December 10, 1948 Unknown Waters

"What about the five drenched rats in the hold?" asked Seng.

Cabrillo turned from the helm and leered. "We'll enjoy seeing the expressions on their faces when they wake up and find they've been abandoned on an island off the Philippines."

Not having enough oxygen supply to remain underwater, the Sea Dog II was towed on the surface with the upper hatch partially open. Pitt and Giordino remained inside while the security boat cruised alongside and screened any view of it from passing ships and shore. Thirty minutes later the Sea Dog II was quickly lifted back onto the deck of the Oregon. Cabrillo was there to help Pitt and Giordino out of the submersible. With muscles stiff and numb from the many hours of tight confinement, they were grateful for his help.

"I apologize for leaving you cooped up like that, but as you know, we ran into a little difficulty."

"And you handled it very well," Pitt complimented him.

"You boys did a pretty fair job of fighting off the bad guys yourselves."

"We'd still be sitting on the bottom if you hadn't lobbed those grenades."

"What did you find?" asked Cabrillo.

Pitt shook his head wearily. "Nothing, absolutely nothing. The hull below the waterline is clean, no modifications, no concealed hatches or pressurized doors. The bottom has been scraped and recoated with antifouling paint and looks as unaltered as the day she was launched. If Qin Shang has a shifty method of slipping illegal aliens ashore in a foreign port, it's not from below the waterline."
"So where does that leave us?"

Pitt gave Cabrillo a steady look. "We've got to get inside the ship. Can you manage it?"

"As the resident whiz, yes, I believe I can arrange a guided tour of the ship's interior. But consider this. One, maybe two hours from now is all we have before the security guards we kidnapped are discovered as missing. The chief of Qin Shang's shipyard security will put two and two together and figure the intruders came from the Oregon. No doubt he's already wondering how and why ten of his divers went missing. Once he alerts the Chinese Navy they'll come after us as sure as women bear babies. With a head start the Oregon can outdistance most any ship in the Chinese fleet. If they send planes after us before we can get out of their territorial waters, we're dead."

"You're well armed," said Giordino.

Cabrillo tightened his lips. "But not immune to warships with heavy guns and aircraft with missiles. The sooner we get the hell out of Hong Kong and onto the high seas, the safer we'll be."

"Then you're pulling up anchor and skipping town," said Pitt.

"I didn't say that." Cabrillo looked over at Seng, who had thankfully changed into dry clothes. "What say you, Eddie?

Do you want to put the uniform of a Qin Shang security chief back on and parade around the shipyard like a big man on campus?

Seng grinned. "I've always wanted to tour the inside of a big cruise ship without paying for a ticket."

"Then it's settled," said Cabrillo directly to Pitt "Go now bee what you have to see and get back here fast, or we'll all regret not knowing our grandchildren."

"DON'T YOU THINK WE'RE OVERDOING IT A BIT?" SAID PITT less than an hour later.
Seng shrugged behind the wheel on the right-hand side of the driver's seat. "Who would suspect spies arriving at a security gate in a Rolls-Royce?" he asked innocently.

"Anyone who does doesn't suffer from glaucoma or cataracts," Giordino said wearily.

A collector of old classic cars, Pitt appreciated the fine workmanship of the Rolls. "Chairman of the Board Cabrillo is an amazing man."
"The best scrounger in the business," said Seng as he braked to a stop beside the main guard gate in front of the Qin Shang Maritime Limited shipyard. "He made a deal with the concierge of Hong Kong's finest five star hotel. They use the limo to pick up and deliver celebrity guests to the airport."
The late-afternoon sun was still perched above the horizon when two guards came out of the security shack to stare at the 1955 Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn with Hooper coachwork. The elegant body lines exemplified the classic "razor edge" saloon style that was popular with British coach-built cars in the 1950s. The front fenders gracefully swooped downward across
the four doors to the skirted fenders at the rear, matching the sloping rear roof and trunk known as the "French curve" that was copied by Cadillac in the early eighties.
Seng flashed the identification he'd taken from the captain of the security boat. Though the two men could have passed for cousins, he did not allow the guards to study the photo on the ID card too closely. "Han Wan-Tzu, captain of the dockside security," he announced in Chinese.
One of the guards leaned in the rear window and peered at the two passengers in the rear seat who were wearing conservative blue pinstripe business suits. His eyes slightly narrowed. "Who is with you?"

"Their names are Karl Mahler and Erich Grosse. They are respected marine engineers with the German shipbuilding firm of Voss and Heibert, here to inspect and consult on the turbine engines of the great ocean liner."

"I don't see them on the security list," said the guard, checking names on a clipboard.

"These gentlemen are here at the personal request of Qin Shang. If you have a problem with that, you can call him. Would you like his direct and personal number?"

"No, no," the .guard stammered. "Since you accompany them, their entry must have been cleared."

"Contact no one," Seng ordered. "The services of these men are required immediately and their presence here is a closely guarded secret. Do you understand?"

The guard nodded fervently, backed away from the car, lifted the barrier and waved them through onto a road leading to the dock area. Seng steered the luxurious old car past several warehouses and parts depots and under tall gantries arched over the skeletons of ships under construction. He had little problem finding the United States. Her funnels towered over nearby terminal buildings. The Rolls came to a silent halt at one of the many gangways that led up and into the hull of the ship. The ship appeared strangely lifeless. There were no crewmen, shipyard workers or security guards anywhere to be seen. The gangways were deserted and unguarded.
"Odd," muttered Pitt. "All her lifeboats have been removed."

Giordino looked up at the wisps of light smoke trailing from the funnels. "If I didn't know better, I'd say she's getting ready to sail."

"She can't take passengers without carrying boats." "The plot thickens," said Giordino, looking up at the silent ship. Pitt nodded in agreement. "Nothing is what we were led to expect."

Seng came around and opened the rear door. "This is as far as I go. You guys are on your own. Good luck. I'll come back in thirty minutes."

"Thirty minutes," Giordino complained. "You've got to be kidding."

"A half an hour is not nearly enough time to inspect the interior of an ocean liner the size of a small city," protested Pitt.

"The best I can do. Chairman Cabrillo's orders. The sooner we abscond, the less chance we all have of being discovered as fakes. Besides, it'll be dark soon."

Pitt and Giordino stepped from the car and walked up a gangway leading through a pair of open doors and inside the ship. They entered what was once the purser's reception area. It seemed curiously bare of all furnishings and signs of life.

"Did I forget to mention," said Giordino, "that I can't speak with a German accent?"

Pitt looked at him. "You're Italian, aren't you?"

"My grandparents were, but what has that got to do with anything?"

"If you're confronted, talk with your hands. Nobody will know the difference."

"And you? How do you intend to pass as a kraut?"

Pitt shrugged. "I'll just say 7a' to anything I'm asked."

"We don't have much time. More territory can be covered if we split up."

"Agreed. I'll make a sweep of the cabin decks, you scan the engine room. While you're at it, look in the galley."

Giordino looked puzzled. "Galley?"
Pitt smiled down at the shorter Giordino. "You can always tell a home by its kitchen." Then he was walking swiftly up a circular staircase to the upper deck, which had accommodated the first-class dining room, cocktail lounges, gift shops and movie theater.
The etched-glass doors that opened to the first-class dining room had been removed. The walls, with their Spartan fifties decor and high-arched ceiling, stood guard over an empty room. It was the same everywhere he walked, his footsteps echoing on the salon deck, which had been stripped of its carpeting. The 352 seats of the theater had been torn out. The gift shops were bare of display shelving and cases. Each of the two cocktail lounges was little more than a hollow compartment. The ballroom, where the wealthy celebrities of their time danced their way across the Atlantic, was stripped down to the bare walls.
He hurried up a companionway to the crew's quarters and the wheelhouse. The bareness was repeated. The crew's cabins were devoid of any sign of furnishings or human presence. "An empty shell," Pitt muttered under his breath. "The entire ship is one big empty shell."
The wheelhouse was a different story. It was crammed from deck to ceiling with a maze of computerized electronic equipment whose multitude of colored lights and switches were mostly positioned in the ON mode. Pitt paused briefly to study the sophisticated ship's automated control system. He found it odd that the brass-spoked helm was the only piece of original equipment.
He checked his watch. Ten minutes was all he had left. Incredibly, he had seen no workers, no crewmen. It was as if the ship had become a graveyard. He dropped down the stairs to the first-class cabin deck and ran down the hallways separating the staterooms. It was the same as the salon deck. Where the passengers once slept in luxury from New York to Southampton and back, there was a ghostly emptiness. Even the doors had been taken from their hinges. What struck Pitt was the lack of trash or debris. The gutted interior appeared surprisingly immaculate, as if the entire interior had been sucked clean by a giant vacuum.
When he reached the entry door in the purser's reception area, Giordino was already waiting. "What did you find?" Pitt asked him.

"Damn little," Giordino came back. "The cabin class decks and cargo holds are barren voids. The engine room looks like the day the ship left on her maiden voyage. Beautifully maintained with steam up and ready to sail. Every other compartment was stripped clean."

"Did you get into the baggage and the forward cargo holds that were used to transport the passengers' cars?"

Giordino gave a negative shake of his head. "The cargo doors were welded shut. Same with entrances and exits to the crew's quarters on the lower deck. They must have been cleaned out as well."

"I got the same picture," said Pitt. "Did you run into any trouble?"

"That's the weird part. I didn't see a soul. If anyone was working in the engine room, they're either mute or invisible. You meet up with anyone?" "Never encountered a body."

Suddenly the deck began to tremble beneath their feet. The ships big engines had come to life. Pitt and Giordino quickly headed down the gangway to the waiting Rolls-Royce. Eddie Seng stood beside an open door to the passengers' seat. "Enjoy your tour?" he greeted them.

"You don't know what you missed," said Giordino. "The food, the floor show, the girls."

Pitt motioned toward the dockworkers who were casting off the huge hawsers from the iron bollards on the dock. The big rail cranes lifted the gangways and laid them on the dock. "Our timing was right on the money. She's pushing off." "How is it possible," Giordino muttered, "with no one on board?"

"We'd better go too while the going is good," said Seng, herding them inside the car and closing the door. He hurried around the Rolls-Royce's flying-lady ornament on the radiator shell and leaped behind the wheel. This time they were passed through the security gate with the mere nod of the head. Two miles from the shipyard, his eyes darting in the rearview mirror to see if they were being followed, Seng pulled onto a dirt road and drove to an open field behind a school that was empty of children. A purple-and-silver unmarked helicopter was sitting in the middle of a playground, its rotor blades slowly turning. "We're not returning to the Oregon by boat?" inquired Pitt. "Too late," replied Seng. "Chairman Cabrillo thought it wiser to raise the anchor and put as much water as possible between the ship and Hong Kong before the fireworks start. The Oregon should be passing out of the West Lamma Channel into the China Sea about now. Thus, the helicopter."

"Did Cabrillo work a deal on the helicopter too?" said Giordino.

"A friend of a friend runs a charter service."

"He must not believe in advertising," observed Pitt, looking vainly for a name on the side of the tail boom.

Seng's mouth stretched in a broad smile. "His clientele prefers to travel in obscurity."

"If we're any example of his clientele, I'm not at all surprised."

A young man in a chauffeur's uniform stepped up to the Rolls and opened the door. Seng thanked him and slipped an envelope into his pocket. Then he motioned Pitt and Giordino to follow him into the aircraft. They were in the act of tightening their seat belts when the pilot lifted off the playground and leveled off at only twenty feet before ducking under a network of electrical power lines as if it was an everyday affair. He then set a course to the south and flew out across the waters of the harbor, passing over an oil tanker no more than a hundred feet above its funnel.

Pitt gazed with longing at the former crown colony in the distance. He would have given a month's pay to walk the winding streets and visit the multitude of small shops selling everything from tea to intricately carved furniture, dine on exotic Chinese cuisine in a suite at the Peninsula Hotel overlooking the lights of the harbor with an elegant and beautiful woman and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin brut champagne ...

His reverie was shattered into a kaleidoscope of pieces when Giordino suddenly exclaimed, "God, what I wouldn't give for ataco and a beer."

The sun was down and the western sky was a bluish gray when the helicopter caught up to the Oregon and landed on one of her cargo-hatch covers. Cabrillo was waiting for them in the galley with a glass of wine for Pitt and a bottle of beer for Giordino. "You two must have had a hard day," he said. "So our chef is fixing up something special."

Pitt removed the borrowed coat and loosened the tie. "A hard day and an extremely unproductive one."

"Discover anything of interest on board the United States?" asked Cabrillo.

"What we found was a ship that has been gutted from stem to stern," answered Pitt. "The entire interior is nothing but a vacuum with an operational engine room and a wheelhouse filled with automated navigation and control systems."

"The ship has already left her dock. She must be operating with a skeleton crew."

Pitt shook his head. "There is no crew. If, as you say, she's sailing out of the harbor, she's sailing without benefit of human hands. The entire ship is operated by computer and remote command."

"I can vouch for the fact there isn't a scrap of food in the galley," added Giordino. "Nor stove nor refrigerator nor even a knife and fork. Anybody taking a long voyage on that ship will surely starve."

"No ship can sail across the sea without an engine-room crew and seamen to monitor the navigation systems," Cabrillo protested.

"I've heard tell the U.S. Navy is experimenting with crew-less ships," said Giordino.

"A ship void of a crew might cross the Pacific Ocean, but she would still require a captain on board to take on a pilot and handle payment with Panamanian officials for the passage through the Canal into the Caribbean."

"They could put on a temporary crew and captain before the ship reached Panama—" Pitt suddenly paused and stared at Cabrillo. "How do you know the United States is heading for the Panama Canal?"

"That's the latest word from my local source."

"Nice to know you have a man inside Qin Shang's organization who keeps us up-to-date on current events," said Giordino caustically. "A pity he didn't bother to tell us the ship was converted into a remote-operated toy. He might have saved us a boatload of trouble."

"I have no man on the inside," explained Cabrillo. "I wish I had. The information was obtained from the Hong Kong agent for Qin Shang Maritime Limited. Commercial ship arrivals and departures are not classified secrets."

"What is the United States's final destination?" asked Pitt.

"Qin Shang's port at Sungari."

Pitt stared at the wine in his glass in long silence, then said slowly, "For what purpose? Why would Qin Shang send a fully robotic ocean liner with its guts removed across an ocean to a miscarriage of a shipping port in Louisiana? What can be rolling around in his mind?"
Giordino finished off his beer and dug a tortilla chip into a bowl of salsa. "He could just as well divert the ship somewhere else."

"Possibly. But she can't hide. Not a ship her size. She'll be tracked by reconnaissance satellites."

"Do you suppose he intends to fill it with explosives and blow up something," offered Cabrillo, "like maybe the Panama Canal."
"Certainly not the Panama Canal or any other shipping facility," said Pitt. "He'd be cutting his own throat. His ships need access to ports on both oceans as much as any other shipping company. No, Qin Shang must have something else in mind, another motive, one just as menacing and just as deadly."
THE SHIP PLOWED EASILY THROUGH THE SWELLS IN A SLOW rocking motion under a sky so brightly lit by a full moon that one could read a newspaper under its beam. The scene was deceptively peaceful. Cabrillo had not called for the ship's full cruising speed, so she loafed along at eight knots until they were far beyond the Chinese mainland. The whisper of the bows cutting the water and the aroma of fresh baked bread wafting up from the galley might have lulled the crew of any other cargo ship on the China Sea, but not the highly trained men on the Oregon.
Pitt and Giordino stood in the surveillance and counter-measures control room in the raised forecastle of the ship, acting strictly as observers while Cabrillo and his team of technicians focused their eyes and minds on the radar detection and identification systems.

"She's taking her sweet time," said the surveillance analyst, a woman by the name of Linda Ross who was seated in front of a computer monitor that showed the three-dimensional display of a warship. Ross was another prize from Cabrillo's headhunting expeditions for superior personnel. She had been chief fire-control officer on board a U.S. Navy Aegis guided missile cruiser when she fell under Cabrillo's spell and an offer of incredible compensation that went far beyond any money she could make in the Navy. "With a maximum speed of thirty-four knots, she'll overhaul us within a half an hour."

"How do you read her?" asked Cabrillo.

"Configuration indicates that she's one of the Luhu Type 052 Class of big destroyers launched in the late nineties. Displaces forty-two hundred tons. Two gas turbine engines rated at fifty-five thousand horsepower. She carries two Harbine helicopters on her stern. Her complement consists of two hundred and thirty men, forty of them officers."

"Missiles?"

"Eight sea-skimming surface-to-surface missiles and a surface-to-air octuble launcher."

"If I was her captain I wouldn't be concerned with preparing a missile strike against a helpless-looking old scow like the Oregon. Guns?"

"Twin one-hundred-milh'meter guns in a turret aft of the bow," said the analyst. "Eight thirty-seven millimeters mounted in pairs. She also carries six torpedoes in two triple tubes and twelve antisubmarine mortar launchers."

Cabrillo wiped his brow with a handkerchief. "By Chinese standards, this is an impressive warship."

"Where did she come from?" asked Pitt.

"Bad luck on our part," said Cabrillo. "She just happened to be cruising across our path when the alarm went out and harbor officials notified their navy. I timed our departure so that we sailed in the wake of an Australian freighter and a Bolivian ore carrier to confuse Chinese radar. The other two were probably stopped and searched by fast attack patrol craft before being allowed to continue to their destinations. We had the misfortune to draw a heavy destroyer."

"Qin Shang has a long arm to get that kind of cooperation from his government."

"I wish I had his influence with our Congress."

"Isn't it against international law for a nation's military to stop and search foreign ships outside their territorial waters?"

"Not since nineteen ninety-six. That was when Beijing implemented a U.N. Law of the Sea Treaty, expanding China's territorial waters from a twelve mile limit to two hundred miles."

"Which puts us well within their waters."

"About a hundred and forty miles inside," said Cabrillo.

"If you have missiles," said Pitt, "why not blast the destroyer before we come in range of its guns?"

"Although we carry a small, older version of the Harpoon surface-to-surface missile with more than enough explosive power to blast a light attack craft or a patrol boat out of the water, we'd have to get incredibly lucky with our first launch to take out a forty-two-hundred-ton destroyer bristling with enough weaponry to sink a fleet. Disadvantage belongs to us. Our first missiles might take her launchers out of action. And we can slam two Mark 46 torpedoes into her hull. But that still leaves her with enough thirty-seven and hundred-millimeter guns to blast us into the nearest scrap yard."

Pitt looked at Cabrillo steadily. "A lot of men are going to die in the next hour. Is there no way to avert the slaughter?"

"We can't fool a naval boarding party," said Cabrillo solemnly. "They'll see through our disguise two minutes after setting foot on deck. You seem to forget, as far as the Chinese are concerned, Mr. Pitt, you and I and everyone on board this ship are spies. And as such, we can all be executed in the blink of an eye. Also, once they get their hands on the Oregon and her technology and realize her potential, they won't hesitate to use her for intelligence operations against other nations. Once the first Chinese marine sets foot on our deck, the die is cast. We fight or die."

"Then our only option is surprise."

"The key is that we won't constitute a threat in the eyes of the captain of that Chinese destroyer," Cabrillo explained gruffly. "If you were him, standing on your bridge looking at us through night glasses, would you be trembling in your boots at what you saw? I doubt it. He might train the hundred millimeters on our bridge or one of the thirty-seven-millimeter twins at any crewman showing on deck. But once he sees his marines come on board and begin seizing the ship, he'll relax and call off the ship's alert, provided he even bothered to order one."

"You make it sound as cut and dried as a snowball fight," ventured Giordino.

Cabrillo gave Giordino a patiently worn look. "A what fight?"

"You'll have to excuse Al's regressive display of humor," said Pitt. "He gets mentally unstable when things don't go his way."

"You're just as weird," Cabrillo growled at Pitt. "Doesn't anything ever faze you two?"

"Think of it as a response to a nasty situation," Pitt said in mild protest. "You and your crew are trained and prepared for a fight. We're merely helpless bystanders."

"We'll require the services of every man and woman on board before this night is over."