He hastened to the controls and left the woman there under the desk, her body riddled with bullets.

The Gahjaes lined up three abreast in the bay off Kono Head, twenty yards apart, their bows turned seaward. The boat in the middle was pointed straight ahead, due south like a compass needle and perpendicular to the shore. The two flanking boats were at forty-five-degree angles, one nosed east, the other west. Their central machine guns were manned. Each ship had a sailor at its torpedo controls. The multiple rocket-powered grenade launchers in their crew compartments could be picked up and fired in seconds.

The cable landing station was secure. Kono Head was theirs. If anything tried to get past them, they would blow it out of the water.

Aboard the Xingyun Liwu, Carmody stood at the edge of the hatch as the cover panels groaned, grated and clanked open on their rail mechanisms, rising up and folding back to their vertical positions. The hatch was around a hundred feet long and fifty wide. He was thinking a midsize truck could have fit on any one of the panels.

He glanced down and around its lip and saw the three rail elevators leading below. Then he looked at the men clustered near the hatch. They included Schultz, Dixon, Musil, Harper and three or four of Harper’s port security guys. The group also included a nervous-looking Captain Chen. Four or five other members of the Coast Guard PSU had gathered the crew amidships and were keeping watch on them. The rest were searching the deck.

“OK,” he said to Dixon. “You and Schultz take one elevator. Musil and Harper the other.” He looked at Chen. “You’ll go with me.”

Chen’s mouth was still bleeding, and his lip had swollen up.

“You are not Coast Guard,” he said thickly. “Who are you?”

“Doesn’t make a difference.”

“Only the Coast Guard has authority,” Chen said. “I do not have to comply with your orders.”

“That’s arguable. But say you’re right. I can still throw you down the hatch, and it’s a long way to the bottom. You want to try me?”

Chen looked at him. Carmody kept the Sig level with his chest. Chen reluctantly nodded and stepped onto the elevator platform.

A moment later Carmody got on with him. Schultz and Dixon got on their platform. Harper ordered his men to stand by on deck and got on with Musil.

They all rode down into the hold at once.

Grigor sat at the console in the landing station’s control room, reached into a pouch for the pocket SSD, and touched a fingertip to its biometric lock. The tiny authentication light flashed from red to green. Like a traffic light. Go.