Sea of Fire (45 page)

“What about Darling?” Hood asked.

“They booked him for assault, though they’re taking him to the hospital as well to make sure he’s all right. He took in a lot of smoke. He’s extremely disoriented.”

“Have they got solid security for Hawke and Darling?”

“The local police are handling that now, but Jelbart has some of his people flying in,” Coffey said. “They should be here momentarily.”

“At six in the morning?” Hood said. “They don’t drag their feet over there, do they?”

“No, they don’t,” Coffey said. “The efficiency of every division, from the fire brigade to the local police, has been incredible.”

Hood knew why. The Australians were surrounded by nations where the black market was a dominant financial force. Australia itself was mostly open coastline. If they did not maintain a warlike preparedness along every meter of that, it would not take long for corruption to set in.

“That said,” Coffey went on, “we’re all betting that Hawke will get off with minimal jail time.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Hood said.

“He’ll take the brunt of the fall for Darling in exchange for guaranteed early parole,” Coffey went on. “To put Darling on trial would be counterproductive. It would become a circus that would hurt the economy and detract from the main issue, which has to be breaking up the smuggling network and finding the nuclear material. Jervis Darling himself is effectively finished. He’ll be quietly forced to resign the boards of his companies, his not-for-profit companies will be dissected for laundering the nuke payouts, and he may serve some token jail time. After that, he’ll probably go live on one of his islands.”

“With or without his daughter, I wonder,” Hood said.

“The courts won’t have much say over that,” Coffey said. “But Darling will want her to get a great education. That means boarding school in Australia or Europe. They won’t be together much.”

“No mother and an MIA father,” Hood said. “Did she see much of what happened at the airfield?”

“I don’t think so,” Coffey said. “But she had to have heard the engine explosions, the sirens. She knows the plane didn’t take off.”

“I wonder how she’s taking this.”

“I saw her in the small terminal building when I arrived,” Coffey said. “She was sitting with Darling’s copilot and driver. They were talking to her. She looked shell-shocked.”

“I wish there was something we could do for her,” Hood said. There was sadness in his voice, in his soul. He thought of his own daughter, Harleigh, living without him. He could not imagine what kind of man would create a situation that would expose his daughter to this kind of emotional peril.

Then again, this was the same man who reportedly took the girl’s mother from her,
Hood thought. Normal values did not apply. The good news was that Jervis Darling would not be taking anyone else’s parents from them. Ever.

“I’m sure Ms. Darling will be looked after in the short term,” Coffey said. “The people who were with her seemed very attentive. Though I have to wonder. Was it fear or affection that made these people loyal to Darling?”

“A little of both, I’m sure,” Hood said. “But it was probably the free pass that had the most impact.”

“What kind of free pass?” Coffey asked.

“I used to get that when I was mayor,” Hood said. “That’s when people are around someone of influence, so they have no problem getting into restaurants or clubs or the most popular attractions at amusement parks. They don’t have to worry about speeding tickets or bureaucracies or bad service. If they get into trouble, strong, decisive help is just a name-drop or phone call away. I’m sure you saw some of that at your dad’s law practice.”

“Yes, only in Beverly Hills it was called kissing cheek, and nobody liked to do it,” Coffey told him.

“You were lucky, though. You had money. You had a choice,” Hood said. “A lot of people don’t. For them, playing the sycophant to a Jervis Darling or a Mayor Hood is like consolidating their debt. The humiliation comes from one place, not dozens.”

“Well, I should probably get back to the others,” Coffey said. “It looks like Herbert and Loh are ready to break huddle. Tell me, though. Did you enjoy having people kiss your ass?”

“I hated it,” Hood said. “I discouraged it. But people kept doing it. That’s one reason I’m here instead of there.”

“We’ll see who sticks by Darling now,” Coffey said. “As the philosopher says, ‘A failure is a stranger in his own house.’ ”

Hood hung up. He stared at the phone.

That was cruel and true,
he thought. It was bad enough to fail. But one also had to endure it alone. It was impossible to feel any sympathy for Jervis Darling. But while Hood should be savoring the successful mission, he found himself responding emotionally to the idea of failure. He was uncomfortable by the nearness of it. By the sadness of what Jessica-Ann Darling would have to face. It forced Hood to think about the mistakes he had made with his own family. He wondered if that sense of inefficacy would ever completely disappear.

Maybe it’s not supposed to,
Hood decided. Maybe that’s what prevents a man from repeating his errors.

Hood picked up the phone. There was one thing of which he was certain. The antithesis of having his ass kissed was having it kicked. By himself. Neither one of them did him any good.

He had to put the past behind him.

He had to call Daphne Connors.

Now.

John Hawke and Jervis Darling were taken into custody separately. Even after their departure, the helicopter still had a brief delay in Cairns. The pilot wanted to ascertain that there had been no damage to the landing strut.

The report was favorable.

“Metal is still stronger than glass,” the pilot reported proudly to Herbert after examining both the landing surface and pylons.

The team said farewell to Leyland and Spider, both of whom had earned the respect of Bob Herbert.

Leyland waved off the suggestion that he and Spider had acted heroically. “You told us where to go and what to do.”

“Bugger, all we did was pull the trigger,” Spider said.

“Of a bloody
hose,”
Leyland added. “It’s not like that’s going to put someone’s eye out or anything.”

“You ran down a jet,” Herbert told them. “That took guts. You prevented Darling from taking off and finishing the operation he started. That’s a hero by my yardstick.”

Leyland shrugged. “We really didn’t have much choice, did we?”

“Sure you did,” Jelbart said.

“No, I mean I don’t think Mr. Darling would have believed it if we said we needed to get a koala out of the engine.”

Herbert smiled. He had not known this man very long, but he was going to miss him. Maybe the intelligence chief would stop by and see him when he came back to visit Monica Loh, which he absolutely intended to do.

“Paul, I’ve got just one more question for you,” Herbert said.

“Ask it,” Leyland said.

“Why’d you hire the only female firefighter in the district?”

Coffey rolled his eyes.

Leyland smiled. “The truth is, she was the best firefighter in the district.”

Herbert scowled. Coffey smiled.

“That hair on your chest cost you a prime rib,” Coffey said to the intelligence chief.

Leyland leaned toward Coffey. “And frankly, I like watching her climb the ladder.”

Herbert smiled. “Dutch,” he said to Coffey.

Coffey nodded.

When the pilot said they were good to go, Lowell Coffey took the seat formerly occupied by John Hawke. The flight back was quiet and introspective. Everyone was tired. More than that, they were oddly dissatisfied. Herbert could see it in their faces. No one could call this a Pyrrhic victory. “The good guys,” as he had described the team to Loh, had not suffered any physical losses. But there was a spiritual loss. Business and government had always been closely related. Business and crime regularly crossed paths in money laundering, intelligence gathering, and other activities. Business had even encouraged wars to increase productivity and profits. But this was the first time to Herbert’s knowledge that a small band of businessmen had planned to use nuclear material to change the balance of power. The thought was as sickening as it was disquieting. They would never know if they had nabbed everyone who was part of the operation. Or every pellet of enriched uranium, or whatever substance they were shipping.

“Bob, I want to ask you something,” Monica Loh said after nearly a half hour.

“Sure.”

“Were you really going to let Hawke go before?”

“You mean on the way to Cairns, when I was asking him to rat out his boss?” Herbert asked.

“Yes,” Loh said.

Herbert’s answer was precise, if not articulate. He snickered.

“Now you tell me something,” Jelbart said from the front seat. “I try to stay on top of local laws and such, but I’ve never heard of the Singaporean Nuclear Emergency Response Act of 2002. Is there such a thing?”

For the first time since Herbert had known FNO Loh, she smiled. It was not quite a snicker, but then she was probably not as jaded as Herbert was.

“I thought not,” Jelbart said. “Well played,” he added.

“Now I’d like to ask all of you a question,” Herbert said. “What do you think Darling was trying to do back there?”

“You mean take off or take his life?” Jelbart asked.

Herbert nodded.

“I’ve been wondering that myself,” Jelbart said. “He sent his daughter away. That suggests he did not expect to survive.”

“He was moving her out of danger,” Coffey said. “That doesn’t mean anything. He could have sent for her later. His priority was to get out of the country and wage a legal war. He’ll probably do that anyway. This thing smells of a plea bargain.”

“Do you think that’s inevitable?” Jelbart asked.

Coffey nodded. “We won’t be able to prove everything that we suspect, and Darling won’t be able to duck every blow that’s thrown. That will demand a compromise. Besides, everybody will want this over as soon as possible. Darling because he will suffer less damage, the government because there’s always the risk that Darling or Jessica-Ann could be perceived as victims.”

“Not to mention the fact that it will cost a bomb to try,” Jelbart said.

Coffey looked at Herbert. “What do you think?”

“About Darling trying to off himself?” Herbert asked. He shook his head. “When you strip him of the financial armor, he’s a coward. Cowards don’t kill themselves.”

“I disagree,” Loh said. “I would think most individuals who take their lives do so because they are afraid to face adversity.”

“I wonder if the statistics support that,” Herbert said dubiously.

“I don’t know,” Loh admitted.

“When it comes down to it, sucking on a gun barrel is not for the faint-hearted.”

“Life is not for the faint of heart,” Loh replied. “Surrendering that life is, I believe, an act of the gravest cowardice.”

“I think you’re both wrong,” Coffey said. “In law school they teach us that most crimes of passion are conceived and executed in a space of five minutes. Suicide included. I don’t think the brain or backbone play a part in it. Suicide is usually an act of despair.”

“And a rather comfortless topic as well,” Jelbart added.

The cabin fell silent again. Herbert and Loh looked at each other with challenging eyes. Like Herbert, she was obviously a woman who did not like to let things sit. Monica Loh could fight, interrogate, debate, and she looked damn fine. Herbert wondered where the flaws were.

Oh yeah,
he thought.
She lives in Singapore.

Also, he had no idea what she thought of him. He wondered if he were better off not knowing.

Shortly before landing, Jelbart received a call from Brian Ellsworth. News of what had happened at the Cairns airstrip traveled a lot faster than the Bell 204. International media were waiting for them. So was Ellsworth. He greeted the team at the helicopter. Police kept the reporters away. Ellsworth congratulated them for the job they did, then cautioned the team to ignore the questions being shouted by the press.

“Whatever you say will be reported and distorted, both pro and contra Mr. Darling,” Ellsworth said. “That can only help his case.”

“Prejudice the judicial process,” Coffey said. “Make it look like the government has prejudged Darling.”

“Precisely. One thing I must ask you,” Ellsworth said as he slipped his cell phone from inside his jacket. “The prime minister is waiting to hear from me about the missing cargo. He wants to know what the chances are of getting those materials back.”

“That depends,” Herbert said. “First we have to find the people who distributed the stuff. Then we have to get them to talk.”

“We also have to hope the materials haven’t already been passed around,” Jelbart added.

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Herbert said. “These guys work like diamond and art thieves. The neighborhood is too hot to try transferring it now. We’ve got a week or two to find out who they are. Everything depends on how you handle Darling, Hawke, and the other members of the crew.”

“You may have to cut them deals you aren’t going to like,” Coffey said.

“I’m not going to like anything that doesn’t have them hanging by their feet over a pit of rattlesnakes,” Herbert said.

“Well, Mr. Coffey, we are sure to be engaged in various dances with Mr. Darling’s legal lancers,” Ellsworth said. “I actually worry about them nearly as much as I worry about the smugglers.”

Herbert understood that. He resisted shooting a nasty look at Lowell Coffey. Ever since an attorney in Lebanon had helped free one of the men responsible for the Beirut embassy bombing, attorneys had been one step above terrorists on Herbert’s favorite-people list.