Sea of Fire (25 page)

Hawke stepped in very close. He put the heel of his left palm against Kannaday’s chin and began to push up slowly. The captain’s head went back. Kannaday’s gaze shifted from Hawke’s angry eyes to the low ceiling of the corridor. He felt the muscles tense along his shoulders and upper arms. The pressure was cutting off his air. He tried to draw breath around the rag in his mouth. Nothing was getting through. He began to feel claustrophobic, panicky. If Hawke pushed back any farther, his neck would snap.

Kannaday resisted. He began to struggle again.

“You want to breathe,” Hawke said. “Let me help.”

Hawke released Kannaday’s chin. He stepped back and punched the captain hard in the gut. Kannaday could not help but breathe then. He sucked air through his nose and around the rank cloth. Hawke moved in on him again. He hit Kannaday with a roundhouse right to the jaw. It struck so hard that the cloth flew halfway from the captain’s mouth. Kannaday snatched more air through his nose and mouth as he took another blow to the belly, a hard left. Hawke stepped in as he delivered it, twisting at the waist. At the same time he drew the other elbow back, tucked tight against his ribs. That gave the twist extra snap. Hawke knew how to drive the blows in. He knew how to make them hurt.

When he was younger, Kannaday had been in a number of dockside brawls. But those always ended up on the floor and consisted mostly of grappling and clawing. He had never been given a beating. Kannaday’s jaw throbbed, and his ears were pounding. He was nauseated from the blows to the abdomen. His shoulders burned from the strong fingers of the man behind him.

A left uppercut rocked Kannaday’s head back. He could actually feel his brain bump the top of his skull. His teeth bit through the cloth and snapped on his tongue. He tasted blood. The bone of his lower jaw literally rang, and the ringing spread to his limbs. If the men had not been holding him up, he would have fallen. Kannaday’s jaw continued ringing as Hawke followed the uppercut with a right back fist to the mouth. Kannaday’s head slumped to his right shoulder. His hurt tongue flopped over dislocated teeth. His eyelids sagged.

Hawke stepped in again. He grabbed Kannaday’s aching chin and squeezed. The pain forced the captain’s eyes to open.

“This is just the beginning of your tutorial,” Hawke said.

He kneed Kannaday very low in the belly. Twice. The gag fell entirely from the captain’s mouth now. So did thick drops of saliva mixed with blood. Hawke ignored the bloody spittle dripping onto his hand. He slapped him hard with his left hand. Against the right ear. Then Hawke cocked his left arm and jabbed a fist square into Kannaday’s right eye. He drew his fist back and hit him in the mouth. Kannaday felt his lips split.

“Now, Captain,” Hawke said. “Do I have your attention?”

Kannaday’s head was drumming. His face felt hot wherever skin touched bone. He had only a greasy view from his right eye. All he could hear was his own rapid heartbeat and strained breathing.

Hawke was still holding the captain’s chin. He moved his mouth close to Kannaday’s left ear.

“I asked you a question,” Hawke said.

Kannaday’s chest was still bleeding from the wound inflicted earlier by the wommera. He was dizzy from the loss of blood and dazed from the beating. All he could manage was a weak nod.

“Good. Here is how the rest of this enterprise will play out,” Hawke said. “You will stay in your cabin until we reach Cairns. Then you will go to the chief and tell him that the mission was successfully completed. When he asks why you look the way you do, you will tell him we had a disagreement.”

Kannaday attempted to speak. He could not even move his mouth. It felt as though everything had been pulped together: tongue, teeth, lips. Instead, he just shook his head.

Hawke kneed him again, this time in the groin. Bloody spittle flew from Kannaday’s broken lips. Hawke continued to lean close.

“We can keep this going for as long as you want,” Hawke told him. “In the end, you will do what I ask.”

Kannaday managed to exhale something that sounded like the word he intended. “Why?”

“Why?” Hawke asked. “Because if you tell him that you walked into another ambush, he will regard you as an ineffective commander. He will dispose of you, and I will get your job. Only I do not want it, Captain. I like having one man on the plank in front of me. I am only interested in money.” Hawke moved back slightly. “Our friend Marcus will corroborate your story. He likes the way things are now, having to report to Uncle Jervis every now and then. I do not think he would enjoy serving a real captain.”

Hawke had spoken slowly and clearly. Kannaday had heard all the words. But they were confusing. The captain had never known a man to fight for anonymity and a subordinate position.

“I would like to take you to your cabin,” Hawke said. “My men will see that you are cleaned and patched up. But I want to make certain that we have an understanding this time, Captain.”

Hawke’s voice seemed to be echoing now. Kannaday had to fight to pick up the words.

“G-good,” Kannaday said. It was the only word he could manage without using his lips or tongue. He was not sure anyone heard. He felt himself drifting. His good eye shut.

Hawke was still holding Kannaday’s chin. He pinched hard. “Good?” Hawke repeated. “Then you agree?”

Kannaday nodded once. Hawke released his chin. The captain’s head dropped so that his right ear was facing the ground. A moment later he felt his legs being lifted. He was being carried astern.

There was something oddly comforting about being semiconscious. Kannaday was living from second to second. He was preoccupied with pain. He had no responsibility other than to ride it out. The moments when the hurt subsided, even slightly, were almost euphoric. A part of him was actually grateful to the men who were carrying him.

A Marshall Plan for Peter Kannaday,
the captain thought with lightheaded detachment.
First we break you down, and then we build you back up.

Awareness came in short flashes. Kannaday was in the hall. Then he was in his cot. Then he was being bandaged and wiped down with a damp cloth. It felt refreshing but hurt at the same time. He realized that he was passing out and then waking as the men ministered to his wounds.

Finally, everything was silent and still. The pain was there, but it seemed distant.

As he lay there, Kannaday heard a soft buzz behind him. He recognized the sound. It was the engine of the launch. The crew must be heading to the fishing vessel. Or maybe they were returning. He had no idea how much time had passed. Perhaps he had been down here longer than he thought. In any case, Kannaday needed to get on deck to make sure the delivery went as planned. He was still the captain. Even the mutinous Hawke had said that much.

Hawke,
Kannaday thought suddenly. Dreamlike memories of the beating came back to him. So did the rage he had felt when Hawke’s men first grabbed him.

The captain should have killed the mutinous bastard when he had the opportunity. He would get the gun from his desk and kill him now. Marcus had betrayed the captain, too. Kannaday could not kill the boss’s nephew. But he could lock the privileged little bastard in the radio room until they reached Cairns. Jervis Darling would understand that.

The captain sat up. As he did, his head imploded. The act of moving had reignited the beating. Hot prickles raced from Kannaday’s forehead to his temples and down his neck into his spine. His flesh caught fire, and he was immediately sickened by the iron-rust taste of blood in his mouth. Kannaday shouted and shot back onto the cot. He breathed quickly, squeezing his eyes shut and whimpering as he tried to ride out the pain.

No one came to him. No one spoke. He listened past the blood that was surging through his ears.

He was alone.

Before Lowell Coffey turned in for the night, he phoned Bob Herbert. Coffey brought Herbert up to date on the latest development involving Jervis Darling. The veteran intelligence officer was not surprised by the idea that Darling might be involved in this undertaking. It was not the power-corrupts bromide that influenced Herbert. It was what Herbert called the big-shot syndrome. The idea that coin itself was no longer the coin of the realm. Resources were. He had tracked the phenomenon from his childhood, when the people who had color television sets were big shots. You went to their house to watch
Bonanza
or
Star Trek
or
King Leonardo
cartoons. Less than a decade later, oil became the prized commodity. Everyone wanted it. The Arabs had it. They became big shots. Kids in the early eighties who had Atari Pac-Man cartridges or Cabbage Patch Dolls were the talk of the class. Shortly after that, the Japanese had the technology everyone wanted. Enter the new generation of
bigeru shotsu.
Money was irrelevant. People would pay whatever it cost to get what the newest grand panjandrum was peddling.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, high-grade nuclear materials became the hottest coin in the world. Just like the kid with a PlayStation 2, the person who had enriched uranium or plutonium or a nuclear weapon itself could be a star, if only for a moment. Herbert remembered thinking how a few years back atom bombs had briefly been the codpiece of India and Pakistan. One blew up a plain and hogged the headlines, the other blew up a mountain and did the same. Gross national product, religion, starvation, and disease just did not matter then. For those few days, big booming bombs was it. Megatonnage made you the Tom Cruise of the international stage.

Someone accustomed to wealth and control would find nuclear material irresistible. With it, he was a player. Knowing where it was, he was safe. Without it, he was simply an observer who could be erased along with every other pawn on the chessboard. That would definitely not appeal to a man like Jervis Darling. He liked to be a big shot.

Unfortunately, Darling
was
a big shot. Herbert downloaded gigabytes of data and read up on him. Darling had security, influence, money. He controlled international corporations that could be used to shift money and hide people and deeds. He also had the world’s largest private collection of prehistoric fossils.

“The guy likes to remind himself what happens to giants who don’t adapt,” Herbert mused.

Worse than that, Darling was a beloved big shot. He was the Australian dream made flesh.

The hours raced by as Herbert sat in his little cubicle in the heart of the plane. As the engine roared and the sky brightened, Herbert consumed data as if he were a pigeon at an outdoor bake sale. He flitted from file to file, snagging a crumb of information here, another there. Everything Herbert read confirmed his initial suspicion: that this kind of trade was something in which a man like Darling would involve himself.

After the intelligence chief finished an initial read, he sat back in his wheelchair. “So how do we find out for certain whether you’re behind this disgusting little transaction?” he wondered aloud.

They would continue to look for the people who had actually made the presumed trade. But Herbert knew they might not find the radioactive bread crumbs they were looking for. Already, one boat had been destroyed and another had vanished. For all they knew, they could be dealing with submarines or aircraft as well. Perhaps the materials had been dropped somewhere else for pickup at some later date. The canvas of possibilities was huge.

“No,” he said. “Lowell had the right idea.”

They had to go after Jervis Darling himself. Directly and quietly. If he had been in a movie, Herbert would have put on thick glasses and pretended to be a paleontologist with a rare fossil to sell. FNO Loh would be his assistant. Darling would be suspicious, of course, and quiz them about dinosaur genera. Herbert would have boned up on his prehistoric animals, and what he did not know, his erudite aide would. They would win Darling’s confidence.

But this was real, and they needed a quick, comprehensive solution. One that would identify Darling as a participant. It would also, he hoped, stop the trafficking itself.

As the TR-1 banked into the light of the new day, Herbert saw a flash of orange on his computer monitor. A moment later he felt the delightful heat of the sun on the back of his neck.

And he got an idea. One that would not require him to pronounce
pachycephalosaurus.

Paul Hood stepped into the parking lot. It was a dreary and overcast evening, but the cool air tasted sweet. It always did after he spent a day in Op-Center’s windowless, forced-air underground offices. He walked to his new Toyota Maxim for the forty-five-minute drive to his apartment. An apartment that was as empty as hell without the sounds of video games and ringing phones and the distinctive thumping of Alexander holding the handrail and wall and leaping down half a flight of stairs. But it was feeling a little more like home now. As much as leaving dirty shirts on the couch or renting the DVDs you wanted to see or eating chicken salad directly from Styrofoam take-out trays could make a place feel like home.

Hood was just getting into the car when his cell phone beeped. It was Mike Rodgers. The two men had not spoken since Rodgers met with Senator Debenport. The general had spent the day interviewing potential field operatives as well as intelligence personnel who might be able to help him put together his new HUMINT unit. Rodgers had wanted to see all four candidates in public instead of in his office. It was important to see how they blended in with crowds, how anonymous they could appear when they were not part of a group.

“How did the interviews go?” Hood asked.

“They were informative,” Rodgers replied.

“Hold that thought,” Hood said. Rodgers would know what that meant. As Hood sat behind the wheel he put his headset on. At the same time he tucked the cell phone into a scrambler built into the dashboard. It looked like a typical hands-free setup. However, the frame contained a chip that sent a loud screech along with the conversation. Only a phone with a complementary chip could filter out the sound. The chip in the car only worked with numbers that had been specifically keyed into the cell phone’s memory. “Ready,” Hood said. He started the car and drove toward the sentry post.