In their campaign against the United States these men differed only in approach. Moreno was outspoken and publicly anti-American, while Cruz remained anonymous, which allowed him to set up the attacks and get the weapons and money where they would do the most good. But together Cruz and Moreno were the backbone of the unnamed movement.

They had engineered the deaths of close to three hundred U.S. citizens and foreigners who kowtowed to Western values: businessmen, professors, politicians, drug enforcement officials, diplomats and their families.

These attacks had been isolated and small, so authorities wouldn’t make any connections among them. But what was planned today was just the opposite: a massive strike against the political, social and corporate heart of America. Moreno had prepared for months—renouncing his citizenship, severing all ties to the United States, moving his money from the States to the Cayman Islands, buying a house in the wilderness of Venezuela—all in anticipation of what was about to happen.

And the weapon at the heart of the attack? The ship that now was plowing through the waves.

Cruz, as a native of Panama, had been steeped in the shipping trade for much of his early life; he knew how to drive vessels this size. Besides, nowadays one didn’t really need to be more than functional at the helm. A competent crew in the engine room, GPS and autopilot on the bridge were all you needed. That was about it. The computer was doing the donkey’s work of getting her to the destination. They were plodding north-by-northwest through the three-foot seas. The day was brilliantly blue, the wind persistent, the spray kaleidoscopic.

The vessel had no name, or did no longer, having been purchased through a series of real but obscure corporations, and was known only by her registration number. There had once been a file on her in a computer in the Dominican Republic, along with a corresponding entry into a registration book, regarding her vital statistics, but they had been, respectively, digitally erased and physically excised.

She was anonymous.

Cruz had thought about informally christening her before they set sail from Nassau—Roberta, after his friend, suitably feminized. But then decided it was better to refer to her simply as the ship. She was faded black and gray and streaked with rust. But to him, beautiful.

He now gazed at their destination, the black dot some kilometers away. The GPS tweaked the navigation system to compensate for the wind; new directions went automatically to the rudder. He felt the ship respond. He enjoyed the sensation of such a large creature obeying commands.