Sea of Fire

standing beside him. The officer tipped his hat to Loh as she walked past. If she were out of uniform, she would have found that sweet. In uniform, it made her uncomfortable. She would have preferred a salute. They walked a few steps to the morgue. The hospital guard buzzed them in. The two leading seamen did not enter.

The morgue was about twenty by twenty feet. There were refrigerated cabinets with stainless steel doors on the left-hand side. On the right side were shelves with chemicals, tools, and electronic equipment. There were two doors in the rear. In the center of the room was a row of gurneys. Dark aprons covered several of them. Loh assumed that these were lead-lined and that the remains of the boat were beneath them.

There were four other people in the brightly lit room. One of them walked over briskly and introduced himself. He was Brian Ellsworth, a short, rotund, balding man. Dressed in a black three-piece suit, the pale official looked as though he were dressed for his own funeral. Ellsworth introduced Warrant Officer George Jelbart, attorney Lowell Coffey III of the National Crisis Management Center in Washington, D.C., and Dr. Maud Forvey, a physicist at the Northern Territory University.

Loh introduced herself and her two aides.

'I want to thank you all for coming,' Ellsworth said. 'Frankly, we aren't sure precisely what we've stumbled upon. We hope you can help.'

'You received the data from the Police Coast Guard,' Loh said.

'Yes. We did, just now, thank you,' Ellsworth said. 'We have people checking to see if there is additional information about Mr. Tong.'

'I would like to visit him,' Loh said.

'We'll take you to his room in a minute,' Ellsworth said. 'First, if you don't mind, we'd like to know if there is anything you can tell us about the wreckage. We understand you've been at sea for ten years.'

'That's right,' she said.

'Mr. Jelbart believes it's from a sampan, but we aren't certain,' Ellsworth said. 'By the way, Dr. Forvey has checked the flotsam for radioactivity. It is extremely low level, perfectly safe for a brief exposure. Just don't handle any of the pieces without the proper attire.'

Loh walked over to the gurneys. Dr. Forvey put on thick yellow gloves. She raised the end of one of the lead covers. The Singaporean officer looked at the charred pieces of planking.

'That's Foochow pine,' she said.

'Are you certain?' Ellsworth asked.

'Absolutely. The Chinese use it to make mu-chi sampans.'

'Do you ever see these in Singapore?' Warrant Officer Jelbart asked.

'Occasionally,' Loh said. 'They're mostly used for river travel.'

'Why is that?' Ellsworth asked.

'The mu-chi sampans have a very low profile and can pass easily under most bridges,' Loh informed him.

'Are they motorized?' Jelbart asked.

'They can be,' she replied.

'Obviously this one was,' Ellsworth said. 'The question is, why take one of them to the middle of the Celebes Sea at night?'

'Piracy,' Loh replied. 'That's what sampans are used for in the South China Sea.'

'That would make sense,' Jelbart said. 'The low profile would make it extremely difficult to spot on the horizon and difficult to pick up on radar. If they waited for night-fall, they could quietly oar their way to a ship.'

'That's exactly what they do,' Loh told him.

'What about using the sampans for smuggling?' Ellsworth asked.

'That is uncommon,' Loh said. 'There is not a lot of storage capability. They would not be very efficient when weighted down. Doctor, could you raise the apron a little higher?'

Dr. Forvey did so. Loh examined the wreckage for a long moment.

'There is something else,' Loh said. 'I don't believe that the explosion of a diesel engine caused this wreckage.'

'How can you tell?' Ellsworth asked.

'The engine would have been located in the rear,' she said. 'The curve of these planks suggests they came from the front section. Something would have had to explode close to the planks to do this kind of damage. Also, the foxing along the sides of the wood is unusual. Petrol explosions produce sharp, splintering cracks. This wood was pulverized.'

'Suggesting what?' Jelbart asked.

'That a powerful explosive device was on board,' Loh said. 'There have been reports over the last few years about a band of pirates who place explosives on the hulls of ships. The pirates threaten to destroy the vessels unless they turn over their cargo.'

'Do we know anything about these pirates?' Jelbart asked.

'No,' Loh replied. 'They always attacked in the dark and stayed out of range when making their demands. Any hostages they took were hooded or killed. It is conceivable they could have used a sampan for these attacks.'

'How did they collect their plunder?' Jelbart asked.

'The cash and jewelry were put in a dinghy or sometimes a bag, which one of the pirates would swim over to collect,' Loh replied.

'That would not have been a convenient way to move nuclear materials around,' Dr. Forvey noted. Carefully, she lay the heavy apron back across the battered pieces of wood.

'That assumes this was the same group of pirates,' Coffey said.

'The only way we're going to find that out is by talking to the survivor,' Loh said. 'I would like to do that as soon as possible.'

'He's unconscious,' Ellsworth told her.

'Then we'll have to wake him,' Loh replied.

'Officer Loh, that's something we will have to discuss with his doctors,' Ellsworth said.

Loh glared at him. 'You can discuss it with his doctors,' she suggested firmly. 'I am here to find out why a sampan and one of its operators were exposed to radiation.'

'We can try to do both,' Coffey suggested diplomatically.

Loh turned and walked toward the door. There was nothing to hunt down here.

The lioness was moving on.

Chapter Twelve

The Celebes Sea Thursday, 1:08 P.M.

The yacht was about to cross south into the Molucca Sea when Captain Kannaday summoned John Hawke to his cabin. Fifteen minutes later, the security chief knocked and entered.

Kannaday was seated at a small rolltop desk against the port-side wall. It was an eighteenth-century piece. There were laminated charts marked with grease pencil and a laptop with nautical data. When Kannaday sat here, it made him feel like the captain of an old-time frigate or whaling ship. How many of those men also dealt in contraband? he often wondered. Back then it would have been slaves and arms and opium.

Hawke shut the narrow door behind him. The bright light from the porthole moved with the slow sway of the he pryacht. One moment the sun shone brightly on the officer's long face. The next moment he was in sharp-edged darkness. Hawke did not blink in the direct light of the sun. He removed his headset and hung it over his shoulder.

There was a deck chair beside the bed. Kannaday did not invite him to sit. The captain swiveled his own chair toward the newcomer.

'You took your time getting here,' Kannaday said.

'I was busy with the repairs,' Hawke replied.

The man had a voice like sea spray. It was soft and feathery, a combination of his mother's drawling Aborigine accent and his father's lyrical Canadian inflection. Considering the setback they had suffered, it was also