The Passage by David Poyer

credit, Jack. Barrett ’s being singled out. Why?”

    His chair creaked as Byrne leaned back. He relighted the pipe, which had gone out as he talked. Finally, he locked his fingers behind his neck and met Dan’s eyes again. “Barrett ’s a brand-new ship, a very valuable ship. It has systems aboard that are of considerable interest. It might be a target—or become a target—for that reason alone.”
    Dan grinned. “Sir, remember Comphibron Ten? On the flag bridge, trying to grease the right decision past Double-Nuts without him noticing? I can tell when you’re bullshitting me. I can hear it in your voice! What’s really going on?”
    â€œOkay, you asked for it. How do you feel about homosexuals?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHomosexuals. Gays. Queers. How do you feel about them?”
    Dan remembered to close his mouth. “I don’t know any.”
    â€œOh, you probably do.”
    â€œI don’t think so. Anyway, I’ve never met one.” He remembered the groper in Palma. “That I knew, I mean. How do I feel … well, my experiences to date have not been real pleasant.”
    â€œChildhood? Youth? Navy?”
    â€œOn liberty … and a couple guys got me in a basement once and felt me up. I must have been about eight.”
    â€œThose would be pederasts, not homosexuals. They go for children, regardless of sex.”
    â€œWell, I don’t know about the fine distinctions.”
    â€œSo the reaction is negative but uninformed.”
    â€œI guess so. There aren’t any in the Navy, I know that.”
    â€œReally,” said Byrne.
    â€œYeah. Why are you asking me that?”
    â€œBecause maybe you’re right. Maybe you need to know why we’re concerned.”
    He nodded, and the N-two said, “Let me flash back to something that happened a couple of months ago. Threadfin.”
    Dan said, surprised, “The sub we lost in the North Pacific?”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œThe papers are saying it was one of the welds.”
    â€œWe don’t think it was a structural failure.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œThere’s a rumor that one of the torpedomen aboard was gay. He had a big insurance policy made out to his shoreside lover. There are those who think he tampered with one of the warheads. If a Mark forty-eight went off in the torpedo room, at depth, that would be it. They all got blown to hell. Of course, we won’t know till we actually find debris.”
    â€œHoly smoke.” Dan reflected on that. “But what has that got to do with—”
    Byrne shrugged. “Maybe nothing. Or maybe just that, if we’d
had a PLL aboard that boat, we could have saved a hundred and twelve men.”
    â€œJesus, Jack! So if something happens on Barrett and I don’t blow the whistle, it’s my fault?”
    â€œNo, not exactly. I guess what I’m really saying is, we really, really are concerned about this. We know there’s something rotten, but we don’t know where. And I’m asking you to get on the team and help us out.”
    Dan rubbed his mouth, hoping he wasn’t making another bad decision. “Sir, I want to help, but this is just not the kind of thing I think we ought to be doing. I thought we were supposed to trust our people, not spy on them.”
    Byrne studied him for a couple more seconds while Dan tried without success to interpret his expression, then shrugged. He tapped out the pipe briskly, ran a cleaner through it, and propped it on a rack. “All right. That’s clear enough. I’ll just remind you that this is all classified, everything we just discussed. And I expect you to treat it as such under the provisions of the relevant statutes.”
    â€œWhat, that’s all? You’re not going to tell me what you mean?”
    â€œWell, you’ve made it clear you don’t want to cooperate. So there’s no point in going