Morse leaned forward and turned the bottle of mineral water in her hands. A bird stared at her from the rail. She stared back at it over the bottle.

“Look,” she said, “we don’t know what’s around the bend with this Stalwart situation. Maybe it miraculously shows up unharmed. Or maybe we find out whatever happened to it was an accident. Or maybe it escalates into some unthinkable predicament with the Chinese.”

Carmody followed her line of thought. “You’re saying people are distracted.”

“I’m saying Kali isn’t Director Michaels’s focus. Which means she isn’t mine right now. But that will change. At some point she will be. Maybe sooner rather than later.”

“And when it happens?”

Morse straightened up and looked at him.

“I don’t trust or distrust her. That makes me agnostic. She isn’t my fight.”

He sat there in silence. The pigeons fluttered their wings in unison and took off.

“Quitters,” he said. “They had enough of us.”

“Do you blame them?”

Carmody shrugged and cracked a smile.

“They aren’t my focus right now,” he said.

South China Sea

General Wei craned his neck back to its limit, looking up at the colossal bulk of the CS Stalwart raised on blocks inside the dome. It was long and white in the floodlights, with a thick armored bow, towering superstructure and an array of radio-satellite navigation and communications masts bristling from the bridge deck. On the main deck from bow to stern were lowered cranes, girders, elevated walk ramps and various pieces of machinery and equipment Wei couldn’t identify. The fantail was wide and flat, the housings for the bow thrusters like tunnels. Its rudders were so huge, a tall man could have stretched out lengthwise on each blade.

Wei turned to Zhou. They were on the concrete piers, their escorts waiting a respectful distance away.

“A question,” he said. “How did you bring it here?”

The captain did not hesitate. “The pirates had already ravaged it. We believe they were out of the Sulu. Unaffiliated criminals, those waters are thick with them. Our maritime militia observed the ship well outside the safe transit corridor. It seemed adrift, and they went to investigate. When their hailing signals were ignored, they approached for a closer look. Soon afterward, they discovered the crew had been slaughtered.”

“And the fishermen boarded it? Were able to pilot it here?” Wei motioned expansively at the steel hull of the colossus. “A monster like this, without any problems?”

“They are skilled sailors,” Zhou said. “Not to be underestimated.”

Wei thought the captain was like an actor auditioning for a role he disdained. His lines spoken without even a superficial attempt at believability.

“The murdered crew members you say were left aboard,” Zhou said. “What became of them?”