Chapter 4 - The Father
Thomas Hale had been a chief boatswain's mate in the United States Navy.
He had enlisted in 1981. He had served on the USS Anzio from 1996 to 2003. He had been the leading chief of the deck department. He had been responsible for the ship's boats and her anchors and her deck seams and her life rafts and her small craft and her bosun's locker. He had been a good chief. His evaluations said so. His commanding officers said so. His sailors said so. He had been thirty-nine years old when he disappeared. He had been married. He had had one daughter. Her name was Morgan, and she had been twenty years old, and she had been in her second year at San Diego State University.
He disappeared on the night of October 14, 2003.
The Navy told his family that he had drowned in a storm. The Navy told his family that the ship had been fifty miles off the coast of Southern California and had encountered a sudden squall and that a seaman had been swept overboard and that Chief Hale had gone into the water after him. The Navy told his family that the seaman had been recovered and that Chief Hale had not. The Navy told his family that there had been a search. The Navy told his family that there had been a memorial service. The Navy told his family that his body had never been recovered. The Navy told his family that his status had been changed to killed in action after a formal review in 2005.
Morgan had believed it. She had believed it because she had been twenty years old. She had believed it because her mother had believed it. She had believed it because the man who told her had been in a Navy uniform and had said it in a quiet voice and had put a flag in her hands.
She had believed it until she had joined the Navy.
She had joined the Navy in 2007 because she had wanted to be a boatswain's mate like her father. She had discovered the dive community in 2011 and had changed rates and had become a diver. She had been assigned to the salvage detachment in San Diego in 2015. She had been diving on Navy wrecks for eleven years. She had been diving on wrecks off Point Loma for the last four.
She had asked about her father's ship in 2016 — she had asked the Navy's history and heritage command for any records related to the USS Anzio's disposal. She had been told that the ship had been sold for scrap in 1997 and broken up in Brownsville. She had been told that no records existed of her father having been aboard during the period in question. She had been told that her father had been reassigned to shore duty in 2001. She had been told that her father had not been aboard the ship on the night of October 14, 2003. She had been told that she was mistaken.
She had not been mistaken.
The lab report had proved she had not been mistaken.
Her father had been aboard the USS Anzio on the night of October 14, 2003. He had been living in compartment 04. He had screwed his nameplate into the door. He had been there when the ship went down.
Morgan Hale sat in her apartment the night Reyes told her about the lab report.
She sat on her couch with the report in her lap and the photograph of her father on the coffee table in front of her — the photograph of a man in a chief's uniform with a laughing face and a dented nose and a tattoo of an anchor on his right forearm — and she did not cry.
She had cried enough for one day. She had cried in Reyes's office. She had cried in her car. She had cried in the parking garage. She had cried in the elevator. She had cried in the corridor. She had cried in her apartment. She had cried into her pillow and into her shirt and into her own hands and into the sink in her kitchen. She had cried until her face hurt and her throat was raw and her eyes were swollen.
Now she sat on her couch and looked at her father's photograph and did not cry.
She thought about the night of October 14, 2003.
She had been twenty years old. She had been in her second year at San Diego State. She had been in her dorm room when the call came. The call had come from a duty officer at the base. The duty officer had said, in a careful voice, "Miss Hale, I am calling to inform you that your father has been involved in an incident aboard the USS Anzio. I would like to ask you to contact your mother and to come to the base at your earliest convenience."
She had called her mother. Her mother had been at work. Her mother had driven to the base. Her mother had been met by a chaplain and a lieutenant commander and a man in a civilian suit who had not introduced himself and who had sat in the back of the room and said nothing.
She had been told that her father had gone into the water after a seaman. She had been told that the seaman had been recovered. She had been told that her father had not. She had been told that the ship had been fifty miles off the coast and had been in a sudden squall and that the water had been cold and rough and that there had been no chance.
She had believed it.
She had believed it because her mother had believed it.
Her mother had believed it for sixteen years. Her mother had never remarried. Her mother had kept her father's photograph on the mantel and his dog tags in a wooden box on the dresser and his uniform in a garment bag in the closet. Her mother had died in 2019 of a heart attack at the age of sixty-two. Her mother had died still believing that her husband had drowned in a storm.
Morgan had promised her mother — on the last night of her mother's life, in a hospital room at Naval Medical Center San Diego, with her mother's hand in hers and her mother's eyes already beginning to close — that she would find out what had happened. Her mother had said, "Morgan, there is nothing to find out. Your father drowned. He was a hero. Let him rest." Morgan had said, "Mama, I am going to find out." Her mother had smiled and closed her eyes and had not spoken again.
She had found out.
She had found out sixteen years later.
She had found out because her nameplate was in a fishing trawler that was not a fishing trawler.
She had found out because a man in a dive bag had handed her an evidence bag and a lab report.
She had found out because a chief petty officer had not been allowed to lie.
She looked at her father's photograph.
"Papa," she said, out loud, "I found you."
She sat on the couch for a long time.
Then she stood up.
She walked to the kitchen and made a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table.
She picked up her phone and she called her aunt — her father's sister, who lived in Albuquerque and who was seventy-two years old and who had spent sixteen years asking the same questions Morgan had asked.
She told her what had happened.
Her aunt was quiet for a long time on the line.
Then her aunt said, "Morgan, your father would be proud of you."
Morgan said, "I know, Aunt Linda."
Her aunt said, "He would be proud of you because you did not let them lie. He would be proud of you because you became a diver. He would be proud of you because you found his nameplate. He would be proud of you because you are his daughter."
Morgan said, "I know, Aunt Linda."
Her aunt said, "I am going to come to San Diego. I am going to come for the investigation. I am going to come for the court-martial. I am going to come for whatever comes next. And I am going to sit in the front row and I am going to watch you testify. And I am going to tell everyone in that room — every single person in that room — that my brother was a good man and that his daughter is a good woman and that the Navy lied about him for sixteen years and that the truth is finally going to come out."
Morgan said, "Aunt Linda, you do not have to come."
Her aunt said, "I know I do not have to. I want to. Your father was my brother. And you are my niece. And I have been waiting sixteen years for this."
Morgan was crying again.
"Okay, Aunt Linda," she said. "I will see you in four weeks."
"I will see you in four weeks," her aunt said.
"Good night, Aunt Linda."
"Good night, Morgan."
Morgan hung up the phone.
She sat at the kitchen table for a long time.
Then she went to bed.
She slept for twelve hours.
She woke up at 06:00 the next morning.
She put on her uniform. She drove to the salvage dock. She walked into the building where the detachment was headquartered. She set her dive bag on her desk. She picked up her dive log.
And she went back to work.
She had a wreck to help recover.
She had a trial to prepare for.
She had a father to honor.
She had a nameplate — a small brass nameplate, corroded green, with the initials T.H. and the number 04 on it — that was in an evidence bag in the NCIS field office in San Diego.
And she was going to see it again. She was going to see it in a courtroom. She was going to see it on an evidence table in a federal building with a jury in front of it and a judge above it and a defendant behind it.
May you like
And she was going to point at it.
And she was going to say, "That is my father's nameplate. And the man who sank the ship that it was in is sitting right there."
