God, he thought, how old was I when I saw it? He couldn’t have been more than seven or eight. They were coming back from an aunt’s house in San Diego. His dad was driving, of course, and Mom was in the other front seat: He remembered her shouting a warning to his dad about the traffic jam several seconds after he’d applied the brake. She’d immediately turned to check on him in the backseat. The quick deceleration hadn’t even locked his seat belt, but she acted as though he had almost been launched through the windshield.

And for what seemed like forever, traffic inched along the highway. He remembered that for a while they were next to a car with a Saint Bernard in the backseat. It was the first time he’d seen one, and he’d been captivated by its size. To this day he still vowed that when he finally retired he’d own one of those huge dogs.

“Have you picked a name?” Eddie asked softly.

“Gus,” Juan answered automatically before realizing that he’d been telling the story out loud rather than in his head. He lapsed into an embarrassed silence.

“So what happened?” Seng prompted.

Juan knew he couldn’t leave it there. His unconscious mind was telling him that this story had to come out. “We finally approached the accident site. A car must have swerved and caused an eighteen-wheeler to jackknife. The trailer had detached and lay on its side, the rear doors facing the road. Only one police car had made it to the scene. The cop had already locked the truck’s driver into his cruiser.

“One of the trailer’s rear doors had popped open when it tipped, and the patrolman was helping the other victims of the crash. I have no idea how many, maybe a hundred Mexican workers had been in the trailer when it went over. Some were only slightly injured and helped the officer with the others. A few were better off and could walk from the wreckage. Others they had to drag. There were already two areas set aside. In one, women tended to the wounded. In the other, the bodies had been lined up in a straight row. My mother was very protective and told me not to look, but she said it softly as she stared at the carnage, unable to tear her eyes away. We passed the accident and soon were back up to speed.

“No one spoke for a few minutes. My mom was crying softly. I sat there not quite understanding what I’d seen, but I knew that people weren’t supposed to be in the back of a semi. I remember my father’s words when Mom finally stopped sobbing. ‘Juan,’ he said, ‘no matter what anyone tells you, there is evil in this world. And all it takes for it to triumph is for good people to do nothing.’ ”

Juan’s voice lost its soft tone as his mind returned to the present. “When I was old enough, we talked about that day again. My parents explained how smugglers snuck people up from Mexico and how some never survived the journey. They told me the truck driver pleaded guilty to thirty-six counts of vehicular homicide and that he’d been killed in prison by a Latino gang.”

Eddie said, “And when that cargo container was opened on deck and you saw those Chinese —?”

“I was back on that hot interstate and felt just as powerless. That is, until I remembered my father’s words.”

“What did he do for work, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“An accountant, actually, but he had fought in Korea and believed there was nothing more evil on earth than Communism.”

“If he had as much influence on you as I think he did, you doubly want these guys — smugglers and Communists.”

“If it turns out that China’s behind it, damn right.” Cabrillo gave Eddie an appraising look. “I don’t need to tell you about that. You were in their backyard for years.”

Eddie nodded gravely. “I’ve seen firsthand evidence of entire villages being wiped off the map because someone spoke out against a local party official. The cities may be opening up to the West, but the countryside is ruled as ruthlessly as ever. It’s the only way the central government can control a billion people. Keep them on edge, near starvation, and grateful for whatever handouts they get.”

“Something tells me,” Cabrillo said, “that this isn’t a Chinese operation.”

“It’d make sense to me if it were,” Seng countered. “They have a population crisis, and I’m not talking about overcrowding, though that is a problem. No, what China faces today and over the next twenty years or so is something far worse.”

“Worse than trying to feed a quarter of the world’s population?” Juan asked skeptically.

“In fact it’s a direct result of the one-child policy enacted in 1979. Today China’s birthrate is 1.8 children per woman. The rate’s even lower in the cities. For a sustainable population, a country needs a fertility rate of at least 2.1. Falling birthrates in the U.S. and Europe are mostly offset by immigration, so we’re okay. But China is going to see their population ratios age dramatically in the next decades. There won’t be enough workers to man the factories nor enough people to care for the elderly. Add to that the cultural bias against girls, select-sex abortion, and infanticide, and right now China has one hundred and eighteen boys under the age of ten for every one hundred girls.”

“So what’s that going to do?”

“Unless a significant segment of the male population is gay or chooses celibacy, there are going to be about two hundred million men with no chance of having families of their own by 2025.”

Cabrillo followed through to the logical conclusion of Eddie’s lecture. “So you think they’re shipping excess men overseas now?”

“It’s a theory.”

“A plausible one,” the chairman agreed. “And something I hadn’t considered — the wholesale export of people.”

“About a million Chinese immigrate illegally a year,” Eddie told him, “with the tacit approval of local governments, I might add. It’s not much of a stretch for the leaders in Beijing to actually start their own program to get rid of what’s already being called the ‘army of bachelors.’ ” Eddie’s voice turned bitter. “Despite the propaganda spin over the last few years, China remains a brutal dictatorship. They invariably take the hard approach to any problem. They want to build a dam, they move thirty million people out of the way, show Western reporters the new towns they’re building, but ultimately dump the population on collective farms.”

Juan let Eddie Seng’s accusation hang in the air for a few seconds. He was well aware of how much Eddie hated the Beijing government. “But there were only a few dozen people on the Kra,” he finally said.

“But what’s on that ship Tory Ballinger saw?”

“You mean who?”

“Exactly.”

Juan’s encrypted cell phone chimed. “Cabrillo.”

“Juan, it’s Max.”

“What’s up?” He tried to sound nonchalant, but there was an edge to his voice.

“We’re about twenty miles behind the Maus. We’ve already talked to them, establishing procedure for passing a drydock under tow. In about ten minutes we’re going to launch an unmanned aerial drone with a low-light camera to take a peek into her open hold. I do have a boarding party standing by if we need to send over some Mark-one eyeballs.”

“Sounds good. What’s the weather? It’s raining here.”

“Fine. No moon at all. Seas are only a couple of feet, and the wind’s light. Listen, the reason I called is we have some information for you.”

About time, Cabrillo thought but kept it to himself. “Murph tracked down who owns the Maus?”

“No, he’s still working on it. Julia came up with something during her autopsies of the Chinese folks we plucked from the container. I’m passing her off to you.”

“Thanks. E-mail the feeds from the UAV to my phone. I’d like to take a look at the Maus during the flyover.”

“You got it. Here’s the doc.”

“Chairman, how’s Tokyo?”

“It’s all warm sushi and cold geishas.”

“I bet. I think I found something about our immigrants. They’re all from the same village, a place called Lantan in Fujian Province. Most of them are part of the same extended family.”