"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?"

"We can't fool a naval boarding party," said Cabrillo solemnly. "They'll see through our disguise two minutes after setting foot on deck. You seem to forget, as far as the Chinese are concerned, Mr. Pitt, you and I and everyone on board this ship are spies. And as such, we can all be executed in the blink of an eye. Also, once they get their hands on the Oregon and her technology and realize her potential, they won't hesitate to use her for intelligence operations against other nations. Once the first Chinese marine sets foot on our deck, the die is cast. We fight or die."

"Then our only option is surprise."

"The key is that we won't constitute a threat in the eyes of the captain of that Chinese destroyer," Cabrillo explained gruffly. "If you were him, standing on your bridge looking at us through night glasses, would you be trembling in your boots at what you saw? I doubt it. He might train the hundred millimeters on our bridge or one of the thirty-seven-millimeter twins at any crewman showing on deck. But once he sees his marines come on board and begin seizing the ship, he'll relax and call off the ship's alert, provided he even bothered to order one."

"You make it sound as cut and dried as a snowball fight," ventured Giordino.

Cabrillo gave Giordino a patiently worn look. "A what fight?"

"You'll have to excuse Al's regressive display of humor," said Pitt. "He gets mentally unstable when things don't go his way."

"You're just as weird," Cabrillo growled at Pitt. "Doesn't anything ever faze you two?"