Unknown Rider полностью

Driving across the bridge to Coronado still felt like coming home. It was after midnight when Punky crested the sweeping overpass and saw the sleepy beach town spread out before her, anchored by the vast open space of North Island Naval Air Station to her right and the tombolo known as the Silver Strand on her left. Though she had inherited and still owned the modest cottage she had grown up in, she rarely made the drive across the bay to see it. Once full of hope and laughter, the house was now just a constant reminder of what she’d lost.

She steered the Corvette to follow the bridge’s arcing descent onto Fourth Street, watching the tip of Point Loma in the distance disappear behind the red spired roofs of the Hotel del Coronado. Gritting her teeth, she focused her attention through the windshield and the problem ahead of her. By the time she passed under the concrete remains of the plaza that last collected tolls in 2002, she had decided on a course of action.

Less than a quarter mile after the defunct tollbooth, the two-way traffic on Fourth Street split, and Punky angled right on Pomona for the short jog to Third Street, continuing past quaint palm-lined neighborhoods to the interior of the island. As much as the houses on either side of her reminded her of happier times, she kept her focus on the looming Stockdale Gate and what it meant to her and the thousands of men and women who embodied the ideals of the Navy.

The gate’s namesake, Admiral James Stockdale, had represented everything KMART debased. After he was shot down over North Vietnam in 1965, Stockdale created and enforced a code of conduct that governed the behavior of his fellow prisoners. When his captors informed him they intended to parade him in public, he cut a gash in his scalp to avoid being used as propaganda. And when they covered the wound with a hat, he bashed a stool into his face until it was disfigured and swollen beyond recognition. For eight years, Stockdale continued fighting his own war against the enemy despite being a prisoner.

It made her sick that KMART wore the same uniform.

The gate was necked down to one open lane at that late hour, and Punky flashed her NCIS credentials to the Navy Region Southwest civilian police officer, who waved her onto the compound. She had been to North Island countless times over her life, visiting as a dependent long before she became a special agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. But she still felt like an outsider. Even after growing up in Coronado, attending Coronado High School, and leading the Islanders to a CIF state water polo championship her senior year, she always felt like an outsider on base.

She continued driving along Stockdale Boulevard, passing a massive parking lot on her right that was filled with cars belonging to sailors embarked aboard ships at sea. She knew many of them belonged to sailors aboard the Lincoln, and one in particular to the traitor she had made it her personal mission to unmask.

As the airfield came into view, she turned left on Quentin Roosevelt Boulevard and drove through a round-about alongside a painted cinder block wall that blocked her view of the flight line. A ghost-like formation of disparate aircraft on display passed along her left side as she continued driving west to her destination. She recognized the Sikorsky H-60 Seahawk, though she wasn’t sure which of the three models based at North Island was on display. She also recognized the Lockheed S-3 Viking, a carrier-based anti-submarine jet that had made North Island its home during her childhood. But it was the third plane on display that had brought her there.

Punky turned into the parking lot on her right, across the street from the manicured grounds of shaded Spanish-style cottages with red terra-cotta tile roofs and white stucco walls. The sign at the entrance announced it as the home to the Providers of Fleet Logistics Support Squadron 30, the only squadron flying the Grumman C-2 Greyhound in the Pacific fleet. Known as a COD, for Carrier Onboard Delivery, the C-2 delivered high-priority cargo, mail, and passengers to aircraft carriers at sea.

And Punky wanted a ride.

She parked the Corvette in the parking spot reserved for “CO’s Guest” and walked across the blue-and-yellow-striped walkway to the entrance under a blue awning. She opened the door and entered an anteroom, known as the quarterdeck. Aboard Navy ships and in buildings on naval bases, it was the designated reception area for guests visiting the command. Punky approached the sailor dressed in the Navy Service Uniform and waited for him to look up from his phone before speaking.

He looked startled when he noticed the dark-haired woman standing at the counter, and he jumped to his feet and approached. “Can I help you?”