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 nameplate was old.

Not old in the way that a thing from 2004 is old. Old in the way that a thing is old when it has been at the bottom of the ocean for sixteen years. The brass had gone green. The edges had softened. The screw holes had eaten themselves into wide, ragged ovals. The engraving — T.H. — 04 — was still legible, but only just.

Special Agent Reyes sent it to the NCIS forensic laboratory at Marine Corps Base Quantico on the second day.

The lab did five things.

The first was a metallurgical analysis. The lab compared the alloy of the nameplate to a sample of brass from a Spruance-class destroyer that was in the Navy's historical collection. The alloy matched. The lab also compared the alloy to a sample of brass from a commercial fishing trawler built in Louisiana in 1989. The alloy did not match. Commercial trawlers built in 1989 did not use Spruance-class destroyer brass in their berthing compartments. Spruance-class destroyers did.

The second was an engraving analysis. The lab compared the font and the style of the engraving to the standard engraving used by the Navy's uniform shops in the 1990s. The style matched. The Navy used a specific block font for nameplates in the 1990s. The font on the plate was that font.

The third was a corrosion analysis. The lab analyzed the rate of corrosion on the plate and compared it to the rate of corrosion on a brass fitting recovered from the wreck of the USS Anzio — a fitting that the NCIS had obtained from a private salvage diver who had been working the wreck for years, thinking it was a trawler. The corrosion rates matched.

The fourth was a lead isotope analysis. The lab analyzed the trace lead in the brass and compared it to the trace lead in brass from a Spruance-class destroyer. The lead isotope signature matched. It did not match the trace lead in brass from a Louisiana boatyard.

The fifth was a DNA analysis. The lab scraped a small amount of biological residue from the screw hole in the upper right corner of the plate and compared it to a sample of DNA from a hairbrush that had belonged to Thomas Hale and that had been preserved by Morgan Hale's mother in a plastic bag for sixteen years. The DNA matched. Thomas Hale had touched the plate. Thomas Hale had screwed the plate into a berthing compartment door. Thomas Hale had been aboard the vessel that was sitting at the bottom of the Pacific eighteen miles off Point Loma.

Special Agent Reyes received the lab report on the eleventh day.

She read it three times.

Then she called Morgan Hale.

"Chief Hale," she said, "I have the lab report."

"Yes, ma'am."

"The nameplate was aboard the USS Anzio. The DNA on the plate matches your father. The alloy matches a Spruance-class destroyer. The corrosion rate matches the wreck we dove. The lead isotope matches. The font matches. Everything matches. Your father's nameplate was in the berthing compartment of the USS Anzio. And the USS Anzio is at the bottom of the Pacific eighteen miles off Point Loma. And the USS Anzio is not supposed to be there."

Morgan was quiet for a moment.

"Ma'am," she said, "the record says the ship was sold for scrap in 1997."

"The record is wrong. I have the Naval Vessel Register. I have the disposal record. I have the bill of sale. All of them say the ship was sold for scrap to a company in Brownsville, Texas, in 1997. All of them say the ship was broken up. All of them say the ship was turned into razor blades. And all of them are wrong. Because I have a photograph — the photograph that the anonymous complaint sent me — of the USS Anzio in dry dock in San Diego in 2004, with her hull intact and her berthing compartments preserved and a man in a Navy uniform standing on her fantail. That photograph was taken six months after the ship was supposed to have been broken up. That photograph was taken six months after your father was supposed to have drowned in a storm."

Morgan closed her eyes.

"Ma'am," she said, "who was the man in the photograph?"

Reyes paused.

"Chief Hale," she said, "the man in the photograph was Commander Peter Vale. He was a lieutenant commander at the time. He was standing on the fantail of the USS Anzio. He was looking at the camera. And he was smiling."

Morgan did not say anything.

"Chief Hale," Reyes said, "I want to ask you something. And I want you to think very carefully before you answer it. I want to ask you whether you are willing to testify in a court-martial against Commander Peter Vale. I want to ask you whether you are willing to testify that the man who is currently the senior salvage officer of this detachment was the officer of the deck on the night the USS Anzio went down. And I want to ask you whether you are willing to testify that the man who has been diving on your father's wreck for the last three weeks — and hiding it from you — was on the fantail of that ship in 2004, looking at a camera, and smiling."

Morgan was quiet for a long time.

"Ma'am," she said, "I am willing to testify. I am willing to testify about what I saw inside the wreck. I am willing to testify about the plate. I am willing to testify about the deck log. I am willing to testify about the tasking order. I am willing to testify about anything. I am willing to testify because my father was on that ship. And because the Navy lied to my mother. And because the Navy lied to me. And because a man who was on the fantail of the USS Anzio in 2004, looking at a camera, and smiling, has been diving on the wreck of that ship for the last three weeks and telling me that it was a fishing trawler. So yes, ma'am. I am willing to testify."

Reyes was quiet for a moment.

"Chief Hale," she said, "then I am going to tell you what happens next. In about four weeks, I am going to convene a formal investigation. The investigation is going to be overseen by the NCIS and the Navy's inspector general. Commander Vale is going to be called. You are going to be called. The dive crew is going to be called. The salvage office is going to be called. The captain at Naval Surface Forces who signed the tasking order is going to be called. And every single one of them is going to be asked the same question. Which is: what wreck did we really recover?"

"What are you going to do if they do not answer?"

"Chief Hale," Reyes said, "I am going to answer it for them. And I am going to answer it with the nameplate. And I am going to answer it with the lab report. And I am going to answer it with the photograph. And I am going to answer it with your statement. And when I am done answering, there is going to be a court-martial."

Morgan was crying.

She was not trying to hide it. She had been a Navy diver for fourteen years. She had been diving on wrecks for eleven. She had seen things at the bottom of the ocean that she had never been able to explain — a door in a hull, a locker in a corridor, a nameplate in a berthing compartment — and she had learned, over the years, not to ask.

Now she was asking.

And the answer was coming.

And the answer was not the answer the Navy had told her.

And she was ready.