“Come on, luv,” Tristan said. “This is Hong Kong, where everything is for sale. Let’s see if we can’t do some business with the captain.”

Feeling more terrified than she had at any time in her life, Marissa let Tristan lead her past the man with the assault rifle and out into the morning light. It was turning into a pretty day now that the sun had burned off most of the haze. The water, which had been gray, had now assumed its usual emerald green. Marissa could hear the sound of songbirds coming from the nearby shore over the muffled roar of the cigarette-boat engine. The powerboat was slowly pulling up to the junk to grapple to its side.

The captain was on the poop deck. He looked down on his Caucasian passengers morosely.

Tristan spoke quickly with Bentley, who shouted up to the captain in Tanka: “The white devil offers to pay fifty thousand Hong Kong dollars for you to get him and his wife safely back to Aberdeen.”

The captain’s expression changed. He stroked his goatee, then glanced at the approaching cigarette boat.

Marissa recognized the two men in the front of the boat as the two who’d been throwing the chum overboard the day Wendy died.

“The white devil has just raised his offer to one hundred thousand Hong Kong dollars,” Bentley yelled in Tanka.

The captain started to speak to Bentley, but then he stopped midsentence. His eyes were riveted to the cigarette boat. Finally he shook his head. “I cannot fight the Wing Sin,” he said.

Bentley faced Tristan and told him what the captain had said.

“Tell him we’ll double it to two hundred thousand,” Tristan said.

Before Bentley could yell out this new offer, they heard a second engine’s roar. All eyes were drawn to a small offshore island about a quarter mile to the east. The roar grew louder as a large, gun-metal-gray ship with a two-inch cannon mounted on its bow rounded the tip of the island.

The captain shouted to one of his crew on the main deck. The man tossed him his AK47. The captain grabbed the gun and fired a burst from the rifle over the heads of the men in the approaching cigarette boat and yelled something at the top of his lungs.

The other crewman herded Marissa and Tristan back into the hold and slammed the door on them.

“What’s happening?” Tristan demanded.

“It’s the PRC,” Bentley said. “It’s a naval patrol boat.”

“What did the captain yell when he fired his weapon?” Tristan asked.

“He yelled ‘Thieves,’ ” Bentley said.

From the hold they heard the cigarette boat take off with a roar of its powerful engine. The junk rocked when the boat’s wake hit the side.

Within seconds they heard the low-pitched concussion of the patrol boat’s cannon, followed by a high-pitched whistle.

“Are they firing at us?” Marissa demanded.