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?"
"Yes," Ellsworth said. "Mr. Coffey works for the National Crisis Management Center in Washington."
"Op-Center? Do we really want a foreign intelligence service involved in this?" Jelbart asked.
"We want the NCMC for three reasons," Ellsworth told him. "First, we'll want to get a very quick read on this situation. The NCMC can help us. Second, one of their best people is already in Australia. I don't agree with his politics, but he is smart and well-informed. Finally, holding this shipwrecked alien could backfire. Especially if the explanation turns out to be something very innocent. If that happens, we have someone to share the blame."
That last was not entirely honorable, Jelbart thought, but the solicitor did have a point.
Ellsworth had told Jelbart how to get in touch with Lowell Coffey. He was to call Penny Masterson, who was Mr. Coffey's host for the ARRO conference. The warrant officer passed the information to Brendan Murphy. Jelbart also told Murphy to dispatch a plane to Sydney. If the American agreed to come, Jelbart did not want to waste any time.
While the junior seaman made the calls, Jelbart composed an E-mail explaining the situation. He sent the message coded Level Alpha to Rear Admiral Ian Carrick at Royal Australian Navy headquarters in Canberra. The Level Alpha clearance guaranteed that only the rear admiral would see it. When that was finished, Jelbart checked his computer to see what appointments he would have to cancel today. And possibly tomorrow. He hoped this took no longer.
If it did, what Jelbart hoped was just an incident could turn out to be a crisis.
Chapter Six
"What do we know about the hair up Shigeo Fujima's nose?" Paul Hood asked.
Hood, Bob Herbert, and Mike Rodgers were sitting in Hood's office. It was the end of an uneventful day in the middle of an uneventful week. As much as Hood had often wished his plate were not so full, he felt restless when it was empty. Especially since he did not have a family to go home to. Ironically, it was his overpacked schedule that had cost him his family.
Paul Hood's question hung in the air like a high, arching fly ball. Shigeo Fujima was the head of the Japanese Intelligence and Analysis Bureau at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Fujima had helped Op-Center resolve a recent crisis in Botswana without explaining why he knew what he knew. Or why he was interested. That did not sit well with Hood. Especially since the young officer was not returning Hood's calls.
"We know nothing," Herbert replied, finally calling the catch.
"What have we done to find out?" Hood asked.
"Last time I checked, which was about two hours ago, everyone in the tech lab, including Matt Stoll, had been unable to get into the IAB computers," Herbert went on. "Stoll says that all the files we want to look at are apparently in dedicated systems."
"I'm not surprised," Hood said. "The IAB does not play well with others." Daphne Connors's sandbox reference popped into his head. Maybe the woman had something there after all.
"Do we want to send someone to Tokyo?" Rodgers asked. "Check the files after hours?"
General Rodgers had recently established a human intelligence team at Op-Center. It consisted of international operatives who had worked with Op-Center in the past. Three of the members had distinguished themselves on the inaugural mission to Botswana.
"Who would you assign?" Hood asked.
"I've been talking to the guys we worked with during the Korean missile crisis," Rodgers said. "They gave me the names of people they have used. I talked to several of them. One in particular seems a good candidate. Bibari Hirato. She's based in Tokyo."
"This makes me nervous. What's she got against her own country?" Herbert asked.
"Japan isn't her country," Rodgers said.
"I see," Herbert said.
"Bibari is the daughter of a Korean comfort woman. Her father is one of three or four hundred Japanese sol.diers who used her early in the war. Bibari's mother gave her a Japanese name so she could go over if she chose to."
"And mess with them," Herbert said.
"In a word, yeah," Rodgers said.
"Objection withdrawn," Herbert said.
"Mike, why don't we have Bob run a check on her?" Hood said. "If she's clean from our point of view, let's do it."
"It was on the to-do list for tomorrow," Rodgers said.
As the men were chatting, Hood's phone beeped. Hood's assistant, Bugs Benet, said Lowell Coffey was calling from Australia.
"Thanks," Hood said.
"What time is it there?" Herbert asked.
"Late tomorrow morning," Rodgers said.
"Too early for Lowell to have pissed off anyone at a breakfast meeting," Herbert said.
Herbert fell silent as Hood took the call.