There were two groups of people on the deck, gathered around the accommodation ladder about ten meters aft of his position. One group, six in number, were clearly members of the crew, standing tautly ready with the necessary gear for tying up the dark fishing boat rapidly approaching from that side. The other group, three of them, were standing a few meters forward of the crewmen holding shotguns on them.

  “Three pirates holding six crew,” he murmured to Ten. “Looks like they’re bringing a fishing boat alongside. Pirates are Asians, probably Chinese.”

  “How many on the fishing boat?”

  Eleven peered into the darkness, concentrating on the green image being fed to his left eye. “One in the wheelhouse, seven or eight on deck, all armed. From the size, I don’t think there could be more than another five or six below deck.”

  “Cargo capacity?”

  “Not worth mentioning. They must be planning to take the whole freighter.”

  “Sounds like it,” Ten agreed. “Put the crew on the fishing boat and tow it off the main shipping lane, then set it adrift or machine-gun the lot of them.”

  “Probably,” Eleven said. “Is it time yet to start improvising?”

  “Funny,” Ten grunted. “No choice but to ride to the rescue. A couple of days early, but there’s nothing for it. Actually, the fact they’re Chinese may work in our favor.”

  “Or else we could let the pirates take the ship and work a deal with them afterward,” Eleven suggested as the idea suddenly struck him. “That might work even better.”

  “Or it might get our heads blown off,” Ten said tartly. “No, we take them now.”

  “Fine. What’s the plan?”

  “It would be nice if we knew where all of them were,” Ten said. “I’d hate to have to do a door-to-door through the whole superstructure—”

  “Hold it,” Eleven interrupted, peering aft. A large group had just come into view at the stern end of the ship, hands on their heads in classic prisoner style, another armed threesome behind herding them forward. He gave the captives a quick count: fourteen. “The rest of the crew is on their way forward,” he confirmed. “Three more Chinese playing sheepdog.”

  “Excellent,” Ten said with grim satisfaction. “Unless they’ve left someone in the wheelhouse, that means they’re all bunched together on deck. How very convenient. Where are our two treasure hunters?”

  Eleven looked at the men walking the containers. “About sixty meters back now,” he reported. “Still seem oblivious.”

  “Let’s make that condition permanent,” Ten said. “Watch them; I’m coming out.”

  Eleven holstered his Walther and swiveled his MP5 up to point at the men. Behind him came the soft snick of Ten’s topside exit popping open. He glanced over his shoulder, saw the long muzzle of Ten’s Galil sniper rifle come out of the hole like a periscope going up, then swing down to point at the approaching pirates.

  The Galil’s suppressor was a top-notch design. From the deck below, Ten’s two shots were probably completely lost in the engine noise from the approaching fishing boat. The first treasure hunter dropped without any reaction; the second had just enough time to swing his light toward his dead companion before going down himself.

  “Get ready,” Ten ordered, the second word half grunted as he hauled himself out of his container. “I’ll check port, then find a crossfire position. Don’t shoot yet unless you’re spotted.”

  He took off at a crouching jog aft, angling to his right toward the ship’s port side. Eleven shifted his attention back to the deck, watching the approaching Rabah Jamila crewmen and the fishing boat and trying to estimate their relative arrival times. Ideally, the crewmen would get to the ladder first, before the boat could be tied up. That would bring all the pirates together into nice one-two punch range without them having the option of joining forces.

  And then he heard a shout from the fishing boat. One of the Chinese on deck was jumping up and down, jabbing an emphatic finger repeatedly toward the top of the containers. Eleven looked where he was pointing just as Ten skidded to a stop at the edge of the starboard container twenty meters aft and dropped onto his stomach.

  “Take the boat,” Ten snapped, the order punctuated by the soft crack of his Galil as he fired toward the deck.

  Eleven didn’t need any prompting. The men on the fishing boat were scrambling to get their guns lined up on Ten, but so far Eleven himself seemed to have escaped their notice. Flicking the MP5 to three-shot burst, he lined up the muzzle on the leftmost Chinese and squeezed the trigger.

  The pirate jerked like a kicked monkey, his reflexive shotgun blast booming harmlessly into the air as the 9mm slugs tore his chest apart. The man next to him went the same way as Eleven swung the MP5 methodically across the boat’s deck, while the third man in line had just enough time to gape in astonishment before he joined them. The fourth was diving for cover when he died, with the fifth through eighth pirates making it to safety ahead of the MP5’s sweep.

  Safety, of course, being a relative term. Eleven shifted aim and put a burst through the wheelhouse window, then dug into a hip pouch for one of the three grenades he’d brought up top with him. Ten wouldn’t be happy if he spent them with too free a hand; the grenades and ammunition both had been appropriated with considerable difficulty from a closely guarded military base, and the two of them were under strict orders not to waste either. Under the circumstances, this probably qualified as proper use.

  From below a new sound joined in the cacophony of noisy but ineffectual shotgun blasts: someone on the fishing boat had apparently found a rifle. Arming the grenade, Eleven hurled it sidearm toward the boat, keeping his head as far down as he could. His aim was perfect, the grenade shattering what was left of the wheelhouse glass as it dropped inside. “Grenade away,” he warned into his mike as he ducked back and flattened himself on top of the container. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ten do likewise.

  The grenade went off with a most satisfying blast. The sound faded away, the screams of the injured replacing gunfire as the main source of noise from that direction. The fishing boat’s midsection was burning briskly, Eleven saw as he eased an eye over the edge of the container, and the vessel was no longer under power.

  The fire could be trouble. It would be visible all the way to the horizon, and the last thing they needed right now was a visit from curiosity seekers. But that problem was easily remedied. Calling another warning to Ten, he armed a second grenade and lobbed it into the stern of the crippled ship. Again he ducked back, wondering briefly whether the crewmen on the deck below were taking any damage from either the blasts or the gunfire.

  The second grenade went off as noisily as the first, igniting another fire behind it. But from the way the boat was now listing it was clear that neither fire would be above the waves for much longer. Shuffling a few centimeters further forward, Eleven looked down at the Rabah Jamila’s deck.

  The pirates were still holding out, but it was a lost cause. Four of the six were lying in pools of their own blood, while the other two crouched beside the containers were firing blindly up at Ten’s position from the relative safety of a pair of unwilling human shields. Two of the other crewmen were tearing desperately aft, while the rest had evidently decided their most prudent course was to hit the deck right where they were.

  At least, Eleven hoped that was what they were doing stretched out that way. If they’d instead been caught in the gunfire, the plan was going to get a lot trickier. All the more reason to wrap this up as quickly as they could.

  With the two remaining pirates’ full attention on Ten, their backs were completely unprotected. Shifting forward a few more centimeters, Eleven clicked his MP5 to single shot and lowered his sights.

  Ten seconds later, it was all over.

  “That takes care of that,” Eleven breathed into the sudden silence. “Or does it, you think?”

  “Better make sure,” Ten grunted, hauling himself to his feet and heading aft over the containers. “I’m going to check the wheelhouse. You might as well get down there and start sweet-talking the captain. While you’re at it, see if he knows of any crew or pirates still on the loose.”

  “Got it.” Slinging the MP5 around his back again, Eleven found the container ladder on the starboard side and started down.

  The crew’s traditional Pakistani hospitality had suffered greatly in the past quarter hour or so, and Eleven reached the deck to find himself facing three of the late pirates’ shotguns. “Which of you is the captain?” he called, ignoring the shotguns and the nervous crewmen holding them and hoping his rather broken Urdu wasn’t too broken for them to understand. “The captain, please?”

  An older man behind the semicircle of shotguns lifted a hand a few centimeters. “I’m Captain Syed,” he said. “Who are you?”

  “Important questions first,” Eleven said. “Are there any pirates or crewmen unaccounted for who might be hiding elsewhere aboard the ship?”

  In the fading firelight of the sinking fishing boat he could see the suddenly tight expression on Syed’s face. “Why do you ask?”

  “If there are more pirates, my partner is on his way to shoot them,” Eleven explained patiently. “If there are more crewmen, my partner would like to avoid shooting them.”

  “I see,” Syed murmured. “Yes, all my men are here. The pirates’ sweep was quite thorough.”

  “There were eight of them,” one of the crewmen offered. “Four in each of two rowboats. They linked the boats together with a rope, and when we struck the rope they came alongside—”

  “There are only six here,” someone else cut him off, looking around at the carnage. “There are two more elsewhere.”

  “They were on top of the containers,” Eleven told him. “They’ve been dealt with. Excuse me.”

  He pressed the microphone closer to his mouth, not because it was necessary but to show the Pakistanis he was talking to his partner. “All clear, but check the superstructure anyway,” he told Ten in fluent Korean. It was one of only ten sentences he could be fluent with in that language, but of course Syed wouldn’t know that. “Now, Captain Syed, I need a word with you,” he said, switching back to his broken Urdu. “In private, if you please.”

  He gestured toward the bow of the ship. The shotguns wavered a moment, then reluctantly gave way as Syed stepped calmly between them and walked forward. Eleven fell into step beside him and together they moved fifteen paces away from the others before Syed stopped. “This is far enough,” the captain said, turning to Eleven. “First of all, I want to know who you are.”

  “My name is Lieutenant Rhee,” Eleven told him, pulling his ID wallet and a small flashlight from his tunic and handing them over. “South Korean Special Warfare Command.”

  “Indeed,” Syed said, frowning as he opened the wallet and peered closely at the card. As if, Eleven thought with amusement, the man actually knew what a real one looked like. He peered back up at Eleven, as if trying to match the Korean face on the ID with the face mask confronting him, apparently gave up the effort, and handed the wallet and light back. “And what, may I ask, are you doing aboard my ship?”

  “Our unit was tasked with transferring a special cargo to our Taipei embassy,” Eleven told him. “As part of that effort—”

  “Taipei?” Syed frowned. “We’re not scheduled to go to Taipei.”

  “We planned to offload the cargo at sea before we left Taiwanese waters,” Eleven said, struggling to keep up with the rapid-fire Urdu and wishing the captain would slow down. “As part of that effort, my partner and I were assigned to ride with the cargo in case of attack along the way.”

  He gestured toward the fishing boat, now nearly under water. “It was just as well we did.”

  Syed looked at the boat, his frown deepening. “But those were just ordinary pirates. These waters are filled with them.”

  Eleven gave a snort. “If you believe that, you’re a fool. A fool who will certainly not survive their next attack.”

  “You think there will be another?”

  “Most definitely,” Eleven assured him grimly. “This first attempt was disguised as a pirate raid in case some of your people survived. It failed because they didn’t expect us to be aboard. They won’t make that mistake twice.”

  Syed looked again at the smoldering remains of the fishing boat, exhaling raggedly. Eventually, Eleven knew, it would occur to him to wonder why the attackers hadn’t abandoned their pirate masquerade as soon as the stowaways appeared and produced heavier weaponry. But for the moment he was still too shaken by the near loss of his ship, and still too awed by the man with the automatic weapons and South Korean ID.

  With luck, those thoughts and the accompanying doubts wouldn’t surface for another couple of days.

  “What do you propose to do?” Syed asked at last.

  “The simplest plan would be to call in the rest of our unit,” Eleven said. “But such a blatant show of force would erase any lingering doubts our enemies might have that the cargo is in fact aboard the Rabah Jamila.”

  “Is that a bad thing?” Syed asked. “Why do we care if they know where it is as long as they stay away?”

  “Because they wouldn’t stay away, that’s why,” Eleven said, letting an edge of contempt into his tone. “It would merely lead to an escalation of force on their side, with the Rabah Jamila caught in the middle.” He lowered his voice. “And sooner or later, one side or the other would decide that a draw was preferable to a loss.”

  Syed drew himself up; and in that moment, Eleven knew he had him. At least for now. “My ship and crew are in your hands, Lieutenant,” he said firmly. “Tell me what to do.”

  “First, you and I will get the ship underway,” Eleven said, looking back at the little clumps of crewmen silently watching the conference. “While we do that, the rest of your crew will treat any wounded you have.”

  “Yes,” Syed murmured. “Your enemies, of course, will be searching for us.”

  “They will be searching for the Rabah Jamila,” Eleven said. “But that won’t be the name of this ship much longer. Among our supplies we have self-adhering sheets that can be placed over the ship’s name and markings. We also have a Panamanian flag for you to fly.”

  “I see.” Syed hesitated. “They’ll still know our heading, though.”

  “They’ll know our original heading,” Eleven corrected. “That’s now changed. Our mission has been compromised, and our best hope is to try to reach South Korea ahead of them.”

  Syed’s mouth dropped open. “What? But we’re scheduled for Tokyo and—”

  “Your schedule will be irrelevant when the Rabah Jamila lies on the bottom of the sea,” Eleven cut him off harshly. “We head for Pusan harbor, or we all die. Those are your choices.”

  Syed looked back at his crew. “Understood,” he muttered.

  “Now you’re being wise,” Eleven said approvingly. “Have you any weapons aboard?”

  “We have three rifles,” Syed said. “They’re locked in my cabin.”

  “Well, now you have more,” Eleven said, gesturing at the crewmen nervously fingering their captured shotguns. “Not very useful for distance work, but if our enemies try to board us again they’ll be in for a surprise. We’ll check them for booby-traps, and then you can lock them up with your rifles. Some of your men can handle firearms, I trust?”

  “Enough of them can,” Syed said. “I’ll inform our head office of the change in plans.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Eleven said flatly. “Are you mad? We travel under complete radio silence from now on.”

  “But—”

  Eleven cut him off with a lifted hand. “I understand how difficult this is,” he said, letting some understanding into his voice. “But no radio message is private—surely you know that. Even satellite conversations can be intercepted. With modern direction finders, even a single message could bring them to us like a pack of wolves.”

  Syed made a face, but nodded. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right,” Eleven said. “Don’t worry, you and your company will be more than adequately compensated for your trouble when we reach Pusan.” He smiled slyly. “And if your head office suffers for a few days under the belief that you’ve been taken by pirates, imagine their joy and relief when you turn up alive and well. Surely there are one or two of them who deserve some sleepless nights, eh?”

  Syed managed a wan smile in return. “One or two, yes,” he conceded. “Very well, Lieutenant. Let me show you to the wheelhouse.”

  ~

  It had been nearly two in the morning when the last of the techs, Burke, had finally given up and toddled off for home. Now, an hour later, yawning hard enough to snap jaw muscles, James Chandler poured himself another cup of coffee and reached for the sugar. This last pot was decidedly on the bitter side, and he hadn’t yet figured out whether it was because Esteban had made it or whether his taste buds were simply out of whack from tension and three weeks’ worth of screw-ups in his eating and sleeping habits.

  But the preliminary work was finally over. The military people would be here at ten, and he and the Cloak were absolutely, positively going to knock their khaki socks off. Twelve hours from now, give or take an hour, and he would forever be done with the days of begging Tarlington and the board for more funding. Despite their polite skepticism and, no doubt, private amusement, his approach had indeed proved workable. The Sand/Star crapshoot philosophy was about to pay off.

  And the name James Chandler was about to go into the history books.

  He gazed across the lab, leaning his suddenly weary body against the edge of the table. Barbara was seated at the center work area, half lying on the Papa Bear Cloak she and Wendell were supposed to be folding up to put into the semi parked downstairs. He wondered where Wendell had gotten to, then spotted a foot stretched out past one corner of the lab table. Wendell must have decided to take a nap, he decided, though it couldn’t be very comfortable down there on the floor. Barbara had had a better idea, sacking out on the Cloak itself.