In the Company of Killers Bryan Christy (good books to read for beginners .txt) 📖

manatee with a Jack and Coke between his flippers. He sipped his drink and watched the game.

“Carl did real well in school,” Billy said to Klay. “Loved engineering. Had plenty of offers in the private sector. Turned them all down. Says there’s nobody doing what the military does. But I do worry about him.”

“I’m sure he’s in good hands. Seventh Fleet, right?”

“That’s right. Lucky Seventh,” Billy said, bitterly. “MacArthur’s Navy. Twenty thousand sailors now. All circling the South China Sea.” Billy looked at a tattoo on his forearm too old and faded for Klay to read. “Seems like we can’t ever get away from that place.”

“Well, it’s a different world now,” Klay said.

On the television, the midshipmen were marching onto the field, lining up by company.

“Doesn’t look different,” Billy said. “They’ve got the Shiloh on stand-down. You’ve seen the news, right?”

Klay had not paid much attention to the news since his return from Kenya. Everything on it seemed like a version of Bernard’s killing.

“No, Bill. What’d I miss?”

“Carl says it’s nothing. Seventh Fleet’s been having accidents. The Fitzgerald got rammed by a Japanese cargo ship. Dead of night, sent her into a full 360 spin, full red over red. Seven dead. Then McCain turns into the path of a thirty-thousand-ton Liberian oil tanker—ten more boys gone. Maybe it was girls. I don’t know. Champlain ran over a fishing boat—that’s an Aegis cruiser like the Shiloh. All South China Sea. Modern Navy. How modern is that?”

“Not very,” Klay said. He glanced at his lifeless cell phone.

“I asked him, ‘How can a destroyer sail into an oil tanker?’ ‘All explainable, Pops,’ he tells me.” Billy reached under the bar and brought out a dented Famous Amos cookie tin. He pried off the lid. Inside were carefully folded letters. “I don’t go in for email,” he said, digging through the papers. He took out a letter. “He says it was the OOD plotting radar track for the wrong goddamn ship. SCS screwup, the CO shifting thrust control to the lee helmsman without telling him. Sloppy anchoring. Radar malfunction.” Billy looked up. “How does that happen?”

“I don’t know, Bill,” Klay said. He hadn’t understood a word Billy had said. On the television, CBS was showing drone shots of the Naval Academy brigade lined up by company. “You gotta be proud of him, though.”

Billy smiled. “Yeah. He said all that time on those video games of his would pay off, and I guess it did.” The older man tapped the bar in front of Klay. “Kid says the computers they’re using onboard are twenty years old. He’s praying the next systems upgrade goes to somebody like Microsoft or Perseus Group.”

Klay nodded. He almost said, “Makes sense for them,” but caught himself. He sipped his drink and concentrated on the television. West Point’s cadets were marching onto the field now, dressed in somber gray and black.

“Sink Navy!” Phil shouted, raising a fist.

“That’s it.” Billy came out from behind the bar with a nightstick in his hand. “Up,” Billy said.

Phil hunkered his head into his shoulders and stared straight ahead. Billy took hold of Phil’s collar with his left hand, inserted the tip of his nightstick under Phil’s right armpit, and pressed. The big man sprang from his stool—arms and legs out—like a wooden toy, and Billy marched him from his stool. To Klay’s surprise he didn’t lead Phil to the door. Instead, he moved him three seats down and released him. Then he slid Phil’s half-empty Jack and Coke down to him. Phil gulped the rest of his drink, visibly shaken. He reached into his sweatpants, slapped his money on the bar, and waited for Billy to pour him a fresh one. Billy set a fresh Jack and Coke in front of Phil. “You can have your seat back when the game starts, Phil. But you keep your opinions to yourself.”

Phil sipped his drink, staring straight ahead, a quiet smile on his lips.

“Remind me not to mess with you,” Klay said.

“Little shore patrol move. I learned it the hard way.” Billy folded his grandson’s letter and put it back in the cookie tin. He returned the tin to its place under the bar. “Anyway, I’m hoping no more accidents.”

Klay’s cell phone buzzed. It was a text from Eady.

•   •   •

On Monday morning Klay looked up to see Eady standing in his doorway. He checked his watch. “I was on my way up in ten.”

Eady shut Klay’s door. He navigated the stacks of unfiled documents littering Klay’s floor and placed a thin red folder on Klay’s desk.

Klay opened the folder and scanned the top document, a two-page file summary printed on pale blue paper. A priest. The Philippines. Unholy.

“You said it was going to be Botha.”

“He’s Botha’s Asia connection,” Eady explained. “Ivory on its way to China. We may have to slay this Hydra one head at a time.”

Klay shook his head as he turned the file’s pages. “This priest’s a pedophile, Vance.”

“A chance to do some extra good,” Eady said.

Klay closed the file. “I don’t know what your source is on this, but I’ve studied Botha. He wouldn’t partner with a pedophile.”

“You know this for a fact?”

“My gut says,” Klay said.

“Fortunately, your gut doesn’t work for me.”

Klay pushed back from his desk. Eady rarely visited the third floor. His colleagues would be at the edges of their cubbyhole offices straining to hear their discussion. Fox’s office was next door. If Klay struck the wall with his fist, he was sure he’d hear Fox yelp.

“Look, Vance. Botha had . . . Botha has a younger brother, Dirk. They say when he was a boy, Dirk showed extraordinary promise as a swimmer. He was so good that his swim coach, the local priest, would drive out to the Botha farm and pick Dirk up to make sure he didn’t miss practice. The priest took the boy for drives sometimes, because if he was going to be a world champion, he needed to see the world. Then one day Dirk told his