perfect bastard. But I knew it would be wrong to trust you too far.'
Hawke leaned into the wommera. The captain felt a pinch at his throat. He backed against the rolltop desk. Hawke followed him. Thick drops of blood fell slowly onto Kannaday's trousers. The captain had anticipated that Hawke might attack him. He kept a.45 in his desk drawer for protection. But he was up against the drawer and could not reach it.
'You asked why I was late just now,' Hawke said. 'I was speaking with my men. They may be mixed, Mr. Kannaday, but they understand loyalty. They also understand necessity. If they cannot trust their fellows under fire, they will not survive. So here is my proposal. I will allow you to keep your ship and your command. If the chief dismisses you, we will refuse to sail with anyone else. He will not want to lose us both.' Hawke moved in closer. He did not press the blade further. 'We can all ride out this unfortunate incident. The key to your personal survival, Captain, is not to find a goat. It is to be allied with a hawk. Someone who can watch over you.'
'You have a sword at my throat,' Kannaday rasped. 'You haven't left me any options.'
'Did you leave me any?' Hawke demanded. 'How does it feel?'
The blood was running thicker now. Kannaday thought about trying to grab the shaft.
Hawke seemed to read the captain's mind.
'Think this through,' Hawke warned. 'No one needs to know about our exchange,' Hawke told the captain. 'When you see the chief, you can tell him you were injured in battle. He may even respect you more for it. I will tell my men that you never threatened me. I will say that we simply agreed on what you would tell the chief. You can wear a turtleneck to conceal the wound.'
'I see. And we just go on as we were,' Kannaday said.
'We do,' Hawke replied. 'You don't have to like me or our arrangement. But this is what necessity demands. You will live with it.'
Hawke backed away. He relaxed the blade slightly. A moment later he removed it entirely. That was intended, no doubt, to be a show of trust. Or perhaps of confidence. The two were often related.
Kannaday removed a handkerchief from his pocket. He dabbed it against the shallow wound. He stepped away from the rolltop desk. The captain could reach the.45 now. Hawke had attacked him. Kannaday had the wound to prove it. And the weapon.
The sheath of the wommera was attached by a slender leather thong. Hawke replaced the cap and returned the weapon to his belt. Then he turned away and walked slowly toward the door.
Kannaday could easily reach the gun. Hawke obviously knew that, too. He had to suspect that the captain kept a weapon in his quarters. But to stop Hawke now would mean shooting him from behind. To kill him that way would probably cause even his own sailors to turn on him. They would understand discipline and self-defense but not cowardice.
Hawke paused by the door. He turned back and faced the captain full. 'Is there anything further you wanted?'
'No,' Kannaday replied.
Hawke lingered a moment longer. Then he reached behind him, twisted the knob, and left the room.
Kannaday's shoulders dropped. He had not realized how tense he was until they did. He checked the handkerchief and saw that it was thickly stained with blood. He pressed it back in place and went to get a first-aid kit. He kept one in the locker at the foot of his bed, along with his private store of scotch. As soon as he patched the cut, he would open the bottle.
Kannaday was shaken. The captain was also angry at himself for underestimating Hawke. The man had poise. And courage. And a purpose: To end this encounter leaving Kannaday feeling something less than a captain. And a man.
Kannaday sat on the bed to clean and bandage the wound. He gazed into the mirror on the inside of the lid. The gash was a quarter inch long and bleeding slower now. But it went deep. Right down to his dignity.
As Kannaday uncapped the antiseptic cream, he reasoned that he had not come from this empty-handed. If he had not confronted Hawke, there was no guarantee the man would have stood by him. Still, Kannaday promised himself this much. If John Hawke failed to back him up with Jervis Darling, honor and pride would not save him. Kannaday would take him down anywhere and any way he could.
Even if that meant shooting him in the back.
Chapter Thirteen
'I feel like I'm in Oz,' Coffey said into his cell phone.
'You are,' Hood reminded him.
'I mean the other one, the Emerald City one,' Coffey replied. 'The one where an out-of-towner walks around with a strange collection of personalities, looking for something that's really tough to find.'
Hood was alone in his office. Bob Herbert and Mike Rodgers had just gone home, but their teams were still looking for intelligence. They were seeking any leads about radioactive materials missing or currently being trafficked through the region. They had not yet turned up anything new or relevant. As Herbert had reported before leaving, governments or components thereof were often involved in this trade. Unlike individuals, nations like China and the Ukraine were very good at covering their activities.
'I'm standing down the hall from the pirate's hospital room,' Coffey went on. 'Three people just went inside. One was Brian Ellsworth. You can read about him in my files. The other two are Warrant Officer George Jelbart of the MIC and Female Naval Defence Technical Officer Monica Loh of the Singaporean Coastal Command.'
Hood entered the names on his computer as Coffey spelled them. He forwarded the information to Bob Herbert. Hood knew that the designation
'Is the patient conscious?' Hood asked.
'No, which is why I didn't go in with them,' Coffey said. 'Ellsworth said they'd notify me if he came around. Meanwhile, I'm using the secure phone I borrowed from Jelbart. Switch to code DPR1P.'
'Hold on,' Hood said.
He entered the code for AMIC into his desk unit. Op-Center telephones were preprogrammed to decrypt calls from over two hundred allied intelligence services around the world. The Australian Maritime Intelligence Centre was one of these. The only thing required to secure the line was an access code for the individual AMIC phone.
'Done,' Hood said. 'So what do you make of all this?'
'I honestly don't know yet,' Coffey admitted. 'The wreckage is definitely that of a sampan, and it is definitely radioactive. It was probably destroyed by explosions that occurred on the sampan itself. Apparently, pirates have been working the Celebes Sea sporadically for years. They use explosives to hold crews hostage while the vessels are robbed.'
'So this could have been a premature detonation,' Hood said.
'It's possible,' Coffey agreed.
'But that doesn't explain the radioactivity,' Hood added.
'Exactly. As far as anyone knows, these pirates have never dealt in nuclear material. That's making everyone around here pretty jumpy.'
'Why?' Hood asked. 'Nuclear trafficking has been going on for years in the region. The MIC knows that.'
'They also know that there isn't much they can do about it,' Coffey said quietly. 'If word gets out about this, there will be pressure to do something. Only no one knows what, exactly. It's the same problem the United States has faced for years. How do you monitor every point of access? It's tough enough catching drug shipments. Radioactive materials are even more difficult.'
Coffey was right. There was not much that anyone could do about it. A terrorist could use a lead-lined fountain pen or pocket watch or even a rabbit's foot on a key chain to slip plutonium into a country. Just a few
