Sea of Fire

'I didn't hear any shooting this time, Peter,' Marcus said.

'We get things right on occasion,' Kannaday replied. He had long ago given up explaining himself or trying to get the kid to refer to him as Captain Kannaday. Fortunately, Marcus did not do it when other crew members were around. This was just the young man's private dig.

'Don't be modest,' Marcus said. 'You and your crew get things right most of the time.'

'There's a 'but' in your voice,' Kannaday said.

'You've good ears,' Marcus said. 'The 'but' you hear is that Uncle Salty likes things to be right all of the time. He doesn't like movies that flop, magazines that don't make a profit, and real estate that loses value.'

Salty was the Australian media's nickname for Jervis Darling. It was inspired by the big, stealthy saltwater crocodile of the Northern Territory. Kannaday had no idea whether Darling liked the epithet or not.

'This is a different kind of business,' Kannaday said. 'There has to be leeway for the unexpected.'

'I suppose that's true,' Marcus said as he activated the system. He picked up the headset and hung the earpiece around his left ear. 'Unfortunately, we can't really afford that leeway, can we?'

'What do you mean?'

'Failure can result in more than a financial loss for everyone concerned,' Marcus said.

As much as Kannaday disliked giving Marcus his due, the kid was right. Failure in this enterprise could result in death or the kind of jail term that would make death the preferred option. On the other hand, like all the men on board, Kannaday obviously felt that the risk was worth it. Kannaday was earning 75,000 dollars a week. His men were taking in 6,000 each. Darling put the money in an escrow account in the Cayman Islands. At the end of each two-year stint, the money would be theirs. They had six months to go on this leg. And they did not have to do any other kind of smuggling for this employer. No drugs, no guns, no terrorists. They already knew the handful of players in this game, so there were rarely personnel changes and very few surprises. The only thing that made no sense to Kannaday was what was in this for Jervis Darling. The captain did not understand why a multibillionaire would be interested in taking a risk of this magnitude.

Marcus contacted Jervis's personal secretary, Andrew Graham. Andrew was at the Darling compound in Cairns. The secretary said he would transfer the call to Jervis Darling's private line. Marcus handed Kannaday the headset. Kannaday placed the entire unit over his head. Marcus did not get up, so Kannaday leaned on the metal desk. He looked at the thermometer-like spectrometer on the wall in front of him. One cable ran from the base of the unit to Marcus's computer. Another ran to a battery pack on the desk. The device ate up a lot of electricity, but they could not afford to be without it. This room adjoined the laboratory. If there were a leak, software in Marcus's computer would notice a photopeak on its internal graph. That would cause an alarm to sound.

The connection would take about five seconds. They were five very long seconds. Kannaday drew hard on the cigarette. Most of the time, the sixty-two-year-old Darling was a soft-spoken man. But that was misleading. The Australian native could communicate more with a delay or with silence than most people could with speech. Darling had been very quiet when he was told about the explosion. He had told Kannaday simply to 'take care of it.' The captain had been chilled by Darling's monotone, by the way he pronounced 'take' and 'care' as distinct words instead of running them together. Hopefully, word of a successful transfer from Dahman's ship would mollify him.

'Go ahead,' Andrew said.

'Sir, the transfer has been completed,' Kannaday said. They never used Darling's name over the air. Unlikely though it was, there was always a chance that the signal could be intercepted and interpreted.

'All right,' Darling replied. 'We will talk about this when you arrive… Captain.'

There was a click. Kannaday felt as though he had been punched hard in the gut. Darling had hung up. Kannaday had not expected absolution, but he had been hoping for neutrality. He did not get that. There had been a pause between 'arrive' and 'Captain.' Kannaday did not know whether that meant It was your responsibility to protect the ship, or Enjoy the title while it's still yours. Kannaday removed the headset.

'Did Uncle Salty take a bite?' Marcus asked.

'Without even opening his bloody mouth,' Kannaday replied. He opened the door.

'Don't worry,' Marcus said. 'Maybe my uncle will let it go at that. If you don't catch the first wave, often you won't catch it at all. When I was a kid, I saw him do that on one of his movies. His star was scratching away at a part like she was chipping for gold. Three days into the shoot, the director was already six days behind schedule. Uncle Salty couldn't yell at his big-name star, so he went after one of her wardrobe mistresses. He showed up on the set one morning and chewed her out for being slow. Chucked a micky, big time. Uncle Salty's star worked a lot faster after that.'

'I'll make sure to warn my dresser,' Kannaday said. 'This is not a motion picture. Your uncle cannot afford to let things slide. He cannot write off a failure on his taxes.'

'That's true,' Marcus said as he returned to his cot. He shrugged. 'I was just trying to give you some hope. Forget I said anything.' Marcus picked up his novel and resumed reading.

Kannaday left the communications room. He should have known better than to engage in any kind of dialogue with Marcus. Not only did the kid like to tweak him, but Kannaday believed that Marcus and Hawke had something going. It was nothing he could pin down. It might not be anything more than simpatico. But every time Kannaday came upon them together, it looked as though the two men had just finished setting a bear trap. Hawke was typically implacable, but Marcus was always watchful, cautious, guarded.

Kannaday went to his small cabin in the aftermost section of the yacht. The hardwood floorboard creaked slightly. He shut the door and stared out the tiny rear porthole. He did not see the sea or the sky or the glare of the sun on the bulletproof glass. He was only aware of one thing: How would Darling react when they were face-to-face?

Kannaday knew too much about this operation for the magnate simply to dismiss him without the rest of his pay. Besides, Darling would have to get himself another boat. If he tried to take this one, the new captain of the Hosannah would have to explain what happened to the old captain. There would be an inquiry. Anyway, Kannaday did not believe that Darling would kill him. There were rumors about past activities of that sort, but Kannaday's crew was not stupid. If something happened to Kannaday, they would not wait around. They would take the yacht to sea and lose themselves at the first crowded port. Kannaday also did not think Darling would risk the setup he had.

Of course, there might be larger issues for Darling to consider. Issues that might override these other concerns. Darling might feel as if he needed to teach an object lesson to the men on this or other operations. That accidents could not be tolerated.

That possibility worried Kannaday. There was only one way he could be sure it did not happen.

That was to strike first.

And Kannaday had an idea just how to do it.

Chapter Nine

The Celebes Sea Thursday, 12:33 P.M.

The cutter had proceeded northwest at seventeen knots. It reached the designated area quickly. Fortunately, the delay had not impacted Jaafar's scheduled drop-off. International Spent Fuel Transport, a division of Dahman Waste Management, had clearance at the site for noon until three-thirty every two weeks. There were 112 visits to this site each year. The next ship would not visit here until the following morning. The International Nuclear Regulatory Commission assigned the slots so that each ship would have a comfortable window for getting in and out of the area. The time slots were created to minimize the chance of collisions. And if an accident occurred on one ship, it would not threaten the crew of another.

Jaafar watched from the bridge as his crew worked the winch on the forward section of the cutter. The eight crewmen all wore radiation suits. They worked slowly and carefully as the fifty-foot crane removed a concrete block from the forward hold.

The block weighed three tons and was roughly the size of a compact automobile. It was designed to contain just three ten-gallon drums of waste. Each radioactive rod was sealed inside a mixture of absorbent lithium