Sea of Fire (29 page)

Little Maluka was lying on his soft back beside Leyland’s boot. His eyes were shut. There was reddish white scar tissue around his big black nose and on his legs. The grayish fur would probably never grow back there. But that was all right, Leyland thought. It made the little guy look tough. Not that a koala needed to look tough. It had no real enemies here except for men. For centuries, they had hunted koalas for food and fur. Now there were laws to prevent that. The firefighter raised his foot. He touched the animal’s exposed belly with his toe. The koala grunted, but he did not open his eyes.

“You’re tough, all right,” Leyland muttered. “You lazy slushy. Is that how you got hurt? Sleeping while the woods burned?”

“He’s not a slushy,” a female voice said over the radio.

That was Eva. She was on the main radio in the cabin. Leyland always kept his portable radio open. In an emergency, the second or two it took to turn it on could be decisive.

“You’re right. Little Maluka could not work in a kitchen,” Leyland replied. “At least kitchen help does the dishes. This boy doesn’t do anything except purr like a fat cat.”

“When the RFB starts a koala brigade, he’ll be the first to enlist—hold on,” she said, interrupting herself. “I have incoming.”

Small, high-powered binoculars hung from Leyland’s neck. He snatched them up and did a quick walk around the tower. If someone was calling in a fire, he might be able to spot it. He saw nothing.

“Captain, I’m putting the call through to you,” Eva said.

“What is it?” Leyland pulled the radio from his belt. He put the cupped upper half against his ear. It was shielded so that he could hear if he were in a chopper or a loud roaring fire.

“I don’t know what this is,” she said. “They won’t tell me.”

“Who
won’t tell you?”

“They won’t tell me that either,” she replied.

“Better not be a smoodger,” Leyland said.

“He doesn’t sound like he’s kidding,” Eva assured her commander. “Here he is.”

While Leyland waited, he stuck out his lower lip and blew perspiration from his mustache. It was something he did when he was annoyed. He was not accustomed to getting secret calls. He scanned the canopy of trees to the northwest. Fires occasionally started in the campground there.

“Captain Leyland?” the caller asked.

“Yes. Who is this?”

“Warrant Officer George Jelbart, Maritime Intelligence Centre,” the caller replied.

“Is there a situation?” Leyland pressed. The man was calling from a helicopter. He could hear the sound in the radio.

“There isn’t a fire, if that’s what you’re asking,” Jelbart replied.

Leyland relaxed. He lowered the binoculars.

“But we do have a situation,” the officer went on. “We are coming in to discuss it with you.”

“We?” Leyland asked.

“We’ll discuss it when we arrive,” Jelbart said. “We should reach the helicopter pad in about fifteen minutes. We’d like clearance.”

“What kind of bird are you flying?”

“A Bell 204,” Jelbart told him.

“There’s room for you. You’re cleared,” Leyland informed him.

“We checked that before we left,” Jelbart replied. “Thanks for the backup, though.”

The caller clicked off. Leyland replaced the unit in his belt. It automatically switched back to base-audio. He was intrigued by the call but also frustrated. Leyland hated being in the dark about anything. He would have pressed for information, but he also disliked wasted effort. If the warrant officer had wanted Leyland to know more, he would have told him more.

“Eva, have Spider climb up to keep an eye on things,” Leyland said. “I’m going to the helipad.”

“Right away,” she said after giving Spider the order. “What’s going on?”

“We’re having guests,” Leyland replied. “Intelligence chaps from the Aussie navy.”

“Sounds important,” Eva said. “Is it?”

“When was the last time anyone visited who was not with the RFB?” Leyland asked.

“Never, in the three years I’ve been here,” she replied.

“And not in the six years I’ve been here,” Leyland said as he started down the ladder in the center of the tower.

“I don’t follow,” she said.

“No one
comes out here if it isn’t important,” Leyland said.

Lowell Coffey could not decide which was worse—riding in a boat or in a helicopter. The naval vessel rocked its passengers this way and that. The helicopter vibrated wildly and was deafening. Not that a qualitative comparison between the corvette and the Bell was going to help. His fight-or-flight mechanism, or whatever Jelbart and Herbert had decided it was, wanted him to flee. The only reason Coffey mused about the differences was to keep from dwelling on the discomfort itself. Toward the end of the forty-five-minute journey, it was a necessary distraction.

The relative motions being equally unpleasant, Coffey decided that the helicopter was marginally worse. On the corvette he could move around. Here, he was stuck between FNO Loh and Bob Herbert in a thinly cushioned bench designed for two. The pilot and Jelbart were in front of them. Herbert’s wheelchair was in the small cargo space behind the backseat.

Herbert had contributed something else to the mission. His plan to gather intelligence about Jervis Darling.

For the first half of the journey, the plan had been in the forefront of Coffey’s mind. For one thing, he was not sure it was a workable idea. But it was the only idea anyone had. That made it inevitable by default. For another, he was not sure it was a legal idea. But they were not going to court. Not yet. As Jelbart had said, the objective was to find the missing radioactive material. Pinning it on Darling could be done later.

Coffey also was not happy having to involve additional outsiders in the operation. He did not doubt that the personnel of the Queensland North Rural Fire Brigade were as brave as any soldier who ever shouldered a rifle. But Jelbart admitted that the locals were fiercely loyal to Jervis Darling. The magnate made generous donations to local sports programs, environmental groups, municipal organizations, and charities. Since the reasons for the operation were classified, the firefighters might not want to help spy on their benefactor. And they could not afford to go through channels. That would waste time and risk leaks. This was going to have to be accomplished through tactful persuasion. Bob Herbert could be persuasive, but tact was not in his repertoire. Jelbart was a native, but he also seemed to be a balls-ahead kind of guy. And Monica Loh was both Asian and a woman. Exurban Australians were cheerfully misogynistic as well as naturally suspicious of all outsiders. But they were particularly wary of what many called “the Asian Escalade.” In less politically sensitive times it was known as “the Yellow Peril.” The liberal soul of Lowell Coffey hated the term. Throughout the Western world, it was applied primarily to the Japanese before and during World War II. It was reborn when China fell to Communism, and it grew in popularity with the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. To Australians, the fear was not so much about the threat of military confrontation. It was the very real loss of jobs and economic prosperity to all the nations of the Asian Pacific Rim. Most Asian nations did not have the kind of compensation packages that were available to Australian workers. A company could hire twenty Taiwanese seamen or mill workers for the price of three Australians. Many of these workers toiled at home. But each year, hundreds of illegal immigrants slipped into Australia along the nation’s 7,813 miles of coastline. They went to work for industrial firms, as fishermen, and in the food-processing industries. Most of the money they made was sent home, doubling the hit to the local economy. That made a considerable impact in a nation of twenty million people.

The only diplomats on the team were Coffey and Ellsworth. Ellsworth had stayed behind to act as a liaison with other intelligence agencies. That left the burden on Coffey. Coffey, a man whose mind was being jostled as thoroughly as the rest of him.

The helicopter slipped over a ridge and dropped toward a white landing pad on top of a hill. As it settled down, Coffey decided that, in fact, he preferred the chopper to the corvette. The ride was a hell of a lot shorter. The chopper came to rest with the slightest bump. The pilot cut the rotor, and Jelbart jumped out. A man was approaching from along a dirt path. There was an observation tower some 400 yards behind him. While the pilot retrieved Herbert’s wheelchair, FNO Loh and Coffey joined Jelbart. The Singaporean officer had been quiet and expressionless throughout the journey. Perhaps she felt uncomfortable being in Australia. Or she might have been focused on the mission. Or both. It could also be that after hanging around politicians and attorneys for his entire professional life, Coffey was unused to people who were silent when they had nothing to say.

Coffey waited by the helicopter until Herbert was in his wheelchair. Even without his chair, the intelligence chief was surprisingly mobile. His arms were thickly knotted with muscles. With remarkable ease, he could cross an aisle or hop onto a desk to assault someone on the other side. Those arms reminded Coffey of the climbing roots of a banyan tree. Herbert’s strong fingers could probably dig holes in concrete. He swung unaided from the door-frame of the chopper into his chair. It was an inspiring thing to see.

The fire officer was nothing like Coffey had imagined. He had expected Paul Leyland to be a strapping and immaculate man. A
GQ
cowboy with outback trappings. He was not.

Paul Leyland was not especially presentable. His olive-green uniform was rumpled and spotted with perspiration on the collar, under the arms, and behind the knees. His skin was rash-red, not bronze. It looked like there were patches of fur stuck to his boot. He was well under six feet tall. He was not even wearing an outback shade hat. His bald head was bare and sweaty.

“I think we’re going to be able to do business with this guy,” Herbert said as they approached.

“What makes you say that?” Coffey asked.

“Two things. First, he smiled when he shook Officer Loh’s hand,” Herbert said.

“So? Maybe he just likes the ladies,” Coffey suggested.

“Exactly,” Herbert said. “He’s not wearing a wedding band. He’s up in his tree house most of the day. She’ll be an asset.”

“That’s quite a leap of faith,” Coffey said. “Jelbart said Leyland has a woman working for him.”

“Yup,” Herbert said. “That strengthens my case.”

“How?”

“She’s the only female firefighter in this department,” Herbert told him. “He had to okay her being here. He likes having a woman around,
and
it doesn’t matter if she’s foreign. Which is my second point. It shows he’s got an open and independent mind.”

“I’m not signing off on any of that,” Coffey said.

“Dinner at the 1789 in Georgetown says I’m right,” Herbert replied.

“Does everything have to be a war with you?” Coffey protested.

“Not a war. Call it a dispute with hair on its chest. You in or out?” Herbert pressed.

“I’m in,” Coffey said.

The men left the landing pad. They crossed damp grasses to where the others were standing. The group was brightly lighted in the glow of the footlights on the landing pad. Jelbart introduced them.

“I understand you’re the offsider running the team,” Leyland said as he shook Herbert’s hand.

Coffey noticed that the captain did not smile. Herbert did, however. From the side of his mouth, at Coffey.

“Actually, Officer Loh and I will be conducting activities jointly,” Herbert told him.

Both Jelbart and Loh looked at the intelligence chief. Loh was impassive. Jelbart seemed somewhat surprised. But he said nothing.

“I see,” Leyland said. “So which of you is going to tell me exactly what these activities are? And would you like to go to the cabin to do it?” He pointed toward a small structure near the base of the tower. “It’ll be getting pretty chilly out here in a few minutes. You might be more comfortable.”

“We’re a little squeezed for time,” Herbert said. “And we won’t be out here that long.”

“All right,” Leyland said. “What’s on your mind?”

“Discretion, for one thing,” Herbert said. “Nothing we are about to discuss can be repeated.”

“I can keep a secret,” Leyland said. “Just tell me one thing. Is what you want to do legal?”

“In theory, and if everything goes the way I hope,” Herbert replied.

Leyland looked at him strangely. “That’s like calling a match ‘safe’ until you strike it.”

“Captain Leyland, I’m a solicitor,” Coffey interjected. “The situation is equivalent to breaking down the door of a house that’s on fire. Technically, you are trespassing. But by every other measure, it’s the right thing to do.”

“You burble like a solicitor,” Leyland said. “So the answer is no?”

“The answer is that we are investigating a national security matter,” Jelbart said.

“An international security issue,” FNO Loh added.

“Correct,” Jelbart agreed. “We can bat around the fine points of ethical versus legal law if you like. Or we can try to save a couple of million lives. Which will it be?”

Leyland looked at the group. “I’m out here to save lives. I’m listening, people.”

“Thank you,” Jelbart said.

“Captain, do you have any kind of personal or professional relationship with Jervis Darling?” Herbert asked.

“We trapshoot twice a week,” Leyland said.

“That’s fantastic,” Coffey said.

“That was a joke,” Leyland told him. “No. I have no personal or professional relationship with Mr. Darling. In fact, the only part of him I have ever seen is the arse end of his helicopter.”

“What about firefighting?” Herbert asked.

“Our squad doesn’t even
watch
his estate,” Leyland said. “He has his own security and fire prevention service.”