie but a health Nazi— that she didn’t stock such beverages. He settled for a glass of water; the happy Nazi put a slice of lemon in it.
They took seats near a window where they could see the ferry terminal and watch the jumbo ferries from Seattle dock at the terminal in Bremerton.
“I think Whitfield may have been right about Mulherin and Norton,” Emma said.
“That they’re committing some kind of fraud?”
“Not fraud,” Emma said. “Something else.”
“What else? What are you talking about?”
“Let’s look at everything Dave Whitfield said from a different perspective. He said Mulherin and Norton, two guys in debt, suddenly retire early and come into a lot of money and start buying things. Then you consider where they’ve been working, in a training facility loaded with classified materials. And then right after Whitfield calls you about them, he’s killed. So maybe Whitfield saw Mulherin or Norton doing something or overheard something and—”
“Espionage? Is that what you’re saying, Emma?”
Emma nodded her head slowly.
DeMarco had never been near a spy in his life, at least not that he knew of. His normal assignments involved wayward politicians and greedy bureaucrats and being the middleman for deals that Mahoney didn’t want his fingerprints on. “You might be right,” he said to Emma, “but you saw the security in that place.”
The shipyard’s perimeter was protected by tall fences topped with barbed wire; boats armed with machine guns patrolled the waterfront to keep watercraft— watercraft potentially filled with explosives— from approaching the drydocks or ships that were moored at the piers; armed guards manned entry gates and patrolled the grounds, and cameras were located in strategic spots. And these were just the security measures that were visible.
People entering the shipyard were carefully controlled. The employees, the ones who worked on the nuclear ships, had to have a security clearance and they wore badges that had their pictures on the front and a magnetic strip on the back, like the strip on the back of a credit card. To enter the shipyard, workers had to show their badges to guards stationed at the gates and swipe the badges through bar-code readers to further confirm they were allowed to enter. Miller, the shipyard security chief, had said that random searches of backpacks and lunch boxes and vehicles were performed at all times, and if the national or regional threat level increased, everybody
“What about Carmody?” Emma asked. “Does he spend much time here?”
“No,” Shipley said. “He comes up here once in a while— to check on Norton and Mulherin, I guess— but he spends most of his time on the subs.”
“Doing what?” Emma said.
“Part of the training is the book stuff,” Shipley said, “which we do here, and part is shipboard. Carmody is supposedly watching the shipboard training, but my guys say that he seems to spend most of his time just bullshitting with the sailors.”
“But he’s on board the submarines a lot,” Emma said. “On his own.”
“Yeah,” Shipley said. “Is there a problem with that?”
13
E mma led DeMarco to a café on Bremerton’s waterfront. The place smelled of incense and flowers and served fifty varieties of herbal tea. The cheerful lady who ran the café sported John Lennon–style wire-rim glasses and had straight, gray hair that reached the small of her back. She wore what DeMarco thought of as a granny dress, a long shapeless thing as glamorous as a flour sack that touched the tops of her Birkenstock sandals. DeMarco had thought that hippies were extinct, but apparently not.
Emma ordered an exotic tea, something with ginseng in it. DeMarco asked for coffee, then a Coke, then a plain old Lipton’s and each time was informed by the woman— not only a hippie but a health Nazi— that she didn’t stock such beverages. He settled for a glass of water; the happy Nazi put a slice of lemon in it.
They took seats near a window where they could see the ferry terminal and watch the jumbo ferries from Seattle dock at the terminal in Bremerton.
“I think Whitfield may have been right about Mulherin and Norton,” Emma said.
“That they’re committing some kind of fraud?”
“Not fraud,” Emma said. “Something else.”
“What else? What are you talking about?”
“Let’s look at everything Dave Whitfield said from a different perspective. He said Mulherin and Norton, two guys in debt, suddenly retire early and come into a lot of money and start buying things. Then you consider where they’ve been working, in a training facility loaded with classified materials. And then right after Whitfield calls you about them, he’s killed. So maybe Whitfield saw Mulherin or Norton doing something or overheard something and—”
“Espionage? Is that what you’re saying, Emma?”
Emma nodded her head slowly.
DeMarco had never been near a spy in his life, at least not that he knew of. His normal assignments involved wayward politicians and greedy bureaucrats and being the middleman for deals that Mahoney didn’t want his fingerprints on. “You might be right,” he said to Emma, “but you saw the security in that place.”
The shipyard’s perimeter was protected by tall fences topped with barbed wire; boats armed with machine guns patrolled the waterfront to keep watercraft— watercraft potentially filled with explosives— from approaching the drydocks or ships that were moored at the piers; armed guards manned entry gates and patrolled the grounds, and cameras were located in strategic spots. And these were just the security measures that were visible.
People entering the shipyard were carefully controlled. The employees, the ones who worked on the nuclear ships, had to have a security clearance and they wore badges that had their pictures on the front and a magnetic strip on the back, like the strip on the back of a credit card. To enter the shipyard, workers had to show their badges to guards stationed at the gates and swipe the badges through bar-code readers to further confirm they were allowed to enter. Miller, the shipyard security chief, had said that random searches of backpacks and lunch boxes and vehicles were performed at all times, and if the national or regional threat level increased, everybody
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