32. My Commander Dumped My Dive Bag On The Dock And Accused Me Of Stealing From A Navy Wreck — He Didn't Know The Brass Plate Inside Had My Missing Father's Initials On It

The salvage dock emptied two hours later.

Special Agent Reyes did not arrest Morgan Hale. She did not arrest Commander Vale either. She did not have the authority to arrest a Navy commander without the approval of her supervisor at the NCIS field office in San Diego, and her supervisor was at that moment in a meeting with the assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California, and both of them were going to want to see the nameplate before anyone put handcuffs on anyone.

What Reyes did do was this. She took possession of the nameplate. She photographed it. She logged it. She sealed it in an evidence bag and signed the seal and had Morgan sign the seal and had a corpsman from the medical bay sign the seal as a witness. She took possession of Morgan's dive bag and its contents — everything, including the paperback novel and the dog tags — and logged all of it. She took possession of Morgan's dive log and photocopied it and returned the original. She took possession of the recovery log that Vale had been keeping and found that it was three pages short of the number of items that had actually been recovered from the wreck. She took possession of the detachment's tasking order and found that it was signed by a captain on the staff of the commander of Naval Surface Forces, Pacific. She took possession of the detachment's dive plan and found that it described the target as a "commercial fishing trawler, steel hull, 120 feet, sunk in 180 feet of water off Point Loma." She took possession of the recovery inventory and found that it listed 41 items.

She did not have to compare the inventory to the actual recoveries to know that the inventory was incomplete.

She had been diving Navy wrecks for eleven years. She could tell from across the room when an inventory had been redacted.

At 16:00 that afternoon, Reyes sat down with Morgan Hale in a small conference room in the NCIS field office. She set a recorder on the table. She set a folder on the table. She said, "Chief Hale, before I ask you a single question, I want to tell you what I am going to do with your answers."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I am going to treat you as a witness. Not as a suspect. Not as a subject. As a witness. Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then I want you to tell me everything you know about the wreck we dove this morning. I want you to tell me what you saw inside the hull. I want you to tell me what you recognized. I want you to tell me everything you know about your father's disappearance. And I want you to tell me — because I am going to ask you and I am not going to be gentle — whether you believe that Commander Peter Vale knew that the wreck was not the Sarah K."

Morgan did not answer immediately.

"Ma'am," she said, "I believe that Commander Vale knew that the wreck was not the Sarah K. I believe he has known it since before the first dive. I believe he has known it since before the tasking order was signed. And I believe there are people above him — in the salvage office, in the surface forces command, in the Pentagon — who have known it longer than he has."

"Why do you believe that?"

"Because Commander Vale did not react to the nameplate the way a salvage officer would react to a nameplate he had never seen before. He reacted the way a man reacts to a thing he has been afraid of finding for a very long time."

Reyes set her pen down.

"Chief Hale," she said, "I want to tell you something. My office received an anonymous complaint six weeks ago. The complaint said that the salvage detachment at Naval Base San Diego had been recovering items from a wreck off Point Loma that were not consistent with a 2018 trawler. The complaint said that the items were being catalogued as property of the Sarah K when they were in fact property of a United States Navy vessel. The complaint said that the wreck was not what the tasking order claimed. And the complaint said — this is the part that made my supervisor sit up — that the wreck was the USS Anzio."

Morgan's breath caught.

"The USS Anzio was a Spruance-class destroyer," Reyes said. "She was commissioned in 1980. She was decommissioned in 1997. She was sold for scrap to a company in Brownsville, Texas. She was towed to Brownsville. And she was broken up. That is what the record says. That is what the Naval Vessel Register says. That is what the historical record says. And yet six weeks ago an anonymous complaint told my office that the USS Anzio is sitting at the bottom of the Pacific eighteen miles off Point Loma with her hull intact and her berthing compartments preserved. And the complaint told my office that the USS Anzio had been sunk — deliberately, on purpose — by officers in her own Navy. And the complaint told my office the name of the officer who signed the order."

Morgan did not say anything.

"The complaint told my office the name of Commander Peter Vale," Reyes said. "It told my office that Commander Vale had been a young lieutenant aboard the USS Anzio in 2003. It told my office that he had been the officer of the deck on the night the ship went down. It told my office that he had been the officer who signed the deck log. And it told my office that he had been promoted twice since then — to lieutenant commander and to commander — because he had kept his mouth shut."

Morgan closed her eyes.

"Ma'am," she said, "may I ask you a question?"

"Yes."

"Who filed the anonymous complaint?"

Reyes was quiet for a moment.

"Chief Hale," she said, "I do not know. The complaint was filed through a channel that does not require identification. What I can tell you is that the complaint was filed with knowledge. It was filed by someone who knew the deck log. It was filed by someone who knew the tasking order. It was filed by someone who knew Commander Vale's service history. And it was filed with a document — a photograph — that I have not shown to anyone outside my office. A photograph of the USS Anzio in dry dock in 2004, six months after she was supposed to have been broken up in Brownsville."

Morgan's eyes filled.

"Ma'am," she said, "whoever filed that complaint—"

"Chief Hale," Reyes said, "I am going to find out who filed that complaint. I am going to find out what they know. And when I find out, I am going to tell you. But before I tell you anything, I need you to answer one question, and I need you to answer it honestly."

"Ma'am, I will."

"Do you believe that your father was on the USS Anzio on the night that she was sunk?"

Morgan looked at her.

"Ma'am," she said, "I know he was. Because his nameplate was screwed into the door of compartment 04. And because a man does not leave his nameplate in his berthing compartment unless he is living in that compartment. And because if he was living in that compartment on the night that the compartment went down with the ship, then he was there when the ship went down. And if he was there when the ship went down, then the Navy has been lying to me for sixteen years about how my father died."

Reyes was quiet.

"Chief Hale," she said, "I am going to tell you something. And I am going to tell it to you straight. I have been an NCIS agent for eighteen years. In those eighteen years, I have seen the Navy lie about many things. I have seen the Navy lie about accidents. I have seen the Navy lie about combat losses. I have seen the Navy lie about a great many things that happened to a great many sailors. But I have never — not once — seen the Navy lie about a ship. Not about a ship that was supposed to have been scrapped. Not about a ship that was sitting at the bottom of the Pacific eighteen miles off Point Loma. That is not a cover-up. That is not a mistake. That is a conspiracy. And I am going to find out who is at the bottom of it."

Morgan wiped her eyes.

"Ma'am," she said, "what do you need from me?"

Reyes opened her folder.

"Chief Hale," she said, "I need you to give me a statement. I need you to give me a statement that describes — in your own words, in your own handwriting — everything you saw inside that wreck this morning. Every compartment. Every corridor. Every ladder. Every space. I need you to tell me what you recognized. I need you to tell me what you did not recognize. I need you to tell me where the plate was. And I need you to tell me what Commander Vale said to you when he saw it."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And Chief Hale."

"Ma'am."

"I need you to understand something. Once you give me this statement, you are not just a witness. You are a target. Because the people who sank the USS Anzio are not going to sit still while a chief petty officer from San Diego gives an NCIS agent a written statement about what she saw inside a Navy wreck. They are going to try to discredit you. They are going to try to reassign you. They are going to try to pull your clearance. They are going to try to make your life so difficult that you will wish you had never opened your dive bag on that dock. Are you ready for that?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Are you sure?"

"Ma'am, I have been ready for sixteen years. I have been ready since I was twenty years old and a man in a uniform told my mother that my father had drowned in a storm. I have been ready every day since. I have been ready every time I put on my dive gear. I have been ready every time I look at the ocean. And I am ready now. So tell me where to sign."