Then someone else came through with fresh rumors.… The passageway officially had no special designation on the ship’s deck plans. It was simply Frame 184, starboard side, connecting a maintenance access corridor to one of the main interior routes beneath the flight deck of the USS Gerald R. Ford. But nobody called it that. To the crew, it was Broadway. It was too narrow for the name, too low-ceilinged, too full of pipes, cable trays, and the permanent metallic smell of machinery. But it was the one place aboard where people from every department collided—sometimes literally. Radar operators passed cooks carrying inventory sheets. aviation ordnancemen squeezed past electricians. Deck crew, still smelling of jet fuel and hydraulic fluid, leaned against the bulkhead beside operations officers who hadn’t seen daylight in twelve hours. And tucked just off Broadway, behind a maintenance recess near a ventilation access hatch, was a...