Sea Of Fire (2003)

by Clancy, Tom - Op Center 10

  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.

  FORTY-ONE

  Washington, D.C. Saturday, 12:23 A.M.

  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.

  FORTY-TWO

  Cairns, Australia Saturday, 5:57 P.M.

  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 carr
ied 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.

  Little Maluka was lying on his soft back beside Leyland’s boot. His eyes were shut. There was reddish white scar tissue around his big black nose and on his legs. The grayish fur would probably never grow back there. But that was all right, Leyland thought. It made the little guy look tough. Not that a koala needed to look tough. It had no real enemies here except for men. For centuries, they had hunted koalas for food and fur. Now there were laws to prevent that. The firefighter raised his foot. He touched the animal’s exposed belly with his toe. The koala grunted, but he did not open his eyes.

  “You’re tough, all right,” Leyland muttered. “You lazy slushy. Is that how you got hurt? Sleeping while the woods burned?”

  “He’s not a slushy,” a female voice said over the radio.

  That was Eva. She was on the main radio in the cabin. Leyland always kept his portable radio open. In an emergency, the second or two it took to turn it on could be decisive.

  “You’re right. Little Maluka could not work in a kitchen,” Leyland replied. “At least kitchen help does the dishes. This boy doesn’t do anything except purr like a fat cat.”

  “When the RFB starts a koala brigade, he’ll be the first to enlist—hold on,” she said, interrupting herself. “I have incoming.”

  Small, high-powered binoculars hung from Leyland’s neck. He snatched them up and did a quick walk around the tower. If someone was calling in a fire, he might be able to spot it. He saw nothing.

  “Captain, I’m putting the call through to you,” Eva said.

  “What is it?” Leyland pulled the radio from his belt. He put the cupped upper half against his ear. It was shielded so that he could hear if he were in a chopper or a loud roaring fire.

  “I don’t know what this is,” she said. “They won’t tell me.”

  “Who won’t tell you?”

  “They won’t tell me that either,” she replied.

  “Better not be a smoodger,” Leyland said.

  “He doesn’t sound like he’s kidding,” Eva assured her commander. “Here he is.”

  While Leyland waited, he stuck out his lower lip and blew perspiration from his mustache. It was something he did when he was annoyed. He was not accustomed to getting secret calls. He scanned the canopy of trees to the northwest. Fires occasionally started in the campground there.

  “Captain Leyland?” the caller asked.

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “Warrant Officer George Jelbart, Maritime Intelligence Centre,” the caller replied.

  “Is there a situation?” Leyland pressed. The man was calling from a helicopter. He could hear the sound in the radio.

  “There isn’t a fire, if that’s what you’re asking,” Jelbart replied.

  Leyland relaxed. He lowered the binoculars.

  “But we do have a situation,” the officer went on. “We are coming in to discuss it with you.”

  “We?” Leyland asked.

  “We’ll discuss it when we arrive,” Jelbart said. “We should reach the helicopter pad in about fifteen minutes. We’d like clearance.”

  “What kind of bird are you flying?”

  “A Bell 204,” Jelbart told him.

  “There’s room for you. You’re cleared,” Leyland informed him.

  “We checked that before we left,” Jelbart replied. “Thanks for the backup, though.”

  The caller clicked off. Leyland replaced the unit in his belt. It automatically switched back to base-audio. He was intrigued by the call but also frustrated. Leyland hated being in the dark about anything. He would have pressed for information, but he also disliked wasted effort. If the warrant officer had wanted Leyland to know more, he would have told him more.

  “Eva, have Spider climb up to keep an eye on things,” Leyland said. “I’m going to the helipad.”

  “Right away,” she said after giving Spider the order. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re having guests,” Leyland replied. “Intelligence chaps from the Aussie navy.”

  “Sounds important,” Eva said. “Is it?”

  “When was the last time anyone visited who was not with the RFB?” Leyland asked.

  “Never, in the three years I’ve been here,” she replied.

  “And not in the six years I’ve been here,” Leyland said as he started down the ladder in the center of the tower.

  “I don’t follow,” she said.

  “No one comes out here if it isn’t important,” Leyland said.

  FORTY-THREE

  Cairns, Australia Saturday, 6:22 P.M.

  Lowell Coffey could not decide which was worse—riding in a boat or in a helicopter. The naval vessel rocked its passengers this way and that. The helicopter vibrated wildly and was deafening. Not that a qualitative comparison between the corvette and the Bell was going to help. His fight-or-flight mechanism, or whatever Jelbart and Herbert had decided it was, wanted him to flee. The only reason Coffey mused about the differences was to keep from dwelling on the discomfort itself. Toward the end of the forty-five-minute journey, it was a necessary distraction.

  The relative motions being equally unpleasant, Coffey decided that the helicopter was marginally worse. On the corvette he could move around. Here, he was stuck between FNO Loh and Bob Herbert in a thinly cushioned bench designed for two. The pilot and Jelbart were in front of them. Herbert’s wheelchair was in the small cargo space behind the backseat.

  Herbert had contributed something else to the mission. His plan to gather intelligence about Jervis Darling.

  For the first half of the journey, the plan had been in the forefront of Coffey’s mind. For one thing, he was not sure it was a workable idea. But
it was the only idea anyone had. That made it inevitable by default. For another, he was not sure it was a legal idea. But they were not going to court. Not yet. As Jelbart had said, the objective was to find the missing radioactive material. Pinning it on Darling could be done later.

  Coffey also was not happy having to involve additional outsiders in the operation. He did not doubt that the personnel of the Queensland North Rural Fire Brigade were as brave as any soldier who ever shouldered a rifle. But Jelbart admitted that the locals were fiercely loyal to Jervis Darling. The magnate made generous donations to local sports programs, environmental groups, municipal organizations, and charities. Since the reasons for the operation were classified, the firefighters might not want to help spy on their benefactor. And they could not afford to go through channels. That would waste time and risk leaks. This was going to have to be accomplished through tactful persuasion. Bob Herbert could be persuasive, but tact was not in his repertoire. Jelbart was a native, but he also seemed to be a balls-ahead kind of guy. And Monica Loh was both Asian and a woman. Exurban Australians were cheerfully misogynistic as well as naturally suspicious of all outsiders. But they were particularly wary of what many called “the Asian Escalade.” In less politically sensitive times it was known as “the Yellow Peril.” The liberal soul of Lowell Coffey hated the term. Throughout the Western world, it was applied primarily to the Japanese before and during World War II. It was reborn when China fell to Communism, and it grew in popularity with the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. To Australians, the fear was not so much about the threat of military confrontation. It was the very real loss of jobs and economic prosperity to all the nations of the Asian Pacific Rim. Most Asian nations did not have the kind of compensation packages that were available to Australian workers. A company could hire twenty Taiwanese seamen or mill workers for the price of three Australians. Many of these workers toiled at home. But each year, hundreds of illegal immigrants slipped into Australia along the nation’s 7,813 miles of coastline. They went to work for industrial firms, as fishermen, and in the food-processing industries. Most of the money they made was sent home, doubling the hit to the local economy. That made a considerable impact in a nation of twenty million people.