Tom Clancy's Op-center Novels 7-12 (9781101644591)

by Clancy, Tom

  The second thing the tall, blue-eyed attorney enjoyed was travel. Unlike most travelers, however, seeing new sights was not what appealed most to Coffey. Back in the early 1980s, the attorney had attended Oxford for postgraduate studies in international law. Being on campus had exposed him to ideas that were not only contrary to his own but often anti-American. Coffey knew things to be true viscerally. He enjoyed having the opportunity to defend them intellectually. He discovered that classrooms, coffeehouses, even train stations and airport lounges gave him an opportunity to jump into conversations and state his views. After graduation, traveling around the world for the state of California and the federal government gave Coffey the chance to exercise his skills. Happily, every region was different. Coffey encountered debates in London that were unlike those he found in Montreal, Moscow, Tokyo, or Damascus.

  And now, Sydney.

  Coffey was standing outside the front door of the Park Hyatt Sydney on Hickson Road. He had arrived the night before and gone directly to bed. From his room at the rear of the hotel he could see across Sydney Cove to the spectacular Sydney Opera House. Standing here, along the broad avenue, he was able to look out at the wharves on Walsh Bay. Sydney was a clean, vibrant, spectacular city. Coffey was only scheduled to be here for three days. Most of that time would be taken up by the Conference on International Oceanic Sovereignty. Coffey hoped he would have time to see some of the city.

  Even though Coffey had his sunglasses on, it was still a blindingly bright morning. The sun bounced off the water and the clouds. It was reflected from every silver tower and white structure in a city full of them. The sun and air felt different here than they did in the United States or Europe. Maybe the heat was softened by the constant sea breeze. Maybe the ocean kept the air clean as well. Whatever it was, Coffey found it invigorating.

  Tourists came and went from the hotel as Coffey waited for his ride. Penny Masterson was chairperson of the Asian Rim Relocation Organization. Coffey had met the woman in Washington several years earlier at a seminar hosted by Amnesty International. ARRO was a not-forprofit group dedicated to assisting refugees from Indonesia, Malaysia, and other nations close to Australia. Many of those refugees ended up in Australia, most of them illegally. Those who were caught or subsequently identified were returned to their homelands. If there was anything worse than being an illegal immigrant deported from a nation, it was being an illegal emigré returned to one of those countries. Charges of treason, followed by lengthy prison sentences including hard labor were not uncommon.

  The petite, strawberry-blond Penny was the perfect person for the job. The twenty-nine-year-old was sweet, she was bright, she was compassionate. She had grown up being teased about her maiden name, which was Penny Date. Boys would ask if that was how much she charged. As a result, Penny had the thickest skin of anyone Coffey had ever met. She could run for public office and win. But she wanted to help people and not, as she put it, “run a football team whose primary adversary is itself.”

  Penny pulled up in her old red pickup. The doorman opened the battered door. It groaned.

  “Sorry, Lowell,” Penny said as he climbed in. “It isn’t exactly the red-carpet treatment.”

  “It’s charming,” Coffey replied diplomatically. The truth was, the truck smelled of fertilizer, and there were what Bob Herbert called HVICs on the windshield—high velocity insect casualties. The only thing charming about the vehicle was the driver. Penny’s accent had little silver bells in it. Her smile gleamed like those little silver bells. And her eyes were as brilliant as the sunshine. If she were not married, he would be engaged in a very serious long-distance courtship.

  “The truck is functional,” Penny said. “Unfortunately, I hadn’t quite mastered some of the narrow turns when that happened,” she added, nodding to the dented door.

  “But you have now?” Coffey asked anxiously as he buckled himself in.

  Penny laughed. That was music, too. “I wouldn’t put Gaby in here if I hadn’t,” she replied as she pulled away from the hotel.

  “Gabrielle must be what, now—a year old?” Coffey asked.

  “Thirteen and a half months,” Penny said. “And she’s a peach.”

  “I have no doubt,” Coffey replied. “What about your husband? How is he doing?”

  “Charlie is doing great,” Penny said. “He quit the parks service seven months ago and became a self-employed gardener.”

  “Which explains the truck instead of a minivan,” Coffey said.

  “We’ve got a fleet of three!” Penny laughed. “Charlie just couldn’t take it anymore. He spent more time figuring out how to implement budget cuts in his field crew than he did actually landscaping. As he put it, ‘I was tired of trying to move heaven. I’d rather move earth.’ ”

  “We’ve got that same problem at Op-Center,” Coffey said. “Do you work with him at all?”

  “On weekends I use this truck to help him transport trees, shrubs, and soil around the city and suburbs,” Penny said. “I have to say, I enjoy getting my hands dirty in a wholesome way.”

  “It probably takes your mind off the more unpleasant things in life,” Coffey said.

  “It does,” Penny agreed. “But I found that it also serves a purpose in my own work. When I drive up to meetings or detainment centers, people don’t automatically assume I’m a homemaker who is using ARRO as something to fill the daytime hours.”

  Penny turned off Hickson Road. Tools rattled in the open back of the truck. Penny did not even seem to be aware of the sounds. There was something sweet about that, Coffey thought.

  “How is the conference shaping up?” Coffey asked.

  “It’s going to be the largest of the four we’ve held here,” Penny said. “Thirty-two nations, one hundred and eleven representatives. And the breakfast reception at the State Parliament House is going to be a first. They’re finally acknowledging that we’re a force to be counted. When that’s done, we’ll go over to the Sydney Convention Center. You’ll be speaking after dinner, which means that everyone will be well-fed and ready to sit back and listen.”

  It also meant that Coffey would have time to mingle, eavesdrop, and find out what other people were thinking. He would have time to address up-to-the-moment issues in his speech.

  “Will our nemesis Brian Ellsworth be there?” Coffey asked.

  “He was invited, of course,” Penny said. “But he declined as usual.”

  “I’d be honored to take it personally,” Coffey said.

  “Your keynote speech in Brisbane last year was not in his nightstand reading stack, I’m sure,” Penny said. “But I do believe his disinterest is spread across the entire organization.”

  Ellsworth was chief solicitor for the Australian Maritime Intelligence Centre. Based in Darwin, Northern Territory, the MIC was the first line of defense against illegal aliens trying to make their way into Australia. They maintained that nationals who desired amnesty typically defected to foreign embassies in their own countries. As far as Ellsworth was concerned, every boat, plane, or raft that came through the back door carried drugs, smugglers, or terrorists. According to ARRO’s research, just over 65 percent of those craft did. The other 35 percent transported people who were poor, terrified, and searching for a less oppressed life. The “Australia first” MIC had a great deal of influence in parliament. By law, illegal immigrants were typically returned to their point of origin within twenty-four hours. ARRO and the MIC were constantly fighting one another for a way to make the process more equitable.

  As Penny spoke, her cell phone beeped. The young woman excused herself and answered it.

  “It could be the baby-sitter,” she said apologetically. She punched the hands-free phone that was bracketed to the dashboard. “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Masterson?” asked a man’s voice.

  “This is she.”

  “Mrs. Masterson, is Mr. Lowell Coffey with you?”

  “I’m Lowell Coffey,” the attorney said. “Who is this?”


  “Sir, this is Junior Seaman Brendan Murphy in the command of Warrant Officer George Jelbart, MIC,” the young man replied. “I have your name from Mr. Brian Ellsworth. Sir, Warrant Officer Jelbart was wondering if you might have some free time today.”

  “I’m here for a conference,” Coffey replied.

  “Yes, sir, we know.”

  “What did Mr. Jelbart have in mind?” Coffey asked.

  “A flight to Darwin,” Murphy replied.

  “That’s clear across the continent!” Coffey declared. “Why does he need to see me?”

  “We have a situation, sir,” the officer replied. “One that he needs to discuss with you face-to-face.”

  “What kind of situation?” Coffey asked.

  “A hot one, sir,” the caller replied gravely.

  The way the MIC officer emphasized hot led Coffey to believe that he was not referring to the temperature or an imminent event. That left just one interpretation.

  “There are some people I should talk to before I agree to anything,” Coffey said, glancing at Penny.

  “We are a little squeezed for time,” Murphy said. “You are the first and hopefully only call I’m making about this.”

  “If I decide to come, when can you arrange for transportation?”

  “A P-3C patrol craft has been dispatched to Sydney Airport, Mr. Coffey,” the caller replied. “It will arrive within the hour. As I said, sir, the warrant officer would like to talk to you in person.”

  Penny and Coffey exchanged looks. She tapped the Mute button.

  “That doesn’t sound like an invitation,” she said.

  “No,” Coffey agreed. It sounded like an order.

  “What do you want to do?” she asked.

  “That doesn’t seem to matter, does it?” he asked.

  “Why not?” she asked. “You’re a civilian and an American. You can tell the junior seaman, ‘No thanks,’ and hang up.”

  “Then I wouldn’t find out why Ellsworth recommended they call,” Coffey said. “I have a feeling the MIC is interested in talking to Op-Center, not just to Lowell Coffey.”

  “What makes you say that?” Penny asked.

  “I’d rather not say until I’m sure,” Coffey replied. It was not that he did not trust Penny. But he was an attorney. A cautious one. He did not like to say anything he did not believe or know to be true.

  Coffey disengaged the Mute button.

  “Where will the plane be waiting?” Coffey asked.

  “If you go to the domestic cargo terminal, someone will meet you,” the caller said.

  “All right,” Coffey said. “I’ll be there.”

  “Thank you, sir,” the junior seaman said. “I’ll inform the warrant officer.”

  And Coffey would inform Hood.

  He apologized to Penny. She said that she understood completely. He said that he hoped he would be back soon.

  In his heart, though, he sensed that would not be the case. Especially if “hot” meant what he thought it did.

  FIVE

  Darwin, Australia Thursday, 8:42 A.M.

  Fifty-two-year-old Warrant Officer George Wellington Jelbart had seen and experienced many extraordinary things in his thirty-two years of service in the Royal Australian Navy.

  Jelbart spent his first twelve years of military service with the Hydrographic Force. Based in Wollongong, just south of Sydney, he and his team constantly updated charts of the 30,000 kilometers of Australia’s coastline as well as adjoining waters. He loved being out in ships and planes, producing maps that covered nearly one sixth of the world’s surface. Even when his team was caught in a tropical cyclone, a category five hurricane, or a tsunami, he relished the work he was doing. As his naval officer father once described it, “The Navy puts muscle in your back. Danger keeps it strong.”

  The next nine years were radically different and much less muscular. Because Jelbart was so familiar with the geography surrounding Australia, Deputy Chief of Navy Jonathan Smith moved him to the Directorate of Naval Intelligence. That was during the 1980s, when the influx of Japanese businessmen and investors brought an influx of Japanese criminals. There, in a windowless office, Jelbart helped signal personnel pinpoint the direction and location of broadcasts coming from local waters and surrounding nations. He did that out of duty, not love. Finally, on his fortieth birthday, Jelbart requested a transfer. He needed to be back on the sea or at least in the sunlight. Smith agreed to a compromise. He gave Jelbart a promotion and shifted him to the Maritime Intelligence Centre. There, the newly minted warrant officer would be out-of-doors and dealing with a wider range of illegal activities than he had in his previous posts.

  That was where Jelbart encountered the unexpected on a weekly basis. Some of it was heartbreaking. There were the Malaysian slavers who abducted Aborigine children via cargo plane. There were refugees from war-ravaged East Timor who were dropped offshore using World War II–surplus parachutes. Most of them were young. All of them were inexperienced jumpers. Fifty of the sixty-seven of them drowned. There were the Australian drug traffickers who used surfboards with high-tech listening devices to spy on MIC aircraft. Jelbart had even investigated sea-monster sightings in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Those turned out to be Chinese submarines conducting maneuvers.

  But in all his years in the Royal Australian Navy, the sandy-haired, six-foot-four-inch Brisbane native had never heard anything like this. The implications were chilling.

  Jelbart had arrived at his office in the Australian Central Credit Union Building, 36 Mitchell Street, at seven A.M. Throughout the early 1990s he had arrived early to hear phone messages and go through the mail. Since the late 1990s he had to come to the office early to slog through E-mails. If he could eliminate the E-mails from fellow officers who were compelled to forward bad jokes, he could do the job in an hour. Unfortunately, he had to open every correspondence on the off chance it had something to do with naval matters.

  Shortly after Jelbart arrived, the phone beeped. His aide, Junior Seaman Brendan Murphy, answered. Murphy forwarded the call. It was from Captain Ronald Trainor of the Freemantle-class patrol boat Suffolk. They had found a man floating in the Banda Sea twelve miles east of Celebes.

  “The fellow was barely conscious and clinging to a section of waterlogged pine,” Trainor reported. “He’s dehydrated and lost a lot of blood. He had been shot twice in the lower legs and managed to rig some crude bandages from his shirt. We assume he’s a pirate whose mission ended badly.”

  “That’s a possibility,” Jelbart said.

  Jelbart was confused. This was a routine rescue on international waters. It did not require the ship’s captain to report to him personally.

  “But what drew us to him was extremely unusual,” the captain went on.

  Jelbart grew concerned as Trainor explained. What they found was not only unusual, it was inexplicable. The warrant officer wanted a complete investigation. Trainor told him that they would search for the rest of the vessel and crew, as well as whoever attacked them. In the meantime, the injured man was going to be airlifted to the Royal Darwin Hospital along with the remnants of his vessel. Jelbart said that he would meet the helicopter there to take charge of the evidence and arrange for security. When he hung up, Jelbart realized that he would also have to notify Chief Solicitor Brian Ellsworth. Ostensibly, the Banda Sea castaway was being brought to Darwin for medical care. But Captain Trainor’s other discovery made that a secondary issue from the MIC’s point of view. The man had to be questioned. There were complex legal issues surrounding the interrogation of a foreign national recovered in international waters.

  Ellsworth was in the shower when Jelbart called. The civilian official lived with his newscaster wife in the exclusive La Grande Residence on Knuckey Street.

  At the warrant officer’s insistence, Mrs. Ellsworth summoned him to the phone. Jelbart explained the situation as it had been explained to him. The forty-three-year-old solicitor thought for a minute before replying.

  �
�I will meet you at the hospital,” Ellsworth replied. “But there is someone else I would like you to call.”

  “Who?”

  “A gentleman named Lowell Coffey,” Ellsworth said. “He is in Sydney for a conference on international civil rights.”

  “That’s the ARRO symposium?”