Sea of Fire o-10 Read online

  The rest of the crew was going about their business of sailing the yacht back to Australia.

  The yacht belonged to Kannaday, and some members of the crew had been with him for nearly seven years. They were loyal, though not necessarily to him. They liked the untaxed money they made and the job was easy. Most of the time the Hosannah pretended to be conducting coastline tours or fishing runs. They wanted to be seen in as many places as possible. Crew members posed as paying customers. Between those essentially idle cruises, the crew were veterans of countless independent smuggling operations. They had transported people and goods all across the southern hemisphere, from Australia to South America.

  The security people did not work for him. They worked for John Hawke, who worked for Jervis Darling. A thick mist of distrust circulated between them and Kannaday's veteran crew. Kannaday's men had never had to defend their vessel and their cargo. But they could and would, if necessary. Hawke's team had never sailed a yacht. Yet each team believed they could do the other's job better. Seamen always felt that way. Unfortunately, what had happened the night before stoked the frustration in both camps. The seamen felt the security team should have seen the sampan coming before dark. They had radar and sonar, installed in the radio room by Darling's technicians. Unfortunately, the sampan was so small it literally slipped under the radar. Kannaday's crew felt that once the threat was identified, the security people should have anticipated that there might be explosives on board. They could have changed course to avoid the threat, as they always did before going to work exclusively for Darling. Unfortunately, the schedules of Darling and his partners did not allow time for flight. They were to load and off-load the materials as soon as possible.

  The miserable irony was that except for the explosion, everything had gone perfectly. The security system and defensive response had worked. An hour before they were supposed to meet Jaafar, the sophisticated marine radar had picked up a blip. Darling's nephew Marcus had reported it to Kannaday, who had watched the seven-inch color monitor in the communications room. They had observed the sampan's approach on the night-vision security camera attached to the mainmast. They decided that the crew were pirates preparing to board. A security team went on deck and took them out. So as not to hit fuel supplies or stockpiled ammunition, they aimed at the men, not at the sampan. Though they took precautions, a replay of the security video showed what had happened. Bullets struck explosives one of the pirates had been carrying. Perhaps the pirates had intended to try to cripple the yacht and forestall pursuit. In any case, the handheld explosive had blown up and damaged the yacht. There was no way to have seen that. No way to have anticipated it. And, unfortunately, no way to protect against it.

  The yacht was divided into ten rooms. Six of those were for the crew, one was for munitions, one was for Kannaday, and one was for communications. The tenth room, the room that was damaged, was for their cargo. Kannaday walked down the carpeted central corridor to the room where repairs were still ongoing. Fortunately, all of the internal walls had held secure. Kannaday stopped beside thirty-one-year-old John Hawke, his security officer.

  Hawke was a contrast to the tall, prematurely silver-haired Kannaday. The sinewy, five-foot-nine-inch Hawke was what the people of his native Cootamundra, South Australia, used to call a Mong — a mongrel, the son of a Canadian father and an Aborigine mother. However, no one who knew Hawke used the disparaging term. The taciturn sailor wore a wommera tucked in his sash belt. The traditional Dharuk weapon was a hooked wooden stick used for hurling darts with force and accuracy. The dart was placed in a hollowed end and then flung, like a jai alai ball. Kannaday had seen Hawke use the weapon on sea birds for practice. Their eyes were his favorite target. Their squawks were like sylvan music to him, producing the only smile Kannaday ever saw.

  Hawke's own eyes were pale gray set in a face of dark rust. His hair was black and curly and worn in a shoulder-length ponytail. He moved with the steady, fluid grace of a man who had spent most of his life on a ship's deck. The oddest thing about him was that he was almost always whistling. Except for when he was on deck at night, he would whistle native melodies. No one ever asked him why, and no one asked him to stop. Not only was he a formidable presence, but he had been handpicked by Darling.

  Right now Hawke was standing outside the cargo door. He was wearing a radio headset. He was speaking with the three crew members who were inside the room. Kannaday offered Hawke a drag from his cigarette. Hawke declined with a single shake of his head.

  "How is it going?" Kannaday asked.

  "Mr. Gibbons says they'll have the outer hull sufficiently repaired to get us safely to the cove," Hawke told him.

  "Good," Kannaday replied. "Thank the lads for me. I'm going to report to the chief."

  Hawke did not respond. Kannaday had not expected him to. If something did not need to be said or indicated, Hawke did nothing.

  Kannaday moved past him down the corridor. He shouldered by the security personnel who were returning from the munitions room to their cabin. The lab had been made from the forward port-side guest cabin. The radio room was assembled in the rear starboard guest cabin. In the center of the yacht was the saloon. Walls had been erected in the center of the dining area. The security team slept in hammocks slung in the port-side section. Kannaday's crew slept in the starboard section. Kannaday's own cabin was astern. Except for transfer times or emergencies, the security team remained below. To all outward appearances, the Hosannah was simply a pleasure yacht on charter.

  Kannaday knocked on the door of the communications shack. Without waiting for a reply, he slipped his large frame through the small doorway of the windowless cabin. The rush of air from the belowdecks ventilation duct filled the room. The vent was located port side of a crawl space that ran the length of the yacht. That was where emergency supplies were kept. It was also where nonlethal contraband such as drugs or political refugees were kept.

  The green-haired communications officer looked up from his cot. Marcus Darling was the chief's twenty-five-year-old nephew. The heavyset young man had an advanced degree in electronics and the arrogance that comes from nepotism. Most of the time he lay here or on deck reading science fiction and fantasy novels or watching DVDs on his laptop. Occasionally, he took the flare guns from the compartment above his station and checked them. In case of an accident, he was in charge of all forms of rescue signaling. But what the kid really wanted to do was run one of the boss's movie-special-effects facilities in Europe or the United States. Uncle Jervis told him that after he put in a year on the yacht, he would send Marcus wherever he wanted to go.

  Marcus was the one who had built the Hosannah's secure radio system three years before. At the time, the young man was still in college, and Jervis Darling was just beginning to plan this operation. Marcus had hacked a classified NATO web site to get a list of components the organization used in their field-communications setup. The heart of the system was a digital encryption module that could be interfaced with analog radios. Run through a personal computer, the DM continually modulated the frequencies while communicating the changes to a computer on the receiving end. It was virtually impossible to decrypt the communication without the computer software.

  Marcus set aside the science fiction novel he was reading. He rose from the cot as Kannaday shut the door. The radio operator was on call all day, every day, and this was where he slept. The room was a tight squeeze with the radar equipment where the porthole used to be and the radio gear on the wall across from the cot. Kannaday backed against the door while Marcus moved toward the desk. It was actually a wide shelf built directly into the wall. The desk ran the length of the cabin. The young man eased into the canvas director's chair in front of the radio.

  "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 whe
n 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 absorbe
nt lithium chloride, potassium chloride, and alkali metal chloride salts. These were packaged inside cesium metal containers within reinforced ceramic and steel drums. Once the concrete block was in the water, it would be lowered slowly to a ledge feet below. A fiber-optic camera on the line would guide the winch operator. He would take care not to nick or damage any other block while placing his. Each week, the INRC sailed through this region to make certain none of the blocks were leaking.

  This area of the Celebes Sea was one of twelve oceanic regions where the INRC permitted radioactive waste to be deposited. The seabed here was geologically stable, and fishermen did not regularly sail these waters. Any leaks would not have a high impact on any peoples or economy. Of course, security was a relative state of mind. The waste would be highly radioactive for ten thousand years. But it had to be disposed of and, for now, this was one of the best places for that. Especially since scientists were discovering that even the strongest containers buried on land were subject to erosion from microbacteria. Many of these organisms had been buried in volcanic flows millions of years ago and remained dormant inside the rocks. Just a whisper of radiation from materials such as cobalt 60 caused them to be revived and eat through rock and metal.

  The olive-skinned, black-bearded Jaafar watched with pride as his men went about their task. The thirty-seven-year-old had worked closely with the physicists hired by Mahathir bin Dahman. They had designed a safe and efficient process for off-loading waste. The walls of the bridge were decorated with documents from the INRC commending the Dahman operation.

  Jaafar remained at his post until the operation was completed. He radioed the home office in Kuala Lumpur to tell them that everything had been successful. Then he went below to thank the crew and have lunch.