Sea of Fire (42 page)

Loh told the patrol boat to return to Darwin. The fate of Marcus Darling worried Herbert. It certainly complicated what he was about to do.

The helicopter finished fueling and took off. Flying time to Cairns was fifteen minutes. That was not a lot of time.

This was going to be tight.

After they had been airborne for three minutes, Herbert’s phone beeped. He answered quickly. Viens was on the other end.

“I’ve got what you want,” Viens said. “Do you have access to your computer monitor?”

“I do,” he said.

“I’ve got the image, and I’m forwarding it to you, real time,” Viens said. “I figured you would know what you were looking at better than I would.”

“Good thinking,” Herbert replied. “Stay on the line. I may need you to relocate.”

“No problem.”

The intelligence chief turned the monitor so he could look at it. If Hawke happened to glance over, he would see nothing. The screen was at an extremely sharp angle.

The satellite image was a fairly tight view of the Darling mansion. The house was at a forty-five-degree angle. In the green night-vision image, Herbert could see that there were lights on upstairs and downstairs. That suggested a good deal of activity in the house.

At five o’clock in the morning.

It only took a kitchen light to make breakfast, and probably not this early. Something was not right.

“Stephen, I want you to go to the Idlewild,” Herbert said. “Got that?”

“The local airfield?” Viens asked.

“Yes. To the northeast.”

Herbert wanted to use a term with which Hawke was likely to be unfamiliar. He did not want to give the man time to think up a new strategy. The original name for New York’s Kennedy Airport seemed a good bet.

“You got it,” Viens said. “I’ll have to walk the satellite over, though. That’s not one of the coordinates we have programmed in.”

“Understood,” Herbert told him. “Just walk as fast as you can, please.”

It had occurred to the intelligence chief that Jervis Darling would expect to hear from either John Hawke or his nephew Marcus after the yacht went down. Absent an all-clear call, Darling might not want to stick around. Embittered former employees might want to talk. Darling would probably want to get out of Australia. Being in another country would add another layer to any legal or political fallout. Herbert could not permit that.

Of course, there was still the question of Marcus Darling. Marcus may have contacted his uncle to say that someone had been snatched from the yacht by helicopter. Perhaps after they were safely aboard the patrol boat. A rescue of Kannaday or even Hawke could be bad news for Jervis Darling.

It took a few seconds for the satellite to begin shifting. The image jerked toward the top right. It changed once every second after that. It was a slow, exasperating process.

How quickly the miraculous has become inadequate,
Herbert thought.

Each live picture was a fresh frustration for Herbert. He wanted to see the airport
now.
He wished the fire tower had a clear view of the field. That would make things easier.

Herbert knew from Darling’s dossier that he had a 1994 Learjet model 31A. The Australian used that for local hops. Darling kept his larger Gulfstream G-V at the airport in Darwin. Herbert would be able to identify the smaller plane with no problem.

A moment later, the small jet appeared on the airport landing strip. At this hour, it was the only active vehicle on the field. It stopped at the end of the runway. The pilot would go through his final preflight check. Then he would request clearance from the tower. A few moments later, Jervis Darling would be gone. The helicopter would never be able to catch him. And Lowell Coffey would definitely oppose scrambling the jets from Cooktown to force the Learjet down. Especially if Jessica-Ann Darling were on board. The media would take huge bites from a story headlined, “RAAF attacks schoolgirl.”

Herbert looked at his watch. It was approximately seven minutes until the helicopter landed in Cairns. They would never reach the airstrip in time. He no longer had time to be subtle. He leaned toward the flight deck.

“What’s the range of the radar at the airstrip in Cairns?” Herbert asked.

Jelbart looked at the pilot. “What have they got there, an EL/M-2125?” he asked.

“I believe so, sir,” the pilot replied.

“They’ve got high-resolution views to the horizon on all sides, from one degree above the surface,” Jelbart said.

“Meaning they’ll see us as we fly toward Cairns,” Herbert said.

“Like they were looking out the window,” Jelbart said.

“What will they do if we come screaming in at them?”

“Buzz the tower?” Jelbart asked.

“I want to make a run toward the field!” Herbert said. “What will the tower do when they see us coming?”

“They’ll shut the field down until they’ve contacted us,” the pilot informed him.

“Then do it!” Herbert ordered.

“You want me to streak the airstrip?” the pilot clarified.

“At maximum drive!
Now!”
Herbert yelled. “Absolute radio silence.”

As Herbert spoke, he disconnected the telephone receiver from the cord on his wheelchair. He held the plastic receiver in his right hand. With his left hand, Herbert gripped the plastic strap above the door. He did not want to use the seat belt. He needed a little mobility.

Jelbart protested. But his complaint was lost in the roar of the powerful 500 TTSN engine. Everyone was thrown forward or back as the Bell dipped, revved up, and raced ahead.

As Herbert expected, John Hawke was thrown toward him. Herbert swung the telephone receiver at the back of Hawke’s neck. The security officer went down. Just to make sure Hawke was not feigning sleep again, Herbert leaned down and slugged him again. Hawke would have a difficult time proving he did not hurt himself when the helicopter abruptly changed directions.

Monica Loh had had the foresight to buckle her seat belt. That wonderful lady did not miss a thing.

Scooting back up in his seat, Herbert looked at his phone. The receiver was cracked. He would apologize to Viens later for disconnecting him. He would also have to frame the phone and give it to Paul Hood.

In this instance, at least, he and his boss were in complete agreement.

The telephone could be one hell of a weapon of choice.

Hood was looking at the computer monitor on his desk. Stephen Viens had just sent him the same image that Bob Herbert was seeing. Hood saw the gleaming white Learjet poised for takeoff on the end of the runway. The aircraft was just sitting there.

“So that’s Darling’s jet, and Bob’s going to try to keep him from taking off by mucking up the field’s airspace,” Hood said.

“That’s pretty much it,” Viens said.

“And then what? Did he give any clue?”

“No,” Viens admitted.

“He wouldn’t have wanted to say much,” Hood thought aloud. “Not with a suspect in the cabin.”

“I wonder if the Cooktown airbase will scramble jets to try to chase him away.”

“They might, but Jelbart could handle that,” Hood said. He shook his head. “Stephen, this is one of those times when you just have to trust the people you have in the field. But I do have one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“The poor Mississippi kid wants the rich Australian’s hide,” Hood said.

“I see,” Viens said.

“I want the nuclear material,” Hood went on.

Hood continued to watch the monitor. He did not think that Herbert would forget why he had gone to Australia.

And then he saw something on the monitor. Something new. “Stephen, can you bring me in closer?”

“I was just about to suggest that,” Viens replied.

“You see it, too?”

“Yes,” Viens said.

“Can you make it out?” Hood asked.

“Not yet,” Viens told him. “Give me another few seconds to kick up the zoom and resolution.”

The green-tinted image began to change. The Learjet became larger in the lower right-hand corner of the monitor. The white of the fuselage looked irradiated in the night-vision lens. The tarmac expanded. And the black, bloblike object in the upper left became slightly clearer.

Hood stared at it intently. He saw what the object was. And he was very sorry that Bob Herbert’s phone was not working.

The sun was beginning to brighten the charcoal gray tarmac at the tiny airfield. Inside the sleek Learjet, Jervis Darling sat in a deep, cushioned seat over the wing. The gentle hum of the engines comforted him, as always. He loved the feeling of bridled power. Especially when he controlled the reins. Bundled in his overcoat, his daughter was asleep in the seat beside him. Once they had reached cruising altitude, Darling would carry the young girl to the small bedroom in the back of the aircraft.

As the jet continued to idle, Darling became impatient. He punched a button on top of the armrest. That activated the intercom to the cockpit.

“Shawn, what’s the delay?”

“Mr. Darling, the tower has put us on temporary hold,” pilot Shawn Daniels replied.

“Find out what it’s about,” Darling snapped. “I want to be airborne as quickly as possible.”

“Sir, that may not be possible,” Daniels told him.

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s activity on the tarmac,” he replied.

“What kind of activity?” Darling demanded.

“The tower has not given me that information, sir,” Daniels replied.

“Damn the tower,” Darling said as he unbuckled his seat belt. He moved through the narrow cabin, ducking his head slightly under the low ceiling. He opened the cockpit door. Pilot Daniels and copilot Kristin Bedard moved slightly to either side so he could see out the windshield.

A helicopter was parked at the end of the runway. The rotor was still churning, and a side door was open.

“Do you know who that is?” Darling asked.

“No, sir,” Daniels told him. “It’s a Bell helicopter, but I can’t see the identification number.”

Darling squinted into the darkness. Something was being off-loaded. He could not tell what it was.

“Mr. Darling,” the pilot said. “I could be mistaken, but that looks like a wheelchair.”

“He wouldn’t dare,” Darling muttered.

“Sir?”

Darling ignored the pilot. He continued to look out the window. After a moment, the helicopter rose slowly from behind the object. Darling could see clearly now. It
was
a wheelchair. The wheelchair of R. Clayton Herbert. And it was coming toward him.

“Can you take off around him?” Darling asked.

“Sir?”

“Can you go around him, over him,
through
him?” Darling yelled.

“No, sir,” the pilot said. He seemed surprised.

“Ask the tower why no one is coming to take him off the field,” Darling demanded.

“Sir, they’ve plugged me into the cross talk between themselves and the helicopter,” the pilot said. “Apparently, Warrant Officer George Jelbart of the Maritime Intelligence Centre has just commandeered the landing strip for a military action.”

This cannot be happening,
Darling thought.

“The tower is asking the helicopter for a reason,” the pilot went on. “The warrant officer is saying there is a question about the cargo of the jet.” The pilot seemed surprised. He glanced back at Darling. “I can cut in if you like, sir. Do we have a response for them?”

“Yes,” Darling said. “Tell the tower I am going out to remove the impediment. If they have a problem with that, they can take it up with the prime minister, whom I intend to wake once we are airborne.”

“I will tell them, sir,” the pilot said.

Darling backed into the cabin. He motioned to copilot Bedard, who jumped from her seat and opened the door. She lowered the retractable stairs.

“Sit with my daughter in case she wakes,” Darling told her as he swept onto the tarmac.

The night seemed endless, but Darling’s patience was not. The new world power structure was inevitable.

It might as well begin here and now.

A Learjet looks a helluva lot bigger when you’re rolling right up to it,
Herbert thought.

That was not the only thought he had, but it was a powerful one. Waves of heat from the turbines were rising in the dawning sun. The machine was hot, volatile, dangerous. The pointed nose was like a lance aimed directly at him. The low hum of the engines was what Herbert imagined tigers would be like growling from behind brush. All it would take was a gentle nudge from someone inside to send the beast charging toward him. The helicopter had moved to an emergency access road beside the tarmac, leaving Herbert alone. Now that the Bell was out of the way, Herbert had no doubt that Jervis Darling would like to run him over. The intelligence chief hoped the pilot and copilot would be disinclined.

As Herbert rolled himself forward, the cabin door of the jet swung open. Someone charged down the steps. Herbert could not see the figure clearly, but it could only be Jervis Darling. He approached aggressively, with a shoulder-driven swagger. It gave Herbert a moment’s hesitation. Darling was not that many generations removed from the people who first cut civilization into the rough terrain here. They were convicts and their keepers, for whom hardship was constant. As he had discovered before, it was going to take a lot to cow him. Hopefully, the extra ammunition Herbert had would give him the kill shot he needed.

“Get out of my way!” Darling said as he approached. “Leave, or I will call the chief constable and have you removed.”