“I received a call from the Vice President’s secretary,” Pochinsky said, her hazel eyes turning serious. “You’ve been asked to attend a meeting in his office today at two-thirty.”

“Any mention of the topic?”

“No, they simply indicated it was a security matter.”

“What in Washington isn’t?” He shook his head with annoyance. “Okay, tell them I’ll be there.”

“Also, Hiram is outside. He said you wanted to see him.”

“Send him in.”

Pochinsky slipped out the door and was replaced by a bearded man with shoulder-length hair. Dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, and a black Allman Brothers Band T-shirt, Hiram Yaeger looked like he was headed to a biker bar. Only the intense blue eyes behind a pair of granny glasses revealed a deeper intellectual pursuit. Far from a roadhouse barfly, Yaeger was in fact a computer genius whose greatest love was writing software code. Managing NUMA’s state-of-the-art computer resource center, he had built a sophisticated network that collected detailed oceanographic data from a thousand points around the globe.

“So, the savior of the mighty Sea Splendour has returned.” He plopped into a chair opposite Pitt. “You mean to tell me they didn’t whisk you off on a free round-the-world cruise for saving the most expensive ship in their fleet?”

“They were more than willing,” Pitt said. “But Loren’s on a diet, so the ship’s buffet would have been wasted. And my shuffleboard game’s a bit rusty, so there was really no point.”

“I’d be happy to take the trip for you.”

“And risk the whole agency falling apart without your presence?”

“True, I am rather indispensable around here.” Yaeger lofted his nose in the air. “Remind me to mention that at my next performance review.”

“Done,” Pitt said with a grin. “So I take it you found something on the Tasmanian Star?”

“The basics. She was built in Korea in 2005. At a length of five hundred and ten feet and a capacity of fifty-four thousand deadweight tons, she’s classified as a Handymax dry bulk carrier. She was fitted with five holds, two cranes, and a self-dispensing conveyor system.”

“Which can make for a nice stairwell,” Pitt noted.

“She’s owned by a Japanese shipping company named Sendai, and has seen steady service in the Pacific, primarily as an ore carrier. On her last voyage she was under contract with an American petrochemical company. She departed Perth three and a half weeks ago, with a recorded cargo of bauxite, bound for Los Angeles.”

“Bauxite.” Pitt pulled a small plastic bag from his pocket. He retrieved the silver rock he had picked up from the deck of the Tasmanian Star and laid it on his desk. “Any idea of the value of the bauxite she was carrying?”

“I couldn’t locate the ship’s insured value, but depending on the grade, the stuff sells for around thirty to sixty bucks a ton on the open market.”