CAPTAIN, YOU HAVE A RADIO CALL FROM THE CANAL tug off our port beam.”

Captain Franco stepped across the cruise ship’s bridge and grabbed a handset from the deck officer.

“This is Sea Splendour, Captain Franco speaking.”

“Good morning, Captain. This is Dirk Pitt.” He stuck his head out of the tug’s wheelhouse and waved toward the cruise ship.

“My friend Pitt!” the captain said. “It is a small world. What are you doing here? Working for the Canal Authority?”

“Not exactly. There’s a critical situation at hand, and I need your help.”

“Of course. I owe my ship and my career to you. What do you require?” He spoke for a few minutes, then hung up the phone with a sullen look. He stepped over to his assigned canal pilot, who stood at the helm, monitoring their track.

“Roberto,” the captain said with a forced smile, “you look hungry. Why don’t you go down to the galley for a quick meal? We’ll call you to the bridge when we approach the locks at Pedro Miguel.”

The grizzled pilot, who was fighting a rum hangover, perked up at the offer. “Thank you, Captain. The channel is wide through the lake, so you’ll have no problems.” He departed the bridge.

The first officer looked at Franco. “This is most unusual, Captain. What are you doing?”

Franco stepped to the helm and stared out the window with a vacant gaze. “Completing the career that should have ended in Valparaiso,” he said quietly, then ordered the ship to turn about.

Pitt maneuvered the tug away from the cruise ship and drove hard toward the shoreline. His target was the rusty barge used in the canal’s ongoing dredging operations. Nearly full of thick mud, it rode low in the water, awaiting a tow to be dumped in the Pacific.

Pitt pulled inshore of the barge, tied the tug to its rail, and sprinted across her deck walkway. Near the bow, he found the barge’s mooring line, a thick rope that he wrestled to free from a massive cleat. Dropping the line over the side, Pitt raced back to the tug and put it to work.

He turned parallel to the side of the barge and nudged the barge into deeper water. It drifted close to the main channel, so Pitt backed away and took up a new position on its flat stern, shoving the barge toward the locks.

A few hundred yards away, the Chinese ship Santa Rita had inched in front of the locks, waiting for a gate to open. Glancing over his shoulder, Pitt saw the Sea Splendour sweep up behind him, having used its bow thrusters to quickly turn around.