“We’re on a target barge anchored in the U.S. Navy Atlantic Firing Range. Test engineers have erected on the barge this one-hundred-twenty-five-foot cage mast, the latest development in dreadnought spotting masts.”

Bell climbed two rungs, unlocked Louis’s right cuff, and locked it around his own ankle.

“Ready? Here we go.”

“Where?”

“Up these ladders. When I raise my leg, you raise your arm.”

“Why?”

“There’s a test scheduled for dawn to see how the cage mast fares in battle conditions when bombarded by 12-inch guns. Any spy worth his salt would give his eyeteeth to watch. Let’s go.”

It was long climb to the spotting top, but neither man was breathing hard when they reached the platform. “You are in excellent condition, Louis.” Bell removed the cuff from his ankle and locked it to the tubing that formed the mast.

“Now what?”

“Wait for dawn.”

A cold wind sprang up. The mast swayed as it sighed aound the tubing.

At first light, the silhouette of a battleship took shape on the horizon.

“New Hampshire,” said Bell. “You recognize her, I’m sure, by her three funnels and old-fashioned ram bow. You will recall that she carries 7- and 8-inch guns in addition to four 12s. Any minute now.”

The battleship emitted a red flash. A five-hundred-pound shell roared past like a freight train. Louis ducked. “What?” he screamed. “What?” Now the sound of the gun rumbled their way.

Another flash. Another shell roared closer.

“They’ll have the range soon!” Bell told Louis Loh.

The 12-inch gun flashed red. A shell struck in a shower of sparks fifty feet below. The mast shook. Louis Loh cried, “You’re a madman.”

“They say this helix design is remarkably strong,” Bell replied.

More shells roared by. When another hit, Louis covered his face.

Soon there was enough light in the sky for Bell to read his gold watch. “A few more single shots. Then they’re scheduled to blast salvos. Before they finish up with full broadsides.”

“All right. All right. I admit I am tong.”

“You’re more than tong,” Isaac Bell replied coldly. He was rewarded by an expression of surprise on Louis’s ordinarily immobile face.

“What do you mean?”

“Sun-tzu on the art of war. If I may quote your countryman: ‘Be so subtle that you are invisible.’ ”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You told me on the train, ‘They think we’re all opium addicts or tong gangsters.’ You sounded like a man with a broader point of view. Who are you really?”

A salvo thundered. Two shells ripped through the structure. Still it stood, but it was swinging side to side.

“I am not tong.”

“You just told me you are. Which is it?”

“I am not a gangster.”

“Stop telling me what you aren’t and start telling me what you are.”

“I am Tongmenghui.”

“What is Tongmenghui?”