That was it. Bob Herbert had just played the only name he knew, the only other information he possessed. He hoped it was enough to rattle Darling into doing something careless or impulsive, such as attacking him so the fire chief could have him arrested. Or spitting out additional information in a rage. Or even better, cooperating.

It did not.

“Mr. bin Dahman is indeed an associate,” Darling replied affably. “I’m lucky to have a partner of his local and international standing. And you are a sad, flailing fellow, R. Clayton Herbert.” That was the last thing Darling said before he left the room.

Herbert wanted to punch something. Hard. Jervis Darling was guilty as Judas F. Iscariot. By not calling the police he had proved that to Herbert. But the impromptu interrogation had backfired. Herbert had gambled and lost, because now Darling was on guard. He could send his people into hiding, leaving Herbert without the two things Op-Center needed.

One was proof.

The other was the missing radioactive materials.

FIFTY - Cairns, Australia Saturday, 11:27 P.M.

FIFTY

Cairns, Australia Saturday, 11:27 P.M.

Jervis Darling returned to his bedroom on the second floor. He encountered Andrew on the way and told him to make certain Mr. Herbert left the house and that the others left the grounds as soon as they found their koala. Darling did not doubt the animal was there. They would have made certain of that before coming to the door.

Darling quietly shut the door and went to the back, to a large dressing room. He was numb and furious at the same time. The silence weighed thick and heavy in his ears. Darling sat at the restored Louis XVI desk and rang his nephew. He pulled over the only telephone in the mansion that had the number of the Hosannah in memory. He punched in his personal code, 525, to obtain a dial tone. Obtained by bin Dahman from the Russian air force, the secure phone was named the konsulstvo, or the “consulate.” It was the secure phone in use at Russian embassies around the world. The konsulstvo was a large, square unit with a computer-style keypad on the top and a receiver on the side. The keypad was for writing codes. Hawke had done that before sailing.

“We rescued someone from the sampan.”

Nothing the American had said after that really registered. Darling’s answers had come from some independent, automatic-functioning part of his brain. Kannaday and Hawke had done more than suffer a setback in the Celebes Sea. They had permitted a security breach that led an investigator here. More than one, probably. Darling suspected that the woman who had come with them was with the Singaporean navy. Now that he thought about it, she had that stiff-necked, feet-wide-apart posture of a seaman.