The radio operator removed his headset. “They are just over two hours from us. They apologized again for the delay.”

“Did they give you a reason?” bin Omar asked.

“Mr. M said only that the problem was mechanical in nature,” the operator replied.

“Ah,” said bin Omar. “The excuse that cannot be disproved.”

“Perhaps they will tell us more when we are together,” the radio operator suggested.

“They will have to,” bin Omar said. “Our employers will certainly wish to know more. But it is not our problem. We are merely messengers.”

For the first time in more than a year of dealings, Captain Kannaday had failed to make a rendezvous. The sixty-two-year-old fisherman was unhappy about that. He disliked the unexpected, whether it was a storm, a surprise inspection by harbor police in Pontian Ketchil, or a delay. It was particularly dangerous in the smuggling business. Whether they were transporting drugs, weapons, or nuclear material, seamen did not like being out in the open sea. Here, they were equally vulnerable to patrol ships and pirate vessels.

Bin Omar hoped that Captain Kannaday had a reasonable explanation. Though processed nuclear waste was not the easiest material to obtain, Kannaday was not the only supplier in the region. Until today, he had simply been the most efficient. And the group with whom bin Omar was associated, the Kansai Unit, demanded reliability. The Asian group also demanded accountability. Bin Omar would have to explain the delay.

Despite that, bin Omar was at peace. His wife and other children were home and well cared for. And he was always at ease on these waters, which his family had sailed for hundreds of years. For whatever the fate of the angry men and the mad civilizations they built, he knew one thing for certain. The bin Omars would sail these seas for centuries to come.

TWENTY-FIVE - Tokyo, Japan Friday, 9:34 P.M.

TWENTY-FIVE

Tokyo, Japan Friday, 9:34 P.M.

Shigeo Fujima was standing on the balcony of his apartment smoking a cigarette. The Japanese intelligence officer was tired and had come home early. He wanted to try to relax this weekend. Fujima had worked on several situations back to back. There was Chinese involvement in the attack on Vatican clergy in Botswana; increasing Chinese financial links with Taiwan; and the rapid growth of the Chinese space program, which was about to put a man into orbit. Chinese expansionism on earth, with a workforce of one billion people, was a direct threat to Japan and the entire Asian Rim. Especially with the Japanese economy so hard hit by the worldwide recession.