Sea of Fire (44 page)

“What made you say that?” he asked.

“Your voice sounds the same as it did when you told me Mommy had her accident,” the girl replied. “Are you going to her grave?”

“No,” Darling said. “There’s something else I have to do.” He helped her sit up as he eased from the seat. Still holding her hand, he had her stand on the cushion. “Give Daddy a hug,” he said as he put his arms around her.

She wrapped her lean arms around his shoulders and put her head on his chest.

Darling could smell the shampoo she had used the night before.
Apricot,
he thought. He remembered when Jessica-Ann was much younger. Her mother would frequently go out for the night, often longer, and he would give their daughter a bath. He would wash her hair. Then he would put her to bed. Now she was doing those things herself.

When had that happened?

What matters is that it did happen,
he told himself. That was the wonder of growth and evolution. It took place even without a global cataclysm.

Jervis Darling hugged Jessica-Ann tightly. The changes he had wanted for her world would not transpire. Or she would have to make them happen herself. Perhaps she would. She was his daughter. Darling had been stopped by a man whom he should never have underestimated. Herbert was a functionary. A gear in a machine. But he won, the same way the dinosaurs had been undermined by the tiny mammals that moved underfoot. Darling’s network would be uprooted and stopped. It was ironic. Here he was in his private jet, with the world before him. Yet there was really only one place for him to go.

Darling turned from his daughter without releasing her. He called quietly to Shawn Daniels. The pilot and copilot came over. Darling handed his daughter to the woman.

“I want you two to take her home,” Darling said.

“Yes, sir,” the pilot said. “Will there be anything else?”

Darling grinned humorously. “That remains to be seen.”

He walked them to the door and leaned close.

“Please back away,” someone said from inside the Learjet. “We’re coming out with Ms. Darling!”

Bob Herbert had reached the side of the jet. He and FNO Loh moved back several yards. The voice from inside had not belonged to Jervis Darling. Herbert looked along the fuselage at the five windows. He did not see Darling inside. He also did not imagine that Darling would be coming out with the others. Herbert realized what had struck him about Darling’s behavior a few minutes before. It was like the sudden arrival of the hurricane’s eye. This was not over. To the contrary. What was happening now had the feel of women and children being allowed to leave the Alamo before the final assault. But there was nothing Herbert could do. The girl and anyone else who wanted to leave had to be allowed to do so.

“I want my Daddy to come!”

Herbert’s eyes snapped back toward the door as it opened. His feeling had been accurate. Darling was letting the flight crew and his daughter go. Herbert glanced at the cockpit. Someone was moving inside. The intelligence chief bet it was Darling.

The stairs unfolded, and the pilot and copilot stepped out. The pilot was carrying Jessica-Ann. The girl was trying to see around him, into the plane. She was calling for her father.

Herbert heard a police siren over the howl of the jet engines and the beat of the helicopter rotor. They were coming to arrest Jervis Darling. That required Darling to be here.

Herbert was about to tell FNO Loh to rush the stairs. The woman was ahead of him, of course. As soon as the copilot stepped out, the naval officer maneuvered around her. The crew stepped aside as they made their way to the tarmac. Loh entered the cabin.

“He’s in the cockpit!” Herbert said.

Loh nodded. Herbert wheeled to the side so he could see her. She pounded on the door.

“Mr. Darling, we will not let you depart,” she said.

Herbert had watched the crew run off. They had hurried to the small, fenced-in parking lot. Darling’s driver was still there. He was probably instructed to wait until his employer was airborne before departing. Herbert was glad. He did not want Jessica-Ann to see this.

“Mr. Darling! Open the door!” Loh insisted.

Herbert turned back to the cockpit. He could see the top of Darling’s head. He was seated in the pilot’s seat.

The jet began to move.

“Officer Loh, get off!” Herbert cried.

The Singaporean officer continued to hit the cockpit door.

Herbert did not know whether Darling was playing chicken. Even if he managed to get past the helicopter and take off, he would have difficulty maintaining equilibrium with the door open. A jet that size would be impacted by sudden shifts in air pressure, by fluctuations in temperature.

That assumes Jervis Darling is thinking rationally,
Herbert thought. For the past few minutes, the Australian had been in the throes of a fight-or-flight response. Reason is not a strong component of that.

Herbert looked up at the helicopter. He gestured for the pilot to move in. The flier expertly maneuvered the chopper closer. He turned the aircraft perpendicular to the jet and lowered the port-side strut toward the windshield. Herbert could see the Learjet wings fluttering from the chopper’s downdraft. The jet continued to move forward, gaining speed. The two vehicles were about ten yards apart. They would collide in moments.

Herbert had never felt so helpless. He wanted to run onto the Learjet and help Officer Loh kick in the door. Instead, he rolled back as the two vehicles hit. The jet slowed with the impact but continued to move ahead. The helicopter was knocked slightly to its starboard. The rotor tilted precariously.

It was surreal, like watching a pair of prehistoric behemoths do battle. The pilot swung away and righted the helicopter. He rose in a tight arc and prepared to drop down again.

Herbert motioned aggressively for him to stop. As much as the intelligence chief wanted Darling, he did not want to damage the jet. Darling might still try to take off. Herbert wanted the man in prison, not in the morgue.

Someone came running from the tower. Two police cars were just entering the airstrip behind the jet. So was another vehicle, with a familiar driver. Paul Leyland was at the wheel with Spider riding the running board.

The fire brigade had been called by the tower, and a squat red rural Nissan Patrol Light Attack fire truck was racing forward. There was a 600-liter water tank mounted to the back. The Queensland firefighters used it to battle blazes away from hydrants.

And that was when Herbert got an idea.

The intelligence chief motioned to the chopper to try again to stop the jet. Herbert lowered his hands slowly, indicating a measured attack. It was risky, but he needed to delay Darling. As the chopper came down, Herbert wheeled quickly toward the fire truck.

“The hose!” Herbert yelled as he rushed past the wing of the Learjet. “Get the hose!”

Spider could not quite hear him. Herbert was dying. He reckoned that he had less than a minute to pull this off.

“We need the hose!” he shouted. He gestured broadly at the canvas hose, which was coiled on the side. Then he pointed to the wing of the Learjet.

Leyland sped up. He overtook the police car and came to a smoking stop beside Herbert.

“Hit the engine intake with water!” Herbert said.

Leyland obviously sized up the situation. He shot toward the Learjet. Herbert did likewise. He wanted to try to get Officer Loh out.

While the fire truck was in motion, Spider shimmied along the running board to the hose in back. Obviously, his ability to cling to the side of a moving vehicle had helped him earn his name. He unhooked the hose, pressed the button to open the tank, and climbed the ladder to the top of the tank. He stood on a small platform there. As the truck neared, Spider leaned forward at a forty-five-degree angle. When the truck was within two hundred meters of the jet, Spider flipped a switch at the base of the nozzle. He pointed the hose toward the rear-mounted engine. Water shot from the hose so forcefully that Spider ended up standing erect. The powerful spray smashed into the back of the jet engine.

The jet was well ahead of Herbert; he was not going to get to it in time. The water was sucked through the superheated turbine. It turned to steam, simultaneously cooling the internal metal components. The engine cracked audibly and crisply, like nearby thunder. Smoke mingled with the wispier steam, first from the front and back and then from cracks in the side. A moment later, shards of silver and white metal shot from the front and back of the engine. Then the engine casing itself burst like a hot dog on a grill. The jet lurched, hopped slightly on the port side, but continued to move forward. The helicopter had approached more cautiously this time. It kept the jet back with repeated nudges rather than a single hit. It was a more successful means of keeping the aircraft from gaining speed.

Spider left the smoking husk and turned his spray on the starboard engine.

That turbine spat and sizzled as had the first one. Herbert continued to wheel himself toward the jet. From this angle, Herbert could see flames lighting up the interior of the starboard engine. They must be coming from a split casing of some kind. They flared for only a moment before the water smothered them. A moment later, the second engine ruptured with a single loud bang. Spider killed the hose as the casing peeled from the center outward, the top and bottom pointing toward the fuselage. The jet coasted for a moment, then angled toward the tower and stopped. Both engines were still smoking, the white smoke turning black.

Spider redirected the hose to the first engine. While he did, Leyland stopped the truck and jumped out. A small oxygen tank and mask were slung over his shoulder. He reached the stairs a moment before Herbert did. They had dragged along the tarmac and were cracked along the bottom. Leyland bolted inside. The cabin was filling with dirty white smoke. Herbert could not see anything.

The next few seconds seemed to pass in slow motion. The helicopter moved away from the jet and set down on the landing strip. Warrant Officer Jelbart emerged and ran forward. The police car arrived. Two officers in sharp blue uniforms emerged. One of them was using his portable radio to summon an ambulance. The air traffic controller arrived, breathless and waving his undone shirtsleeves and shouting profanities. But all Herbert could hear was the dying hiss of the engines. All he could see was the wide, open door of the jet.

Finally, Leyland emerged from the smoke. He was alone. He backed down the steps, peering at the interior.

Urgently, Herbert wheeled himself forward. “Paul, what’s wrong?” he demanded.

Before Leyland could answer, Monica Loh emerged from the roiling cloud. Jervis Darling was beside her. His arm was thrown around her shoulder, and his head was nodding forward. Leyland remained in front of the barely conscious man as Loh walked him down the stairs.

When they reached the tarmac, Leyland and one of the police officers took Jervis Darling from FNO Loh. They carried him to the police car and lay him on the backseat.

Herbert went over to Loh. He scooted sideways on his seat and offered her a corner to sit on. She declined. Her face was covered with sweat. It seemed to make her dark eyes shine even more brightly. As Jelbart arrived, Loh looked at the shattered engines, then down at Herbert.

“That was a very clever backup plan,” she said breathlessly.

“Backup plan?” Herbert said. “What do you mean?”

“I finally got the door open,” she said with the faintest trace of a smile. “Jervis Darling was not going anywhere.”

Herbert loved this woman. God, how he loved her.

“I’m not sure which took the larger hit,” Lowell Coffey said to Paul Hood over the telephone. “Jervis Darling’s Learjet or Australian statutes for crime and misconduct.”

“How bad is it?” Hood asked.

“For us? Pretty favorable, actually,” Coffey said. “I took Leyland’s car and only just got to the airport, so I’m still catching up. Basically, the Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission has taken over this case from the local police. They’re flying in an assistant commissioner to investigate.”

“Because of Darling’s involvement?”

“Partly that, but mostly due to the nature of the charges,” Coffey said. “Jelbart briefed them by phone. They’re classifying the destruction of the jet and the attack on the airfield as a single action, and attributing it jointly to the Queensland fire team, Op-Center, the Republic of Singapore Navy, and the Maritime Intelligence Centre.”

“Good God.”

“Yes, but having everyone named is good for us,” Coffey said. “It gives weight to the idea we’ll be putting forth, that there was probable cause to detain the jet. It’s also good that the QCMC is classifying this as a ‘reactive’ investigation, which is a fancy term for ‘after the fact.’ That suggests there may be a valid reason for what we did. It’s not quite as extreme, but it’s like stopping a guy who enters a bank wearing a ski mask and carrying a gun. The act is not considered a crime. It’s called a contravention.”

“I follow,” Hood said.

“The best news is, the QCMC is also responsible for overseeing the transport of hazardous materials through the area. Based on Warrant Officer Jelbart’s report, they’re instituting what they call a ‘proactive’ investigation into the smuggling activities.”

“Which means what, exactly?” Hood asked.

“Basically, it means they can hold Hawke on Jelbart’s say-so,” Coffey said. “They’ve got him in the hospital. He hit his head at some point on the flight to Cairns. It seems he was the only one not wearing a seat belt when the chopper went into some kind of dive.”

This was an open line, so Hood did not say what was on his mind. Not that he had to say it. He was sure the same thought was on Coffey’s mind.