The sun was sinking fast to port, a dramatic play of color and light made more intense by the stratospheric curtain of volcanic dust billowing from peaks far to the north on Kamchatka Peninsula. The heat of the day lingered on the bridge. Metal was still warm to the touch, and the band of Juan’s shorts was damp with perspiration. He wore no shirt and had only boat shoes on his feet. With the speed the Oregon was making over the water, opening a door would have invited a hurricane into the bridge, so the room remained hot and stuffy.

Rather than risk running up through the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan, where shipping traffic was as thick as a Los Angeles rush hour, he had decided to vector to the east once they cleared the northernmost of the Philippine Islands and race along Japan’s Pacific coast. Shipping lanes were more regulated, so he didn’t have to worry about other vessels reporting a ship steaming through the region at over fifty knots. With their radar jamming on active mode, it was visual reports that concerned him. In another few hours they would cross the Tokyo shipping lanes, and traffic would drop precipitously, ending their need to steer around car carriers, container ships, and the dozens of other vessels plying the Pacific routes.

They lost only a few minutes whenever they had to detour, but time was the one thing that Juan could no longer afford. Eddie was another two days away, and already the scant reports coming from the Russian volcanologists trapped in the capital city of Petropavlovsk were disturbing. The peninsula was being rocked by nearly continuous earthquakes, and three volcanoes along the same chain were belching ash and noxious gas. So far there had been no reports of deaths, but most of the settlements on Kamchatka were so remote it might take weeks to get word.

The only bright spot, if it could be called bright, was that Eddie’s transmitter continued to send out a signal that Hali could receive through the satellite umbrella. But there was a problem with even that. According to the satellite data, he was on the beach in the shadow of one of the erupting volcanoes. Juan could have asked Dr. Huxley how long the batteries in the transmitter would last after the wearer was dead, but he knew the answer already. Eddie could have died a week ago, and no one on the Oregon would be the wiser.

“Penny for your thoughts.”

Juan whirled around before recognizing the voice, his face a mask of anger at being disturbed.

“Whoa, sorry,” Tory said. “Didn’t mean to startle you so.”

“You didn’t.” He turned back to gaze at the horizon once more as if watching it would somehow bring it closer.

“I thought you might like one.” Tory held out a bottle of San Miguel beer, what Juan regarded as the Philippines’ only worthwhile export.