“You know my cover was blown just before I got out the last time. I’ve already been sentenced to death in absentia. I can name a dozen generals and party officials who would like nothing more than for me to step foot in China again. It’s been a few years, but last I knew, my picture had been sent to every police department in the country, from Beijing and Shanghai to the smallest provincial outpost.”

“Can you do it?” Cabrillo repeated.

“My old network is long gone. I was hustled out of China fast after everything went down and couldn’t get a warning out. I’m sure some of them were rolled up by the state police, which means the rest are compromised. I can’t use any of them.”

He went silent. Cabrillo didn’t ask a third time. He didn’t need to.

“I’ve got a set of credentials in a safe-deposit box in L.A., one the CIA doesn’t even know about. I had them made before Hong Kong was handed over to China in case I needed to get back in to help a couple of friends. They’ve since immigrated to Vancouver, so the identity is still viable. I’ll contact my lawyer first thing tomorrow and have them sent by courier to Singapore. From there I can catch the Cathay flight to Beijing.”

“Shanghai,” Juan corrected. “Julia said the village is in Fujian Province. If my geography is sound, the closest big city is Shanghai.”

“Oh, this gets better and better,” Eddie said as if his mission wouldn’t be difficult enough.

“Why’s that?”

“The people of Fujian have a dialect all their own. I don’t speak it very well.”

“Then we’ll call it off,” Juan decided. “We’ll just have to get some leads from the Kra or the Maus.”

“No,” Eddie said sharply. “It might take you weeks to track these bastards through shipping records and corporate pyramids. If illegal immigrants somehow fit into the pirates’ scheme, we need answers now. You and I both know that the ones dumped over the side of the Kra aren’t the only ones who’ve been taken.”

Juan nodded, a curt, decisive gesture. “All right. Make your arrangements.”

On the main display screen along the front wall of the operations center, the picture was a weirdly distorted view of the ocean, where the foam topping the low waves looked like green lightning forking across the black water. The camera’s optics made the rhythmic pulse of the sea look like a beating heart. The image jerked slightly, and George Adams swore.