“Why?”

“You landed in Australia,” Coffey said. “Hawke is Australian. Under international law, that gives the authorities here first crack at him. If you took him to Singapore now, the courts there could not move against him unless Australia first declined to do so.”

“Which they won’t,” Herbert said. “Not if Darling is involved.”

“That’s what your guest is obviously planning on,” Coffey said.

“Shit,” Herbert replied. “We land at the fire station, Hawke walks, Darling helps him get lost, and we don’t have a witness.”

“Except for those people at sea, who probably got no closer to Darling than that koala.”

“I can’t let him go,” Herbert said. “What the hell do I do?”

“You need a witness in order to hold him,” Coffey said. “When is Loh’s patrol boat due there?”

“Any minute,” Herbert said. “But we don’t know what condition the crew will be in or even how many key people survived. So much for words.”

“Excuse me?”

“I took Paul’s advice and talked to Hawke,” Herbert said. “What I should have done was follow my gut.”

“Which told you what?”

“To empty a bullet casing of gunpowder on his tongue and interrogate him with a match,” Herbert said.

“I’m with Paul on that one,” Coffey said.

“I figured.”

“No, Bob. You did the right thing,” Coffey said. “If you had tortured Hawke, he could have landed and had you arrested.”

Herbert was silent.

“The more important thing now is, do you think Hawke was telling the truth about Darling?” Coffey asked.

“I do,” Herbert told him. “He had nothing to lose. Hawke needed to keep me hooked until we reached a nonmilitary landing site. The best way to do that was with the truth.”

The phone went silent. Herbert’s frustration was almost palpable. The tranquillity of the morning was gone.

“You say I need a witness,” Herbert said. “Can we stay at the base until the patrol boat arrives?”

“Yes, but if Hawke suspects anything, he can legally request an escort off the base,” Coffey said.

“How would he get one?” Herbert asked.

“You can’t deny him a phone call,” Coffey said. “Muscling a citizen who is not even a prisoner plays poorly in court.”

“Lowell, you’re not helping me,” Herbert said.

“I’m trying,” Coffey said. “I want to stay focused on the case, not on the fact that Hawke knows how to manipulate the Australian legal system. He’s probably had countless run-ins with the courts. He knows his way around.”

“Now that you mention it, every damn thing Hawke told me implicated someone else,” Herbert said. “Jervis Darling, Darling’s nephew Marcus, Captain Kannaday. According to Hawke, all he did was run security. Yet he never even confessed to firing a bullet.”

“What about other potential leads or witnesses?” Coffey asked. “Do you have anyone on the mainland?”

“No one that I can—” Herbert began. He stopped suddenly.