Sea of Fire (28 page)

A blank ship and, for now, a blank sailor. Word had reached her while they were at sea. There were over 500 Lee Tongs listed at the Singaporean Office of Registry and Taxation. More than half of them were the right age to be this man. COSCOM was checking them out. But the research would take days, possibly weeks. If they could find this one, they might be able to learn who he spent time with ashore. Whether anyone else on the sampan survived. Dr. Lansing had told her he would jolt Tong awake again if she could prove that tens of thousands of lives depended on the answers the pirate would give. But the pirate had not said much before. Lansing and Ellsworth both agreed there was no reason to imagine a second try would produce different results. Loh felt it was certainly worth a try. If she thought that Tong would survive, she would have insisted that he be transferred to a hospital in Singapore. The doctors there might be no less reluctant to wake him than Dr. Lansing, but they would have no choice. Criminals have few rights in Singapore. The government would put public safety before the well-being of a pirate.

Instead of working with what might be scraps of information from the source, they were going to make plans based on ideas from an American spy. This Bob Herbert could be a brilliant intelligence operative. But whatever he came up with would still be exploratory. That was like sailing without charts. It was not something Loh preferred to do.

The FNO continued to look out at the bandaged, frail-looking Singaporean. He seemed so alone in the clean, white bed. She began to think just how alone he really was. She knew that people who were born without opportunity, such as a family business or store or political connections, had three options: they could dwell in poverty, turn to crime, or agree to indentures such as military service or a lengthy contractual apprenticeship. Ironically, if this man survived, he would return to Singapore in a worse position than before. Chances were good the owner of the boat would not come forward to press charges. The pirate would go free. But only the most menial, lowest-paying work would now be available to him because of his past. And because of that past, he would be watched by the police. His activities would have to be reported by landlords and employers. If Tong were involved in a fight, or stole food or clothing, or picked someone’s pocket, he would be dealt with very harshly. Caning and imprisonment, most likely.

It would be better for everyone if Dr. Lansing revived him. FNO Loh could ask him a few final questions, and he could die having done something beneficial for society.

That is not for you to say,
Loh warned herself. She had gone from making subjective judgments to making moral ones.

She turned from the pirate and walked into the deserted hallway. Darwin police were keeping nonessential personnel away from the pirate’s room. They were checking the IDs of everyone who stepped from the elevator. There were already rumors circulating about what had happened on the Celebes. The Australian government did not want anyone to obtain confirmation that nuclear materials were involved.

An MIC officer was waiting to take FNO Loh to the meeting. They made their way to the elevator in silence. Loh was still thinking about the pirate. She was wondering what drove him to his trade. Confidence had to be one of those things. Everyone on a sampan crew works in an extended voyage. And only a crew that knew the sea well would attempt to sail it in a sampan. Especially if they were carrying explosives.

That boldness might spill over into the kind of vessel the pirates would attack,
she thought. They were like longboat seamen who would not shy from chasing a whale. No ship would be too large for them tackle. No crew would be too formidable.

That was a small thought, but it could be a useful one. Maybe there were others she had overlooked. Loh actually felt a trace of satisfaction. Perhaps this poor man was not as blank as she had thought.

Lee Tong’s misdeeds might help them catch a potential terrorist.

Paul Hood could not sleep.

Dressed in Calvin Kleins and an old L.A. Rams T-shirt that had been given to him by former quarterback Roman Gabriel, Hood lay on his back in the queen-size bed of his two-bedroom apartment. He stared at the ceiling, watching for the occasional cone of light as a car drove past or an airplane flew by. The window was open a crack, and the blinds were raised. He had moved from a nearby hotel four months ago, but he had not gotten around to putting up shades. At least he was remembering to stock the essentials. The first night he’d had no toilet paper. He had to use the
Washington Post
.

The view was to the west, so Hood did not get the rising sun. Not that it mattered. He was usually awake before the sky was light. He had probably witnessed more sunrises than a generation of roosters. And he probably spent less time in the sun than anyone else in Washington.

The new, five-story-tall building was called The New-port. It was located on Tyburn Court in Camp Springs, Maryland, a short drive from Andrews Air Force Base. Hood had a corner apartment on the top floor. That gave him access to a sundeck on the roof, though he had never been to it. Whenever the kids stayed over, Alexander slept on a sofa bed in the living room, and Harleigh had the second bedroom. To ease the blow for Alexander of not having his own room, the living room was where Hood kept the PlayStation 2 video games.

The room was quiet. It was not noise that kept Hood up. Nor was it the situation in Australia. Hood had been through more than a dozen crises over the past ten years. He had learned how to ride them out by focusing on the upside. Civilization would survive. It was simply a matter of the cost. That did not make a crisis pleasant, only manageable. Besides, this problem was in the hands of very capable people. If they needed him, they knew how to reach him.

What troubled Hood, the more that he thought about it, was the extent to which he was needed. Not at Op-Center but in his personal life. Like the splashes of light above him, the patterns of Paul Hood’s life changed less and less as the days wore on.

There was dust on the game console. He had noticed it tonight when he walked past the TV. The kids had not stayed with him in over three weeks. It had not seemed that long. Hood was not angry or disappointed. It was not even a question of his being at the house more. Teenagers grew up. They got involved in activities. They dated. Harleigh had two sessions with a psychiatrist each week. The girl was still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder following her hostage ordeal at the United Nations. She had gotten over the initial phase, when all she wanted to do was stay in her room and see no one. Now she was back at school and beginning to play the violin again. She still went through frequent periods of lethargy and depression. She was also suffering from occasional headaches and psychosomatic stomach ailments. All of that was being taken care of slowly and carefully. Some of it was being addressed through psychiatry, some by Hood and Sharon. Most, however, seemed to be happening because she was hanging out with her friends. Perhaps that was to be expected.

Teenagers were like the cars and planes outside,
Hood thought. They pulled away and threw less and less light on their parents. That was to be expected and accepted.

What bothered Hood was that he had come up with nothing to fill the empty places. Now that he thought of it, maybe losing those activities made him realize that there were other holes. Perhaps Op-Center was part of that problem. He had built an effective team, and he had not set new goals.

Maybe he should run for the Senate, he thought half-heartedly. He had enjoyed campaigning and giving speeches when he ran for mayor of Los Angeles. Maybe he should win an election, have himself appointed to the CIOC, and work on the other side of the intelligence fence. That would be a challenge. Especially if Mike Rodgers were named to replace him.

It was something to consider. Especially since Hood was one of the public heroes of the United Nations hostage crisis. He had saved children, including his own daughter. Voters would respond to that.

The more Hood thought about that, the more the idea appealed to him. Maybe he could even run for president. A few spy agency alumni had managed to reach the Oval Office.

The real question was how much he truly wanted that. Or the Senate. Or anything else.

And then late-night common sense poked him in the ribs and whispered in his ear.
The hollowness is not about whether you are needed,
it told him. It was not about what he did for a living. It was about how Hood was living. His former wife was dating. She was working and meeting new people. Not Paul Hood. Traffic patterns had changed, but he had not. He was waiting for the kids to come to him. He was waiting for crises and crisis managers at Op-Center to come to him. When they did not, he found himself lamenting how dull his life was. How sparse the lights on the ceiling were.

Running for office again was not a bad idea, Hood had to admit. But it was not a decision that should be made in the small hours of the night. Not with a head as clouded as his heart was empty. Not when there were smaller steps Hood could take first.

Such as?
he asked himself.

Such as calling Daphne Connors back and asking her on a second date, he told himself as he shut his eyes and replayed the pleasures of the first date on the insides of his eyelids.

Queensland North Rural Fire Brigade Deputy Captain Paul Leyland loved his life.

The brown-eyed Leyland stood on the wide balcony that surrounded the observation tower. He looked out at the world and lives that had been entrusted to him and his team. He felt the way the ancient mythic gods must have felt. They each had a particular responsibility, whether it was war, fertility, the underworld, or the hearth. For Deputy Captain Leyland, there was no greater responsibility than to safeguard this land, its people, and the future of both. And there was no greater reward than doing it well.

Leyland had a bald head that seemed to glow ember-orange in the fast-fading sunlight. Part of that was due to the tautness of his flesh. Part of it was the constant perspiration. Leyland hated hats. Feeling the sun on his bare scalp was one of life’s great delights. That was why he preferred to be out here instead of sitting in the tower. There was an old joke about a bald head being a solar panel for the sexually active man. For Leyland, the part about the solar panel was true. The sun gave him life. As for the sweat, he had thick red eyebrows and a woolly mustache to protect his eyes and mouth. He rehydrated himself regularly from a canteen tucked in his utility belt. He used a vintage metal canteen instead of a plastic bottle like the kids who worked with him. Leyland liked the feel and taste of the hot, metallic water whenever he took a drink.

The five-foot-seven-inch former Royal Australian Air Force Maritime Patrol Group pilot had been working for the QNRFB for six of his forty-two years. He had recently passed up a promotion to senior deputy captain because he did not want to go to an office or firehouse. He wanted to stay out here, with his devoted Little Maluka, in the Cairns Observation Tower. Nearly 170 feet in the air, he could see across the Atherton Tableland for limitless kilometers in every direction. The wind from the ocean was as constant as the blazing sun. Leyland could smell a fire before he saw it, even when the wind was blowing against it, which was a good thing. With its rustic farms, volcanic lakes, waterfalls, and rain-forest region, the upland area outside of Cairns was one of the nation’s leading tourist attractions. The Kuranda Scenic Railway and the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway carried five times as many passengers each year as all the commuter railroads that served Queensland. Paul Leyland, his live-in crew of two, and Little Maluka were the Kadoovas, as they called themselves. The deranged ones who put the safety of their territory before their own well-being.

The observation tower stood on the top of a 500-foot-high hill. There was a paved, two-lane road and a landing pad for helicopters. The tower itself was made of unvarnished wood. Brick or cinderblock would have been safe from sparks in the event of a fire. But they would have been problematic on the hill. Because of the moisture, the ground was constantly shifting. The mortar would have cracked and left the structure unstable. A metal tower would have become unbearably hot. For Little Maluka and the others, anyway. Leyland could take anything. In fact, the Cairns native relished extremes.

Inside the tower was communication equipment and a two-meter-diameter alidade. The revolving, horizontal disc had a map on its face as well as upright markers for angular measurement. It could see in all directions from the tower. The topographic device was used to pinpoint the exact location of a fire. For Leyland, the alidade was the world in miniature. Looking at it made him feel even more like a god.

The other members of his team, John “Spider” Smolley and Eva Summers, were in the small log cabin at the base of the tower. Little Maluka, their koala mascot, was beside him. Usually he was in his large pen beside the cabin. At sunset, however, he liked to relax on the wind-cooled observation platform. The koala had been badly injured during a blaze and nursed to health. When the small marsupial was well enough to leave, he had decided not to. Why should he? Eva made sure Little Maluka had all the eucalyptus leaves he could eat. Leyland was the one who named him.
Maluka
was Aborigine for “the chief.”

The cabin was air-conditioned, and there was a TV set with a DVD player. The twentysomethings spent most of their time watching television or talking on the radio. But they came to life when they had to. They risked their lives without hesitation. The three of them were usually the first ones on scene, working with volunteers to evacuate residents, construct firebreaks, and coordinate the activities of firefighters who flew in from other areas. Yet neither of Leyland’s deputies felt quite as he did. That this land was Heaven and he was Saint Peter. If the red-tongued Devil showed up at their gates, it was a sacred duty to beat him back.