“Sounds good,” Cabrillo responded. “Call me when you have visual.” The ops team watched the trawler approach the Oregon through low-light cameras mounted high atop a deck crane. The Kra IV matched the description given by the few survivors of pirate attacks. She was seventy-three-feet long and beamy, with a blunt bow and an open aft deck. She sported a tall A-frame derrick over her fantail, and they could see a single cargo container lashed just aft of her pilothouse. The distortion of the night optics couldn’t prevent the crew from seeing that the trawler was well-worn. Her machinery looked as dilapidated as that aboard the Oregon, and Juan decided the pirates used the same ruse the Corporation utilized to lull their adversaries.

“Target is twenty yards to starboard,” Eddie radioed. “I can see a dozen or so men on her deck. They’re dressed mostly in shorts or jeans. A few are wearing foul weather gear. They look like they’re carrying equipment, but I bet it’s cover for weapons.”

“Acknowledged.” Cabrillo called down to the engine room to tell Max to cut the smoke screen. With their forward speed down to almost zero, the thick smog blew across the decks and would make visual identification difficult for Seng, as well as the operators of the remote machine guns.

Eddie watched one of the “fishermen” raise a bullhorn to his mouth and hail the Oregon. He stepped from the shadows and took a position at the head of the gangway stairs. A bead of sweat trickled down his rib cage. “Are we glad to see you,” he called back with the right tinge of fear and relief. He noted that the curtain of smoke began to thin. “I think we have contained the fire but don’t know what damage we’ve sustained.”

“We will offer any assistance we can,” the pirate replied. Eddie could hear the mocking tone in his voice through his accent.

As the two boats came together, deckhands on the Kra IV secured their ship to the gangway, and two of the pirates started up the stairs. If the first shot was to come, now was the time. Eddie tensed, his pistol out of its holster but held out of view.

Several things happened in the space of the next few seconds. Unseen searchlights on the trawler snapped on, bathing the side of the Oregon in stark white light and overloading most of the crew’s night vision capabilities. Just short of the deck, the leading pirate raised an automatic and put two quick rounds into Eddie’s chest and motioned to his companions. They charged up the gangway, shouting incoherent challenges as another dozen men rushed from the Kra’s pilothouse.

Eddie felt as though he’d been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. He staggered back, his body numb. He heard more than felt his pistol fall from his deadened fingers.