Sea of Fire (39 page)

“Thank you,” she said as she pulled them on. Loh backed out the open door and started down.

The ladder vibrated as the naval officer made her way down. There were twenty rungs to the surface of the sea. She took them slowly. The rungs, FNO Loh’s cheeks, and her clothing quickly became damp with seawater. The gloves proved to be a lifesaver.

Every few steps the officer looked down. She wanted to make sure the sailor was still hanging on. He was there, his right arm hooked over the rung. If he went under, Loh knew that she would have to drop in to retrieve him.

The descent went quickly. When Loh was one rung above him, she carefully stepped to the rung he was holding. His expression was tight. He appeared to be in extreme pain.

“Can you put your bad arm around my shoulder?” she yelled down.

“I think so,” he said. He cocked his head to the side. “That man betrayed me! I want his body brought aboard.”

“We can talk about this inside!” she said.

“You don’t understand,” the man said. “He’s a traitor! You need to fingerprint him, find out what else he may be involved in.”

“We’re low on fuel,” Loh told him. “There is a patrol ship on the way. They will collect his remains.”

The officer ducked lower. The man seemed to hesitate. Then, reluctantly, he tried to raise his left arm. Loh reached back with her right hand to pull it around her neck. He clutched her collar with weak, bleeding fingers. She shifted slightly and hefted him a little higher. Then they started climbing. The man was not exactly dead weight, but neither was he as helpful as she had hoped. About halfway up she really began to feel the strain. Each rung was twice as difficult as the one before. The man was trying to climb with her. But each time he reached with his good arm, he rested his full weight on her back. She was surprised at how difficult this was. At the naval academy’s annual fitness review, FNO Loh was still able to climb a rope thirty feet without using her legs. Of course, she did not try the escalade, as it was called, with a man on her back.

“Officer Loh, pass him up!”

Someone was shouting down at her. FNO Loh looked up. Bob Herbert was sitting in her seat. He was holding on to the strap and leaning out. His right arm was extended. She had to climb another three rungs to reach it.

The officer looked ahead and pulled herself up another rung.

“Officer, stop or we’ll lose you both!” Herbert yelled. “Help him climb over your back onto the ladder. I’ll grab him. I promise.”

Loh did not acknowledge. She did not want to give up before the job was finished. That was not how she lived, and it was not how she had been trained. She looked straight ahead, at the landing strut. She tried to climb another rung. Her arms were so weak they were shaking. She stopped.

“Dammit, my legs may not work but I can curl fifty pounds with each arm,” Herbert said.

The man leaned close to Loh’s ear. “I’m going to try to reach your friend,” he said.

“All right,” Loh replied.

The Singaporean officer snaked her left arm through the rungs so her right arm was free. The man shifted to her right side and grasped the rung above her. She used her free arm to help him up. Bob Herbert was right. This was easier than trying to move them both. Meanwhile, Herbert reached behind the man and hooked a hand under his good arm. That gave the man all the extra lift he needed. With Loh pushing from below, he was able to make it into the doorway. Herbert pulled him in. Loh followed.

“You okay?” Herbert asked when Loh climbed in.

“Yes,” she said. “Are you sure there isn’t time to get the other man?”

“Very sure,” the pilot said, glancing at the fuel gauge. “We need to pull out. Now.”

The naval officer understood. She unhooked the ladder, pulled it in, and shut the door. She piled it against the door, then fell into the empty seat across from Herbert. She looked at him as the pilot swung the helicopter to the southwest. “Thank you, Bob.”

“Yes, thank you,” said the new arrival.

Loh and Herbert looked at him. The man was sitting in the seat that Herbert had vacated to help him aboard. He was soaked and shivering. He had his left elbow cupped in his right hand.

“Do you have a towel back here?” Herbert asked the pilot.

“I’m afraid not,” the pilot replied.

“A bottle of water?” Herbert asked.

“I finished it a hundred miles back.”

Herbert regarded the man and shrugged. “Sorry.”

“That’s all right,” he said weakly. “I’m just glad to be here. I thought I was a dead man.”

“How about that arm?” Herbert asked. “We can rig a sling for you.”

“It’s my shoulder, actually,” the man said. “It was hurt when the boat was upended. It will keep.”

“We’ll get that taken care of ashore,” Jelbart said. “In the meantime, talk to us. Who are you?”

“I am Peter Kannaday, captain of the
Hosannah
,” the man said weakly. “And you people are?”

“I’m Warrant Officer Jelbart. The gentleman across from you is Bob Herbert, and the lady is Female Naval Officer Loh.”

“Australia, America, and—Singapore?”

Loh nodded.

“I thank you all,” the man said with a little nod to each.

“Tell me, Captain. What were you doing out here?” Jelbart asked.

“And who was that individual in the water with you?” Loh asked as she removed the damp pilot’s gloves. She flexed her cold fingers. “You said he betrayed you.”

“He betrayed me, and he betrayed Australia,” the man replied coldly, his eyes fixed on something far away.

“How?” Loh asked.

The man blinked quickly as though waking from a trance.

“Captain Kannaday?” Loh pressed.

“Forgive me,” the man said. Suddenly, he began to sob. “Officers, if you would indulge me. This has been a terrible night. I would like to shut my eyes for just a few minutes.”

“Captain Kannaday, we understand what you’ve been through. But this is rather urgent,” Jelbart said. “I need you to tell us who the man was and why you were out here.”

“His name is Hawke,” the man replied. “John Hawke. And he brought the
Hosannah
out here to sink it.”

“Why?” Jelbart asked.

The man sat back and shut his eyes. He said nothing.

“Captain?” Jelbart said. “Captain!”

“Officers, I must rest,” the man said. “Please. For just a few minutes. It won’t change anything, I assure you.”

Water dribbled down the man’s temples and forehead, and his head slumped against the window. Loh leaned across the aisle and jabbed him with a finger. He grumbled but did not open his eyes.

“If this were Singapore, we’d wake him,” Loh said.

“If this were Singapore, I’d help you,” Herbert said. “We’ve got a nice, long ladder. What are the international laws about fly-fishing a guy from a helicopter to wake him?”

“It’s called ‘extreme coercion,’ Mr. Herbert,” Jelbart said. “What your legal system would define as ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’ ”

“These are extreme and unusual circumstances,” Loh remarked. Her tone was unsympathetic. She did not respect weakness. Especially from a man whose life she just saved.

“Nonetheless, this man is not the pirate we found,” Jelbart said. “As far as we know, this man has not committed a crime. We have no recourse but to bring him in and question him at his convenience.”

“There are times when we worry about etiquette and protocol too much,” Loh said.

“I’m with Officer Loh on that,” Herbert said. “We have two responsibilities here. One is to the captain. The other is to a few million people just like him. In one case, a guy may be inconvenienced. In the other case, tens of thousands may die. That’s not even a contest to me.”

“We can honor both,” Jelbart insisted. “The captain asked for a few minutes. Let us at least give him that.”

Herbert shook his head, and Monica Loh sat back. She wondered if Jelbart would have been so compassionate if Captain Kannaday had been American. Or Singaporean. Australians were notoriously protective of their own.

Because it was her nature, she also wondered whether Captain Kannaday were really asleep or whether he had been listening carefully to everything they said. Trying to decide what he should say.

She did not know. One thing she did know, however. Soon, someone on board was going to be apologizing to someone else on board for a serious miscalculation.

Research was job number four for Paul Hood. That came after quarterbacking, cheerleading, and devil’s advocacy.

Hood usually did research only on weekends, when Op-Center had just a skeleton staff. He actually enjoyed it. Searching for information exercised his linear thinking. It gave more logic to those “yeah but . . .” questions. It also shut out his emotions, his fears. He was totally in the moment.

Bob Herbert had left the cell phone open. Hood had put the call on the speakerphone, cranked up the volume, and listened to the conversation between the rescue team and Peter Kannaday. As soon as he heard that name, Hood conducted a computer search through Interpol and FBI files. Nothing showed up. That was good. It suggested the man was telling the truth, that he had been used and shanghied. Hood also did a wider off-line search and came across the registry filing for the
Hosannah
. There was information about Peter Kannaday. He was the owner of the yacht before it was “sold” to the apparently nonexistent Arvids March. It included copies of his license and dates when the yacht had visited various ports in the South Pacific and the Caribbean. Hood forwarded that information to Herbert’s computer. If the
Hosannah
had been used to traffic nuclear material, the abbreviated log might help to track pickups or drop-offs.

Hood felt the way Warrant Officer Jelbart did. The man was a guest, not a prisoner. That was very easy to forget in times of high emotion, which occurred with some frequency whenever Bob Herbert was involved.

That’s why you have to hold tight to what you once determined was right,
Hood told himself. Otherwise, police officers became bullies, presidents became tyrants, and intelligence officers became both.

Hood sent the Kannaday file to Herbert with an audible prompt. He knew the intelligence chief would be sitting in the cabin, stewing. He wanted to make sure Herbert got the E-mail.

Hood heard the wheelchair beep over the phone. The data file had arrived. He still found it pretty amazing that information could be sent around the world so quickly, so completely, and so secretly. He remembered when he was still in school, and telexes were a big, innovative deal. That was about the time when Pong was the rage at airports and college lounges.

At least most forms of terrorism still had to be done the old-fashioned way. The killing tools of that despicable trade had to be moved slowly, by hand. And like a slug trailing slime across a slate walk, there was no way to erase all evidence of its passage. In days of depressing reality, that was a cheering thought.

It was at once sad and astonishing what passed for hope in the twenty-first century.

Herbert was stewing.

The intelligence chief did not think that Warrant Officer Jelbart was wrong about backing off Kannaday. He just did not think that Jelbart was right.

Captain Kannaday was hurt. Herbert had no doubt that the man was exhausted. But he did not believe the man was asleep. Kannaday’s nap was the Australian equivalent of cover-your-ass. Whatever had happened on the yacht was illegal. Kannaday had said as much. He was not going to say anything else without a barrister or solicitor or whatever they called criminal attorneys Down Under.

It had also been imprudent of Jelbart to mention the pirate. That information had not been made public. If Kannaday were asleep, it would not matter. If he were awake, he might be less inclined to talk. The captain might say things that contradicted what officials already knew from the pirate. That would not be good for Kannaday.

Herbert’s E-mail alert beeped. “Christ,” he said.

“What’s wrong?” Jelbart asked.

Herbert turned and snapped the cell phone from the armrest of the wheelchair.

“Paul, are you still there?”

“I am,” Hood said.

“Sorry, boss,” Herbert told him. “I forgot you were hanging on. What have you got?”

“A file on Peter Kannaday,” Hood said. “I thought you might like to have a look at it.”

“Absolutely,” Herbert said. The laptop monitor was anchored in the left armrest of the wheelchair. Herbert craned around and swung the screen toward him. He punched the On button. It activated with a hiss. He opened and downloaded Hood’s E-mail.

“Do you think the captain is really asleep?” Hood asked.

“Yeah,” Herbert said. “And I’m going to be the next president of the United States.”

“Do you believe anything he said?” Hood asked.

“I don’t know,” Herbert admitted. He was watching the monitor as the file downloaded. “I don’t have enough information.”

“And there’s nothing you or Officer Loh can do to get that information,” Hood said.

“Well, there is—” Herbert said.

“Lawfully, I mean,” Hood interrupted. “Peter Kannaday is an Australian captain working in international waters. He was rescued by an Australian helicopter. They’re going to have the first swing at him.”

“Paul, we’ve got to fight that,” Herbert said. “Maybe Lowell can pull some legal precedent out of his brain pan.” The intelligence chief looked out the window as the computer continued opening the file. It was dark out there. But not as dark as Herbert felt inside.

“Come on, Bob. You know better.”

“Unfortunately, I do,” Herbert replied.

“Even if Lowell got us in to talk to Kannaday, he’s not going to let an interview turn rough,” Hood said.