Darling represented that kind of power. Kannaday was not looking forward to this meeting. He considered calling Hawke's bluff. Would that little man have the courage to seize the yacht? And would Darling accept Hawke as commander if he did?

Sun-bronzed first mate Craig McEldowney ambled over. The big, thirty-nine-year-old New Zealander stopped beside Kannaday. The two had been together for two years. They had met in a bar in Surabaya, Java, where McEldowney was washing gla.s.ses. The former dock-worker had just served five years' hard labor for stealing shipments of tobacco and selling it at a discount to the locals.

"It's going to be all right," McEldowney said. "The chief isn't going to blame you for what happened."

"Who will he blame?" Kannaday asked.

"n.o.body," McEldowney replied. "Captain, these things happen. Just like they did to me."

Kannaday grinned. McEldowney was a decent but dullwitted man. That was why he had been caught.

Kannaday left his first mate in charge and swung down the aluminum ladder into the blue-gray dinghy. The rungs were damp with sea spray. He had to hold on tight to keep from slipping. He reached the st.u.r.dy little boat and sat on the aft bench. He released the winch cable, switched the engine on, and sped toward the wharf. The guards were already driving down the sloping, wooded path. The crunch of wood chips and the growl of the Humvee engine added to the noise.

This is how chaos is built, Kannaday thought. Kannaday thought. One noise at a time. One noise at a time.

The question before Kannaday was simple. What was the best way to prevent his own situation from becoming more chaotic? Unfortunately, only one man had the answer.

And that answer was unknown.

EIGHTEEN.

The Celebes Sea Friday, 7:33 P.M. Friday, 7:33 P.M.

When Lowell Coffey was eight years old, something wonderful happened. His father took him to see the circus in Sherman Oaks. What was most memorable, however, was not the show itself. What Coffey remembered best was sticking around to see the circus being broken down. The deconstruction had been a mesmerizing sight, awe-some in its scope and complexity.

The departure of the Singaporean and Australian ships from Darwin reminded Coffey of that. Banners flying and large vessels setting out. Instead of roustabouts, sailors were putting the big machine in motion. Instead of elephants, there were helicopters and motorboats being moved into position. Instead of the smell of horses and sawdust, there were diesel fuel and ocean air. The scope and logistics of both were memorable. There were, however, two major differences. After the circus was packed and moving, the young Lowell Coffey had gone home with his father. The boy had felt sad and disconnected. This morning, the adult Lowell Coffey had gone with the seagoing convoy. He felt plugged into a great and powerful enterprise. It was invigorating.

For about three minutes.

Unfortunately, the adult Lowell Coffey was also desperately nauseated. He was sick from his high, hammering forehead down through his vacant gaze to his sloshing stomach. Even the joints of his knees felt as if they were rolling in their sockets. And the attorney was sitting down.

Coffey was on the small, claustrophobic bridge of the MIC corvette. George Jelbart was in command and seated in a swivel chair to his right. The medic had given Coffey two dimenhydrinate tablets, a generic form of Drama-mine. It did not make Coffey feel better, but at least he got no worse. There was only one exception. Whenever Warrant Officer Jelbart swiveled in his seat, Coffey tasted his own breakfast for a moment. There was something very disorienting about the officer's side-to-side movement.

The swift, modern warship had departed Darwin minutes after Loh's patrol boat had set out. Ellsworth did not join them. He had gone back to his office after intensive dockside discussions about how to manage this joint investigation. Since this was Loh's plan, it was agreed that she and her crew would conduct the initial phase. Jelbart would lend whatever support was necessary in terms of equipment, manpower, or technical capabilities. Coffey had told them that Op-Center's intelligence chief, Bob Herbert, was coming to Darwin. Herbert would be prepared to a.s.sist with a.n.a.lysis of whatever they did or did not find at sea. Ellsworth had been happy to hear about the NCMC's involvement. He was grateful for the intelligence resources, of course. But Ellsworth was more interested in America's support. This could turn out to be an isolated incident, in which case everyone would be relieved. If it were something else, though, the more weight Ellsworth had behind him, the happier he would be.

Jelbart removed the small, compact headset he was wearing. He hung it around his neck. "How are you doing there, Mr. Coffey?" he asked.

"The situation has stabilized somewhat," he said with a weak smile. He looked down. Unlike the horizon, the floor of the bridge was not moving. Attorneys were meant to be in quiet wood-paneled offices where the only movement was the pendulum of a grandfather clock.

"You'll get used to it," Jelbart promised. "By the time we get back to Darwin, it will feel unnatural to be on ground that doesn't move."

Coffey had to take that on faith. Right now it did not seem plausible.

The radio operator leaned in. He was located in a cubicle just off the main control center.

"Sir?" he said. "Incoming from FNO Loh."

Jelbart slipped the headset back on. He adjusted the mouthpiece. "Jelbart here," he said.

"We have reached the target area," she said.

Jelbart glanced at the control panel. There was a small black monitor to his right. It had an electronic grid overlay in light blue. Ships were red dots. Jelbart had previously explained to Coffey that this was an adjustable global positioning display. They could pull back as far as five hundred square kilometers or move in as tight as ten square kilometers. The area currently being displayed was twenty square kilometers.

Jelbart turned to his right. "Helm?"

"Yes, sir," said one of the two men seated there.

"Coordinates ten-five-nine west, three-four-two north," Jelbart said, reading from the grid. "Backwater standby, on command."

The helmsman repeated the coordinates, acknowledged the command, and set the course accordingly.

Coffey looked up. He was confused. "I can see them out the window," he said. "Why don't you just follow them?"

"We have been," Jelbart told him. "But if something happens to officer Loh's vessel and we lose visual contact, we want our computer to know exactly where they are."

"I see," Coffey replied. It was an unpleasant thought but a practical one.

The Singaporean patrol boat came to a complete stop. Jelbart ordered the corvette to half speed. He came alongside the other vessel, keeping 300 meters to port. After a moment, the corvette stopped. With one axis of motion removed, Coffey immediately felt a little better. Able to look out now without feeling sick, the attorney watched the prow of the Singaporean vessel. Using fishing nets, sailors had lowered several black boxes into the water. They looked like laptop computers.

"What are those?" Coffey asked.

"They're grannies," Jelbart replied. "Gamma ray and neutron irradiation saturation detectors. I learned about them in the physics course MIC gave its personnel. Impressive little units."

"What do they tell us?" Coffey asked.

"The kinds of materials we are searching for give off three kinds of radiation," Jelbart said. "Alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays. Gamma rays are the most powerful. Even mild doses can cook your insides. That's the first thing you want to detect."

"If the sampan encountered gamma radiation, the sailor would not be alive," Coffey suggested.

"Possibly. He may not have been exposed to the mother lode. It's good to keep a watch out for it. That's also the reason I gave the backwater standby command. In case we have to get out of here in a hurry."

"I like that option," Coffey said.

"Neutron irradiation tells you something about the elements involved and the size of the nuclear sample," Jelbart went on. "Officer Loh checked with the INRC to determine the size of the drums deposited out here. There is always trace radiation, however tightly these things are secured."

"That's rea.s.suring," Coffey said.

"The levels are not dangerous unless exposure is c.u.mulative," Jelbart added. "That's one reason to put it out to sea or deep in caves."

"What about the ecological impact?" Coffey asked.

"The fish are tested regularly. As long as they aren't affected, I don't think anyone in the area cares very much," Jelbart said. "The point is, given the time the last vessels were here and the amount they off-loaded, Officer Loh knows exactly what the readings should be."

"What was the last ship to come out here?" Coffey asked.

The computer monitor was located in front of Coffey. Jelbart swung toward it. His swivel was quick and unsettling. The attorney looked down and took a slow, deep breath to try to get his balance back.

"The last vessel to visit here was a Chinese freighter with four twelve-gallon drums of material from a nuclear power plant outside of Shanghai," Jelbart said. "Before that it was a cutter owned by International Spent Fuel Transport out of Malaysia. They deposited three ten-gallon drums of material from a j.a.panese nuclear power plant. No one was out here for ten days prior to that."

"How will we be able to tell them apart?" Coffey asked.

"They each have a specific drop point," Jelbart replied. "The coordinates Loh sent us represent the Chinese site."

"I see," Coffey said. "I'm still unclear about one thing, though. What does she hope to find? If one of these ships were damaged, wouldn't someone have been notified?"

"Possibly," Jelbart said. "What concerns us is that one of the vessels may have transferred their cargo to another ship. That other ship may have been the one the pirates attacked."

"What do you do if that scenario pans out? Go after the vessel?"

"I don't know," Jelbart replied.

"You don't know? Wouldn't that be a logical step?" Coffey asked.

"Perhaps," Jelbart told him. "It could also tip off whoever has the nuclear material. It might be more prudent to try to find that material, then go back and clean up the relay team itself."

"Doesn't the MIC have simulations and playbooks for this sort of thing?" Coffey asked.

"We have search patterns and seizure protocols, yes," Jelbart replied. "When it comes to tracking radioactive cargo, we're in unfamiliar territory. Just as America has been. The only nuclear materials we've actually hunted were two warheads missing from the Soviet Union's Strategic Rocket Forces. One was from a facility in Kazakhstan, the other from Belarus."

"Did you find them?" Coffey asked.

"The Russians eventually did," Jelbart replied. "There were indications that the warheads had been purchased by Indonesian rebels. Perhaps they were, but delivery was never made. The weapons had actually been moved to a cave in the Ukraine. Russian engineers and physicists hired by a retired general were in the process of dismantling them."

"Lovely," Coffey said.

"We try to rebuild Eden, but the snakes are always there, more persistent than ever," Jelbart said.

"They've had a lot of time to study us from the underbrush," Coffey observed.

"Too true," Jelbart said. "The other thing about this mission, Mr. Coffey, is that we have a partner." He nodded toward the Singaporean vessel. "We don't know how porous their command center might be. We don't know how many secrets we'll be comfortable sharing."

"I wonder if she feels the same," Coffey said.

"Almost certainly," Jelbart said. "Though with her it's as much a cultural issue as a political one. The Singaporeans are aggressively private."

"That's an oxymoron. I'll have to think about it," Coffey remarked.

"You'll see what I mean when you spend more time with FNO Loh," Jelbart promised.

It also sounded racist. Coffey hated even benign generalizations like that. He would try not to hold that against Jelbart.

Ten minutes after the search had begun, Loh radioed that the Chinese site was registering the antic.i.p.ated levels of ambient radiation. She provided the coordinates for the next site. The patrol boat moved on.

So did the corvette.

And so, once again, did Coffey's stomach.

NINETEEN.

Over the Pacific Ocean Friday, 2:57 A.M.

Once in a very rare while life surprised Bob Herbert.

Mike Rodgers was able to get the intelligence chief on a TR-1 long-range strategic reconnaissance aircraft. The plane was headed from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia to Taiwan with a stopover at the Australian Defence Force Basic Flying Training School in Tamworth, New South Wales. There, the USAF was going to pick up three officers for hands-on experience in surveillance upgrades. The RAAF would give Herbert a lift to Darwin. The TR-1 was leaving at one-thirty A.M., which meant the intelligence chief had to hustle. Herbert drove himself from his waterside home in Quantico, Virginia. There was literally no traffic at that time of the morning. He made the eighty-mile trip in one hour.

There was a small officers' station on board the sixty-two-foot-long aircraft. It was located near the c.o.c.kpit. The crew removed the seat, and Herbert was able to tuck his wheelchair into the area. There was a power source for the chair batteries and a wireless Internet jack for his computer. Herbert felt oddly like a cyborg, a part of the big, sleek spy ship. Happily, the aircraft was not as noisy as transports he had been on. In fact, it was as quiet as a commercial jetliner.

Life was good, at least for the moment. And since a moment was all anyone could count on, Herbert tried to enjoy it. He did, for a while.

Herbert submerged himself in research and coffee. The coffee was provided by a very considerate navigator. The black coffee did more good than the research. The moment of contentment pa.s.sed.

Using the plane's secure communications link, Herbert donned his WASTEM screen name. The profile he had created was for a thirty-year-old white female, one who advocated militia uprisings and a suspension of rights for everyone who was not a "pure-blooded American." Herbert had made her a female to attract male sociopaths, men who were looking for someone to share their mental illness with. Through WASTEM, the intelligence officer had been able to break up a supremacist group that arranged tours to Libya. There, for 50,000 dollars, group members could watch prisoners being tortured. For 75,000 dollars they could partic.i.p.ate in the torture using whatever means they wished. For 150,000 dollars they could carry out an execution.

Herbert had his wife's picture attached to the profile. Not only was Yvonne a fox, but she would have appreciated having a posthumous hand in destroying cults of hate. A cult like the one that had claimed her life.

As usual, WASTEM had dozens of E-mail messages. Most were from men and women who wanted to go shooting with her or sponsor her at their training camp in this wilderness or that mountain range. Though WASTEM's interests included the acquisition of "red rain," a euphemism for radioactive materials, none of the E-mails offered to sell her any. He spent some time in the Anarkiss chat room, where sickos went for romance. As one of the few "women" in the room, WASTEM was always extremely popular. If anyone seemed to have information he might want, he offered to go private with them. People with something to hide spoke more freely in a chat room for two.

Unfortunately, no one had any leads on nuclear material being trafficked through the Far East or the South Pacific.

Herbert's next stop were charts of the shipping lanes in that region. He got a list of tankers, fishing vessels, ocean liners, and pleasure boats that had been through the area in the past seventy-two hours. When he got the names, he switched to his generic BOB4HIRE screen name. Claiming to be an insurance investigator, he E-mailed the various shipping companies and charterhouses. He asked if any of them had received a report of an explosion in the Celebes Sea. While he waited for the answers, he contacted the National Reconnaissance Office. He asked for an ID listing of all the ships that had accessed global positioning data around the time of the explosion. That information was supposed to be confidential, stored in coded files known only to the vessels and the satellites. However, the NRO had access to the satellite databases, thanks to the Confidential Reconnaissance and Code Satellite. CRACS was one of a new generation of satellites that spied on other satellites. Using sophisticated background radiation detectors, it read incoming and outgoing satellite pulses that momentarily blotted out the cosmic radiation. CRACS ended up with a silhouette of the communication from earth. The satellite was able to translate the pulses into numbers. That, in turn, gave the NRO the code words used by the earth-based planes or ships to contact the satellite.

What Herbert was looking for was an inconsistency. He was hoping to find a vessel that might have been close enough to hear the sampan explosion but did not report it. If he found that, chances were good it was the ship the pirates had tried to waylay.

The data came in slowly over the next several hours. During that time Herbert reveled in the relative comfort and privacy of his little section of the airplane. He was facing the starboard side of the aircraft, and there was a small window to his right. He leaned forward and looked down. The view inspired him. Not because it was a big, beautiful ocean but because it reminded him how people had fought and suffered and perished to explore it. Nothing came without hard work and sacrifice. That fact kept Bob Herbert from slipping into bitterness for what his own public service had cost him.

He received replies from twelve of the twenty-two E-mails he had sent out. No one had reported any explosions in the region. He also learned that there had been at least one vessel in the region at the time of the explosion. It was named the Hosannah Hosannah and was apparently owned by a gentleman named Arvids March. There was a reference to a court case that Herbert could not access. The vessel sailed under a Tasmanian flag and listed six ports of registry. Herbert searched the Tasmanian phone directory on-line. He could not find an entry for Arvids March. That did not surprise him. Ships from one country were often registered in another for tax reasons. Mr. March could be from anywhere. Or it could be a fake name for a fake enterprise. Herbert did a full Internet search for him and came up empty. He searched under A. March and found over ten thousand references, from "I love a March" to a hip-hop group Ides a March. He sent an E-mail to Op-Center asking them to see what they could find out about the man. A quick check turned up nothing. Obviously not a publicity-seeker or public figure. and was apparently owned by a gentleman named Arvids March. There was a reference to a court case that Herbert could not access. The vessel sailed under a Tasmanian flag and listed six ports of registry. Herbert searched the Tasmanian phone directory on-line. He could not find an entry for Arvids March. That did not surprise him. Ships from one country were often registered in another for tax reasons. Mr. March could be from anywhere. Or it could be a fake name for a fake enterprise. Herbert did a full Internet search for him and came up empty. He searched under A. March and found over ten thousand references, from "I love a March" to a hip-hop group Ides a March. He sent an E-mail to Op-Center asking them to see what they could find out about the man. A quick check turned up nothing. Obviously not a publicity-seeker or public figure.

Then Herbert took a break. A think break. He had spent hours on this search and had very little to show for it. That was frustrating. Worse, it was dangerous. Herbert knew too well what could happen when people went into a situation with zero intelligence. That was how the emba.s.sy in Beirut was. .h.i.t.

Herbert went back to his computer. The rogue boat was out there.

He wanted to find it.

TWENTY.