Sea of Fire

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Paul Hood stepped into the parking lot. It was a dreary and overcast evening, but the cool air tasted sweet. It always did after he spent a day in Op-Center's windowless, forced-air underground offices. He walked to his new Toyota Maxim for the forty-five-minute drive to his apartment. An apartment that was as empty as hell without the sounds of video games and ringing phones and the distinctive thumping of Alexander holding the handrail and wall and leaping down half a flight of stairs. But it was feeling a little more like home now. As much as leaving dirty shirts on the couch or renting the DVDs you wanted to see or eating chicken salad directly from Styrofoam take-out trays could make a place feel like home.

Hood was just getting into the car when his cell phone beeped. It was Mike Rodgers. The two men had not spoken since Rodgers met with Senator Debenport. The general had spent the day interviewing potential field operatives as well as intelligence personnel who might be able to help him put together his new HUMINT unit. Rodgers had wanted to see all four candidates in public instead of in his office. It was important to see how they blended in with crowds, how anonymous they could appear when they were not part of a group.

"How did the interviews go?" Hood asked.

"They were informative," Rodgers replied.

"Hold that thought," Hood said. Rodgers would know what that meant. As Hood sat behind the wheel he put his headset on. At the same time he tucked the cell phone into a scrambler built into the dashboard. It looked like a typical hands-free setup. However, the frame contained a chip that sent a loud screech along with the conversation. Only a phone with a complementary chip could filter out the sound. The chip in the car only worked with numbers that had been specifically keyed into the cell phone's memory. "Ready," Hood said. He started the car and drove toward the sentry post.

"I just want to say up front that this is not like putting together a military special ops team, where someone can demonstrate marksmanship on a firing range or hand-to-hand combat in the gym," Rodgers told him. "The entire process is a bit of a boondoggle."

"How so?"

"Because good intelligence people, by nature, don't talk. They observe and listen," Rodgers said. "As I sat there, I kept wondering if the silent interviewee was more suitable than the one who volunteered information."

"Interesting," Hood said. "Guess you go by your gut."

"Pretty much," Rodgers admitted. "Silence and disinterest have pretty much the same sound. On the other hand, David Battat talks a lot. Maria Corneja doesn't. Aideen Marley is somewhere in the middle. Falah Shibli speaks five languages but says less than Maria. It is all in what your gut tells you."

"How is Shibli?" Hood asked.

"Very well," Rodgers replied. "He's agreed to serve as needed, though he's decided he would prefer to remain in the Middle East. I got the sense that he's doing undercover work for the Mossad."

Falah Shibli was a twenty-nine-year-old Israeli of Arabic descent. He had spent seven years in Israel's tough Druze Reconnaissance unit, the Sayeret Ha'Druzim, before joining the police in the northern town of Kiryat Shmona. Shibli had worked with Op-Center in the Middle East. He would be a valuable resource for Israeli intelligence, since he could move freely among Arab populations.

Hood waved at Sergeant Ridpath in the booth. The non-com waved back and pushed the button that raised the heavy wooden bar. Hood drove from the lot. "So how did the new people impress you?"

"There's one guy I really liked," Rodgers said. "Sprague West. Fifty-five-year-old former Marine, Vietnam vet. He put in a quarter century with the NYPD, the first ten of those undercover. He infiltrated the Black Panthers, drug rings, broke up prostitution. My kind of guy. And cool, Paul."

"Silent?"

"Yeah," Rodgers admitted with a chuckle.

"Where is he based?"

"Here," Rodgers said. "He moved to D.C. when he left the force to be near his mother."

"Does he have other family?" Hood asked.

"Two grown daughters and three ex-wives," Rodgers said. "They weren't happy with what he did for a living."

"Great. We can start a support group," Hood said.

"The nontalker and the man who loves to listen," Rodgers said. "It could be interesting."

"Incredibly dull, more likely," Hood said. "What's your game plan with Mr. West?"

"I've invited West to come to the office on Monday," Rodgers said. "We'll talk more about specific assignments. His mom died last year, and he would like to get back in the field."

"Sounds perfect," Hood admitted.

"Meanwhile, what's happening with Lowell?" Rodgers asked.

Hood brought Rodgers up to date. When he was finished, the general was silent for a moment.

"Any thoughts?" Hood asked.

"Only about the Aussies and Singapore," Rodgers said. "They're tough nuts. Good partners to have in a big game."

"How big a game do you think this is?" Hood asked.

"I don't think there's a global conspiracy with Darling at the head, if that's what you mean," Rodgers assured him.

"Why not?"

"Men like Darling are autocrats, not oligarchs," Rodgers said. "Defenders band together for mutual protection. Aggression is a solitary activity. Even during World War II, Germany and Japan stayed a world away from each other. And they would have gone toe to toe eventually."

"So what's the scenario you envision?"

"Apart from the perverse challenge?" Rodgers said. "I see world capitals being attacked and crippled, economies paralyzed. You want to see where the targets may be? Look at where Darling has the fewest investments."

"I have," Hood said. "He's still invested heavily at home and in South America. But he's shifted a lot of his assets from Europe and the United States to the Pacific Rim."

"There you go," Rodgers said. "He's looking to rough up a London or Washington, Paris or Bonn. Change the financial and geopolitical dynamic. Does he have any children?"

"A young daughter."

"The heir to his efforts," Rodgers said. "What father doesn't want to give his daughter the world? You were ready to resign from Op-Center for your kids, for your family."

"True. But I would draw the line at killing millions of people," Hood said.

"Would you?" Rodgers asked.

"I don't follow."

"We've gone to war to protect our way of life, to preserve our view of the future for our children," Rodgers said.

"When we've been attacked," Hood said. "That's an important distinction."

"Maybe Darling believes that his world has been attacked, or at the very least threatened," Rodgers said. "He may feel that Australia has been minimized by the United States and the European Union. He may fear the growing political, financial, and military strength of China. Maybe the states around China are also afraid, and he has rallied the oligarchy to fight back. Maybe Beijing is their target. We just don't know."

"All good points, though instinct tells me this is more of a challenge to Darling than a political issue."

"That could be," Rodgers agreed. "It doesn't change the fact that he has to be stopped. Fortunately, as I said, the people on site are probably the best we could ask for. And we've got good ones in reserve, if needed. It won't come free, or even cheap, but we'll fix this."

Hood thanked Rodgers for the assessment. Then he hung up and cracked the window slightly. After being inside, he wanted to feel more of what his son Alexander called "real" air.

This was not a job for people who had families. Or liked to be able to sleep nights. It was one thing to worry about a corporate bottom line or a project deadline. It was far different to worry about lives, whether it was one life or ten thousand. Then again, Hood was inevitably encouraged, even inspired, by people like Mike Rodgers and Bob Herbert. Men and women who had vast experience, perspective, and something else. Something easily misplaced in the day's slush of ominous data and frightening theory.

Hope.

Optimism.

And the resolve never to let them go.