Point of Departure Page 13

  She stared at herself critically. Her hair, washed last night, fell neatly, straight and thick. The white blouse and skirt were starched and pressed to perfection. The black boards with two gold stripes sat on each of her small shoulders, making them appear even more thrown back than usual. Normally, she wore black heels with the uniform, but because of her healing ankle, the only thing she could possibly wear were her black “boondockers,” which looked more like granny shoes, their black patent leather shining like mirrors on her feet.

  Callie had resisted Ty’s idea of facing the board with her ankle wrapped in the Ace bandage. She might limp, but she wasn’t going to look like a cripple. No way. For the thousandth time, she wished Maggie was here, but as Ty had warned, her sister had been sent away on carrier duty, practicing night landings at sea. Right now, she could use some of Maggie’s strength and passionate belief about what was right and wrong in the world.

  Although she wore no makeup, Callie had put on a bit of perfume as she did every morning. The subtle, spicy fragrance had nearly worn off and she wasn’t going to replenish it for this. She avoided looking at the faint darkness beneath her eyes.

  She washed her hands in an attempt to get rid of the clammy feeling, then dried them on a paper towel. She knew that she’d meet the perpetrators outside the room and all of them would go in together. Because of the ankle injury, she hadn’t had to go back to work last week and face Remington. Just thinking about seeing him again tied her stomach in knots.

  The only sliver of hope, of stability, that she had was the thought of Ty Ballard. His enthusiasm, his belief in her and the rightness of her case had held her together. Without him, Callie knew she’d have sunk to a level of cowardice even she would have been ashamed to admit to. Instead, she’d absorbed his quiet but powerful strength and used it as her own. Somehow, she hadn’t found the energy or fight to erect her own armor, as Ty referred to it.

  Taking a deep, ragged breath, she turned and left the restroom. At 0800, the halls were empty, the Top Gun students already in class, and for that she was grateful. Right now, Callie couldn’t stand the leering stares, the accusation in the pilots’ eyes. She knew from several other women officers that her name and the charges brought to bear against Remington and the others had been a hot topic of gossip all over the station. Callie was glad she hadn’t had to hear it firsthand.

  Walking with a slight limp, the pain still very real in her ankle, Callie turned the corner and saw a group of navy officers in summer white uniforms crowded around the door. Her heart hammered fiercely in her chest as they collectively stopped talking and turned to stare at her. Her mouth going dry, Callie reached deep within herself and forced herself to walk with at least some note of confidence despite her limp.

  Out of the crowd stepped Ty Ballard. His gray eyes zeroed in on hers, and she felt their instant rapport as he walked toward her. She had driven to the station in her own car and hadn’t seen him yet. Today, he wasn’t his normal warm, effusive self. Instead, his eyes were dark with an unfamiliar intensity, his mouth grim. This was the warrior side of him, Callie reminded herself as she approached him. She felt the angry stares of the other officers—felt them as surely as if they were invisible barbs being hurled in her direction.

  She tried to dismiss the presence of the men who had hurt her, who had deliberately attacked her, but all she felt was rage and a shakiness deep within herself. As Ty slowed to a stop, he reached out, his hand connecting with her elbow briefly as he moved her to one side of the passageway. His touch was soothing. A part of her instantly relaxed, and she halted, her back to the rest of the group.

  “Hi,” Ty murmured. He forced himself to break contact with Callie. Anything other than unquestionably official behavior between them could be held against her, so he had to stay on top of his instinctive need to protect her.

  Callie’s mouth quirked. “Hi.”

  He searched her pale face. “You get any sleep last night?”

  “No. Did you?”

  “A little,” Ty lied. Actually, he’d stayed up almost all night preparing questions for Remington based on the psychiatrist’s suggestions. Toward 0400, he’d lain down, caught two hours of sleep, then had got up, showered, shaved and gone over to the station.

  Callie desperately wanted to wrap her arms protectively around herself, but to do so would wrinkle her uniform, and she didn’t want that. “I’m scared, Ty.”

  “You’re going to be fine. I’ve got one hell of a defense for you, thanks to Dr. Johnson.” He smiled a little, then looked up to study the group. “The three commanders are already in the hearing room. In another minute or so, the shore-patrol guard will open the doors and we can go in.”

  “Do I have to sit next to them?”

  “We’ll let them go in first and then we’ll follow,” Ty murmured. He saw the terror in her eyes, but hopefully no one else would. Callie’s nervousness did show up in her darting glances, although she stood very still, as if aware her body language might give her away to the enemy.

  She released a long sigh. “Okay, good. I—I just want to get this over with.”

  “You know it’s going to take two or three days, don’t you?”

  Shutting her eyes momentarily, Callie nodded. “You mentioned that.” She opened her eyes and stared up at Ty’s composed, rugged features. “Aren’t you scared?”

  “No.”

  “You look so calm, cool and collected,” she muttered defensively.

  “The only time my hands shake is when I’m making a cat take-off or landing on a carrier at night. Then they shake like hell.”

  Giving him an accusing look, she said, “I might have known your jet-jock arrogance would come out now.”

  “At least it’s on your side,” he whispered with a smile. Her lips were soft and inviting, and Ty held himself very tightly in check, longing to kiss her, to reassure her.

  Rubbing her arm, Callie nodded. “I feel like I’m going to explode inside. I want to run. I want to hide.”

  Battling the urge to touch her, to somehow soothe the panic so clearly written in her eyes, Ty said, “We’re a team, you and I. This is our fight. We’ll do what they did in medieval times—put our backs against each other and let the enemy encircle us, swords drawn. That way, we can see them coming no matter which direction they charge from.”

  Smiling a little at the image, Callie muttered, “You really are a throwback, Ballard. Straight back to the days of King Arthur. All you need is your white horse, and you’d be set.”

  He grinned and said, “My white horse is an F-14 Tomcat.”

  “I feel more like I’m Sancho Panza and you’re Don Quixote, and we’re both tilting at windmills.”

  At that moment Ty didn’t care who was looking, although he kept his gesture discreet and brief. Reaching out, he captured her hand, which was damp and cold, and squeezed it warmly. “You be the pessimist and I’ll be the optimist. We’ll get through this one minute at a time.”

  His touch was like a healing balm soothing the ragged terror stabbing at Callie’s midsection. Giving Ty a grateful look, she said, “You deserve someone a lot more heroic than me. I’m a coward at heart.”

  “So was the lion in The Wizard of Oz until he was given a heart.” Ty held her sad blue eyes, fraught with anxiety. “I’ll be your heart if you let me, Callie. I’ll fight for you because I believe your story, and I believe in you.”

  Callie didn’t have time to answer, because just then the doors to the hearing room opened. Instantly, she felt Ty’s hand on her arm, cautioning her to remain still. Taking those precious seconds, Callie tried to calm herself. She had to pretend to be cool and disconnected emotionally—just as she had back at Annapolis. Somehow, it was tougher this time to force that cauldron of emotions to the place deep inside herself where she’d stored it through her academy days.

  Ty’s reassuring presence helped her walk, although her knees felt weak. Callie remembered that same feeling after the terrible incident at Annapolis.
For nearly six months after the fact she’d felt just this wobbly, and she wasn’t surprised the sensation had returned. Wasn’t she being attacked again despite all the official trappings?

  The three-person board sat at the front of the room on a raised dais of dark, highly polished maple. The commanders looked grim and somber in their summer white uniforms, not allowing an inkling of what they were feeling to show on their faces. The fluorescent lights made the rectangular room appear almost surrealistic to Callie. In the center stood a wooden chair, where the person being questioned would be seated. To the right was a row of chairs, extending from one end of the room to the other. A court stenographer, an enlisted Wave who had a yeoman-first-class rating, sat to the left of the tribunal. The Wave appeared to be in her early thirties and if Callie’s eyes didn’t deceive her, the blond-haired woman gave her a brief look of camaraderie.

  Ty guided Callie to the middle of the room. Remington and his gang had grabbed the chairs closest to the tribunal next to the window. That was fine by him; he wanted the center, where he could see everyone’s faces, including those of the board. He was mildly surprised that Remington wasn’t in his usual top form, tossing verbal innuendos and giving Callie—or for that matter, the yeoman—leering looks. Obviously his counsel, Jason Lewis, the retired navy attorney, had been teaching him more proper manners in order to win the case. Well, it wasn’t going to work if Ty could help it.

  As Callie sat down, Ty spotted Dr. Johnson at the door. He straightened and gestured for her to come in. The woman was in her early fifties, with streaks of silver among the dark strands of her short hair. Compared to the spit-and-polish image of everyone else in the room, Dr. Johnson seemed like a colorful, beautiful flower. She wore a ballet-length hot pink cotton skirt and a tasteful Venetian white blouse with a bright yellow blazer over it.

  Ty curbed a smile as he saw Remington’s eyes nearly pop out of his head at the appearance of the slender, beautiful Dr. Johnson. Remington caught himself only after Lewis jabbed him discreetly in the ribs with his elbow. Instantly the pilot jerked his head around, feigning ignorance of Dr. Johnson’s dramatic entrance. As Ty walked over and extended his hand to the psychiatrist, he didn’t miss the interest in the faces of the three commanders who composed the tribunal. Everything about Marlene Johnson was movement—from her long, flowing skirt to the drape of her oversize blazer and the colorful scarf that trailed halfway to the floor from around her neck. Tasteful gold earrings and a choker necklace emphasized her dancing, brown eyes as she smiled and gripped Ty’s hand.

  “Good morning, Commander. I’m a bit late. Traffic.”

  “You’re right on time,” he murmured. “Come and sit down next to Lieutenant Donovan.”

  Dr. Johnson smiled at Callie as she sat down. “You look ready,” she told her in a low, confident voice.

  Callie felt every set of eyes in the room on them. Whether it was true or not, she didn’t dare look up to find out. Instead, she focused on Dr. Johnson’s undeniable warmth and upbeat greeting. “I’m glad, because I have to be.”

  “You’ll do fine. Just remember my coaching.”

  Callie nodded. In the last two days, Dr. Johnson had spent several hours with Callie and Ty, prepping them for responses to the charges that were sure to come, the denials and the accusations from the pilots. As far as Callie was concerned, Dr. Johnson was a role model for all women, with the unmistakable freedom she exuded and the irrepressible vitality in her eyes and voice. Calie felt dead in comparison; she had come close to telling Dr. Johnson about Annapolis, about that other dark period in her life. At the last moment, though, she’d backed out, fearful that she’d be judged harshly.

  “Attention!” the guard announced in a loud, rolling voice.

  Everyone came to attention except Dr. Johnson.

  “At ease,” Commander Newton, the head of the tribunal, said. He cracked the gavel once, the sound echoing like a shot through the room. Newton, who had gray hair and caterpillarlike eyebrows, shot a look in Ty’s direction.

  “Commander Ballard, please present Lieutenant Donovan’s case. You may call any witnesses or corroborative testimony that you feel supports her charges of sexual harassment.”

  Ty rose and moved smoothly to the center of the room, notepad in hand. “Thank you, sir. I’d like to call Dr. Marlene Johnson, psychiatrist, to the stand.”

  Callie watched Dr. Johnson move as lightly as a feather on the wind. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Remington’s face take on that familiar hungry look as the psychiatrist moved to the chair, then repeated the oath to tell the truth that the yeoman read to her. Disgust filled her. As Ty began to ask Dr. Johnson to explain her background as an internationally recognized expert on sexual harassment, Callie divided her attention between Ty and the doctor, and the pilots who sat stoic and emotionless.

  “Dr. Johnson, I know that most men will say that sexual harassment is harmless fun,” Ty said, glancing over at the wall of pilots. “What is your psychological assessment?”

  “First of all,” the doctor replied in a low, husky tone, “there are a number of common attitudes expressed by the victimizer. I won’t go into those just yet, but I want this board to realize that unwanted sexual attentions hurt the victim. It’s not a targetless game that’s being played. Harassment can’t exist without a target at which it is aimed, and the goal is to inflict attention that isn’t wanted by the woman—in this case, Lieutenant Donovan.”

  “But,” Ty said, playing devil’s advocate, “I’m sure these officers are going to tell you that it’s harmless attention, not meant to hurt anyone.”

  Marlene Johnson became grim. She aimed her index finger at the pilots. “I’d like to remind everyone in this room that the offender or offenders are not the ones capable of defining who is and is not hurt. Only the victim is.”

  Smiling inwardly, Ty nodded. Score one for their side. He saw the tribunal react to Johnson’s logic. “Be kind enough to outline for all of us, Doctor, the various levels of sexual harassment.”

  “First,” Marlene said briskly, touching her index finger to begin the count, “there is what is known as ‘nonaggressive appreciation.’ In a layperson’s terms, it’s called aesthetic appreciation. What this means is that the harasser has a physical or sexual appreciation of the target. He sets himself up to be superior in that he’s judging the target’s physical attributes. Another course of action he may take is to trivialize the target’s professionalism by making comments about the target’s physical or sexual attributes. This is often done by the harasser when a lot of men are around, and the target is outnumbered.”

  “Can you give us an example of this?”

  “Sure. If one of these men says, ‘Lieutenant Donovan, you look great in your uniform,’ that’s harassment.”

  “Why?”

  “Because no male officer would go up to another male officer and say, ‘You look great in your uniform.’ To do so would be to risk his heterosexual reputation.” She smiled a little as the pilots moved uncomfortably. “The key here is that it’s harassment if you can’t say it to either gender. In other words, you are singling out an individual and being discriminatory, no matter how harmless the compliment may seem to the harasser.”

  “And the second level?” Ty prompted. He glanced over at Callie, who looked wan and tense.

  “It’s a more aggressive level of borderline sexual harassment and is termed ‘active mental groping.’ Things such as continual staring at the target, or at some part of her anatomy, such as her breasts or legs, is an example of this type of harassment in action. Or the harasser may stand over or behind the woman in order to look down the front of her blouse or dress. That’s the nonverbal type. The verbal type would say something like, ‘What you need is a good lay to straighten you out.’”

  Ty saw Remington wince. Good, he thought, again wanting to smile. The bastard should know what he’d been doing for so many years. “And the third level, Dr. Johnson?”

  “‘Social
touching.’ Harassment goes from being nonverbal or verbal to actual physical touching of the target. At this level, men deliberately plot to rub up against or come up behind their target. They’ll catch her in the elevator and purposely bump into her, but it will look like an accident. Of course, it’s not. Another determining aspect of this is how it feels to the target—friendly versus sensual. Of course, the harasser always intends a sensual touch.”

  “And the fourth level?”

  Marlene crossed her legs. “This is the stage where the harasser becomes bolder and moves beyond ‘accidental’ touching, actively and purposefully going out of his way to make deliberate contact. This man will drape his arm around the woman and then brush his hand along the side of her breast. Or, if his hand is resting on her waist, he’ll inch it up toward her breast or down across her buttocks to get a ‘feel.’ The harasser will deliberately touch her breast without seemingly doing anything improper—again, as if it were accidental.”

  “There’s a great deal of deliberateness about the harasser doing this, isn’t there, Doctor?”

  “Actually,” she responded with a grimace, “I equate a harasser of this variety as a predator knowingly and consciously stalking his intended victim. It’s not casual. It’s not accidental. It’s planned from start to finish.”

  “And the final level, Doctor. What kind of harasser is he?”

  “Actually, there are two types in the last category, Commander. The fifth level is what is considered taboo social behavior, such as grabbing and trying to kiss his target, groping for her breasts and not being deterred no matter what she does to stop him. The physical attention is forced upon the target.”

  “And the last kind?”

  “The worst,” Marlene Johnson muttered. “The sixth-level harasser, in effect, tells the target to go to bed with him, or put out in some way, or lose her job. In essence, it is physical and/or psychological rape of the target. She has to give this sick harasser sex and keep quiet about what he’s doing to her, or she won’t get a raise, a promotion, or even keep her job.”