Tom Clancy's Op-center_ Sea Of Fire Part 3

Herbert fell silent as Hood took the call.

"Morning, Lowell," Hood said. "How are things Down Under?"

"Surprising," Lowell replied. "I'm on my way to the airport."

"Why? What's up?" Hood asked.

"I'm not entirely sure," Coffey said.

"Lowell, Bob and Mike are here," Hood said. "I'm putting you on speakerphone."

"Good," Coffey said. "I may need their help."

Hood punched the b.u.t.ton and sat back. "Go ahead, Lowell."

"A few minutes ago, I got a call from an aide to a Warrant Officer George Jelbart of the Maritime Intelligence Centre," Coffey said. "He told me they have a hot situation up in Darwin. From what I was able to get over an unsecure line, 'hot' probably means one thing."

"Radioactive," Hood said.

"Right," Coffey replied.

Hood felt a chill in the small of his back. "Did he give you any context, a scenario of some kind?" Hood asked.

"Zero," Coffey said. "But I was on a cell phone, and he obviously didn't want to say very much. All I was told is that there's an airplane waiting to take me to Darwin."

Herbert had already swung up the laptop computer attached to his wheelchair. The intelligence chief had lost the use of his legs in the Beirut emba.s.sy blast that had killed his wife. He had wireless Internet on the laptop, as well as the ability to tap any of Op-Center's computers using LEASH-Local Executive Access Secure Hookup. The technology only worked within a radius of 500 feet from the personal computer in his office. While Coffey was speaking, Herbert had gone to the Australian Department of Defence file. He found the dossier on Warrant Officer Jelbart and read it.

"What do you know about Jelbart?" Rodgers asked.

"He's a heavyweight," Herbert said. He spoke loud enough for Coffey to hear. "He's fifty-two, a career officer, divorced twice, no kids. He runs the coastal intelligence network and has a background in mapping and signal recon. Commendations up to his eyeb.a.l.l.s."

"Bob, are there any nuclear submarines in the Darwin area?" Rodgers asked. "I'm wondering if there could be a leak."

"I was not given that information."

"It could also be a plutonium-powered satellite that fell to earth," Hood suggested.

"I suppose," Coffey agreed. "But why would Jelbart call me for either of those? My first thought was that there might be civilian casualties resulting from an accident of some kind-"

"Possibly American civilian casualties," Rodgers pointed out.

"Right. But wouldn't they go to an emba.s.sy first?" Coffey asked.

"Not necessarily," Hood said. "If they were negligent in some way and wanted to cover their a.s.ses, having an internationally known human-rights attorney on site would be a nice cosmetic touch."

"Gentlemen, before we go to war with Australia over this, I'd like to check both possibilities," Herbert said.

The intelligence chief went to the United States Department of Defense secure file and accessed the naval intelligence Red List-an up-to-the-minute listing on the whereabouts and status of nuclear-capable craft. It was the list that gave the Pentagon the first warning that the Russian submarine Kursk Kursk had gone down in August 2000. The list also showed the status of the nine cruise missiles that had been removed from the submarine and taken to the top secret Nerpa s.h.i.+pyard located at the mouth of Olenya Guba Bay in Murmansk. The list included vessels with nuclear-powered engines and nuclear missiles. Herbert told the others that only the Chinese People's Liberation Navy had a vessel operating in the region, a Xia-cla.s.s ballistic missile submarine. There was no suggestion of any problems on board. Then he went to the National Reconnaissance Office site to check on nuclear-powered satellites and exploration craft. Herbert reported that the list of deorbiting hardware was free of alerts. had gone down in August 2000. The list also showed the status of the nine cruise missiles that had been removed from the submarine and taken to the top secret Nerpa s.h.i.+pyard located at the mouth of Olenya Guba Bay in Murmansk. The list included vessels with nuclear-powered engines and nuclear missiles. Herbert told the others that only the Chinese People's Liberation Navy had a vessel operating in the region, a Xia-cla.s.s ballistic missile submarine. There was no suggestion of any problems on board. Then he went to the National Reconnaissance Office site to check on nuclear-powered satellites and exploration craft. Herbert reported that the list of deorbiting hardware was free of alerts.

"I sure was hoping it was one of them," Herbert said.

Hood did not have to ask why. Absent an accident, that left the probability of illegal nuclear activity, possibly the transportation of weapons or raw nuclear material.

"Lowell, are there any nuclear power plants in the Darwin region?" Rodgers asked.

"I already asked my host," Coffey told him. "She said she does not believe there are."

"I'm with you, Lowell," Herbert said. "Nothing personal, but I'm bothered by the fact that they asked for you instead of an official representative of the federal government."

"I am, too," Coffey said.

"Do we know that they didn't do that as well?" Hood asked.

"I was told that I was their one-and-only," Coffey said.

"Jelbert's aide may not have been in possession of that information," Hood pointed out. "For all we know, the American emba.s.sy has been notified. We're going to have to let this play out until we know more."

"There obviously has to be a legal issue involved," Herbert said. "Something that requires Lowell's expertise in international affairs."

"That does seem to make sense," Hood said. "Lowell, how long until you reach the airport?"

"About fifteen minutes," Coffey replied.

"Maybe we'll know more by then," Hood said. "Lowell, let us know what you find out as soon as you can."

"Of course," he said.

Hood wished him well and hung up. He looked at the others. "Bob, is there any history of nuclear trafficking in that region?"

"The answer is, 'possibly,' " Herbert said.

"Jeez, I remember when intelligence agencies used to deal in probablies," Rodgers said.

"When you were a greenhorn in 'Nam, they did," Herbert said. "We still had human intelligence resources in every backwater den you could imagine. Then the electronic intelligence guys came in and said there was no reason to risk lives anymore. They were wrong. Satellites can't do belowdecks imaging in a freighter or oil tanker."

"What about those possibilities, Bob?" Hood asked, getting them back on subject.

"We suspect that terrorists and rogue states in the Pacific Rim have used commercial s.h.i.+ps and private vessels to transport nuclear weapons or components," Herbert told him. "But we have no evidence of that. For the last few years a bunch of navies and air defense forces around the world, including Australia, have been placing radiation-detection equipment on their vessels. These gizmos measure gamma radiation or neutron fields, depending on whether they're looking for raw radioactive material or weapons, respectively. But they haven't found anything."

"Which doesn't mean much," Rodgers said. "Adequate lead s.h.i.+elding will hide that."

Herbert nodded. "That's why we need more people watching potential traffickers on the s.h.i.+pping and receiving ends. The CIA and the FBI are working on that, but we're nowhere near up to speed yet."

"All right," Hood said. "The system has a lot of holes. But you're saying the Aussies have the capacity to pick up hot cargo?"

"That's right," Herbert said. "And if that's what happened, there are a lot of reasons they might want someone like Lowell to have a look."

Hood suggested that Herbert and Rodgers return to their offices to see if there was any other intelligence they could dig up. He would notify them as soon as Coffey called.

As they left, Hood looked at the photo of Harleigh and Alexander on his desk. He wished he could roll back the clock ten minutes. The responsibility of fighting nuclear terrorism was an unimaginable burden. The price of failure would be appalling.

Still, whether Hood wanted it or not, that responsibility might be his. Hopefully, this would prove to be something far less dire than he could imagine.

SEVEN.

Sydney, Australia Thursday, 10:01 A.M.

It was like talking to stone.

When Lowell Coffey did not get the service, respect, or answers he was looking for, his inclination was to stand and fight. Quietly, but with unshakable determination. Jaguar dealers or presidents, it did not matter.

This was a rare exception.

Coffey and Penny arrived at the domestic cargo terminal. It was a vast, low-lying building that looked as if it had been built in the 1960s. It was situated away from the main terminal area. Penny parked the pickup among rows of semis with container rigs. They walked to the front office, which sat just inside the main hangar. There they were met by a petty officer from the MIC. He was a fresh-faced kid whose name tag said Lady. That name must have got him teased a lot more than Date. Coffey judged him to be about twenty-five. The petty officer checked Coffey's pa.s.sport, thanked him for coming, and said he would show the attorney to the aircraft. He removed a small point-to-point radio from his belt. Lady was pleasant, efficient, and uninformative. Unacceptably so. Coffey refused to follow the young man into the hangar.

"Petty Officer Lady, before I board the aircraft, I would appreciate some information," Coffey said. "Specifically, I'd like to know why I'm going with you." He had to speak loudly to be heard over the forklifts that were moving barrels and containers.

"I'm sorry, sir," the young man replied. "I can't tell you that."

"Then I can't go with you," Coffey insisted.

"No, sir. I mean I can't tell you because I don't know," Lady said. "What I can do, sir, is put you in touch with my CO if you'd like. But I can a.s.sure you that he doesn't know anything more than I do. This is a Level Alpha operation. Information is on a need-to-know basis."

"Well, I need to know, and so do my superiors," Coffey said. He held up his cell phone and wiggled it back and forth. "What do I tell them?"

"Sir, I wish I could help you. But that information is at the other end of a two-hour flight," Lady said. He held up his own radio. "What shall I tell the pilot, sir? He is waiting to take off."

If the kid had wiggled the radio, the attorney would have turned around and left. But he did not. He was respectful. And he had effectively called Coffey's bluff.

The American turned to Penny.

"It looks like I'll be taking a two-hour flight," he said. "I'll let you know as soon as I have some idea what's going on."

"Don't worry about it," Penny said.

"I do," Coffey said. "I just hope this isn't an elaborate Ellsworth plot to keep me from giving a speech."

"He's a duck-shover," she said, "but if that turns out to be the case, just E-mail me the speech. I'll read it for you."

Coffey thanked her and indicated for Petty Officer Lady to lead him to the plane.

"Duck-shover?" he said, turning back to Penny.

"My dad drove a taxi," the woman shouted ahead. "That's what they used to call drivers who cut other taxis off or muscled them out of the way."

"I love it!" Coffey called back, waving as he headed toward the back of the hangar and the door that led to the field.

The Lockheed P-3C was a big, gray, cigar-shaped four-engine prop plane. It was 116 feet in length with a wing-span of nearly 100 feet. Coffey had only been in a prop plane once before, when he traveled with the regional Op-Center mobile office to the Middle East. He had not liked the noise and vibration then. He did not think he would like it now.

Because this was a transport mission, not travel to a combat zone, the P-3C had gone out without a tactical coordinator. The TACCO's station was located in the rear of the aircraft. After Petty Officer Lady turned Coffey over to the crew, the captain gave him the coordinator's seat. According to the pilot, it was the warmest, most comfortable place in the plane. The plane was taxiing before Coffey had even buckled himself in to the threadbare red seat.

The attorney faced the port side as the aircraft rumbled its way into the air. He was sitting in a cubicle shaped like half a pentagon. The sun-faded blue metal walls were covered with displays, b.u.t.tons, and old-fas.h.i.+oned switches and dials. Coffey sat with his back to the open window as the sun burned across his neck and the equipment. An hour ago, if Coffey had to guess all the places he could conceivably have found himself this morning, the rear end of a Royal Australian Navy patrol craft would have been nowhere on the list.

The strangeness of it all was outweighed by Coffey's curiosity as to what he would find on the other end. The attorney was thrilled by the fact that he was in the right place to do something about whatever this was. He relished the opportunity and the challenge. It reinforced one of his strongest convictions: that an individual did not have to be in the big, bulging belly of politics to have a positive impact on society.

For the duration of the 116-minute flight, no one came back to check on the attorney or offer him coffee. Or a pillow. Nor was the flight all that comfortable. Coffey wondered if they had stuck him back there just so he would not bug anyone for answers. Sitting there, he found himself thinking about Paul Hood's managerial style.

Hood did not always have information that people wanted to hear. But he never kept them out of the loop. Sometimes he was not at liberty to say what he did know. But he always told people that. Stonewalling was dehumanizing. Hood had his flaws, but he always treated people like people.

The plane landed at Darwin International Airport. The airport consisted of one large central structure that looked like a shopping mall in Anytown, U.S.A. The building was all white. Coffey wondered if everything in Australia was white. Located less than four miles outside the city, DIA was both a commercial airport and a Department of Defence airfield. It was used primarily by the Royal Australian Air Force. However, the MIC also flew reconnaissance missions from here.

Coffey was not taken to the terminal. The plane pulled off onto an ap.r.o.n where several F-18s were parked. The pilot walked him down the aft staircase to a waiting black sedan.

"Tell me, Captain," Coffey said as they crossed the short, windy stretch of tarmac. "Did you folks strand me back there on purpose? An unadorned yes or no will suffice."

"Yes, sir, we did," the captain replied.

"Follow-up question," Coffey said. "Why did you leave me alone?"

"Because we were told to, sir," the pilot said.

Okay, Coffey thought. Coffey thought. At least that was honest. At least that was honest.

The pilot turned him over to the petty officer who stood beside the car. The men exchanged salutes, and then the pilot left. The petty officer opened the door, and Coffey got in. There was a gla.s.s part.i.tion between the front and back of the car. Obviously, they did not want him talking to the driver, either.

The car sped off, carrying Coffey past a forest of tall, colorful stone poles that stood in a small, green plot beside the building. Coffey recognized these from the tour book he had read during the flight to Australia. They were Tiwi Puk.u.mani burial poles-a tribute to the Aboriginal peoples who dwelt in the Northern Territory. They were used as mourning totems during funeral ceremonies. Afterward, they remained standing above the grave as a memorial to the dead. These particular poles were carved to honor all native dead. Coffey thought about how moving it must be for a sculptor to work on interpretive likenesses of deceased individuals from his tribe or village. The process made more sense to Coffey than a marble worker impersonally hacking names into stone.

Also, the burial poles were not white. They were brightly painted, a celebration of life.

As the sedan headed toward downtown Darwin, Coffey looked out at the gleaming waters of the Timor Sea. He found it ironic that since leaving Sydney he had encountered a pilot, a driver, and a series of totems. All of them were mute, but only one of them had any eloquence.

The one that was made of stone.

EIGHT.

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