Needle on the Haystack
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PROLOGUE
A sailor named Terry Adams stood alongside a Corvette. He glanced down at the driver and said: “The stuff you been selling me is weak. I still hurt after I shoot up.”
“Izzat so?”
“Yeah.” Adams swallowed hard and glanced through the night at the abandoned warehouses around them. “I need more of it every time to do the job.”
“Hmmm.”
“Come on. I need stuff like I used to get.”
The man shook his head and looked up at the sailor. “Ya get what ya get. That’s what the boss says to sell for a nickel or a dime. Name your size and pay your dough.”
Adams clenched his fists, raised his eyes, looked at the sky in exasperation. “You gotta let me have something better, man. I shoot up an’ I still hurt. Bad. But I’m paying the same price. What you’re selling me isn’t strong enough.”
The man’s eyes turned to ice. “That’s what you said before. It’s already an old story.”
Adams examined the car. It was bright red and looked brand new. He knew his money helped buy this shiny bauble. “Come on. I’m a good customer. That’s got to count for something.”
The driver stared at his steering wheel. “You got a point, kid. You’re one of my regulars.” He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out two small folded squares of white paper. He held them out between two fingers. “Here. Coupla dime packets for you. Like you were getting a year ago. Gimme twenty bucks.”
Adams slipped the drugs into his inside jumper pocket as he sauntered away, smiling in anticipation of his trip later that night.
The driver smirked as he slammed his Corvette into gear and sped off. “Enjoy yer trip to eternity, kid.”
——————--
Seaman Charley Simms had been playing after-hours poker in his barracks on “Mainside,” Naval Operations Base, Norfolk. He had also been drinking a lot of soda pop. As he relieved himself at the trough that served as a urinal, he heard someone come in behind him. He glanced over his shoulder.
“Hey, Adams, what’s up?” he greeted.
“Nothin’. Everything is copasetic.”
Simms turned back to finish as Adams slammed the door to the commode stall and latched it. Simms returned to his poker game and his soda pop.
——————--
The last showing of the movie was over and half the theater lights were off. A middle-aged man sauntered into the lobby of the theater in Virginia Beach. Tonight he had watched a newly released romance comedy called “Come September” starring Rock Hudson and Gina Lollobrigida, which was not the type of film he ever went to see. He would rather have watched his favorite flick again, “The Guns of Navarone,” but it had been out for some months and he’d already seen it three times. Besides, it was playing at a different theater, one where he often went. And he wanted to be sure that certain people didn’t know where he was.
He acted nervous. He looked around, checking out the people in the crowd. He passed a public telephone, walked by it, then turned and looked around. He returned, entered the phone booth and closed the door. He picked up the receiver. He rested his shaking hand against the case of the phone in order to get his dime in the coin slot. His finger shook as he dialed the number he had taken pains to memorize. When he finished dialing, he turned his back to the phone so he could keep an eye on the lobby.
A voice on the other end of the line answered: “Office of Criminal Investigation, Conway YN2 speaking.”
“Yeah,” the man began. He swallowed, cleared his throat, tried to swallow again. “Uh..., I... uh… want to report a bunch of drug pushers. They’re selling stuff to sailors here.”
“Where are you, please?”
“In the Norfolk - Virginia Beach area.”
“Please identify yourself.”
“Uh-uh. I just don’t want to see these young swabbies getting hooked on this stuff. But I’m scared of these guys so I won’t identify myself. Just in case. But you guys should send some folks down here to investigate this mess. This gang is really big. And mean.”
“But we may want to contact you. Please tell us who you are.”
“Sorry. That’s all I can say.” The man hung up the phone and quickly walked out of the theater.
Conway logged the call: “Saturday, 2 Sept 1961. 0115. Unidentified man called to report drug-pushing activity in Norfolk-Virginia Beach area. Gave no other information.”
Then he called Commander Blount in the middle of the night.
——————--
The loudspeaker was done squawking “REVEILLE, REVEILLE.” Charley Simms rubbed the sleep from his eyes and went to the head. He noticed that the door to the stall Adams entered the night before was still shut. He wondered about that, a little, but shrugged it off. After breakfast and morning quarters, he returned to start his daily cleaning. Rough day ahead. Two commodes were left unflushed. Someone barfed on the floor. And it smelled like more than one drunk missed the urinal completely. He chuckled. “Hope they pissed on their shoes.”
The door of the same commode stall was still shut. “Hey!” he called out. “Hurry up in there! I gotta clean the damn thing.”
There was no reply.
“Hey! Get out of there! Who the hell’s in the shitter, anyway?”
Nothing.
“What the hell’s goin’ on?” he grumbled. He put down his buckets, brushes and rags, and strode over to the stall. He banged on the door with his open palm. “Hey! Wake up in there!”
He pounded on the door and shouted a couple more times. Another sailor came in to check what was happening. “What the fuck’s all the noise about? You’re gonna wake up the dead!”
“I saw Adams go in there last night. He fell asleep on the shitter before. And I gotta clean the damn thing. I don’t know who’s in there, but he’s gotta come out.”
“So climb under the door and see what the problem is!” the newcomer laughed.
“Hmmm, I got a better idea,” Simms said. He entered an adjacent stall and stood on the commode so he could see over the partition. “Aw, shit. It is Adams,” he reported. “And he don’t look too good....”
He pulled himself over the partition. He unlatched the door as he landed in front of the other man, and then backed out quickly. “Fuck! Get the Master at Arms! Somebody get the MAA! Fast!”
1. TROUBLE IN NORFOLK
I stepped out of a miserable drizzling rain my first day in town and entered a building that was identified only by a number on a sign in front of it. I knew the office number I was supposed to go to. When I found it, I paused. The door stood there staring at me. The glass in it, emblazoned with bold black letters, announced the agency on the other side of it:
OFFICE OF CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION
NORFOLK, VIRGINIA
I glanced at the paper in my hand, the summons the Navy called “orders.” I had no idea what lay ahead but I had to go through with this now. I tried to build up my courage. I took a deep breath and reached out to open the door. It opened before I could touch the doorknob.
My heart pounded. A yeoman second class stood there. He looked at my collar rank insignia.
“Good afternoon, Lieutenant. Can I help you?”
I swallowed hard. “Uh, yes. I’m Lieutenant Eric Matthews. I have orders to report here.”
He acted like he recognized my name. “I’m Conway, YN2.” He motioned to an empty desk in the office. “Won’t you have a seat, sir? I’ll be right back to process you.”
I nodded and stepped into my future.
When Conway returned from the head, he checked me in and made a phone call. Within an hour some other folks had me measured for uniforms.
The following day, Sunday, Conway called me back to the office early and gave me my seabag, the uniforms all tailored to fit. Now I had to stencil each piece like enlisted men did in boot camp. Even the skivvies. Even the silly shit, like the flat hat, which nobody’s used for years, maybe even since World War II. At least they weren’t issuing dress whites any longer, an older style white jumper with a pale blue collar.
The OCI office was almost deserted. It was the weekend, after all. I sat at an unused desk, stenciling my new clothing with my last name and initials. The stencil paint didn’t dry very fast, so I had stuff spread all over that end of the office. I was getting tired of seeing my own name, MATTHEWS E M. The initials stand for Eric Michael.
I’m a full lieutenant in the U. S. Navy, the same rank as a captain in the Marines or Army. Soon I’d be pretending to be a raw recruit right out of boot camp going to my first duty station. I’m twenty-nine but look twenty-two, which is the age shown in the service jacket I’d take with me. I’d be impersonating an older recruit—most guys joined the Navy at seventeen or eighteen.
By education, I’m an electrical engineer. I specialize in complex electronic equipment. My analytical ability gives me a knack for solving problems. That’s how I got into OCI in the first place. Now they needed another undercover guy and I needed this assignment for advancement to lieutenant commander. So they flew me here from Great Lakes, Illinois.
Conway, the duty yeoman, was shuffling papers and answering phones while I painted my new clothing. I didn’t pay much attention to the calls that came in. After one of them, the yeoman phoned Commander Robert Blount, the commanding officer of this OCI branch, to keep him up to date. Blount would be in Monday morning, unless something really big happened. By that time, I’d be out at the Destroyer and Submarine Piers waiting for a ship.
When Conway hung up, he turned to me and said: “That call was connected to why you’re here, Lieutenant. Seems some addict died in one of the barracks.”
“I’m going onto a ship,” I reminded him. “How does that relate to me?”
“We’re getting a lot more of these cases. And if you ask me, they’re all related. I think you’re gonna be part of a big operation, sir.”
I nodded. That was possible. The captain of the destroyer USS Hestek had called OCI about possible drug use on his ship. That’s where I was going. But if drugs were on the small ships, you could bet they were also on the big ships and on the largest navy base in the world, Naval Station Norfolk. That’s its official name. Thousands of sailors still call it N.O.B., from its older name, Naval Operating Base.
——————--
Commander Blount showed up at the OCI office at eleven hundred hours. “Okay, Conway, I came over right after church. Bring me up to date.”
“Yes, sir. First, Friday night’s phone call.” The yeoman pointed to his log. He repeated the conversation almost verbatim.
“You try to get more information from him? Where he was or where he thought this gang is?”
“He refused to say anything else. ‘Just in case,’ he said. Like he didn’t want anyone to know who he was. He sounded pretty scared, sir. Then he said that was all he could say and he hung up. I heard people in the background, like he was around some public place.”
“OK, what else do you have?”
Conway held out a letter for Blount to examine. “Just this morning, the Admiral sent a special courier with this from Norfolk Naval Station headquarters requesting action. It looks big, Commander. Three men died last month from heroin cut with quinine. The people are dying from the cutting agent, not the drugs. That’s not counting Seaman Terry Adams, the man who died Friday night.”
“That’s the man you called me about last night?
“Yes, sir. But the medical examiner said this guy didn’t die from the cutting agent. For some reason he was given a deliberate overdose of one hundred percent pure.”
“Murder,” he observed, frowning. “So, we hear about a gang pushing this stuff. We have a number of deaths from the cutting agent, a call for help from three ship’s captains now, and an outright murder.” He tapped his lower lip. “This is too much for our present staff. We’ll need help. I’ll check the registry and see who else we can bring in. Get Knox in here.”
He entered his office and closed the door. Soon another man came in and shut the door with a minimum of noise. Even so, Conway heard him, looked up and went back to work without saying anything. The new arrival sat down and waited. After a half hour Commander Blount stuck his head out and called: “Knox?”
“Here, Commander.” The new arrival stood up and entered Blount’s office. I later learned that Charles Knox was a civilian contract OCI special agent. Now he stood in front of Blount. “Charlie,” the Commander said, “I’m putting you in charge of a new investigation team. I talked with Admiral Schoonover in Washington. He approved these transfers. Get Captain Rena Skye, USMC, in here from San Diego. Have her pick two or three of the best operatives out there and bring them with her. Cut the orders for Skye to get here tomorrow and start setting up immediately. Her people can come in ASAP.”
“One day from California, sir?”
“Affirmative.”
Knox took a deep breath. “All right, Commander. Any special arrangements?”
“Get her an overnight flight to Norfolk Naval Air Station. Wait for her at NAS. Get her oriented. Have her find off-base living quarters and a civilian job. I’ll be getting more agents for you. They’ll all be going undercover.”
“Yes, sir. Commander. I’ll get right on it.”
As I sat there painting my uniforms and listening to my future hitting me in the face. My heart beat heavily in my ears. I’d been hoping to chase down some slush funders or something like that. Get my undercover experience the easy way. Then I got assigned to look for drug users on a destroyer, a fairly small ship, and try to trace his source of drugs.
I rubbed the scars on my cheek. I was very unsure of how I would perform under those circumstances, but one of my goals in life was to get rid of as many drug pushers as possible. They deserved no leniency whatsoever. Death was too good for the snakes that pushed that poison onto others.
I was already nervous about going undercover. But with a bunch of killers on the other end of the line? I’d do what I had to, of course, but I sure wasn’t thrilled about it.
——————--
Captain Rena Skye paused outside the door to adjust her uniform jacket and skirt. Nineteen hundred hours on a Sunday evening was a hell of a time to get called in to see her boss, the Commanding Officer of OCI San Diego. She entered the office as fast as she could while still presenting the proper image of a United States Women’s Marine Corps officer.
“I believe the Commander is expecting me,” she said to the Wave yeoman behind the duty desk.
“Yes he is, Captain Skye,” the Wave replied. “I’ll let him know you’re here.” She entered the door behind her. In a few moments she motioned for the officer to enter as she returned to her desk. “He’s ready to see you now.”
“Thanks.” Skye entered the office, hat under her arm, and stood at attention. “Captain Skye reporting as ordered, Commander.”
“Stand easy, Rena.” The senior officer sat looking out the window. He motioned to a small refrigerator in the corner. “Have a drink. There’s soda, water, other stuff.... Grab what you want, then have a seat.”
The woman’s eyes turned cautious. The section chief was never this familiar. She sat down right away. Her left hand started to reach up to twist her hair around her forefinger as she often did while trying to figure something out. But she thought better of it here. She put her hand back into her lap, frowned and asked: “What’s up, Commander?”
He didn’t meet her eyes for long seconds. He opened a desk drawer. From behind his hanging files he extracted two glasses and a bottle of eighteen-year-old Glenlivet.
The look in Skye’s eyes changed from caution to alarm as her boss opened the bottle of single-malt scotch. She sat straight and tall, waiting.
“I’m afraid I have some good news and some bad news,” the Commander said while he poured two stiff drinks. He slid one toward Skye. “Take it. You’re going to need it.”
She tried to stop her hand from shaking while she reached out for the glass. “Give me the bad news first.”
“That’s going to be difficult to do, there’s so much of it.” Raising his drink in a toast, he finally looked her in the eye. “Here’s to your advancement. Regrettably, not rank, but certainly a higher position in the organization.” He took a good swallow. “Drink. That’s an order.”
Skye took a sip. “Please quit dancing all around this. What’s happening?”
The Commander sat with lips pursed. He finally replied: “Most of the bad news is mine. I’m losing you. Best damn operative I ever had.”
“Where are they sending me?”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Nor-foke, Vah-jin-ya. Heart of the east coast fleet.”
“When do I leave?”
He looked at his watch. “In three or four hours.”
“What!”
He nodded. “As soon as you can pack your bags—a few uniforms and all your civvies. They want you there tomorrow. A plane is waiting to take off when you’re ready.”
“But, I have other things I have to do before....”
“We’ll sell your car. Send you the money. Pack up the rest of your stuff. Send it to OCI Norfolk. And I know what this does to your personal situation. We’ll try to get that settled for you.” He swallowed another healthy jolt of his scotch. “When you get to Norfolk, they’ll have a car ready for you. Then you will go out into Adventure Land, get an apartment and a job, and play like a civilian.”
“What’s my assignment?”
“Field coordinator. Twenty-some operatives. Some in the fleet. Some ashore. Military. Civilian.” He emptied his glass and poured another drink. “It seems that you’re supposed to close down one of the biggest drug rings outside of the Mafia that they’ve ever discovered.”
Skye stared at her boss. Ex-boss. She took a healthy drink from her own glass. After she caught her breath, she asked, “I get an instant transfer, have to cross the country overnight, don’t get to take all of my stuff with me, and take on this huge drug ring. I appreciate the advancement to field coordinator. I suppose we could call that good news. I’ve been undercover before but never, not ever in charge of a team, let alone such a big one. Is there any actual good news, I hope?”
“Yes. You get to choose any three of our operatives here to take with you. Like I said, a lot of the bad news is mine. I don’t lose just you, but my four top people because I know you will take some of the best. In fact, I will demand that you do so. Who do you want?”
Skye answered after mere seconds. “Jennifer Powers. Daniel Han. Tony Alvarez.”
“Any others you want me to try to get for you?”
“You have anyone special in mind?”
“Morgan Delano impressed me when he was out here.”
“Sure. I’ll take him if OCI New York will cut him loose again. And try to get me Glenn Oliver from Charleston.”
“Will do. And I’ll notify the others of their transfers. They’ve been given more time to get to Norfolk because they’ll be attached to military units as determined by the Norfolk office. You have to set yourself up as a civilian and get ready to coordinate your team. OCI Norfolk will let you know who your other people are as they determine them.” He stood up and held out an envelope. “Here are your official orders, Captain Skye. Good luck. Go catch your flight.”
——————--
Skye woke up with her heart pounding. She lay in bed, quietly, listening. Yes, there it was, the sound that woke her up. Soft footsteps. She pulled back the covers as quietly as she could and made her way, barefooted, across the bedroom. She stood at the door and listened. All was quiet. She held a Tae-Kwon Do karate brown belt, so she mentally prepared herself, clenched her hands into fists, slid into the hallway and walked toward the front room. A rough hand clamped over her mouth. It had to be a man. It was a big hand. Strong. She tried to shake loose but he held her too tightly. She kicked back with her foot, hoping to smash his shin.
“Don’ even think about it, lady,” the man growled. “I know all those karate tricks, too. So just quit yer squirmin’.”
She tried to scream but it came out as a muffled squeak.
‘Shut up! Don’ try nothin’. So ya wanna take down our drug ring, huh? Well, honey, you just run outa luck.”
Rena felt the icy cold of a knife blade at her throat. She tried desperately to think what she could do. Her heart pumped wildly.
“Good. Yer real scared. I can feel yer pulse in yer neck. You’ll bleed real fast.”
He pulled the knife across her throat. She felt the blood spurt out....
A sailor named Terry Adams stood alongside a Corvette. He glanced down at the driver and said: “The stuff you been selling me is weak. I still hurt after I shoot up.”
“Izzat so?”
“Yeah.” Adams swallowed hard and glanced through the night at the abandoned warehouses around them. “I need more of it every time to do the job.”
“Hmmm.”
“Come on. I need stuff like I used to get.”
The man shook his head and looked up at the sailor. “Ya get what ya get. That’s what the boss says to sell for a nickel or a dime. Name your size and pay your dough.”
Adams clenched his fists, raised his eyes, looked at the sky in exasperation. “You gotta let me have something better, man. I shoot up an’ I still hurt. Bad. But I’m paying the same price. What you’re selling me isn’t strong enough.”
The man’s eyes turned to ice. “That’s what you said before. It’s already an old story.”
Adams examined the car. It was bright red and looked brand new. He knew his money helped buy this shiny bauble. “Come on. I’m a good customer. That’s got to count for something.”
The driver stared at his steering wheel. “You got a point, kid. You’re one of my regulars.” He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out two small folded squares of white paper. He held them out between two fingers. “Here. Coupla dime packets for you. Like you were getting a year ago. Gimme twenty bucks.”
Adams slipped the drugs into his inside jumper pocket as he sauntered away, smiling in anticipation of his trip later that night.
The driver smirked as he slammed his Corvette into gear and sped off. “Enjoy yer trip to eternity, kid.”
——————--
Seaman Charley Simms had been playing after-hours poker in his barracks on “Mainside,” Naval Operations Base, Norfolk. He had also been drinking a lot of soda pop. As he relieved himself at the trough that served as a urinal, he heard someone come in behind him. He glanced over his shoulder.
“Hey, Adams, what’s up?” he greeted.
“Nothin’. Everything is copasetic.”
Simms turned back to finish as Adams slammed the door to the commode stall and latched it. Simms returned to his poker game and his soda pop.
——————--
The last showing of the movie was over and half the theater lights were off. A middle-aged man sauntered into the lobby of the theater in Virginia Beach. Tonight he had watched a newly released romance comedy called “Come September” starring Rock Hudson and Gina Lollobrigida, which was not the type of film he ever went to see. He would rather have watched his favorite flick again, “The Guns of Navarone,” but it had been out for some months and he’d already seen it three times. Besides, it was playing at a different theater, one where he often went. And he wanted to be sure that certain people didn’t know where he was.
He acted nervous. He looked around, checking out the people in the crowd. He passed a public telephone, walked by it, then turned and looked around. He returned, entered the phone booth and closed the door. He picked up the receiver. He rested his shaking hand against the case of the phone in order to get his dime in the coin slot. His finger shook as he dialed the number he had taken pains to memorize. When he finished dialing, he turned his back to the phone so he could keep an eye on the lobby.
A voice on the other end of the line answered: “Office of Criminal Investigation, Conway YN2 speaking.”
“Yeah,” the man began. He swallowed, cleared his throat, tried to swallow again. “Uh..., I... uh… want to report a bunch of drug pushers. They’re selling stuff to sailors here.”
“Where are you, please?”
“In the Norfolk - Virginia Beach area.”
“Please identify yourself.”
“Uh-uh. I just don’t want to see these young swabbies getting hooked on this stuff. But I’m scared of these guys so I won’t identify myself. Just in case. But you guys should send some folks down here to investigate this mess. This gang is really big. And mean.”
“But we may want to contact you. Please tell us who you are.”
“Sorry. That’s all I can say.” The man hung up the phone and quickly walked out of the theater.
Conway logged the call: “Saturday, 2 Sept 1961. 0115. Unidentified man called to report drug-pushing activity in Norfolk-Virginia Beach area. Gave no other information.”
Then he called Commander Blount in the middle of the night.
——————--
The loudspeaker was done squawking “REVEILLE, REVEILLE.” Charley Simms rubbed the sleep from his eyes and went to the head. He noticed that the door to the stall Adams entered the night before was still shut. He wondered about that, a little, but shrugged it off. After breakfast and morning quarters, he returned to start his daily cleaning. Rough day ahead. Two commodes were left unflushed. Someone barfed on the floor. And it smelled like more than one drunk missed the urinal completely. He chuckled. “Hope they pissed on their shoes.”
The door of the same commode stall was still shut. “Hey!” he called out. “Hurry up in there! I gotta clean the damn thing.”
There was no reply.
“Hey! Get out of there! Who the hell’s in the shitter, anyway?”
Nothing.
“What the hell’s goin’ on?” he grumbled. He put down his buckets, brushes and rags, and strode over to the stall. He banged on the door with his open palm. “Hey! Wake up in there!”
He pounded on the door and shouted a couple more times. Another sailor came in to check what was happening. “What the fuck’s all the noise about? You’re gonna wake up the dead!”
“I saw Adams go in there last night. He fell asleep on the shitter before. And I gotta clean the damn thing. I don’t know who’s in there, but he’s gotta come out.”
“So climb under the door and see what the problem is!” the newcomer laughed.
“Hmmm, I got a better idea,” Simms said. He entered an adjacent stall and stood on the commode so he could see over the partition. “Aw, shit. It is Adams,” he reported. “And he don’t look too good....”
He pulled himself over the partition. He unlatched the door as he landed in front of the other man, and then backed out quickly. “Fuck! Get the Master at Arms! Somebody get the MAA! Fast!”
1. TROUBLE IN NORFOLK
I stepped out of a miserable drizzling rain my first day in town and entered a building that was identified only by a number on a sign in front of it. I knew the office number I was supposed to go to. When I found it, I paused. The door stood there staring at me. The glass in it, emblazoned with bold black letters, announced the agency on the other side of it:
OFFICE OF CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION
NORFOLK, VIRGINIA
I glanced at the paper in my hand, the summons the Navy called “orders.” I had no idea what lay ahead but I had to go through with this now. I tried to build up my courage. I took a deep breath and reached out to open the door. It opened before I could touch the doorknob.
My heart pounded. A yeoman second class stood there. He looked at my collar rank insignia.
“Good afternoon, Lieutenant. Can I help you?”
I swallowed hard. “Uh, yes. I’m Lieutenant Eric Matthews. I have orders to report here.”
He acted like he recognized my name. “I’m Conway, YN2.” He motioned to an empty desk in the office. “Won’t you have a seat, sir? I’ll be right back to process you.”
I nodded and stepped into my future.
When Conway returned from the head, he checked me in and made a phone call. Within an hour some other folks had me measured for uniforms.
The following day, Sunday, Conway called me back to the office early and gave me my seabag, the uniforms all tailored to fit. Now I had to stencil each piece like enlisted men did in boot camp. Even the skivvies. Even the silly shit, like the flat hat, which nobody’s used for years, maybe even since World War II. At least they weren’t issuing dress whites any longer, an older style white jumper with a pale blue collar.
The OCI office was almost deserted. It was the weekend, after all. I sat at an unused desk, stenciling my new clothing with my last name and initials. The stencil paint didn’t dry very fast, so I had stuff spread all over that end of the office. I was getting tired of seeing my own name, MATTHEWS E M. The initials stand for Eric Michael.
I’m a full lieutenant in the U. S. Navy, the same rank as a captain in the Marines or Army. Soon I’d be pretending to be a raw recruit right out of boot camp going to my first duty station. I’m twenty-nine but look twenty-two, which is the age shown in the service jacket I’d take with me. I’d be impersonating an older recruit—most guys joined the Navy at seventeen or eighteen.
By education, I’m an electrical engineer. I specialize in complex electronic equipment. My analytical ability gives me a knack for solving problems. That’s how I got into OCI in the first place. Now they needed another undercover guy and I needed this assignment for advancement to lieutenant commander. So they flew me here from Great Lakes, Illinois.
Conway, the duty yeoman, was shuffling papers and answering phones while I painted my new clothing. I didn’t pay much attention to the calls that came in. After one of them, the yeoman phoned Commander Robert Blount, the commanding officer of this OCI branch, to keep him up to date. Blount would be in Monday morning, unless something really big happened. By that time, I’d be out at the Destroyer and Submarine Piers waiting for a ship.
When Conway hung up, he turned to me and said: “That call was connected to why you’re here, Lieutenant. Seems some addict died in one of the barracks.”
“I’m going onto a ship,” I reminded him. “How does that relate to me?”
“We’re getting a lot more of these cases. And if you ask me, they’re all related. I think you’re gonna be part of a big operation, sir.”
I nodded. That was possible. The captain of the destroyer USS Hestek had called OCI about possible drug use on his ship. That’s where I was going. But if drugs were on the small ships, you could bet they were also on the big ships and on the largest navy base in the world, Naval Station Norfolk. That’s its official name. Thousands of sailors still call it N.O.B., from its older name, Naval Operating Base.
——————--
Commander Blount showed up at the OCI office at eleven hundred hours. “Okay, Conway, I came over right after church. Bring me up to date.”
“Yes, sir. First, Friday night’s phone call.” The yeoman pointed to his log. He repeated the conversation almost verbatim.
“You try to get more information from him? Where he was or where he thought this gang is?”
“He refused to say anything else. ‘Just in case,’ he said. Like he didn’t want anyone to know who he was. He sounded pretty scared, sir. Then he said that was all he could say and he hung up. I heard people in the background, like he was around some public place.”
“OK, what else do you have?”
Conway held out a letter for Blount to examine. “Just this morning, the Admiral sent a special courier with this from Norfolk Naval Station headquarters requesting action. It looks big, Commander. Three men died last month from heroin cut with quinine. The people are dying from the cutting agent, not the drugs. That’s not counting Seaman Terry Adams, the man who died Friday night.”
“That’s the man you called me about last night?
“Yes, sir. But the medical examiner said this guy didn’t die from the cutting agent. For some reason he was given a deliberate overdose of one hundred percent pure.”
“Murder,” he observed, frowning. “So, we hear about a gang pushing this stuff. We have a number of deaths from the cutting agent, a call for help from three ship’s captains now, and an outright murder.” He tapped his lower lip. “This is too much for our present staff. We’ll need help. I’ll check the registry and see who else we can bring in. Get Knox in here.”
He entered his office and closed the door. Soon another man came in and shut the door with a minimum of noise. Even so, Conway heard him, looked up and went back to work without saying anything. The new arrival sat down and waited. After a half hour Commander Blount stuck his head out and called: “Knox?”
“Here, Commander.” The new arrival stood up and entered Blount’s office. I later learned that Charles Knox was a civilian contract OCI special agent. Now he stood in front of Blount. “Charlie,” the Commander said, “I’m putting you in charge of a new investigation team. I talked with Admiral Schoonover in Washington. He approved these transfers. Get Captain Rena Skye, USMC, in here from San Diego. Have her pick two or three of the best operatives out there and bring them with her. Cut the orders for Skye to get here tomorrow and start setting up immediately. Her people can come in ASAP.”
“One day from California, sir?”
“Affirmative.”
Knox took a deep breath. “All right, Commander. Any special arrangements?”
“Get her an overnight flight to Norfolk Naval Air Station. Wait for her at NAS. Get her oriented. Have her find off-base living quarters and a civilian job. I’ll be getting more agents for you. They’ll all be going undercover.”
“Yes, sir. Commander. I’ll get right on it.”
As I sat there painting my uniforms and listening to my future hitting me in the face. My heart beat heavily in my ears. I’d been hoping to chase down some slush funders or something like that. Get my undercover experience the easy way. Then I got assigned to look for drug users on a destroyer, a fairly small ship, and try to trace his source of drugs.
I rubbed the scars on my cheek. I was very unsure of how I would perform under those circumstances, but one of my goals in life was to get rid of as many drug pushers as possible. They deserved no leniency whatsoever. Death was too good for the snakes that pushed that poison onto others.
I was already nervous about going undercover. But with a bunch of killers on the other end of the line? I’d do what I had to, of course, but I sure wasn’t thrilled about it.
——————--
Captain Rena Skye paused outside the door to adjust her uniform jacket and skirt. Nineteen hundred hours on a Sunday evening was a hell of a time to get called in to see her boss, the Commanding Officer of OCI San Diego. She entered the office as fast as she could while still presenting the proper image of a United States Women’s Marine Corps officer.
“I believe the Commander is expecting me,” she said to the Wave yeoman behind the duty desk.
“Yes he is, Captain Skye,” the Wave replied. “I’ll let him know you’re here.” She entered the door behind her. In a few moments she motioned for the officer to enter as she returned to her desk. “He’s ready to see you now.”
“Thanks.” Skye entered the office, hat under her arm, and stood at attention. “Captain Skye reporting as ordered, Commander.”
“Stand easy, Rena.” The senior officer sat looking out the window. He motioned to a small refrigerator in the corner. “Have a drink. There’s soda, water, other stuff.... Grab what you want, then have a seat.”
The woman’s eyes turned cautious. The section chief was never this familiar. She sat down right away. Her left hand started to reach up to twist her hair around her forefinger as she often did while trying to figure something out. But she thought better of it here. She put her hand back into her lap, frowned and asked: “What’s up, Commander?”
He didn’t meet her eyes for long seconds. He opened a desk drawer. From behind his hanging files he extracted two glasses and a bottle of eighteen-year-old Glenlivet.
The look in Skye’s eyes changed from caution to alarm as her boss opened the bottle of single-malt scotch. She sat straight and tall, waiting.
“I’m afraid I have some good news and some bad news,” the Commander said while he poured two stiff drinks. He slid one toward Skye. “Take it. You’re going to need it.”
She tried to stop her hand from shaking while she reached out for the glass. “Give me the bad news first.”
“That’s going to be difficult to do, there’s so much of it.” Raising his drink in a toast, he finally looked her in the eye. “Here’s to your advancement. Regrettably, not rank, but certainly a higher position in the organization.” He took a good swallow. “Drink. That’s an order.”
Skye took a sip. “Please quit dancing all around this. What’s happening?”
The Commander sat with lips pursed. He finally replied: “Most of the bad news is mine. I’m losing you. Best damn operative I ever had.”
“Where are they sending me?”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Nor-foke, Vah-jin-ya. Heart of the east coast fleet.”
“When do I leave?”
He looked at his watch. “In three or four hours.”
“What!”
He nodded. “As soon as you can pack your bags—a few uniforms and all your civvies. They want you there tomorrow. A plane is waiting to take off when you’re ready.”
“But, I have other things I have to do before....”
“We’ll sell your car. Send you the money. Pack up the rest of your stuff. Send it to OCI Norfolk. And I know what this does to your personal situation. We’ll try to get that settled for you.” He swallowed another healthy jolt of his scotch. “When you get to Norfolk, they’ll have a car ready for you. Then you will go out into Adventure Land, get an apartment and a job, and play like a civilian.”
“What’s my assignment?”
“Field coordinator. Twenty-some operatives. Some in the fleet. Some ashore. Military. Civilian.” He emptied his glass and poured another drink. “It seems that you’re supposed to close down one of the biggest drug rings outside of the Mafia that they’ve ever discovered.”
Skye stared at her boss. Ex-boss. She took a healthy drink from her own glass. After she caught her breath, she asked, “I get an instant transfer, have to cross the country overnight, don’t get to take all of my stuff with me, and take on this huge drug ring. I appreciate the advancement to field coordinator. I suppose we could call that good news. I’ve been undercover before but never, not ever in charge of a team, let alone such a big one. Is there any actual good news, I hope?”
“Yes. You get to choose any three of our operatives here to take with you. Like I said, a lot of the bad news is mine. I don’t lose just you, but my four top people because I know you will take some of the best. In fact, I will demand that you do so. Who do you want?”
Skye answered after mere seconds. “Jennifer Powers. Daniel Han. Tony Alvarez.”
“Any others you want me to try to get for you?”
“You have anyone special in mind?”
“Morgan Delano impressed me when he was out here.”
“Sure. I’ll take him if OCI New York will cut him loose again. And try to get me Glenn Oliver from Charleston.”
“Will do. And I’ll notify the others of their transfers. They’ve been given more time to get to Norfolk because they’ll be attached to military units as determined by the Norfolk office. You have to set yourself up as a civilian and get ready to coordinate your team. OCI Norfolk will let you know who your other people are as they determine them.” He stood up and held out an envelope. “Here are your official orders, Captain Skye. Good luck. Go catch your flight.”
——————--
Skye woke up with her heart pounding. She lay in bed, quietly, listening. Yes, there it was, the sound that woke her up. Soft footsteps. She pulled back the covers as quietly as she could and made her way, barefooted, across the bedroom. She stood at the door and listened. All was quiet. She held a Tae-Kwon Do karate brown belt, so she mentally prepared herself, clenched her hands into fists, slid into the hallway and walked toward the front room. A rough hand clamped over her mouth. It had to be a man. It was a big hand. Strong. She tried to shake loose but he held her too tightly. She kicked back with her foot, hoping to smash his shin.
“Don’ even think about it, lady,” the man growled. “I know all those karate tricks, too. So just quit yer squirmin’.”
She tried to scream but it came out as a muffled squeak.
‘Shut up! Don’ try nothin’. So ya wanna take down our drug ring, huh? Well, honey, you just run outa luck.”
Rena felt the icy cold of a knife blade at her throat. She tried desperately to think what she could do. Her heart pumped wildly.
“Good. Yer real scared. I can feel yer pulse in yer neck. You’ll bleed real fast.”
He pulled the knife across her throat. She felt the blood spurt out....