Sea of Fire

'You want to get Jervis Darling,' Hood pointed out. 'That isn't the same thing.'

'It will be if we find the boat,' Herbert said. 'Damn, I wish that pirate had seen something. At least we'd know what we were looking for.'

'You could have him hypnotized,' Hood suggested, half in desperate jest. 'Maybe he'll remember more.'

'That's good for quitting smoking, not interrogation,' Herbert said.

'There is one thing,' Loh said.

'What's that?' Herbert asked. 'Paul, can you hear FNO Loh?'

'Barely,' Hood said.

Herbert held the cell phone between them. He asked the Singaporean to speak up.

'The pirates would not have attacked a much larger vessel,' Loh said loudly. 'It's night now. Small vessels tend to go to anchor.'

'How does that help us?' Herbert said. 'There are probably a lot of small boats on the open sea.'

'This one would not be stopped,' she said. 'If it's out there, and Darling is afraid of being caught, he would have it running somewhere.'

'Good point,' Leyland contributed. 'But that still leaves a lot of area to cover.'

'Not as much as you might think,' Herbert said. 'Chances are pretty good the boat won't be going toward Cairns. Darling won't want that ship anywhere near him.'

'What if he wanted to hide it?' Hood asked. 'What better place than his own facility?'

'That was probably the game plan before we showed up,' Herbert said. 'Now, Darling would never risk it. If there is a hint of radioactivity on board that vessel, it's as good as a fingerprint. We could identify the source from just a particle of material. Darling has to imagine that someone will come looking.'

'We should get our ships back out to sea,' Loh said.

'I agree,' Herbert said. 'But we should also get the chopper in the air and run a zigzag search heading seaward. If the vessel is back, Darling may have to send it out again. Just so he isn't caught. If it's not back, it's going to be racing to a safe haven somewhere else.'

'Is there any kind of electronic surveillance we can do from here?' Hood asked.

'I'm sure the transport vessel is in a silent running mode by now,' Herbert said.

'We can do a GPS sweep,' Loh said.

'Right,' Herbert agreed.

'I didn't get that,' Hood said.

'Ask Stephen Viens to do a read on the global positioning satellite beacons in the region,' Herbert said.

'The satellites, not the receiver?' Hood asked.

'The receiver itself, on the boat, is a passive site. All it does is tap into a continuous beacon from three satellites — four if you're adding altitude to the mix, which we are not. We can't pinpoint the boat by looking for a specific ID number. What we can do, though, is watch for the beacons themselves and triangulate them. Viens will know what I mean. Have him run a scan every minute or so. If we've got someone who's running at twenty-five knots or more, that will be worth looking into. Especially if they're heading away from Cairns.'

'I like it,' Hood said.

Hood said he would have Viens's office look into the GPS as soon as possible.

Herbert thanked him and hung up. Then he reached back and put the phone in his wheelchair. He felt a little bit better than before. At least they had a plan. And there was one thing an intelligence officer could always count on. Night was when vermin tended to move about.

'From what I've been hearing, that boat was armed,' Leyland said. 'What if it has some kind of surface-to-air missiles? Your chopper has no defense. They won't believe that Little Maluka got lost on his boardie.'

'His what?' Herbert asked.

'His board. Surfing.'

'You're right,' Herbert said. 'But if they shoot at us, we'll know one thing for sure.'

'What's that?' Leyland asked.

'We found the right boat.'

Chapter Fifty-Two

Washington, D.C. Saturday, 11:00 A.M.

The phone beeped, and Hood snapped it up. He had just finished talking to Stephen Viens, who was rushing to the office. In his absence, weekend surveillance staffer Mary Timm was starting up the GPS sweep. It was not a complex operation, and the exchange officer was from the Communications Security Establishment of Canada's Department of National Defence. That was the branch of government that analyzed and catalogued intercepted radio and various electronic emissions from other nations. The CSE liaised closely with both the United States and Great Britain's SIGINT services.

'R. Clayton Herbert,' said the deep and smoky voice on the other end of the phone. 'That's Bob Herbert. He's on your staff, isn't he?' There was a hint of a Louisiana accent.

Hood did not like calls that opened with questions. Especially when the voice was not familiar. But the caller had access to Hood's direct line. That meant he had high-level security clearance.

'Who is this?' Hood asked.

'Bruce Perry,' the caller replied.

Perry was the special assistant to the president for democratic elections. It was a post that monitored voting activities in foreign nations. Hood could not understand what Special Assistant Perry wanted with Herbert, or why he used that form of Herbert's name. He did a GovScan search of Perry's name. Those personnel files were little more than glorified resumes. They were available to officials who might need assistance in highly specialized areas.

'I don't believe we've ever met,' Hood said, stalling while he scanned Perry's file.

'You may be correct,' Perry replied. 'But then, it isn't my job to keep track of peoples' activities.'

Oh, Hood thought. It's going to be one of those kinds of conversations. And then he spotted the reason Perry was calling. The sixty-four- year-old was a former ambassador to Australia.

'All right, Mr. Perry,' Hood said. 'Yes, Bob Herbert is an officer here. You already knew that, or you wouldn't be asking. What's on your mind?'

'Mr. Herbert has just been to see Mr. Jervis Darling at his home,' Perry said. 'You've heard of Jervis Darling?'

'I read newspapers,' Hood said. Darling had obviously wasted no time getting his puppets onstage.

'Newspapers do not tell the full story of this man,' Perry said.

'I'm sure of that.'

'Mr. Darling has put a substantial portion of his personal fortune into countless unheralded charitable activities, which include democratic advocacy programs,' Perry went on. 'He is a rock in that region, and Mr. Herbert had no right to call on him.'

'In a democratic society we have all kinds of rights,' Hood pointed out.

'The right to privacy is chief among those,' Perry replied.

'Fair enough. I assume Mr. Darling called you. Did he say what Mr. Herbert was after?'

'He said there was some nonsense about misplaced nuclear waste,' Perry said, chuckling. 'The idea that Mr. Darling would know anything about that is completely ridiculous.'

'Why?'

'Because, for one thing, Mr. Darling believes absolutely in the rule of law,' Perry said. He was no longer chuckling. 'He also happens to be an extremely moral man.'

'Who may have had his wife murdered,' Hood said.

'Oh, Jesus Lord!' Perry said angrily. 'Don't tell me you believe that old smear!'

'Who would smear him?'

'He spent a great deal of money to find out,' Perry replied. 'He discovered that the Singaporeans had spread