Yegorov was slower to leave the booth, deliberately knocking into Coburn’s shoulder on his way out into the street where he made a point of spitting into the gutter.
The gesture had been as empty as it was feeble. It was also a mistake.
Coburn had been imagining what an airstrike on the village would be like. Now though, angered by Yegorov’s smugness, he was thinking more widely, balancing the consequences of an airstrike against the consequences of him doing nothing to save the Sandpiper.
Had the stakes really become that high, he wondered? To protect the village, was he really prepared to walk away, when by doing so he’d be condemning the crew of the minehunter to a missile attack off the coast of South Korea?
Or was he going to carry on — somehow or other finding a way to warn the Commander of the Sandpiper, and at the same time making sure Hari would be ready to organize an evacuation?
Before he could begin to choose, he needed to sift through what he knew and what he didn’t, he decided. That the captain of the Pishan had been coerced into writing the affidavit was obvious enough. But how damning would it be in the hands of the Indonesians? Would they think to verify its accuracy, or find out why it had been written in the first place? And if they didn’t, would their reaction be as swift and as lethal as Yegorov had suggested it would be?
Asking O’Halloran what he thought was not an option. The American was still clutching the photos of his twins, wearing an expression of deep concern.
‘I told you,’ he said. ‘I told you before you started out on this stupid fucking witch hunt.’
‘Told me what?’
‘That you’re way out of your depth.’
‘We,’ Coburn said. ‘You didn’t have to come. I don’t remember talking you into it. Give me those.’ He took away the photos. ‘Look, Shriver’s full of shit. He knows that hurting your family won’t do him any good. It’s just an easy way for him to get you off his back.’
‘And an easy way for him to get you off his back is to threaten to wipe out that pirate village of yours. Shriver thinks you care about what happens to it. I think you do, too. It’s about time you told me why that is.’
‘It’s hard to explain.’ Coburn wasn’t much in the mood to try. ‘You need to have been there, or stayed there for a while.’
‘Like you?’
‘You don’t understand. The guys who get paid to go out on raids aren’t your everyday doped-up drug smugglers and white slavers. They’re not allowed anywhere near drugs. Sure, they run down ships at night, but there are a hell of a lot nastier ways than that of making a living. They have wives, they have children, and they’re better off than three-quarters of the people you’ll ever meet in that part of the world. It’s not the kind of place you think it is.’
‘OK.’ O’Halloran was waiting. ‘I’m still listening.’
‘That’s it. What else do you want to know?’
‘I want to know if Heather Cameron’s there — that girl who was living on the beach in Fauzdarhat.’
Coburn hesitated for a moment. ‘How did you find out?’
‘Lucky guess. Have you been sleeping with her?’
‘Once — one night. That’s not the reason why I care about the village. If things go bad, the guy who runs it has enough boats to get the families out in half an hour. All I’d need to do is call him.’ Coburn stood up and put the car-keys on the table. ‘You drive.’
‘To where?’
‘I don’t mind. Down to the river — anywhere quiet where we can think straight and sort out the mess we’re in.’
If sorting out the mess they were in was going to be as simple as finding a quiet enough place to do it, Coburn would have been happy to put off his thinking until they reached the river. As it was, because he spent the drive searching for an answer to their problems, by the time they’d found somewhere suitable to park, he’d decided the only solution that stood a chance of working was of such high risk he’d never persuade O’Halloran to consider it.
CHAPTER 17
Two days ago during their drive along the track to the clearing, once in a while stretches of the John Day river had been visible through the trees, but not until now had Coburn appreciated the true wildness of the countryside.
O’Halloran had parked the Chrysler between two pickups at the end of a well-formed dirt road providing access for fishermen and a starting point for trampers who wanted to follow a signposted trail that led north from the parking area.
Here, the river was wider and shallower than it was upstream where it flowed out of an enormous channel carved through what looked like ancient lava rocks, while some distance downstream where the water was swirling around a half-a-dozen car-sized boulders, Coburn could see rapids.
Together with the scent of resin coming from the Douglas firs he could smell the river — the smell of fresh clear water that had travelled through the canyons to lose its energy and bubble over the stony bottom at his feet.
To obtain a better view of the rapids he stepped out on to a flat-topped rock, nearly overbalancing and getting his shoes wet, but not caring, welcoming the warmth of the sun on his face while he endeavoured to make sense of the journey that had brought him here and tried to decide whether or not this is where it ought to stop.
If he was to continue, he was almost certain it would have to be by himself. Since they’d left the diner in John Day, O’Halloran had said little, unwilling to share any more of his thoughts and driving so carelessly he’d nearly run over a teenage girl on a pedestrian crossing at the edge of town.
Standing at the water’s edge with his hands in his pockets, the American looked as though he was waiting for Coburn to state his position before declaring his own.
‘Take another step and you’ll get really wet,’ he said.
‘I know.’ Coburn turned round. ‘What did you make of Yegorov?’
O’Halloran shrugged. ‘Probably not somebody you’d want to mess with unless you had a bigger stick than him, but I wouldn’t pick him as being too smart. He’s just Shriver’s hard man. If he’s told to go to Bangladesh, that’s where he goes. If Shriver’s told him to go to Korea, maybe that’s where he’ll be off to next.’
Coburn had been wondering about it. ‘My guess is he’s been there before,’ he said. ‘You don’t organize an attack on a US warship without a whole lot of forward planning, and he can’t hope to highjack a North Korean patrol boat all by himself. He needs to have recruited locals who he already has in place waiting to help him.’
‘Assuming it’s Yegorov who’ll be handling the attack.’
‘He retrieved that stuff off the Rybinsk,’ Coburn said. ‘And he was behind what happened on the Pishan and the attack on the village. Why wouldn’t he handle this?’
O’Halloran shrugged again. ‘I don’t give a rat’s arse who’s going to launch the missiles. If you want to worry about it, go ahead. It’s not my problem.’
‘Yes, it is,’ Coburn said. ‘When you get out of bed and look at the front page of your morning paper on August 10th, the first thing you’re going to see is a picture of what’s left of the Sandpiper. All day at work you’ll be hearing people talking about what happened, and that night when you get home and turn on your TV, Shriver will be on CNN accusing the US Administration of being soft on North Korea. You’ll feel OK about that, will you?’