Sea of Fire (34 page)

“Paul, I
created
the friggin’ adverse circumstances!” Herbert went on. “You want a list of do-nots that I would have reamed a newbie for? I did not case the site. I went to the wrong phone. And I gave the subject an overview of what we know without getting anything back except a vague confirmation that our suspicions were correct.”

“This isn’t lab science,” Hood pointed out. “You took a huge risk against staggering odds.”

“That’s what the best is supposed to do, and my job title says I’m supposed to be one of the best,” Herbert replied. “The best are also supposed to do one thing more. They’re supposed to succeed.”

“This is just one battle in the war,” Hood replied. “And I’m not so sure we lost it.”

“I’ve won battles before,” Herbert shot back. “This is not what victory feels like.”

Herbert was calling from his cell phone in the Humvee. FNO Loh and Paul Leyland had found the koala. They met Herbert in front of the mansion where they helped him down the stairs. The group left the grounds after conferring with Jelbart by phone. Herbert agreed with the warrant officer’s assessment. Jelbart felt that Darling’s armed guards would be unusually aggressive after what happened. They unanimously decided that the best thing to do was return to the observation base and regroup. Herbert and Loh were sitting in the back. Leyland was driving. Little Maluka was asleep in the passenger’s seat.

“Bob, right now it doesn’t matter how we got here,” Hood said. “Let’s look at where we are and what we’re up against.”

“All right,” Herbert said and took a breath. That seemed to calm him somewhat. “We’re facing a world-class thug who knows he’s been found out. He also knows that at least one of his partners has been identified. And he knows that we have someone who may be able to ID the boat they used to carry the stolen nuclear material. He cannot be happy with any of that information.”

“Agreed. So what does he do?”

“First, he has to make his own involvement deniable,” Herbert said. “His phone records and financial transactions are probably clean. I’m betting it’s the same with bin Dahman and whoever else is involved. Darling has to assume the pirate is heavily guarded and that we already took from him whatever information we want. So he probably won’t bother going after him. The only place our boy’s immediately vulnerable is the boat.”

“We haven’t been able to find the other vessel involved in this transaction,” Hood said. “What chance do we have of finding this one? It may already have been hidden.”

“That’s very possible,” Herbert agreed. “But I want to find it. I
really
want to find it.”

“You want to get Jervis Darling,” Hood pointed out. “That isn’t the same thing.”

“It will be if we find the boat,” Herbert said. “Damn, I wish that pirate had seen something. At least we’d know what we were looking for.”

“You could have him hypnotized,” Hood suggested, half in desperate jest. “Maybe he’ll remember more.”

“That’s good for quitting smoking, not interrogation,” Herbert said.

“There is one thing,” Loh said.

“What’s that?” Herbert asked. “Paul, can you hear FNO Loh?”

“Barely,” Hood said.

Herbert held the cell phone between them. He asked the Singaporean to speak up.

“The pirates would not have attacked a much larger vessel,” Loh said loudly. “It’s night now. Small vessels tend to go to anchor.”

“How does that help us?” Herbert said. “There are probably a lot of small boats on the open sea.”

“This one would not be stopped,” she said. “If it’s out there, and Darling is afraid of being caught, he would have it running somewhere.”

“Good point,” Leyland contributed. “But that still leaves a lot of area to cover.”

“Not as much as you might think,” Herbert said. “Chances are pretty good the boat won’t be going toward Cairns. Darling won’t want that ship anywhere near him.”

“What if he wanted to hide it?” Hood asked. “What better place than his own facility?”

“That was probably the game plan before we showed up,” Herbert said. “Now, Darling would never risk it. If there is a hint of radioactivity on board that vessel, it’s as good as a fingerprint. We could identify the source from just a particle of material. Darling has to imagine that someone will come looking.”

“We should get our ships back out to sea,” Loh said.

“I agree,” Herbert said. “But we should also get the chopper in the air and run a zigzag search heading seaward. If the vessel is back, Darling may have to send it out again. Just so he isn’t caught. If it’s not back, it’s going to be racing to a safe haven somewhere else.”

“Is there any kind of electronic surveillance we can do from here?” Hood asked.

“I’m sure the transport vessel is in a silent running mode by now,” Herbert said.

“We can do a GPS sweep,” Loh said.

“Right,” Herbert agreed.

“I didn’t get that,” Hood said.

“Ask Stephen Viens to do a read on the global positioning satellite beacons in the region,” Herbert said.

“The satellites, not the receiver?” Hood asked.

“The receiver itself, on the boat, is a passive site. All it does is tap into a continuous beacon from three satellites—four if you’re adding altitude to the mix, which we are not. We can’t pinpoint the boat by looking for a specific ID number. What we can do, though, is watch for the beacons themselves and triangulate them. Viens will know what I mean. Have him run a scan every minute or so. If we’ve got someone who’s running at twenty-five knots or more, that will be worth looking into. Especially if they’re heading away from Cairns.”

“I like it,” Hood said.

Hood said he would have Viens’s office look into the GPS as soon as possible.

Herbert thanked him and hung up. Then he reached back and put the phone in his wheelchair. He felt a little bit better than before. At least they had a plan. And there was one thing an intelligence officer could always count on. Night was when vermin tended to move about.

“From what I’ve been hearing, that boat was armed,” Leyland said. “What if it has some kind of surface-to-air missiles? Your chopper has no defense. They won’t believe that Little Maluka got lost on his boardie.”

“His what?” Herbert asked.

“His board. Surfing.”

“You’re right,” Herbert said. “But if they shoot at us, we’ll know one thing for sure.”

“What’s that?” Leyland asked.

“We found the right boat.”

The phone beeped, and Hood snapped it up. He had just finished talking to Stephen Viens, who was rushing to the office. In his absence, weekend surveillance staffer Mary Timm was starting up the GPS sweep. It was not a complex operation, and the exchange officer was from the Communications Security Establishment of Canada’s Department of National Defence. That was the branch of government that analyzed and catalogued intercepted radio and various electronic emissions from other nations. The CSE liaised closely with both the United States and Great Britain’s SIGINT services.

“R. Clayton Herbert,” said the deep and smoky voice on the other end of the phone. “That’s Bob Herbert. He’s on your staff, isn’t he?” There was a hint of a Louisiana accent.

Hood did not like calls that opened with questions. Especially when the voice was not familiar. But the caller had access to Hood’s direct line. That meant he had high-level security clearance.

“Who is this?” Hood asked.

“Bruce Perry,” the caller replied.

Perry was the special assistant to the president for democratic elections. It was a post that monitored voting activities in foreign nations. Hood could not understand what Special Assistant Perry wanted with Herbert, or why he used that form of Herbert’s name. He did a GovScan search of Perry’s name. Those personnel files were little more than glorified résumés. They were available to officials who might need assistance in highly specialized areas.

“I don’t believe we’ve ever met,” Hood said, stalling while he scanned Perry’s file.

“You may be correct,” Perry replied. “But then, it isn’t my job to keep track of peoples’ activities.”

Oh,
Hood thought.
It’s going to be one of
those
kinds of conversations.
And then he spotted the reason Perry was calling. The sixty-four-year-old was a former ambassador to Australia.

“All right, Mr. Perry,” Hood said. “Yes, Bob Herbert is an officer here. You already knew that, or you wouldn’t be asking. What’s on your mind?”

“Mr. Herbert has just been to see Mr. Jervis Darling at his home,” Perry said. “You’ve heard of Jervis Darling?”

“I read newspapers,” Hood said. Darling had obviously wasted no time getting his puppets onstage.

“Newspapers do not tell the full story of this man,” Perry said.

“I’m sure of that.”

“Mr. Darling has put a substantial portion of his personal fortune into countless unheralded charitable activities, which include democratic advocacy programs,” Perry went on. “He is a rock in that region, and Mr. Herbert had no right to call on him.”

“In a democratic society we have all kinds of rights,” Hood pointed out.

“The right to privacy is chief among those,” Perry replied.

“Fair enough. I assume Mr. Darling called you. Did he say what Mr. Herbert was after?”

“He said there was some nonsense about misplaced nuclear waste,” Perry said, chuckling. “The idea that Mr. Darling would know anything about that is completely ridiculous.”

“Why?”

“Because, for one thing, Mr. Darling believes absolutely in the rule of law,” Perry said. He was no longer chuckling. “He also happens to be an extremely moral man.”

“Who may have had his wife murdered,” Hood said.

“Oh, Jesus Lord!” Perry said angrily. “Don’t tell me you believe that old smear!”

“Who would smear him?”

“He spent a great deal of money to find out,” Perry replied. “He discovered that the Singaporeans had spread that rumor to try to keep him from investing in liberal political causes over there. God, Hood. I was with Mr. Darling when he received word of his wife’s death. He was despondent. So was his daughter. The idea that he would have arranged it is frankly insulting.”

“Mr. Perry, I’m not going to dispute what you’ve told me,” Hood said. “Our information differs from yours.”

“Then you are misinformed.”

“You know something, Mr. Perry? I really hope so. I hope we’re wrong about everything from the homicide to the nuclear trafficking. I hope you’re doing this from deep conviction and a sense of honor.”

“Mr. Hood, in the presence of God himself I would swear to everything I told you.”

“You didn’t tell me anything other than your beliefs, not fact,” Hood pointed out. “But I thank you for sharing your perspective.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Hood. I’d like to share this as well,” Perry went on. “If Mr. Darling is bothered again without overwhelming evidence, charges will be brought against Mr. Herbert and yourself. Legal charges in Australia, ethics violations here.”

“Bruce, you should have quit before you trotted out the threats,” Hood said. “They always stink of guilt.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Perry told him. “You collect intelligence, Mr. Hood. This is intelligence. Use it.”

Perry hung up. Hood shook his head slowly as he replaced the phone. He jabbed the Delete key on his computer. That removed Perry’s file from his monitor. That was the problem with government dossiers. They gave you plenty of data but not the man.

Of course, what intelligence services called 2DD—two-dimensional data, facts without body or analysis—was only one of the problems with government service. What bothered Hood more was how officials had to battle the enemies without while fighting the enemies within even harder. The longer he stayed in public service, the more Hood became convinced that leaders were a burden to society. If they all went away, the people would do just fine. A leader could not be ambitious and still serve others. People were fortunate when the ambitions of a leader, like Lincoln, like Franklin Roosevelt, happened to coincide with the general good.

Hood took a moment to check with Mary Timm. She was already on her second sweep of the region. If someone was on the run, she was willing to bet that they were not using the GPS.

“Which could mean what?” Hood asked.

“That the subject is either very near to land and can sail by eye or compass. Or else they have no intention of going near land, in which case a navigational aid would be extraneous,” Mary replied.

That was not what Hood wanted to hear. He relayed the information to Herbert. The intelligence chief was unfazed.

“Any intelligence is useful,” Herbert replied. “Even if it eliminates possibilities.”

And there again was the paradox of government. Within just a few minutes, Hood’s enemy and his ally had both said virtually the same thing.

And they were both right.

Peter Kannaday’s injuries did not prevent him from leaving his cabin. He stayed there hour after hour out of shame.

The captain alternately stood by the porthole or lay on the bed. He replayed the attack endlessly, considering things he should have done. He thought back to the days leading to that point. He wished that he had willingly formed an alliance with Hawke instead of being minimized. To do so now would be cowardly. To have done so before the attack would have been wise. Unfortunately, wisdom was not always there when you needed it. He began to wonder, after several hours, if maybe that was the way it needed to be. Lying on his back in the dark, he thought of the biblical prophets who went into the wilderness. They made the journey in order to be pounded down by the sun and starvation. The prophets bought wisdom by taking on pain, loneliness, and doubt. But the knowledge and self-awareness they acquired came with something else. Something indispensable. It nested atop the fortified backbone they needed to apply it.