Sea of Fire

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 female had been part of the title in Singapore for decades. The military services were fully integrated, and discrimination was not permitted. Nonetheless, high command liked to keep their combat unit leaders weighted toward men. This was an easy way to keep track of the balance.

"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 grams of weapons-grade material would be enough to kill thousands of people or contaminate tens of thousands of gallons of water.

"Has the press been all over this?" Hood asked.

"Not yet. The government is trying to keep this as quiet as possible," Coffey said. "Patients and visitors are being kept away from the man's room, but this is a big hospital. Someone is certain to hear that something unusual happened. The game plan is to deny that anything hot was involved."

"Is there anything else we can do?" Hood asked.

"I'll let you know," Coffey replied. "Right now it looks as though someone's motioning for me. I think they want me in the room. Paul, I'll call you back when I can."

"I'll be here another hour or so," Hood said. "Then you can get me on the cell or at the apartment."

"Very good," Coffey said and hung up.

Hood placed the phone in the cradle. He sat back and thought about what was happening on the other side of the world. It was strange how events like this caused the globe to shrink. Conceivably, what Coffey and the others were dealing with could impact the United States within hours. Nuclear material could be transported clandestinely by sea and then loaded onto an aircraft anywhere in the region. The plane could be flown to a small airfield in Washington or New York or Los Angeles. A small amount of nuclear material could be walked into the terminal and left in a waste can. Or dropped on the floor under a bench. The human toll would be extraordinary. A larger amount of nuclear matter could be attached to a makeshift explosive. Perhaps homemade plastique or cans of spray paint triggered by a car flare. The human toll of the dirty bomb would be unthinkable.

All of that could be in progress right now, Hood thought. The realization came with a keen sense of helplessness.

There were always crises. That was why Op-Center had been chartered. They were the National Crisis Management Center. But the personality of these disasters had changed over the years. The speed, the scope, and the frequency of them were terrifying. And though more resources were being applied to combat them, those resources targeted existing patterns and likely perpetrators. A methodology had not yet been created to anticipate what Bob Herbert called "kamikaze genocide" — the piecemeal extermination of Westerners by suicide attacks.

Several years ago, when Op-Center was combating neo-Nazis, Herbert said something that had stayed with Hood.

"When the brain doesn't have enough information, only your gut can tell you what to do," the intelligence chief said. "Fortunately, since some depraved sons of bitches blew up my wife and my legs, my gut has been able to digest some pretty sick thoughts."

Hood suddenly felt energized. He and his team would figure this out. They would figure out everything that came along. Every deviant variation, every monster. They had to. It was necessity but also something more.

It was stubborn, blessed American pride.