“Send him out to us, and thanks.”

“No. Thank you.”

A moment later, Lawless stepped onto the bridge, tucking a clean T-shirt into his combat pants. He looked around a moment, and said, “Y’all don’t pay your maid enough.”

“It’s been her week off since 2002,” Cabrillo deadpanned. “Well, the doc says you check out, and her word’s good enough for me. What do you say?”

“I’ve got to be honest with you, Chairman Cabrillo,” MacD replied. “Since coming aboard your ship I’m having second thoughts. You say you make money hand over fist, but living on this scow isn’t exactly my cup of joe.”

“What if I were to tell you that under all this rust and grime is a ship that has more luxury appointments than the finest yacht you’ve ever seen.”

“I’d say you’d have to show me.”

“Juan?” Max said in a questioning voice.

“It’s okay,” Cabrillo said. “Just a taste. Nothing more.”

Cabrillo indicated that Lawless should follow him. They made their way down a flight of internal stairs and through a few dingy hallways until they reached a windowless mess hall. Tacky travel posters were taped to the matte-gray walls. Beyond the pass-through was a kitchen that would turn a health inspector’s stomach. Stalactites of congealed grease clung to the hood above the six-burner stove while the flies buzzing around a sink full of dirty dishes rivaled the air traffic pattern over O’Hare.

Juan walked up to one of the posters on the wall opposite the entrance. It depicted a beautiful Tahitian girl in a bikini standing on a beach in front of a grove of palm trees. He bent close and looked to be peering into her navel.

A section of wall clicked open. The door had been so cleverly concealed that Lawless hadn’t seen a thing.

Cabrillo straightened. “Retinal scanner,” he explained, and pulled the door all the way open.

He motioned for MacD to take a look.

He stared, gape-jawed. The carpet on the floor was a rich burgundy and so thick it looked like it could conceal a crouching lion. Polished mahogany wainscoting adorned the walls. Above it was some material that resembled regular residential Sheetrock but couldn’t possibly be because a ship at sea vibrated too much. It was painted a subtle gray, with hints of mauve—very relaxing, very soothing. The lighting was either tasteful sconces hanging on the walls or cut-crystal chandeliers.

Lawless was no art expert, but he was pretty sure the canvases in gilt frames were the real deal, and he recognized one even if he couldn’t name Winslow Homer as its painter.

This wasn’t a passageway on some broken-down old freighter. This belonged to a five-star resort hotel—heck, eight stars, for all he knew.

He looked at the Chairman, confusion written all over his face.

Juan began to answer his unasked question, “What you see topside is all deception. The rust, the dirt, the sorry state of the equipment. It’s all designed to make the Oregon as innocuous as possible. Anonymity is the name of the game. With this ship we can pull into any port in the world and not arouse suspicion. It’s like when you’re on the freeway. You notice the Ferraris and Porsches, but do you give a second’s thought to some mid-nineties Buick Regal?

“The best part,” he went on, “is that we have the ways and means to disguise her silhouette and change her name in about twelve hours. She’s never the same ship from mission to mission. We call her the Oregon, but that is rarely the name painted on her transom.”

“So the rest of the ship ... ?”

“Is like this,” Juan said, pointing down the hallway. “Each crew member has a private cabin—and a decorating allowance, I might add. We have a gym, pool, dojo, sauna. Our head chef and sous-chef both trained at Le Cordon Bleu. You’ve met our onboard doctor, and as you can imagine she demanded, and got, the latest medical equipment available.”

“What about weapons?”

“There’s a full armory, with everything from pistols to shoulderfired antitank missiles.” It wasn’t yet time to tell him that the Oregon herself was a floating arsenal that would rival most navies’ capital ships. That and some of the vessel’s other hidden tricks would remain secret until Lawless completed his probationary period. “Now, what do you say?”

Lawless smiled and thrust out his hand. “Ah’ll call Fortran and give ’em my notice.”

From down the hallway came a whoop from an unseen female crew member. It didn’t sound like Hux or Linda, so word had traveled fast about the Adonis-like newbie.

“It might take some time,” MacD continued, “and Ah’ll probably have to go back to Kabul. Ah’m sure they’re investigating my kidnapping. Plus, Ah’ll need to pick up my passport and personal kit.”

“No problem,” Juan assured him. “We need a few days to get into position for our next job. We’ll issue you one of our encrypted satellite phones and contact numbers. We’ll have to fly you out to meet us.” Juan had a sudden thought. “By the way, how are your tracking skills?”

“Ah’m a redneck at heart. Spent my summers hunting in the bayous. My dad used to boast that he had the dogs carrying the guns and me following the scent.”

IN THE END, THE DECISION OF WHETHER TO SEND AN ADVANCE team to Chittagong, Bangladesh’s principal port city, or wait and drive the Oregon hard around the Indian subcontinent was made easy by the simple fact that the ship had never been there and none of their contacts had a trustworthy man in the area. If they couldn’t guarantee getting the supplies and equipment they needed, there was no sense sending a group ahead to even try.

They would lose five days getting the ship into position, five days in which the trail would grow colder. While this rankled Cabrillo and the rest of the crew, the demand for a face-to-face meeting with Roland Croissard annoyed even more.

When Juan had sent his acceptance email to L’Enfant, the reply had been swift, as it always was. The financial terms had already been agreed upon, but Croissard had added the stipulation that he get to meet with Cabrillo. Juan had only agreed to meet Gunawan Bahar because the man had flown to Mumbai, where the Oregon had just off-loaded two containers of South African millet that had been lashed to the forward deck. Croissard was currently in Singapore and wanted Cabrillo to come to him.

It meant Juan had to chopper back to Karachi, get on the G-V, fly to Singapore, hold the man’s hand for an hour or two, then head off to either Chennai, formerly Madras, or Vishakhapatnam, on India’s east coast. Which city would depend on the length of the meeting and the speed the Oregon could maintain. Once there, they would need to slow the ship so Gomez Adams could chopper in to pick him up.

Any number of bureaucratic snafus could hold him up. He’d replied to L’Enfant, expressing his concerns, but was told the client was adamant.

What bothered Cabrillo was the fact that until he could somehow get the Corporation back in the good graces of the United States government, he had no choice but to accept assignments like this. Like any business, they had overhead and expenses that translated to about two hundred thousand dollars a day.

Taking out entire terrorist cells, thwarting some major attack before it happened—these were the things he’d created the Corporation for. That was why he’d joined the CIA in the first place.

And knowing that, for the time being, he had been marginalized to a degree ate at the back of his mind.

He decided to take Max with him for no other reason than to have his company during the long flights. That left Linda Ross in charge of the ship. After she’d gotten out of the Navy, Linda had captained a rig tender in the Gulf of Mexico. She could handle a ship as well as she could handle a gun.