Flood Tide

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 reco

“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 perso

“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?”