to have a positive impact on society.
For the duration of the 116-minute flight, no one came back to check on the attorney or offer him coffee. Or a pillow. Nor was the flight all that comfortable. Coffey wondered if they had stuck him back there just so he would not bug anyone for answers. Sitting there, he found himself thinking about Paul Hood’s managerial style.
Hood did not always have information that people wanted to hear. But he never kept them out of the loop. Sometimes he was not at liberty to say what he did know. But he always told people that. Stonewalling was dehumanizing. Hood had his flaws, but he always treated people like people.
The plane landed at Darwin International Airport. The airport consisted of one large central structure that looked like a shopping mall in Anytown, U.S.A. The building was all white. Coffey wondered if everything in Australia was white. Located less than four miles outside the city, DIA was both a commercial airport and a Department of Defence airfield. It was used primarily by the Royal Australian Air Force. However, the MIC also flew reconnaissance missions from here.
Coffey was not taken to the terminal. The plane pulled off onto an apron where several F-18s were parked. The pilot walked him down the aft staircase to a waiting black sedan.
“Tell me, Captain,” Coffey said as they crossed the short, windy stretch of tarmac. “Did you folks strand me back there on purpose? An unadorned yes or no will suffice.”
“Yes, sir, we did,” the captain replied.
“Follow-up question,” Coffey said. “Why did you leave me alone?”
“Because we were told to, sir,” the pilot said.
Okay, Coffey thought. At least that was honest.
The pilot turned him over to the petty officer who stood beside the car. The men exchanged salutes, and then the pilot left. The petty officer opened the door, and Coffey got in. There was a glass partition between the front and back of the car. Obviously, they did not want him talking to the driver, either.
The car sped off, carrying Coffey past a forest of tall, colorful stone poles that stood in a small, green plot beside the building. Coffey recognized these from the tour book he had read during the flight to Australia. They were Tiwi Pukumani burial poles—a tribute to the Aboriginal peoples who dwelt in the Northern Territory. They were used as mourning totems during funeral ceremonies. Afterward, they remained standing above the grave as a memorial to the dead. These particular poles were carved to honor all native dead. Coffey thought about how moving it must be for a sculptor to work on interpretive likenesses of deceased individuals from his tribe or village. The process made more sense to Coffey than a marble worker impersonally hacking names into stone.
Also, the burial poles were not white. They were brightly painted, a celebration of life.
As the sedan headed toward downtown Darwin, Coffey looked out at the gleaming waters of the Timor Sea. He found it ironic that since leaving Sydney he had encountered a pilot, a driver, and a series of totems. All of them were mute, but only one of them had any eloquence.
The one that was made of stone.
EIGHT
The Celebes Sea Thursday, 12:12 P.M.
If anyone had been watching the two vessels, it would have seemed like a chance encounter. A passing ship or plane, even a spy satellite, would see it as an offer by a decommissioned cutter to lend assistance to a yacht. The two ships stayed together briefly, less than fifteen minutes. Then the cutter pulled away, its captain waving grandly to a fellow seafarer.
In fact, the encounter was anything but innocent. Or accidental.
Forty-seven-year-old Peter Kannaday, owner and skipper of the Hosannah , was supposed to have made the rendezvous with the privately owned cutter when night was upon the sea, and no one could have seen them together. But the explosion on the sampan had opened a crack in his hull. Actually, it had blown an oar, pieces of
For the duration of the 116-minute flight, no one came back to check on the attorney or offer him coffee. Or a pillow. Nor was the flight all that comfortable. Coffey wondered if they had stuck him back there just so he would not bug anyone for answers. Sitting there, he found himself thinking about Paul Hood’s managerial style.
Hood did not always have information that people wanted to hear. But he never kept them out of the loop. Sometimes he was not at liberty to say what he did know. But he always told people that. Stonewalling was dehumanizing. Hood had his flaws, but he always treated people like people.
The plane landed at Darwin International Airport. The airport consisted of one large central structure that looked like a shopping mall in Anytown, U.S.A. The building was all white. Coffey wondered if everything in Australia was white. Located less than four miles outside the city, DIA was both a commercial airport and a Department of Defence airfield. It was used primarily by the Royal Australian Air Force. However, the MIC also flew reconnaissance missions from here.
Coffey was not taken to the terminal. The plane pulled off onto an apron where several F-18s were parked. The pilot walked him down the aft staircase to a waiting black sedan.
“Tell me, Captain,” Coffey said as they crossed the short, windy stretch of tarmac. “Did you folks strand me back there on purpose? An unadorned yes or no will suffice.”
“Yes, sir, we did,” the captain replied.
“Follow-up question,” Coffey said. “Why did you leave me alone?”
“Because we were told to, sir,” the pilot said.
Okay, Coffey thought. At least that was honest.
The pilot turned him over to the petty officer who stood beside the car. The men exchanged salutes, and then the pilot left. The petty officer opened the door, and Coffey got in. There was a glass partition between the front and back of the car. Obviously, they did not want him talking to the driver, either.
The car sped off, carrying Coffey past a forest of tall, colorful stone poles that stood in a small, green plot beside the building. Coffey recognized these from the tour book he had read during the flight to Australia. They were Tiwi Pukumani burial poles—a tribute to the Aboriginal peoples who dwelt in the Northern Territory. They were used as mourning totems during funeral ceremonies. Afterward, they remained standing above the grave as a memorial to the dead. These particular poles were carved to honor all native dead. Coffey thought about how moving it must be for a sculptor to work on interpretive likenesses of deceased individuals from his tribe or village. The process made more sense to Coffey than a marble worker impersonally hacking names into stone.
Also, the burial poles were not white. They were brightly painted, a celebration of life.
As the sedan headed toward downtown Darwin, Coffey looked out at the gleaming waters of the Timor Sea. He found it ironic that since leaving Sydney he had encountered a pilot, a driver, and a series of totems. All of them were mute, but only one of them had any eloquence.
The one that was made of stone.
EIGHT
The Celebes Sea Thursday, 12:12 P.M.
If anyone had been watching the two vessels, it would have seemed like a chance encounter. A passing ship or plane, even a spy satellite, would see it as an offer by a decommissioned cutter to lend assistance to a yacht. The two ships stayed together briefly, less than fifteen minutes. Then the cutter pulled away, its captain waving grandly to a fellow seafarer.
In fact, the encounter was anything but innocent. Or accidental.
Forty-seven-year-old Peter Kannaday, owner and skipper of the Hosannah , was supposed to have made the rendezvous with the privately owned cutter when night was upon the sea, and no one could have seen them together. But the explosion on the sampan had opened a crack in his hull. Actually, it had blown an oar, pieces of
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