‘I’m still worried, but the way things have turned out I don’t have much choice. I’m in Oregon, but if I can talk Hari into helping me, in two or three days’ time I’ll be in South Korea.’
‘Why? What on earth for? Why are you going there?’
‘Long story. Ask Hari after I’ve spoken to him. He hasn’t changed his mind about not going on that raid, has he?’
‘No. He says it’s not worth the trouble. Why do you want to know?’
‘Fuel,’ Coburn said. ‘I thought he might have used it up filling the tanks on the launches.’
‘Well, he hasn’t.’ She was beginning to sound put out. ‘If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’ll hang up.’
‘Then you’ll never know what’s happening, will you? Come on, you’re using up your battery. Let me talk to Hari.’
‘Don’t you have anything nice to say to me?’
He thought for a moment. ‘Last night was the first night I haven’t had a dream about you. Will that do?’
‘If I believed you it would. I’ll pretend it’s true, though, then you can say what you want to say to Hari. Here he is.’
‘David, my friend.’ Hari sounded particularly cheerful. ‘Miss Cameron has just told me you are in the US state of Oregon, but soon will travel to South Korea. Can this be so?’
‘It depends. Has Heather told you anything else?’
‘I understand you discover it was not the US Government who sends the radioactive material to Bangladesh on the Rybinsk, but that is all I know. Miss Cameron has said that when you call her from Maryland you considered it unwise to reveal who was responsible. You wish to tell me now?’
‘It’s a US-based outfit called the Free America League,’ Coburn said. ‘Remember that guy you had photographed getting off the Pishan? He works for them. His name’s Yegorov. I met him today.’
‘I see. So to prevent you making trouble for the Free America League they send this man you call Yegorov to kill you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then now you have found him, you know what you must do.’
‘There’s a bit more to it than that,’ Coburn said. ‘The only way to fix up Yegorov and the Free America League is by pointing the Americans in the right direction so they trip over the truth themselves. Until that happens, they won’t have any reason to stamp out the FAL, and I can’t see anybody else doing it.’
‘But you can show the Americans what it is they must trip over, I think. This is why you go to South Korea?’
‘Yep. On the 9th of next month, the FAL will be attacking a US Navy ship that’s minding its own business in the Yellow Sea south of the Korean Maritime Demarkation Line. But it’ll look as though the attack has come from a North Korean patrol boat. That way the Pyongyang Government is going to be made to take the blame.’
‘Ah. Of course.’ Hari didn’t sound surprised. ‘The deception is the same which is used to blame North Korea for the Rybinsk disaster which you told me about.’
‘Except this time it’s not going to work.’ Coburn began to explain why, preventing Hari from interrupting until he’d finished outlining his plan and described the part the Selina would have to play.
Hari took his time to absorb the implications. ‘For the Selina to make such a voyage is not possible in the time,’ he said. ‘From Sumatra to the Yellow Sea is too far.’
‘No it’s not.’ Coburn had worked it out. ‘As long as you’re underway in the next day or two you can make it. You’ve got those new MTU engines, long-range tanks, and if you store as many forty-four gallon drums of diesel as you can get down below you’ll be able to go a fair distance without having to call in anywhere to refuel. I’ll pay for the diesel if you want.’
‘No, no. You know it is not the cost.’ The tone of Hari’s voice had changed. ‘Although it is this man Yegorov who spoils our raid on the Pishan and mounts an attack on the village, I think it is not sufficient reason for me to embark on such a mission.’
‘I’ll give you a better reason then,’ Coburn said. ‘I’m going to sort this out one way or another whether you help me or not, but if everything turns to shit on me, there’s a good chance you’ll be bombed out of existence. The FAL have satellite images of the village, and the Pishan’s captain has been forced to write a statement claiming he heard your men saying where they were from and admitting they’re insurgents and terrorists. Do you want to risk that kind of information being handed over to the Indonesian Government?’
‘I do not wish to think of it, but you cannot expect me to decide so quickly. I must have more time.’
‘There isn’t any time,’ Coburn said. ‘Either you start getting the Selina ready or Heather will be on the next launch out to Singapore, and you’ll be left to bandage your own finger.’
‘Ah. You are a man who strikes a hard bargain. First I am threatened by bombs, and now by the departure of Miss Cameron. What can I say?’
‘Don’t say anything.’ Sensing a win, Coburn took the initiative. ‘Just listen. This is what you’ll need.’ He began reading from the list he’d made, checking off items one by one before suggesting it might be an idea for Hari to take back the satellite phone he’d loaned to Heather so he could use it to maintain communications.
‘She will not be so pleased to give it up.’
‘She won’t mind if she knows why,’ Coburn said. ‘I promised you’d explain things to her when you and I have finished talking. Don’t forget.’
‘I doubt Miss Cameron will allow me to forget. When it is not possible to predict the reward for a venture of this kind, we must hope it will prove interesting for us, must we not?’
Interesting was not the word Coburn would have chosen. ‘I’ll be in touch as soon as I can,’ he said. ‘Once you know where I am, and we know how far you’ve got, we can figure out how long it’ll take you to get where you have to be.’
To give the impression that he considered the matter settled, he spent the next few minutes describing how he’d come to learn about Shriver and the FAL, not fully convinced that Hari was committed, but unable to think of any other arguments that might be more persuasive.
He said goodbye without asking to speak to Heather again, hoping she’d understand and telling himself he could rely on her to prevent Hari from having a last-minute change of heart.
The prospect of the Selina remaining in the estuary was not a possibility Coburn wanted to consider, and although as the evening wore on he was able to put aside his concern, the feeling of disquiet hadn’t quite gone away by the next morning when he went to see if O’Halloran had returned, or whether the American had disappeared for good.
The Chrysler was back in the car-park, but O’Halloran wasn’t in his room. He was in the motel restaurant, sitting at a table reading a newspaper. Today, instead of looking as though he’d spent the night sleeping in his clothes, he was freshly shaven and wearing a crisp white shirt.
‘I thought I might have been stuck here by myself,’ Coburn said.
‘There are worse places.’ O’Halloran put down his paper. ‘I just went for a drive. I think better when I’m driving.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘Nowhere — up north into the forest until I wound up at some godforsaken hot springs on a Umatilla Indian Reservation. I met an old guy there who said I was the first black man he’d seen in two and a half years.’
‘Probably another of Shriver’s family friends.’ Coburn sat down. ‘How did the thinking turn out?’
‘I should have kept driving. I took your advice, though. I called Alison this morning.’