Lost

“Trajectories, impact velocity, yaw angle, the point of aim, distances, margin for error and blood patterns—” She stops in mid-sentence when she realizes that she has left us all behind. “I'm trying to work out how far away the shooter must have been, as well as his elevation and how often he missed his target.”

“He hit me in the leg.”

“Yes, but he could have been aiming at your head.” She adds the word “Sir” as an afterthought, just in case I'm offended. “The shooter used Boat Tail Hollow Point ammunition with a velocity of 2,675 feet per second. They're not widely available commercially but nowadays you can source almost anything from Eastern Europe.”

A thought occurs to her. “Would you mind helping me, Sir?”

“How?”

“Can you lie on the deck just here?” She points to her feet. “Half on your side, with your legs stretched out, one just crossing the other.” Letting go of my crutches I let her move me into position like an artist's model.

As she leans over me I get a sudden image of another woman bending to brush her lips against mine. The air twitches and the picture is gone.

DC Simpson takes the tripod and angles it down toward my legs. A bright red beam of light reflects on my trousers above my bandaged thigh.

Pure fear rushes through me and suddenly I'm screaming at her to get down. Everyone! Get down! I remember the red light, a dancing red beam that signaled death. I lay in darkness, doubled over in pain as the beam moved back and forth across the deck, searching for me.

Nobody seems to have noticed me screaming. The sound is inside my head. They're all listening to the DC.

“The bullet came down from here, entered your thigh here, exited and lodged in the deck. It nudged against your femur and tumbled end-on-end, which is why the exit wound was so large.”

She walks several paces away and uses a tape measure to check the distance between the side rail and another bullet hole. “For years people have debated whether momentum or kinetic energy is the best means of determining the striking power of a bullet. The answer is to merge the two parameters of bodies in motion. We have software programs that can tell us—based on measurements—the distance traveled by a particular bullet. In this case we're looking at 430 yards, with a two percent margin for error. Once we know the location of the shooting we can reconstruct the trajectory and find out where the shooter was hiding.”

She looks down at me as though I should have an answer ready for her. I'm still trying to slow my heart rate.

“Are you OK, Sir?”

“I'm fine.”

Joe is crouching next to me now. “Maybe you should take it easy.”

“I'm not a fucking invalid!”

Instantly I want to take it back and apologize. Everyone is uncomfortable now.

DC Simpson helps me stand.

“How much more can you re-create of what happened?” I ask.

She seems quite pleased with the question.

“OK, this is where you were initially shot. Someone else got hit and fell on top of you. Traces of their bone and blood were found in your hair.”

She sits down and drags herself backward until her back is braced against the side rail.

“One of the main clusters of bullets is this one.” She points to the deck near her legs. “I believe you pulled yourself back here to get cover but more bullets went through the sides and hit the deck. You were too exposed, so—”

“I rolled across the deck and took cover behind the wheelhouse.”

Joe looks at me. “You remember?”

“No, but it makes sense.” Even as I answer I realize that part of it must be memory.

The DC scrambles across the deck to the far side of the wheelhouse. “This is where you lost your finger. You wanted to look inside or to see where the shooting was coming from. You were badly wounded. You hooked your fingers over the ledge around the porthole and raised yourself up. A bullet came through the glass and your finger disappeared.”

Dried blood stains the wall, leaking around exit holes in the splintered wood.

“We found twenty-four bullet holes in the vessel. The sniper fired only eight of them. He was very controlled and precise.”

“What about the others?”

“The rest were 9mm rounds.”

My Glock 17 self-loading pistol was signed out of the station armory on September 22 and still hasn't been found. Maybe Campbell is right and I shot someone.

DC Simpson continues with her hypothesis. “I think you were dragged over the railing at the stern with the help of a boat hook which tore one of your belt loops. You vomited just here.”

“So I must have been in the water first—before I was shot?”

“Yes.”

I look at Joe and shake my head. I can't remember. Blood—that's all I can see. I can taste it in my mouth and feel it throbbing in my ears.

I look at the DC and my voice catches in my throat. “You said someone died, right? You must have tested the blood. Was it . . . I mean . . . did it belong to . . . could it have been . . . ?” I can't get the words out.

Joe finishes the question and answers it all at once.

“It wasn't Mickey Carlyle.”