Sea of Fire (20 page)

“Ideally, yes,” Coffey said. “The question is how.”

“That’s something Op-Center is going to have to look at a lot more carefully, Lowell,” Hood said. “We need more comprehensive human intelligence and preventative interference.”

“You mean profiling and spying on your neighbor,” Coffey said. “We become the sociopaths we behold.”

“I’ll trust our civilized nature to keep that from happening,” Hood said.

“If nothing else, that puts you on the high road,” Coffey said. “Right now all that seems to get you is a better vantage point from which to watch all the fighting and destruction.”

“I hate to say this, but you’re sounding like Bob now,” Hood noted.

“Frustration will do that,” Coffey said.

“Only if you let it,” Hood said. “Meanwhile, I’ll let you know when I hear from Bob.”

“Okay,” Coffey said. “You know, maybe it’s just the nausea talking. I’ll try to hold tighter to my optimism.”

“Thanks. We can use some of that,” Hood said.

The attorney clicked off the phone. For a moment he felt like he did when he used to listen to a closing argument on behalf of a defendant he knew was guilty. He felt virtuous in theory but crafty in practice.

Coffey sat, this time more slowly. He felt a little better now, proving that seasickness was to some degree a state of mind. As long as he did not pay it attention, he was fine.

Too bad all our problems don’t go away when we ignore them,
Coffey thought.

He rose cautiously and opened the door. The seaman was waiting outside. Coffey gave him the phone and thanked him. Then the attorney followed him to the bridge. He walked closer to port side so that when the vessel rolled, he could simply lay a shoulder against the wall and slide forward.

The more he thought about it, the more Coffey realized what his problem was.

He had joined the National Crisis Management Center to help keep it honest, as it were. To keep it from becoming unaccountable, in case the leadership ever moved in the direction of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. Despite his own protests and resistance, however, Coffey knew that Hood was right. More needed to be done to protect lawful people and nations. And that protection had to come from places like Op-Center. Bob Herbert had once described it as the cowcatcher that guarded the rushing locomotive. Op-Center was uniquely equipped to position itself between progress and disaster. It had men like Darrell McCaskey, Mike Rodgers, and Bob Herbert to share experience in police work, the military, and intelligence. There were technical geniuses like Matt Stoll and the seasoned staff psychologist Liz Gordon. It had communications experts, political professionals, and an authority on satellite reconnaissance. Coffey knew international law. And Paul Hood was a skillful manager who knew how to synthesize all these talents.

If Hood were looking for order, Coffey was holding too tightly to it. Not all the answers were found in law books. Sometimes they were found in people. And he knew that this was a team of good people.

Hood was right when he said he would trust in their civilized qualities to keep abuses from happening. That thought made Coffey proud, and that pride was what had lifted his spirits.

The challenge was great. But there was one thing more important than that. Something they could not afford to forget.

The challenge was far from hopeless.

Surprise was a wonderful but dangerous thing.

Whether giving or receiving, surprise was short-lived, explosive, and directed. Wielded deftly, it was an intelligence operative’s greatest tool. It was also valuable as “incoming.” Knowing there might be danger behind a door or around a corner or even at the other end of a telephone kept an agent sharp. Being unready for it could be lethal. Bob Herbert had learned that in Beirut. Since then, he had no trouble ramping up to high alert.

That zero-to-sixty acceleration was one of the qualities Bob Herbert cherished most about intelligence work. He did not have to know what time it was. He did not necessarily have to know where he was. All Herbert needed to know was who or what the target was. Once he had that goal, exhaustion, discomfort, and even lust slipped away. If he had not gotten into the intelligence game, Bob Herbert felt that he would have made a helluva chess grand master.

Matt Stoll got the colonel’s home phone number for Herbert. Stoll did not even have to slip into the North Korean People’s Army classified phone directory. The number was attached to an intelligence research file included with the
North Korea Advisory Group Report to the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives
from 1999.

“I’ve learned to search our own government databases before going to others,” Stoll said.

If the number didn’t work, Stoll said he would take the next, longer step to get it.

Herbert would have preferred verification up front. But he also wanted to get this done as quickly as possible. He had suffered through a traditional bomb attack. If the Beirut terrorists had possessed nuclear material, he and thousands of others would not be alive today.

While he waited, Herbert booted his wheelchair computer. He plugged the phone into a jack with two cables. He jacked one back into the aircraft comm system and the other into his computer. He activated the transcription interface, a program that would simultaneously create a typed recording of their conversation. Herbert also practiced speaking in as deep a monotone as possible. Herbert was not sure of the nationality of the individual who had spoken to Hwan. He wanted his voice to be as geographically neutral as possible. Accents were less about the spin given to vowels and consonants than about cadence and pitch. The deeper and flatter a voice, the less identifiable it would be.

Herbert’s headset was still jacked into the aircraft’s secure phone line. He input Colonel Hwan’s number. The phone beeped several times before someone answered.

“Hwan,” said a man with a high, nasal voice. There was a long moment before the man spoke. That meant he had lifted the receiver, then had to get into position to use it. Probably because he was in bed.

“We need more coverage,” Herbert said. His voice was like a bow being drawn across a bass cello. And his goal was to keep the conversation in the third person singular. Herbert needed names.

“I’m in bed,” Hwan said.

“We need it now,” Herbert replied.

“You cannot have it now,” Hwan replied. “And who is this? You are not Marcus.”

“Marcus took ill. You know how it is here.”

Hwan said nothing.

“He’s been working too many hours, like everyone else on this damn project,” Herbert added.

Again, Hwan did not bite. Perhaps the North Korean did not know what the project was.

“I’m Marcus’s backup, Alexander Court,” Herbert said. Court was the author of a novel Herbert had seen lying in the crew bay. He liked the sound of the name. Good pseudonym. “What about it, Colonel? Can we count on your help just one more time?”

“Alexander, remind Mr. Hawke that I agreed to give him one look,” Hwan said. “I cannot afford to do more at this time. Don’t make me go to his superior, Mr. Court.”

“Maybe you should go to the boss,” Herbert pressed. “Hawke has been making all our lives miserable.”

“I suggest you complain to him yourself,” Hwan said.

“He would never take my calls,” Herbert said. He was pushing Hwan, trying to get a name.

“I doubt he would take mine either, even if I knew how to reach him,” Hwan said. “Good night, Mr. Court.”

“Colonel Hwan, will you reconsider if the boss himself calls?” Herbert asked.

“It would depend on what he has to offer,” Hwan said. “If he is willing to part with one of his Sisters, I might consider it.” He said that with a laugh.

“Which one?” Herbert asked.

“His choice,” Hwan said.

The connection was cut.

Herbert sat still for a long moment. He felt drained. He had not gotten everything he had hoped for, but he had gotten something. An uncommon first name, Marcus. A surname, Hawke. The fact that Hwan had attached a “Mr.” to it suggested strongly that it was not a code name, “hawk” without the
e.
And they were all working for a secretive, tough-to-reach figure who had more than one sister. Possibly young, apparently wealthy.

He unplugged the phone and logged on to the Internet. He forwarded the transcript to Hood and Coffey. Then he did a word search of
Marcus, Hawke, sisters.

The words showed up in the same place, but in each case they were unrelated. There was an on-line bookstore with author Nigel Hawke, a biography of Marcus Aurelius, and a novel called
The Lost Sisters
. There were sports pages with a Hawke’s Bay soccer team, the tennis-playing Williams sisters, and a basketball player named Marcus Fowler.

“It was too much to hope that I might catch a break,” he muttered.

Herbert checked
Marcus
and
Hawke
separately. There were over four thousand references for each, too many to check. He decided to add geography to the search. He entered
Marcus, Hawke, sisters, Malaysia,
then replaced Malaysia with North Korea, North Korea with Indonesia, then Indonesia with Singapore. He still did not get a single link for even two of the entries.

Then Herbert increased his geographical search. He included Australia, followed by New Zealand. What he found in New Zealand was unexpected.

A surprise.

A good one.

Peter Kannaday remained on deck as the
Hosannah
sailed swiftly toward its rendezvous. He used to love this feeling of his yacht slashing through the water. It made him feel powerful and free. He had seldom done this at night due to the risk of collision. But with the radar and sonar equipment Darling had paid to install, darkness was no longer a problem.

Kannaday leaned against the port-side railing, his legs spread wide to help him keep his balance. He was pouring black coffee from a thermos. His hair was thick with sweat, and the strong wind chilled his scalp. The perspiration on his head and neck was partly from the hot coffee and partly from a sense that he was lost. He was no longer the captain of his fate or even his own ship. The professional seaman was not accustomed to feeling adrift.

Or frightened. But he was that, too.

Kannaday had spent his life on the ocean. Below its surface was nothing but mystery. He had always accepted that. And it was never a problem as long as he stayed above the water. Yet he was just becoming aware of how much of the rest of the world was hidden from view. Some of it was mundane, like hot coffee inside a thermos. Some of it was more threatening.

Like a knife concealed in a wommera,
he thought.
Or radiation in a lead case. Even Jervis Darling at his estate.

Also hidden were the true loyalties of men. Especially those who served with him, it seemed.

The captain had been awake for nearly forty hours. Tired as he was, however, he would not go to sleep. First, there was a job to finish. Captain Kannaday did not want to rest until the cargo had been delivered and he had reported that to Darling. He was also determined to stay on deck. If the yacht were approached by any of the military patrols investigating the 130-5 site, he wanted to be on hand and ready to talk with them.

The second reason Kannaday had stayed on deck was more important. And also more personal. It was because of John Hawke and his security team. Perhaps exhaustion was influencing his perception to some degree. But over the past few hours it seemed as though the kingdoms of the two men, like their crews, had become clearly defined. The security personnel and belowdecks belonged to Hawke. The upper deck and the seamen belonged to Kannaday. The communications center was neutral. No one had actually said as much. It was all in the looks, in the attitude of the crew, in the places men did and did not go. They bonded like pockets of algae around a rock.

Kannaday wondered how much of the tension was due to the strain between himself and Hawke. Most, he suspected. He doubted Hawke would have said anything about their confrontation. Perhaps the men had heard it. Or maybe they sensed it. A sailor who could not sniff a change in the wind, feel a shift in the rolling deck, did not survive for long.

But some of the tension also had to be due to their cargo. The events of the past two days had reminded them just how dangerous it was. Kannaday had visited the laboratory once to watch the entire purification process. Those spent nuclear reactor fuel rods, black and glittering, were among the deadliest materials on earth. They were terrifying, beautiful, and curiously sensuous, like a rattle-snake or a black widow spider. If someone were exposed to one, death would be extremely unpleasant. Kannaday had read up on radiation sickness before accepting this assignment. A brief exposure to low-dosage radiation, between 50 and 200 rads, would cause mild headaches. The same exposure to 500 or so rads would cause headaches, nausea, exhaustion, and hair loss. With exposure to 1,000 rads, individuals would suffer vomiting, diarrhea, and complete exhaustion within an hour of exposure. The cells of the body would begin to break down, and a painful death would result within thirty days.

Fortunately, the scientists who had been processing a previous delivery in the laboratory had been wearing protective garments. And the few particles of radium torn away by the blast had been carried outward by smoke from the resulting blaze. The lab workers assured Kannaday that any exposure their own people had suffered was well under fifty rads. The crew took showers to clean off whatever particles they may have picked up. There were no reports of illness.

Still, it was clear now that the potential for catastrophe was ever present. And the nature of the danger magnified the fear of the crew. There was no defense against this foe. Once released, it was invisible and unstoppable.