Sea of Fire (16 page)

A door opened behind him. It was the door that led from the rear of the estate through the servants’ quarters. Darling set the water on the countertop and turned. His back was to the window as Andrew left and Kannaday made his way through the appliances. Spotlights from an outdoor patio shone outside the window. Crisp white light washed over the skipper. He was dressed in a black pull-over and khakis. Even though Kannaday walked briskly, with his shoulders pulled back, he looked tired. He extended his big right hand. Darling shook the hand and held it.

“Your palm feels warm,” Darling said.

“I was on deck, in the sun, Mr. Darling,” Kannaday said.

“Palms up?”

“I’m like a solar battery, sir,” Kannaday said. “Sunlight hits a spot and shuttles all around me.”

“Ah. Would you like a cold beverage?” Darling asked.

“Thank you, no,” Kannaday replied.

Darling released Kannaday’s hand slowly. “Wine,” he said.

“No, thank you.”

“I wasn’t offering,” Darling said, laughing. “I was just wondering if grapes ever fermented in prehistory.”

“I would imagine they did,” Kannaday said. He seemed stung by having rejected an offer that had not been made.

“Quite right,” Darling said. “The liquid may have collected in a pool. A dinosaur might have lapped at it. Perhaps he even became a little inebriated. Quite a thought, wouldn’t you say?”

“It is,” Kannaday replied.

“I wonder what a prehistoric vintage would demand in the Mahogany Auction Room,” Darling said. “An unthinkable sum, I would imagine. Can’t you just picture it? Scientists bidding against connoisseurs to buy a mud-crusted and fossilized puddle.”

Darling chuckled at the thought. Kannaday smiled uncomfortably.
The man has no imagination,
Darling thought. Then again, he was at something of a disadvantage here. Because Darling was silhouetted by the patio lights, Kannaday could not see him clearly. He could not tell from Darling’s expression whether he was joking or being serious. That was how Darling wanted it. He wanted his guest off balance and open. Vulnerable.

Darling crossed his arms and regarded the captain. “I understand that replacement gear is being sent over to the yacht.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want you back at sea as soon as possible.”

“Of course,” Kannaday said.

“Before you go, though, I’d like an explanation,” Darling said.

“First, I promise that nothing like this will happen again,” Kannaday said. “We should have foreseen it. Your security chief agrees.”

“Hawke agrees?”

“Absolutely,” Kannaday said.

“And how will you guard against future attacks?” Darling demanded. His mood soured quickly. “A sampan full of sea rats drew close enough to put a hole in the side of your vessel! How did that happen?”

“Sir, the men in the sampan did not cause the explosion,” Kannaday said. “We did.”

“How?”

“By accident. We hit the pirates hard, fast, and decisively,” Kannaday told him. “The attack triggered explosives that were on board the other vessel.”

“Why did you let them get so close?” Darling asked. “You have a good radar system on board.”

“The sampan did not create a blip that was distinguishable from porpoises or flotsam,” Kannaday said. “We failed to identify it until the security camera picked it up. By then it was nearly upon us. At that point we decided not to strike until we were certain that we were facing an enemy,” Kannaday replied.

“Why?” Darling asked.

The question seemed to surprise Captain Kannaday. “Sir, are you suggesting we should have attacked what may have been an innocent vessel?”

“Preemptive strikes reduce risk,” Darling told him.

“I would have thought that a stealthy passage was more important,” Kannaday replied.

“The best way to assure a low profile is to eliminate potential witnesses,” Darling pointed out. “Now, you say Mr. Hawke agrees that adequate security precautions were in place?”

“He does,” Kannaday said.

“Or am I hearing a case of ‘You watch my back, I’ll watch yours’?” Darling said.

“Excuse me?” Kannaday asked.

“I don’t know Mr. Hawke very well,” Darling said. “I doubt anyone does. A good security chief does not share his thoughts. But I cannot believe Hawke would agree that a disastrous operation was, in fact, a competent one. It is an indefensible position.”

“Sir, forgive me for repeating myself, but what happened was unforeseeable,” Kannaday insisted.

“And
I
say that what happened was preventable!” Darling yelled.

Kannaday said nothing.

“As for Mr. Hawke, you would not misrepresent what he said. That would be easy to check. So we have a contradiction.”

“Mr. Darling, you’ve lost me,” the captain said helplessly.

“Hawke has apparently agreed to back your explanation, that this was a freak occurrence,” Darling said. “Why?”

“Because it was.”

“Do you like Mr. Hawke?” Darling asked.

“No, sir. I don’t.”

“You do not like him, you did not hire him,” Darling said. “This was your chance to blame him and get rid of him. Why hasn’t that happened?”

Darling watched Kannaday’s face. The blanket glow of the spotlight left nothing in shadow. The captain did not break eye contact or move his mouth. It was unnatural.

Kannaday was concealing something.

It took a long moment for the captain to speak. It must have felt far longer than that.

“You’re right,” Kannaday said at last. “I called him out for this. I demanded that he surrender his post.”

“And what was his response?”

Carefully, the captain rolled down the neck of his sweater. There was a white surgical bandage taped to his throat. In the center of the bandage was an ugly red spot. Jervis Darling was not surprised to see it. Kannaday had to have been wearing the high collar for some reason. Had he been injured in battle, he would not have sought to hide the wound.

“Hawke put a blade to my throat.”

Darling snickered. “You let him surprise you just as the pirates did.”

Kannaday did not reply.

“Hawke let you survive so you could absolve his team of blame,” Darling went on. “On the one hand, I should not care about that. I am only concerned about results. The problem, Captain, is that I like people to meet or surpass my expectations. You have failed in that regard.”

“Once!”
Kannaday said. There was frustration, not anger, in the captain’s gravelly voice. “We’ve had a single slip in more than a dozen very difficult, perfectly executed missions.”

“You
had two slips, Captain Kannaday,” Darling pointed out. “First the pirates, then Hawke.”

“All right,” Kannaday agreed.
“I
made two mistakes. I accept that responsibility.”

“Wherein lies the problem,” Darling said. “Errors can be repaired. Restoring trust is another issue.”

“Mr. Darling, I feel like a catboat in a bloody hurricane,” Kannaday said. “I need to finish this job. Then I have to look ahead to the other jobs. I can live with the way things are between me and John Hawke. My ego can handle that. But how do I fix it with you?”

“You are the captain,” Darling said. “Figure it out.”

“Sir, I’m trying very hard to do that,” Kannaday said. “In the future we will attack or avoid any ship that comes close. We’ll push the
Hosannah
to make up as much lost time as possible. I will work out my problems with John Hawke if you like.”

“Captain Kannaday, I don’t ‘like’!” Darling sneered. “You suffered a mutiny on board your vessel!”

“It was a disagreement, Mr. Darling.”

“It ended when Mr. Hawke dictated shipboard terms from the hilt of a blade,” Darling pointed out. “That, sir, is a mutiny.”

Kannaday was about to respond. Instead, his mouth clapped shut and he looked away.

“And you did nothing about it,” Darling went on. “Was his knife at your throat all day?”

“No, sir.”

“How did he pay for his crime?” Darling demanded. “What did he say when the wind changed and you put a knife at
his
throat? You did want to do that, didn’t you?”

“I did, sir.”

“I wish you had,” Darling said. “You cannot work for me
and
for Mr. Hawke. The way back, Captain, is to fix that.”

The silence in the kitchen was such that Darling could hear the water fizzing in the bottle.

Kannaday held Darling’s gaze a moment longer. “I understand, sir. Was there anything else?”

“No,” Darling said.

Kannaday nodded. Then he turned to leave. As the captain made his way around the counter, Andrew appeared to escort him from the estate. Andrew had been just out of earshot the entire time. Kannaday respected the secretary’s devotion, his discretion, and above all his loyalty. If only everyone in Darling’s service were like that.

Darling walked to the counter. He picked up his water and took a quick swig. He did not really care whether Kannaday won back his respect or not. All that mattered was having someone take charge of this mission. To see the rest of it through without event. To make sure he was not bothered on any future aspects of the operation.

Darling finished the water and wondered who that lieutenant would be. John Hawke was a confident man, and strength was a great motivator. Peter Kannaday was a frightened man. Fear could move a man as well, often in strange and unexpected ways.

Which is the greater asset?
Darling asked himself.

The big, successful prehistoric predators had enormous power and guile. Sometimes, though, a startled vegetarian like a stegosaurus would swing its spiked tail and fell a mighty tyrannosaur. There were countless cracked skulls in the fossil record.

The tactics never changed. Only the combatants and their weapons.

Darling put the empty water bottle on the counter. He left the kitchen to briefly attend to his other businesses. The safe ones. The ones that had long ago lost their ability to challenge and gratify him. The ones that covered the world and reported on it.

A world that he would have a hand in reshaping.

Monica Loh’s patrol boat hovered about the second nuclear waste site. This was where the Japanese government was allowed to deposit material. Tokyo was also free to assign space to other nations, provided they adhered to the International Nuclear Regulatory Commission codes.

The officer did not like coming to the Japanese site. She did not like going to any place controlled by the Japanese. It was a purely psychological reaction but a strong one. People of smaller nations in this region were inevitably caught in the backwash of history created by China and Japan. The Chinese were ambitious, organized, and insensitive. With over a billion people to feed and manage, Loh did not blame them for their totalitarian efficiency. She did not have the same sympathy for the Japanese. They were greedy rather than ambitious. They were domineering, not just organized. And they were cruel rather than insensitive. When the Chinese turned outward it was for land and resources to control. The Japanese looked for people to subjugate.

Singapore had its own forms of overkill. Laws were strict and punishment stricter. Dissent was permitted as long as sedition and abusive language were avoided. Work was hard, wages were low, and the government did not do enough to ease the burden of laborers. The ship-builders and oil refiners were the backbone of the economy. The government could not afford to alienate them. Since the bulk of the population was of Chinese heritage, they understood the rules. But Singaporeans had, at heart, a gentle nature. Their discomfort about the Japanese came partly from history lessons and partly from a clash of natures. They experienced it on the seas, in the harbors, in the banks, and on the stock exchanges. Whenever FNO Loh was around Japanese sailors, military or otherwise, she felt as though she was on high alert. Even tourists made her uneasy. They seemed to be collecting memories instead of enjoying them.

Loh watched from the deck as the sailors lowered their gear into the water. They were just a few meters ahead of her, port side. They worked in silence as they had been trained to do. Talk was a distraction in military operations. Still, every one of the officer’s senses was stimulated. She smelled the oil and salt of the sea. She heard the slapping of the waves against the hull of the patrol ship. Spotlights fastened to the rail played across the water. The net containing the equipment seemed to lose pieces as it descended into the darkness between the bright, patchy crests of sea. A strong, temperate wind pushed at her from the northwest. Though the woman’s world was the sea, she had always felt a kinship with the wind. It moved across the ocean, just like she did. It was silent. And it had changing moods that were only noticed by those who got in the way. The stars were partly hidden by high, wispy clouds. They reminded Loh of a waitress she had once seen in Bangkok. The woman had worn a white gown with sequins that sparkled in the light. Now that Loh thought of it, she knew as little about that waitress as she did about the heavens. The world was full of mysteries.

Loh was relaxed as the men and women worked. She did not care whether they found the site to be corrupted or intact. Even no information was information. She would deal with whatever they discovered. Though not a practicing Buddhist, Loh believed in the four noble truths it taught: that existence is suffering; that the cause of suffering is desire; that suffering eventually ends in a state of peace known as nirvana; and that the road to nirvana, the so-called eightfold noble path, consists of the qualities of right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. All of those skills did not come easily. And they required one thing above all.