Tom Clancy's Op-center_ Sea Of Fire Part 14

Washington, D.C. Friday, 8:57 A.M.

It was time for Bob Herbert's wake-up call.

After Paul Hood hung up with Shigeo Fujima, he brought up the dossier on Colonel Hwan. While he read the file, Hood had his a.s.sistant Bugs Benet put in a call to the c.o.c.kpit of the TR-1. Hood was patched through to his groggy intelligence chief. As Bob Herbert answered, it occurred to Hood that in all the years they had been working together he had never had to wake Herbert. It seemed like the man was always on the job or socializing. The first-time experience was disturbing. Clearly, the Mississippi native was not at his most alert or Pride-of-the-Deep-South charming when yanked from a dead sleep.

"Sorry to get you up," Hood said after Herbert had grumbled something into the headset.

"The world better be ending," Herbert said. Those were his first coherent words.

"It isn't, though it might be roughed up pretty bad if we don't do something," Hood informed him.

"Now that I think of it, I don't give a d.a.m.n about the world," Herbert said. "Just us. The U.S."

The intelligence chief sounded as if his mouth were full of sand. Hood waited a moment.

"Are you sure you're with me?" Hood asked.

"I'm here," Herbert said. "But d.a.m.n, I wish I had coffee."

"Sorry about that," Hood said.

"It's okay. What's on the table?"

"A North Korean colonel named Kim Hwan," Hood said. "Have you ever heard of him?"

"Colonel Kim Hwan," Herbert muttered. "Yeah. I came across his name in the files I brought. He's a surveillance guy, I think."

"Right," Hood said.

"Is he with us or against us?" Herbert asked.

"He may have used a Chinese satellite to have a look at what we're doing in the Celebes Sea," Hood said.

"How do you know that?" Herbert asked.

"I asked Shigeo Fujima," Hood said.

"The p.r.i.c.k finally took your call?" Herbert asked.

"He had no choice," Hood replied. "I had the operator cut in on his daughter's cell phone."

"Nice," Herbert said. "Well, Fujima would know who is running what in that part of the world." The intelligence chief was sounding much more alert now. "So Colonel Hwan is against us. Why?"

"That's what we need to find out," Hood said. "Coffey's team found an empty concrete block at the bottom of the Celebes Sea. The block was supposed to have nuclear waste inside."

"North Korea gets whatever nuclear material they need from China," Herbert said. "Why would they be interested in unprocessed waste material?"

"That's the go-for-broke question," Hood said.

"South Korea doesn't need to go buccaneering for it either," Herbert said. "We supply them. So Hwan wouldn't have been watching to see what the enemy does either."

"Makes sense."

"That suggests a third party," Herbert said.

"Which is where we run into problems," Hood said. "I've got Colonel Hwan's dossier on the computer. It's pretty thin stuff. He's a career man, no family, completely off the Western radar."

"Does he attend seminars, go to retreats, travel in a private capacity?" Herbert asked.

"We don't have that information," Hood said. "As I said, he's not even a blip to our intelligence allies."

"That worries me."

"Why?" Hood asked. "It could be he isn't a heavyweight."

"It could," Herbert agreed. "More often than not, though, those are the real professionals, the ones who manage to stay hidden and anonymous. Let me think for a second."

While Hood waited for Herbert, he scanned the dossier. They did not even have a picture of the man. That seemed to support Herbert's interpretation. A low-watt intelligence officer would not mind being photographed. Hood came from the worlds of politics and finance. Voters were wooed according to complex demographics. Banking and investments were done with precision. Crisis management was different. It unnerved him to consider how often the only barricade between security and disaster was seat-of-the-pants thinking by men like Bob Herbert. In the same breath he thanked G.o.d that he had men like Bob Herbert around him.

"Okay," Herbert said. "Did Hwan go to school?"

"You mean college?"

"Yes," Herbert said.

Hood scanned the dossier. "He did. Hwan studied in Moscow and then in London. Why?"

"Nearly seventy-five percent of the people who are recruited for intelligence service jobs studied abroad," Herbert told him. "Other cultures and colloquial languages are familiar to them. If Colonel Hwan studied in London, he probably speaks English."

"How does that help us?" Hood asked.

"We can talk to him," Herbert informed Hood. "What time is it in North Korea?"

"Just after ten P.M.," Hood said.

"Spies collect information during the day and disseminate it at night," Herbert said. "Hwan probably gets up early to read intelligence reports that came in during the night."

"Why does that matter?" Hood asked.

"He'll probably be at home now, sleeping," Herbert said. "Can you get me that number?"

"I'm sure Matt can dig it from a computer system somewhere," Hood said. "Why?"

"Because sometimes a cla.s.sic, low-tech approach is the best one," Herbert replied.

"I'm not following you," Hood admitted.

"How did I behave when you called me just now?" Herbert asked.

"You were cranky. Disoriented," Hood said.

"Exactly," Herbert said. "It's the old POW gambit. You drag a guy from his cell or cot during the middle of the night. His guard is down. His head is fuzzy. You don't even have to beat him. You hammer him with questions. A man who is scared and tired will respond to force. His mouth will engage before his brain can prevent it."

"So you call Colonel Hwan and wake him up," Hood said. "He's not a prisoner of war. He's probably not going to be very scared in his own home. What makes you think he'll tell you anything?"

"Because I'm a professional, too," Herbert replied.

TWENTY-SEVEN.

The Celebes Sea Friday, 11:09 P.M.

Lowell Coffey was belowdecks in the captain's cabin. The attorney was lying on the small bed with his arms at his side and his eyes shut. Though it was black outside, the shade was pulled over the porthole. Coffey did not want to open his eyes and see the swaying of the stars. It was bad enough that he had to feel the constant movement of the corvette, hear the waves brushing the hull. He had come down here a half hour before, after Jelbart and Loh had both decided to remain at the site. There was no point of going to Darwin or Singapore until they had some idea where their next stop would be. They could not do that until they located the vessel that had deposited the empty concrete block. It bothered him that the naval might of two nations had to wait for some slippery civilian ship to turn up on someone's radar. He felt as useful as Scylla and Charybdis after Odysseus had sailed through the Strait of Messina.

There was a rap at the narrow metal door.

"Come in," Coffey blurted. The attorney sat up slowly on the edge of the bed. Even so, he had to stop and prop himself on an elbow as his stomach remained horizontal.

A young sailor entered carrying a large radio handset. "Sir, there's a call for you."

"Thank you," Coffey said weakly as he extended his free hand.

The young seaman gave him the unit, then left and shut the door. Coffey lay back down.

"Yes?" he said.

"Lowell, it's Paul."

"Hey, Paul," Coffey said weakly.

"Wow," Hood said. "It sounds like I'm waking everyone today."

"No, you didn't wake me," Coffey said. "I'm just trying not to make any excessive moves. That includes my vocal chords."

"It's that bad?"

"Whatever the opposite of water baby water baby is, that's me." is, that's me."

"I see," Hood said.

"What's been happening?" Coffey asked.

"Your ships are being watched," Hood said.

That opened Coffey's eyes. The attorney rolled onto his side. He ignored the complaints from his belly. "How? By whom?"

"By a Chinese satellite," Hood told the attorney. "It's apparently being time-shared by the North Koreans. We have an idea who may be running the actual surveillance, though we don't know who may have ordered it. Bob is looking into that now."

"You know, it could be nothing at all," Coffey said. "It may be a planned reconnaissance. I'm sure the North Koreans routinely watch the military activities of other nations in this region."

"They do, but military traffic is uncommon in that sector," Hood said. "This is not someplace they would have targeted without a reason."

"That reason being we may have been seen or heard or ratted out," Coffey suggested.

"In a manner of speaking," Hood replied. "We don't know yet how it happened. What's the latest over there?"

"Jelbart and Loh are still trying to find the ship that made the drop-off here," Coffey replied. "The only thing we're sure of is that it did not leave the way it was supposed to."

"How do you know that?"

"The ships that come here are required to file an itinerary with the International Nuclear Regulatory Commission," Coffey told him. "FNO Loh called Paya Lebar Airbase and asked for an air force F5 Tiger II flyover of the route. The jet didn't find any ship there. Jelbart informed the INRC and asked for their help. They were useless."

"What do you mean?"

"Roughly half the ships are spot-checked on their way to this site, when they are carrying nuclear materials," Coffey told him. "They are boarded and checked for radiation leaks, security, general seaworthiness. The ships are not checked after they leave the site."

"So no one knows if they have even made the drop," Hood said.

"Correct."

"That's insane," Hood said.

"I agree. So do Warrant Officer Jelbart and FNO Loh," Coffey said. "The problem is that maintaining a fleet is expensive. The INRC is financed by grants from the United Nations, environmental groups, and dues paid by nations that use the waste fields. That gives them about fifteen million dollars a year to oversee all international nuclear shipments, not just waste product."

"That's all?" Hood said.

"Yes, and that doesn't take into account whatever kick-backs are being handed out," Coffey added.

"That's a h.e.l.luva low priority we give the security of nuclear material," Hood said with disgust.

"That's true, Paul. But to be honest, people who want to smuggle nuclear material are going to do so whether the INRC increases its activities or not," Coffey said.

"That does not mean we have to make it easy for them," Hood pointed out. "We wouldn't even have known about this incident except for the attack by the sampan."

"Not everything is as well-ordered as law and finance," Coffey said.

"Funny you should say that," Hood said. "I've been thinking about the nature of our business, and it should be more structured. We live in a high-tech world. We can watch someone key in a cell phone number from outer s.p.a.ce. Losing ships and radioactive waste are inexcusable."

"Only in hindsight," Coffey said. "When I was in college, I interned with a criminal lawyer. I used to go to prisons with him to interview clients. Once we had perpetrators locked up, it was easy to kick ourselves in the a.s.s and realize what we should have done to save lives. These people we're dealing with now, the smugglers and terrorists, are full-time sociopaths. How do you compete with that? How do you stop someone from putting botulism in an ATM deposit and poisoning the money supply? How do you prevent someone from filling a gla.s.s water bottle with acid and carrying it into a jetliner?"

"I don't know," Hood admitted. "But we have to figure it out. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of lives!"