A Man Called Ghost

Chapter 28

Mac stood and did her best to stretch out all of the kinks and knots in her back. Between the flight out to the Gulf of Sidra and the Cod that brought her out to the carrier her body had taken a beating. And on top of that she had been told in no uncertain terms by the Captain that she was expected to begin and end her investigation as soon as humanly possible, would it be alright if he booked her a seat on the morning Cod back to the mainland? She knew that's just the way Captain Ingles operated, and like most officers in the Navy he was never happy to see a JAG come around, but he'd always seemed happier to see them when Harm had been part of the package. Maybe not happy, but it just seemed like he'd never pushed the way he did when she'd gotten on board.

Picking up the incident report Mac gave it yet another read through. She couldn't help the tears that had threatened to well up the first time she'd read that it wasn't Harm that had died. She knew it was unfair to the poor boy that'd been killed for her to feel the rush of relief, but she didn't care. It wasn't Harm and that was what she'd feared ever since Sturgis had told her that Harm was with the team she was investigating. A knock at the hatch broke her train of thought and she took a moment to pull herself together and adopt the calm, efficient mask of the Marine lawyer.

"Enter."

A tall slender man stepped through the hatch. Taking in the commander's bars Mac assumed that this was the leader of the SEAL team.

"Commander Munson. Thank you for coming."

"Don't have much choice when a JAG asks to see you." Munson said with a slight smile.

"There is always that." Mac responded to the man's relaxed attitude. At least he wasn't tense and defensive, yet. "I know you want to get this over and done with Commander, and please, believe me, so do I. Apparently someone wants answers as to why your man is dead. Care to give me that answer?"

"Post is probably the man you'll want to talk to next then Colonel. He's the one who found the body."

"Why don't you walk me through the mission?"

"Can't tell you a whole lot ma'am, it was a classified operation. What I can tell you is this; we'd split into two man teams to search the ship for our objective. Perez and the spook were the ones to locate it..."

"The spook?" Mac prompted slightly confused.

"Some guy named Webb. Apparently he was behind this op, and at the last minute he decided to join us on the ground when our insertion was changed from a HALO to a 30/30." Munson grimaced at the memory.

Mac tried to mask her confusion and surprise at hearing Clayton Webb's name. "Go on."

"Anyway, Perez radioed that he and the spook had found the target, but there was gunfire right after the transmission. Post's team was the closest and he moved in. When he got there Perez was the only one in the room apparently. Post did his best to stabilize Perez and then moved him up onto the deck where our corpsman did his best, but Perez was dead."

"Who is Post?" Mac asked, even though she recognized the name as one Harm had used in their distant past.

"Lieutenant Commander Greg Post. Normally he's with Two, but he'd been sent to us for this mission because he's a qualified pilot and our mission profile called for us to extract via a helicopter located on the target vessel."

"Is it normal for members to switch between SEAL teams?"

"Not normally, no. But sometimes we bring in outsiders who possess certain skills necessary for the completion of a mission. In this case we didn't have to bring in an outsider, just had to get Two to lend us Greg. Didn't have to spend any extra time training him for the insertion or the mission, he's had it all before."

"Alright. What happened after Perez died?"

"With all due respect, ma'am. Your investigation is into the nature of Chief Perez's death, not into our mission. We've covered everything up until Perez died."

"Commander, I have your after action report." Mac reminded the SEAL holding up the folder with the report in it. "I know what happened next; I just wanted to hear it in your own words."

"You've got my words ma'am, right there in your hand." Munson said stiffly.

"You might have forgotten something." Mac prompted with a little more force.

"It's all in the report, ma'am."

"Well then you won't mind telling it to me again Commander. As you said you don't have much of a choice when it comes to dealing with a JAG." Mac said crisply, her anger starting to show.

"Yes ma'am." Munson finally said grudgingly. "Post told me that if the target had shot Perez, it was possible that the spook went after him. I sent the men back out to search the ship for sign of the spook or the target while Post and I loaded Perez onto the chopper and got ready for our extraction. While the teams were searching I spotted something over by where we inserted. When we went to investigate there were two people escaping in one of our zodiacs."

"What happened next?"

"We recalled the men, got airborne, caught up to the escaping men and my XO and one of the others dropped in on them. Turns out they were just a couple of escaping crewmen. We retrieved our boys and returned to the ship. I scrubbed the mission at that point."

"Kind of late to scrub the mission wasn't it?"

"I made the call ma'am. Things had gone sour, the target was obviously gone and there was nothing we could do."

"What about Mr. Webb?" Mac asked with barely contained emotion. Even though she didn't particularly like him at the moment, she still knew the man, and if he was wounded, missing or dead she would like to know.

Munson just shook his head slightly. "Not sure ma'am. He wasn't on board the ship, that we were pretty sure of."

"Pretty sure of? Didn't you think you'd better be sure?"

"Ma'am, he wasn't responding to radio hails and we searched the ship, twice, before we went after the two escaping crewmen." Munson bit off with indignation clear in his voice. "Webb wasn't on that ship any longer."

"What aren't you telling me Commander?" Mac had a gut feeling the SEAL was hiding something.

"Told you everything ma'am. Just like it is in my report." Munson said stiffly as he stood up and came to attention. "If that will be all Colonel, I have a letter to finish writing."

"That will be all Commander. Please send me Commander Post." Mac struggled to keep her emotions in check as she gave the order.

Ten minutes later she jumped slightly at the heavy bang on her hatch. "Enter!" she called out.

Harm stepped into the room and dropped the folder he was carrying on the table she was using as a desk before coming stiffly to attention. "Lieutenant Commander Post reporting as ordered ma'am."

"Sorry they had to bust you a rank." Mac tried lamely to joke.

"Not sure what you're referring to ma'am." Harm answered tersely.

"Harm, its me. Drop the act. And what the hell is going on here? The Admiral is tied in knots about this SEAL dying and no one knowing how or why."

"You should read that then." Harm said nodding towards the folder he'd tossed on the table.

"What is it?" Mac picked up the indicated folder and opened it up.

"Autopsy report for Chief Perez." Harm said as Mac read that for herself. "Died of a single gunshot wound, close range, 9mm. The Master at Arms is taking a look at the details to see if he can determine anything else. Until the information and slug get sent to a ballistics lab though we won't know much more."

"What happened Harm? What's going on here?"

"We were sent in to extract someone. Webb set the whole thing up, and as usual he screwed it up. This time a good kid died though." Harm struggled to control his anger.

"Why did he go on the mission?"

"I have no fucking clue." Harm felt his frustration at the situation threaten to overwhelm his anger. "He was just here when I showed up; last I heard he'd be running the op from Langley. Just as we were boarding the chopper out the morning of the op Webb comes running out in a wetsuit insisting on joining us."

Mac watched as Harm slumped into the chair in front of the table. She could tell he was angry, frustrated and confused. Ignoring her better judgment she reached out and squeezed his shoulder. "I'm sorry Harm."

"The kid didn't have to die." Harm said with emotion thick in his voice.

"What do you think happened?" Mac sat down on the edge of the table nearest Harm.

"Mac.." Harm started, obviously trying to figure out what he was going to say. Mac just waited for him to continue, knowing that he would when he was ready. "I think Webb shot Perez." He finished in a rush.