“Father, we haven’t heard from the Kra IV for two days,” Singh’s eldest said after a brief exchange of pleasantries.

“Who is her captain?”

“On this voyage it was Mohamed Hattu.”

Singh was a reprehensible figure of a man, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t shrewd. He kept a tight rein on his enterprises and made it a point to know all his senior people. Hattu was a pirate of the old school who’d preyed on shipping in the Malacca Strait for twenty years before Singh made him an offer. He was audacious and reckless but also dogmatic about procedure. If he hadn’t checked in for two days, something must have happened. And with that thought, Singh wrote off the Kra IV, her captain, and her crew of forty. “There are others eager to take his place,” Shere Singh told his son. “I will look into a replacement. However, alert your contacts to listen for any mention of a thwarted pirate attack. Whoever fought Mohamed Hattu and lived will want to tell the tale.”

“Yes, Father. I’ve thought of that. So far there have been no such reports.”

“On to other business. Anton Savich just left my office. The plan is in motion. I have his list of requirements. It’s about what I anticipated.”

“On your order we’ve already begun to collect.”

“Yes, good. What about your men? Will they do what is necessary when the time is right?”

“Their loyalty is absolute. Savich and his European bankers will never know what hit them once we strike.”

The confidence in his son’s voice sent a proud thrill through Shere Singh. His boy was so much like him. He was sure that had Abhay not been born with wealth, he would have created his own fortune, clawing his way up like Shere had done in his youth.

“Good, my boy, good. They maneuvered themselves into a vulnerable position without even realizing it.”

“No, Father. You maneuvered them. You turned their fear and greed into action, and now it will consume them all.”

“No, Abhay, we don’t want them destroyed. Remember always, you can continue to eat the fruit from a dying tree but not from one that is dead. Savich, Volkmann, and the others will suffer, but we will leave enough so we can feast on them for a long time to come.”

10

“You’RE going to wear a trail into the carpet,” Eddie Seng said from an overstuffed chair in the corner of the hotel room.

Juan Cabrillo remained silent as he paced to the plate glass window overlooking the dazzling lights of Tokyo’s Ginza District. He paused there with his hands clasped behind his back, his broad shoulders rigid with tension. The Oregon was fast approaching the floating drydock named Maus and would be going into action soon. His place was on her bridge, not stuck in a hotel suite waiting for Mark Murphy to come up with something about the vessel’s owners. He felt caged.

A driving rain blurred the view of the city from their thirtieth-floor room. It matched his mood.

Twenty-four hours had passed since stepping off the helicopter sent to fetch Victoria Ballinger. A representative from the Royal Geographic Society was on the windswept pad to meet the rented helo, a bearded man in a tan trench coat. From their body language it was clear to Juan that Tory and the representative had never met before. The man introduced himself as Richard Smith. While he thanked Juan for saving Tory, Cabrillo sensed he was reserved, almost wary. Tory was obviously grateful and gave Juan a kiss on the cheek as an orderly guided her to the private service ambulance Smith had arranged for her.

She had held up her hand just as she was about to be placed into the ambulance, her blue eyes steady on Juan’s. “Last night I remembered something from the rescue,” she’d said.

Uh-oh, thought Cabrillo.

“When I was trapped in my cabin I asked if you were the navy, and you wrote back something about being a private security company. What was that all about?”

Smith was already settled on a jump seat in the back of the ambulance and had to lean out somewhat to hear the answer.

Juan paused, looking from her over to him, then back to Tory. “I lied.”

“Excuse me?” She crossed her arms over her chest.

Cabrillo smiled. “I said I lied. Had I told you I was the master of a rust-bucket freighter who happened to have fish-finding sonar and a few crewmen with scuba gear, would you have trusted me to get you out?”

Tory didn’t speak for several long seconds, her gaze penetrating and doubting. She arched an eyebrow. “A fish finder?”

“The cook uses it when we’re in port to catch dinner once in a while.”

“Then why was it on in the middle of the ocean?” Smith asked, his tone edged with accusation.

Juan kept his smile in place, playing the role. “Just dumb luck, I guess. It went off when we passed over the Avalon. The watch stander happened to notice the dimensions of the target, realized we’d either discovered the biggest whale in history, or something wasn’t right. I was called to the bridge and decided to turn about. The Avalon hadn’t moved, so we discounted our monster whale theory. That’s when I threw on my tanks and had a look.”

“I see.” Smith nodded. He wasn’t entirely convinced, which made Juan even more certain that neither Tory nor the stiff Englishman were members of the Royal Geographic Society. His first thought was that they were Royal Navy and the Avalon was a spy ship, most likely in these waters monitoring North Korea or Russia’s Pacific Fleet out of Vladivostok. But if that were the case, it meant the pirates were capable of approaching a modern combat vessel loaded with sophisticated electronics, take out the crew in a lightning raid, and escape undetected. Cabrillo just couldn’t bring himself to believe that. Ex–Royal Navy then, perhaps using a ship belonging to the Society, but still out here on a mission of some kind.

“Then you must also thank the cook for me,” Tory said, nodding to the orderly to settle her in the ambulance.

Juan, Eddie, and the two former SEALs Eddie had selected were left on their own to arrange transportation. Rather than deal with hiring a car or finding a train station, they’d chartered the same helicopter that brought them from the Oregon to fly them to Tokyo, where Max Hanley had reserved a four-bedroom suite under one of the Corporation’s front companies. And that is where they waited. The SEALs spent most of the time in the hotel’s extensive fitness center, while Cabrillo paced the room, willing his cell phone to ring. Eddie took up guard duty, making sure his boss didn’t damage the room out of frustration or boredom.

“They can bill me for a new rug,” Juan finally said without turning from the window.

“What about the ulcer you’re giving yourself? I don’t think Doc Huxley packed you any antacids.”

Cabrillo regarded Eddie. “That’s the pickled octopus I ate, not the stress.”

“Riiight.” Eddie returned to his English-language paper.

Cabrillo continued to stare out into the storm, his mind a million miles away. That wasn’t entirely true. His mind was six hundred miles away, at his seat in the Oregon’s operations center. This wasn’t the first time his ship had gone into battle without him, and it wasn’t that he didn’t trust his crew. He just felt a personal need to be part of the action as they went after the snakeheads.