Max’s latest invention would take care of that. He had recently replaced the steel plating on the Oregon’s fantail, where the ship’s name is traditionally emblazoned, with a highly sophisticated variable electromagnet microgrid. A computer controlled which of the tiny magnets that made up the array were energized. In this way, when a mist of iron filings was sprayed onto the plates by a retractable nozzle, any name Hanley devised would be spelled out. When he cut power, the old name and flag nation—in this case, Wanderstar, out of Panama—blew away on the wind. He’d typed in a new name, for which they had all the proper documentation, into the system and activated the nozzle. The magnets attracted the minute filings and spelled out Xanadu, from Cyprus, while the excess metal fell into the Atlantic. The system was so precise that from even a few feet away, it looked like paint that was flaking off in places, in keeping with the general shabbiness of the rest of the ship.

In the past, it took the crew up to thirty minutes to change the ship’s name. Now it took less than ten seconds.

Cabrillo fished an encrypted walkie-talkie from his back pocket when the Coast Guard chopper had backed off to assess the situation. “Talk to me, Max.”

“That bird’s off the cutter James Patke out of Norfolk. She should be here in about a half hour. The Oregon’s now the Xanadu. Eric’s up in the wheelhouse making the changes, both there and in the captain’s cabin, should they want to board us.”

“I’ll need my Captain Ramon Esteban ID,” Juan said. It was the identification that went with their Cypriot disguise.

“Stoney’s putting it in the desk in your cabin.”

“We’d better make this look good. Lower one of the life rafts as if we planned on taking the survivors with us. Then jam up the davit controls so the Coasties will have to take them off our hands.”

“Already ordered,” Max shot back, then added with mild rebuke, “Do you think this is my first time at this?”

“No. But it is our first time dealing with the U.S. Coast Guard and not some Third World facsimile more interested in bribes than rescue.”

“Roger that. We’ll be all right.”