Sea of Fire

Chapter Twenty-Three

As mayor of Los Angeles and as head of Op-Center, Paul Hood had taken calls from heads of state. During times of crisis he had spoken calmly over the phone with his counterparts in other nations. Even when lives were at risk or lost, Hood had been able to speak without agitation to operatives in the field. He had talked with the wives and mothers of police officers and firefighters who had lost husbands and sons. He had called and visited the families of the Strikers who had perished in the Kashmir conflict.

But Hood was somewhat unnerved when he got around to accessing his personal cell phone messages. Daphne Connors had called at six-fifteen that morning. From the sound of her voice she had just woken up. Or perhaps she was just going to sleep. She often went to client parties that continued late into the night. She reported in a low, smoky voice that she had a dream about him. It had something to do with a stagecoach driver and a tavern owner in the old West. Only Hood was running the saloon and Daphne was running the stage.

Maybe that was true. Or maybe it was a pretext to phone. In either case, the call troubled him. Or rather, it was the tone of Daphne's voice. He had not heard a bedroom voice in years. His former wife, Sharon, had never had one, really. And the one night he spent with Op-Center's former press liaison, Ann Farris, was followed by awkward silence and forced felicity.

Daphne's voice was very feminine, very seductive. It got into Hood's ear, into his mind, into all his nerve endings in a way that made him very uncomfortable. It also made him wonder with dismay whether his discomfort was actually with Daphne. It might be with the idea of anyone getting close. Maybe his marriage had gone just the way he wanted it to. Built around a core of emotional and physical detachment for the sake of stability. It was as if he were running a city government or federal agency.

Hood did not like that thought at all. He chose not to think about it. He had arrived at the office a half hour before, and he was still going through the report from the evening unit. It appeared to have been an uneventful night everywhere except in the Celebes Sea. Hood listened to a call from Lowell Coffey to Hood's evening counterpart, Curt Hardaway. The call had been recorded digitally on Hood's computer.

Coffey reported that the Singaporean patrol ship had discovered an empty concrete block at a nuclear disposal site. The block should have contained radioactive waste. Radiation detectors on board Coffey's ship, an Australian MIC corvette, supported the findings.

"The Singaporeans are not trying to put anything over on us," Coffey assured Hardaway. "We are going to try to locate the vessel that made this drop. The ship that was scheduled to have been at the 130-5 site is owned by Mahathir bin Dahman of Malaysia. Warrant Officer Jelbart has heard of Dahman. He is involved with waste disposal on a global scale."

Hood made a note of the name.

"Jelbart is not hopeful of tracking the missing material from here," Coffey continued. "If the ship sold the nuclear material, the vessel will already have gotten a face-lift. If they were just pawns, it will be difficult to get timely interviews with anyone who may have been involved. The Malaysian government is not known for opening its books, so to speak. Especially when it comes to the country's leading citizens."

Coffey then asked Hardaway if the NRO would have a look at the region. Perhaps they saw something. Hardaway had left Hood a note saying that he had checked with the NRO. They did not routinely watch the Celebes Sea. The only time they would turn a satellite to the region was if they learned the Chinese or Russians were also doing so. Like the United States, those nations often tested their satellite systems using targets in out-of-the-way sectors. New space cameras were often calibrated and focused using targets on ships or submarines.

Hood archived the messages, then put in a call to Bob Herbert. The intelligence officer would have been airborne for a little under six hours. That was just enough time to make him cranky. Herbert enjoyed being in the field. But once Herbert started downloading mission data into his brain, he was anxious to act on it. Waiting killed him.

The pilot of the TR-1 said that Herbert was sleeping. He asked if Hood wanted to talk to him anyway. Hood said he did not. He was sure Herbert would check in when he woke.

As Hood hung up, he got a call from Stephen Viens. For several years Viens had been the Satellite Imaging supervisor at the National Reconnaissance Office.

Viens had been a college chum of Matt Stoll, Op-Center's chief technical officer. Because of their close relationship, Viens had always given Op-Center's needs top priority. Viens was now Op-Center's internal security chief. He still had friends at the NRO, however. Whenever they came across something that might be of interest to Op-Center, they let him know.

"Paul, I just got a call from Noah Moore-Mooney at the NRO," Viens said. "Bob Herbert had put out an APB on activity in the Celebes Sea."

"Curt Hardaway said there's nothing going on there," Hood said.

"There wasn't," Viens said. "Until a few minutes ago."

"What have you got?" Hood asked.

"Our Shado-3 satellite watches Chinese satellites," Viens said. "When they move, it tracks them. They just saw one shift from Taiwanese shipping lanes in the South China Sea to an area of the Celebes."

"What area?" Hood asked.

"The coordinates are one-hundred and thirty degrees longitude, five degrees latitude," Viens told him.

"That's where Lowell Coffey is," Hood said, "along with Australian and Singaporean naval vessels. Why the hell would China be watching two small naval ships?"

"How would they even know the ships were out there?" Viens asked. "Flyover?"

"Maybe," Hood said.

It was unlikely that the Chinese would be dealing in third-party nuclear material. They had enough of their own to sell, much of it to Pakistan.

"Stephen, when you were at the NRO, did you come across any cooperative satellite use?" Hood asked.

"You mean would another nation have access to the Chinese satellite?" Viens asked.

"Right."

"Allies like the Vietnamese or North Koreans asked Beijing for intelligence," Viens said. "But China controlled the hardware."

"All right, Stephen, thanks," Hood said. "Let me know if you get any other information about this."

"Will do," Viens said.

Hood hung up. He looked at his computer clock. He needed to call someone. Someone who had not been returning his calls. But right now it was the only person who might be able to get him the information he needed.

Hood picked up the phone and placed one of those calls he was comfortable making. One he was good at. One where the fate of nations, and not the fate of Paul Hood, was at risk.