Chapter 29

CHAPTER 29

S lowly, the murky light is restored, the vibration dissipating. The inflated salvage bags tug on the body of the dead pilot as Lucy and Tron keep a firm grip. Liam gives us the OK sign, pointing up, and we resume our ascent.

Staying close behind him, we stop and wait as he directs, our fins gently paddling. We hold in place underwater without an anchored line to make it easier. The winds are picking up, the current stiffer and moving us along. We can’t fight it without exhausting ourselves, and we’re down to less than a third of a tank. It would be easy to suck in the rest of our air in no time, and that would be very bad once we reach the surface. We wouldn’t be able to inflate our buoyancy vests.

I’m thinking about that as I press a button on mine, adding more air from my tank, feeling myself rising, sunlight shining through the water. I squint in the brightness as I break the surface and float. White cumulus clouds are building in the blue sky, and I look around for our boat, no sign of it. I can make out the retreating submarine’s conning tower jutting up like a squared fin, some of the fuselage showing above the water like a whale’s back.

An untethered dive float rocks on the water some fifty feet from us, the attached flag gently waving, and we snorkel toward it. I’m guessing that when Henry and our boat captain realized they had to relocate immediately, they untied the anchor line, lashing it to a bright red dive buoy. We hang on to it, the yellow nylon rope loose. It was either severed or the anchor isn’t holding anymore.

I keep my scan going, hoping nothing else comes this way, another submarine, for example. Those aboard wouldn’t have a clue we’re here, and we’d have no means of getting away. I doubt the encounter would be survivable. A sub, an aircraft carrier, and we’d be sucked right under the hull. I can imagine it in detail and that we’d drown most likely.

“You can’t be within five hundred yards of a military vessel.” Liam interrupts my grim preoccupations. “When it’s far enough away, our boat will come back for us.”

“Well, I don’t see them anywhere,” I reply as brackish water slaps under my chin, and I spit it out.

“They’d know to come straight back to where they left us,” Lucy says with her usual calm.

“Except we’ve moved,” Liam says. “More bad weather’s rolling in tonight, and the winds are now blowing out of the south at ten or fifteen knots, I’m guessing. The current’s only getting stronger and pushing us closer to the naval station.”

“Which means we’re even more in the path of military ships,” Tron replies as I think of Marino.

This wouldn’t have been the trip for him.

“Well, I never thought my day would be like this,” Lucy says.

“Most of all, he never thought it.” I stare at the dead pilot floating facedown, rocking with the surf.

The orange salvage bags are deflated on top of his body, his black-plastic-covered head hanging below the surface, his arms and legs dangling.

“I wonder if he’s married, has kids,” Liam says. “Or if his parents are still alive. What a bad day for them.”

“I already looked up stuff about him,” Lucy tells us. “Unmarried. Thirty-two. Had just started flying for Dana Diletti at the beginning of the year.”

He told reporters it was his dream job. A new chopper with all the bells and whistles. Working for a celebrity, she explains as we scan for military ships, floating on top of the water. And we wait. Then wait some more as I worry about something suddenly barreling down on us. None of our vests or the dive float are equipped with flashing emergency beacons.

We begin making small talk to distract ourselves, chatting about when we started diving. And misadventures from the past. And stupid things we’ve done like running out of air. Or forgetting to turn it on before jumping into the ocean. And whether it’s true that divers pee in their wetsuits but don’t admit it.

“Never,” Liam says.

“Nope.” Lucy shakes her head.

“Making the point that no one admits it,” I reply, and next we talk about food.

“I’m always starved after diving,” Tron says.

“Ravenous,” Liam replies as I try not to think about what might be swimming under us. “A good tuna steak on the grill, cracking a few cold ones. Top it off with a neat single-malt Scotch and a Cuban cigar.”

“I go for pasta. I’m putting in my order now.” Lucy looks at me mask to mask as we bob up and down, spitting out water.

“Thank God.” Tron points, and I turn around to see blue lights flashing in the distance and getting closer.

We wave our arms in the air, yelling when it’s not possible for anyone to hear us. Closing in and slowing down, the Hampton police boat eases to a stop next to us, throwing Liam a rope that he ties to the dive buoy. Then he slides out the knife from the sheath strapped to his ankle. He cuts the yellow nylon line that may or may not still be attached to the anchor.

Henry has a bright yellow body bag unzipped and ready. The tightly woven mesh allows water to flow through, and we unbuckle the deflated salvage bags, handing them up to reaching hands. I help maneuver the spread-open body bag under the dead man. Zipping up three sides of the pouch, Tron and I hold on to it in the rocking surf as Lucy and Liam climb the ladder, shedding themselves of their gear.

They lean over the side of the boat, grabbing the bag by the handles, hoisting it on board, water draining through the mesh. The aluminum ladder bangs and sways, the chop getting stiffer. Hanging on to a rung, I take off my fins as Lucy reaches down for them. I feel the weight of the tank on my back as I climb up, taking off my mask with its attached camera, my neck stiff from the weight of it.

I pull off my gloves and sit down on the bench seat, shoving my tank into the holder. Unbuckling my vest, I work my way out of it and all the hoses. I bend down to pull off my dive socks, unstrapping the knife from my ankle. We struggle out of our wetsuits, dropping them in the barrel of water. When it’s my turn to stand under the shower nozzle, I wash the salt and silt out of my hair.

“What do you need to do now?” Henry asks me this as I’m toweling off.

“There’s no point in taking a liver temp or doing anything else,” I reply. “We have a pretty good idea when he went into the water. The best thing is to let my Norfolk office handle it from here. You’ll want to make sure that Doctor Peace has the video and photographs.”

“What if he was already dead when the F-16s caught up with him?” Tron asks. “Is there any way to know that?”

“I won’t be able to tell unless the toxicology gives me a clue,” I answer. “But it seems you may have two separate events. He either passed out or died while on autopilot. Why? And fifteen or twenty minutes later his helicopter sputtered and crashed into the bay. Why?”

I explain that while Bret Jones was flying, he might have had a few swallows of a berry-flavored vitamin water. I hand the collection bag to Tron, pointing out that I noticed vitamin water inside the private terminal Dana Diletti and her crew flew out of this morning.

“I noticed the same thing,” Lucy replies as our boat speeds back to the marina. “They always keep it in the little refrigerators, including the ones in the pilots’ lounges.”

“Bottles of orange- and berry-flavored vitamin water,” Tron says to me. “I think we can assume that’s where the pilot got the one you found inside the cockpit.”

“We’ll look at the video taken by the flight service’s security cameras,” Lucy adds.

“Good luck getting hold of that if Ryder Briley’s involved.” I trade my wet towel for a dry one, draping it around my shoulders. “Magically, the cameras will have been offline for some reason.”

“They were on and working fine when someone turned them off early this morning. Or thought they had,” Lucy replies with a trace of a smile. “As I’ve mentioned, Ryder Briley has been on our radar for a while. Suffice it to say that after Luna had her so-called fatal accident, I made sure it’s impossible to turn off certain camera systems, including those at the flight service. You’ll think you did. But you didn’t.”

Massive stone ramparts hulk on the bright horizon as our boat speeds closer to Fort Monroe. Dubbed the Gibraltar of the Chesapeake, the military installation was built after the War of 1812. It probably doesn’t look all that different from a distance than it did hundreds of years ago.

News helicopters are following us, and I can make out the rescue and police vehicles parked by the marina, the docked boats shining in the sun. Our captain begins rolling back the engines, cutting our speed to avoid creating wake. Then we’re gliding to the pier, and I spot the black windowless van from my Norfolk office. The death investigator named Nathan is climbing out of it.

He opens the tailgate and begins following the pier toward us, pulling on a pair of purple gloves, his feet loud on aluminum. Moments later he and Liam are carrying the bright yellow pouched body, loading it into the van. Texting Norfolk medical examiner Rena Peace, I give her the latest update. I mention the bottle of vitamin water that I’m having tested immediately, the toxicology in this case my top priority.

It’s close to 3:30 P.M. when Lucy, Tron and I walk back to the Hampton police marine unit across the street as thunderstorms build to the south. The heat and humidity feel good as we trudge in our boots, our bags slung over our towel-draped shoulders. I can feel that my face is sunburned from floating on top of the water. Lucy’s and Tron’s noses are red.

The Dodge Charger is parked where we left it, the interior baking hot as I settle in the backseat, opening my jump-out bag. I pull a polo shirt over my damp sports bra, fastening my seat belt, draping the towel across my lap. The palms of my hands are pale and wrinkled from being underwater, my fingernails bluish, reminding me of what I see in drownings.

We’re headed back to the NASA Langley campus, where the helicopter has been fueled and is waiting. It’s a good thing we’re getting the hell out of here, Lucy says as we pick up I-64 West by Hampton University. Thunderstorms will hit Tidewater within the hour, moving up to Northern Virginia and New England. Flooding is expected in coastal areas, and damaging winds could cause power outages.

She’s wearing her computer-assisted glasses, the lenses tinted dark green in the sun. Both of us are catching up on weather reports, messages, emails as Tron speeds along the interstate, cutting in and out of lanes as usual. I see that trace evidence examiner Lee Fishburne has just now texted. He wants me to call as soon as I’m able. He’s inside his lab with more test results, and I try him.

“Are you sitting down?” he asks.

“Actually, I am. And in a very loud car at the moment.” I dig my notebook and pen out of my briefcase.

“Who would think that the deaths of an abused child and a Nobel Prize winner would be related somehow?” It’s rare for Lee to show any excitement.

He goes on to confirm that the sparkling residue in Luna Briley’s and Sal Giordano’s cases is the same. They had a simulant of moon dust on them that glows cobalt blue under ultraviolet light. As he’s saying this I’m texting Benton the information.

“I think it’s safe to say that the simulant came from the same source,” Lee is telling me. “It looks the same microscopically. The composition is identical. For sure it was made by the same manufacturer, the same machining used.”

“And we’ve gotten no new information that might help us figure out where this fake moon dust could have come from?” I ask as we cross the Hampton River. “For example, if it’s being shipped to someplace in Virginia?”

“No leads on that,” he says as Benton texts me back.

With D1, he says.

My husband is meeting with Director Bella Steele and will be leaving Secret Service headquarters in a few minutes. He’ll be home when I get there, and I can’t wait to see him, to feel clean and civilized again. I text him that it would be helpful if he takes a container of marinara sauce out of the freezer. Also, the focaccia bread dough I put in there the other night.

“I wonder if Ryder Briley is involved in a business that uses fake moon dust,” I’m saying to Lee while I type on my phone.

What about wine? Benton writes back to me.

Uncork a couple of reds, please, I type.

“Don’t know,” Lee is saying. “But there was a lot of microscopic debris on Sal Giordano’s body besides the lunar simulant. Did he have a cat?”

Include Marino and Dorothy? I write to Benton while talking over the loud engine thrumming.

They should stay the night, and maybe Shannon would like to join us? She shouldn’t be alone in the storm with all that’s transpired. She’s been skittish enough, and I know she’s lonely.

“Sal used to have cats but hadn’t for years,” I’m saying over speakerphone while continuing to text. “Why do you ask?”

“Because he had cat dander on him. Also cat hair, but not normal cat hair that I’ve seen,” Lee explains in his laconic voice as I think of the cheetah on the Yellow Brick Road.

Will invite all, Benton is writing back.

“And detritus such as bug pieces and parts, insulation, cobwebs and such,” Lee explains as I hold up the phone for Tron and Lucy to hear. “What you’d expect if he was kept in a place that isn’t cleaned very often.”

“And all of this microscopic debris was all over the body, or only parts of it?” I look out at light reflecting on tidal creeks branching through salt marshes, reminding me of blood vessels.

“Yes,” Lee says. “From all the swabs you took. He had this stuff all over him, head to toe.”

“Suggesting he was unclothed while held somewhere,” I reply.

“I guess that’s one way to control someone.”

“And humiliate.” I feel a flare of anger that smolders in my core.

“Last but not least, something curious showed up in the fingernail clippings,” Lee continues. “Nanograins of perovskite. And in case you don’t know what that is…?”

“I don’t.”

“A calcium titanium oxide mineral used to make photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight into electricity. Solar cells, in other words,” he replies. “But we’re talking about a synthetic version of perovskite that’s used in manufacturing. And not the naturally occurring mineral Sal Giordano had under his fingernails.”

“Any theories about why someone would be accessing the real mineral? For what purpose?” I ask.

“Possibly for research. If you’re making the synthetic version, for example, you’d probably want access to the real thing as a model. And it allows for additive engineering possibilities such as doping the synthetic with some of the real stuff. To cook up whatever your special sauce might be. I’m wondering if Sal Giordano was involved in projects involving solar-generated power? Perhaps something space-related such as the solar arrays used on satellites and telescopes like the Hubble and James Webb?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” I reply.

“Possibly the grains of perovskite were transferred to him by someone else. Unless he had it under his fingernails before he was abducted and murdered. And if so, where did it come from?” Lee says as I’m thinking about the missing three hours.