Sea of Fire

Chapter Sixty-Eight

The sun was beginning to brighten the skies behind the hills as Lowell Coffey waited for the helicopter. The attorney had managed to get a little sleep in the fire station before Hood called to tell him about Captain Kannaday's rescue. Spider was asleep in the next cot. Coffey stepped into the brisk morning to take the call. When it was done, he breathed in the crisp air.

Washington, D.C., had never tasted like this. Nor Beverly Hills. Both cities were hot and fuel-scented. The only other place the attorney had spent any time was the Middle East. That was dusty and arid.

Queensland was not just soul reviving. It was a treat for the eyes and ears. It was a deep, rich green and silent, save for the occasional bird or cricket and the wind that carried the sound.

"Jesus!"

Coffey jumped when his phone beeped again. He fished it from his belt. It was Bob Herbert, telling him that the helicopter had landed at an air base to refuel. They would be arriving in Cairns by five-thirty. He also wanted to inform Coffey that the man they had on board was not Peter Kannaday.

"It's a thug named John Hawke, who has confessed to sinking the yacht and helping Jervis Darling smuggle nuclear waste from ship to ship. The yacht even had a processing lab on board."

"He told you all this on the helicopter?" Coffey asked.

"Right."

"No attorney?"

"We fished a barracuda from the Coral Sea and used him," Herbert said. "No, we didn't have an attorney."

"And you have no evidence," Coffey asked.

"No."

"Then you have no right to hold him," Coffey replied.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Herbert asked. "We have a shitload of circumstantial evidence."

"No," Coffey said. "What you have is a 'confession' that he can deny ever having made. Word against word is a hollow legal exercise."

"Oh, come on!" Herbert said. "Four people heard him!"

"Four people can plot," Coffey said. "They're no more valid than one, legally. The Rule of Evidence applies here just as it does in the United States. The Evidence Act was amended in 1995 to link it to the Drugs, Poisons, and Controlled Substances Act of 1981."

"To do what?" Herbert asked. "Protect drug dealers?"

"To preserve justice," Coffey replied. "Where is Hawke now?"

"He's still in the helicopter."

"Smart."

"What?"

"He wouldn't want to get out on a military base," Coffey said. "If he did, you could theoretically hold him for trespassing."

"Lowell, this is a joke, isn't it?" Herbert demanded. "You're pulling my bum leg."

"Bob, I am completely serious," Coffey said.

"That's not what I want to hear," Herbert snapped.

"Sorry. But unless you can get someone who will identify Hawke as an accomplice, you have no reason or right to hold him," Coffey said. "Until you get to the yacht and locate evidence, until you can connect Hawke to smuggling activities or to the sinking, he's an innocent man. When you land here, he can demand to be released. And you'll have to let him go."

"I don't believe this," Herbert said. "The prick played me. He fed me what I wanted to keep from going to Singapore."

"Is that where you told him you'd take him?" Coffey asked.

Herbert said it was.

"That, at least, would have been legal," Coffey said.

"Wait. What do you mean 'would have been'?" Herbert asked. "Can't we still do it?"

"Sure, but it probably won't do you any good," Coffey told him.

"Why?"

"You landed in Australia," Coffey said. "Hawke is Australian. Under international law, that gives the authorities here first crack at him. If you took him to Singapore now, the courts there could not move against him unless Australia first declined to do so."

"Which they won't," Herbert said. "Not if Darling is involved."

"That's what your guest is obviously planning on," Coffey said.

"Shit," Herbert replied. "We land at the fire station, Hawke walks, Darling helps him get lost, and we don't have a witness."

"Except for those people at sea, who probably got no closer to Darling than that koala."

"I can't let him go," Herbert said. "What the hell do I do?"

"You need a witness in order to hold him," Coffey said. "When is Loh's patrol boat due there?"

"Any minute," Herbert said. "But we don't know what condition the crew will be in or even how many key people survived. So much for words."

"Excuse me?"

"I took Paul's advice and talked to Hawke," Herbert said. "What I should have done was follow my gut."

"Which told you what?"

"To empty a bullet casing of gunpowder on his tongue and interrogate him with a match," Herbert said.

"I'm with Paul on that one," Coffey said.

"I figured."

"No, Bob. You did the right thing," Coffey said. "If you had tortured Hawke, he could have landed and had you arrested."

Herbert was silent.

"The more important thing now is, do you think Hawke was telling the truth about Darling?" Coffey asked.

"I do," Herbert told him. "He had nothing to lose. Hawke needed to keep me hooked until we reached a nonmilitary landing site. The best way to do that was with the truth."

The phone went silent. Herbert's frustration was almost palpable. The tranquillity of the morning was gone.

"You say I need a witness," Herbert said. "Can we stay at the base until the patrol boat arrives?"

"Yes, but if Hawke suspects anything, he can legally request an escort off the base," Coffey said.

"How would he get one?" Herbert asked.

"You can't deny him a phone call," Coffey said. "Muscling a citizen who is not even a prisoner plays poorly in court."

"Lowell, you're not helping me," Herbert said.

"I'm trying," Coffey said. "I want to stay focused on the case, not on the fact that Hawke knows how to manipulate the Australian legal system. He's probably had countless run-ins with the courts. He knows his way around."

"Now that you mention it, every damn thing Hawke told me implicated someone else," Herbert said. "Jervis Darling, Darling's nephew Marcus, Captain Kannaday. According to Hawke, all he did was run security. Yet he never even confessed to firing a bullet."

"What about other potential leads or witnesses?" Coffey asked. "Do you have anyone on the mainland?"

"No one that I can—" Herbert began. He stopped suddenly.

"What is it?" Coffey asked.

"I just thought of something," Herbert said. "There is someone who can nail this guy."

"Who?" Coffey asked.

"Later," Herbert said.

"Wait, Bob?"

There was no answer.

"Bob, are you coming back to the station?" Coffey asked.

The dial tone returned. So did the external tranquillity of the morning. Inside, however, Lowell Coffey was not happy. He was bothered by the subtleties of his profession. The details were legitimate and necessary, but they could also allow a nuclear terrorist to go free.

Coffey loved the law and admired those who upheld it, in the field and in the courts. He did not think of himself as the barracuda Herbert had alluded to. What he did feel like, however, was a dolphin. Smart and swift.

And powerless.