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cutting through plating. The hissing torch changed pitch, and a neat circle of steel tumbled into the water of the ballast tank below, hot edges belching steam. Sheibani glanced up through the hatch at patches of blue sky through overhanging tree limbs and camouflage netting, then moved to the ladder, reviewing preparations as he climbed to the main deck. All that remained was rigging a web of wires around the hold, tight between the pad eyes at the bottom of the hold and the top of the hatch, to corral the boats directly under the open hatch. God willing, he could sink his prison at dawn. He would not miss Alicia or the heat or the Indonesian monkeys.
    ***
    The sky was lightening as Sheibani stood with the crew on the dock. Alicia was below the dock now, and a short, steep gangway led down to main deck. The camouflage netting was gone and the hatch open to the sky as the chief engineer climbed the gangway.
    “It is done, Major,” he said. “She’s down past her marks with the bow a bit deeper. I’ve started flooding the cargo hold through the broached ballast tanks. The water will run to the forward end and speed the sinking of the bow. The engine space aft will flood last. By the time the water shorts out the pumps, she will be free-flooding.” He paused. “God willing, she will settle straight down.”
    Sheibani nodded and watched. Water rose in the hold, and the boats floated free, rising as the ship sank beneath them. Then Alicia ’sdeck went under, and water poured over the hatch coaming, cascading down on the boats from all sides like a waterfall. The boats bounced and bobbed under the torrents, and within seconds Alicia fell out from under them with a great bubbling swirl. A relieved grin split the chief engineer’s face as the boats bobbed to the surface unharmed, and a spontaneous shout of “ Allahu Akbar ” rose from the throats of Alicia ’s former crewmen.
    ***
    The tile was cool on DeVries’s cheek as he lay trussed hand and foot. His head throbbed from the beating, and he felt the deck tilt beneath him as the hull moaned under unfamiliar stresses. The lights winked out and he closed his eyes and wished for an end to the bad dream, opening them as water wet his cheek. He flopped about in the deepening flood, cursing ships and the sea and his stiff-necked family. In the end, his grave was marked by a section of the bridge deck and the tops of the masts and king posts, rusted brown and blending with the surrounding jungle, the only sign that Captain Jan Pieter DeVries, master after God of the good ship Alicia , had gone down with his vessel.

Chapter Five
    US Embassy
Singapore
27 May
    Dugan sat in the same conference room, waiting. When Ward appeared, Dugan raised his eyebrows. “Where’s the Boy Wonder?”
    “Gardner flew back to Langley this morning,” Ward said. “Management conference.”
    Dugan snorted, then continued. “Any news on Alicia ?”
    Ward shook his head. “Negative. The Indonesians are being their usual noncooperative selves, but we have our own assets on the ground tracking down every available crane. And we’ve tasked the satellites to collect imagery of every dock capable of supporting a large crane and every anchorage deep enough to support a floating crane. We still got bubkes.”
    “Crap.”
    Ward shrugged. “It’s still our best lead. Obviously they’ve found a hiding spot, but, sooner or later, they’ll have to come to a crane or a crane has to come to them. Intelligence is a game of patience, Tom.”
    Ward changed the subject. “You call Kairouz yet?”
    “Since you’re bugging my calls, you know the answer to that.”
    “Make the call.”
    “So,” Dugan asked, “what happened to ‘intelligence is a game of patience’?”
    Ward scowled.
    “Don’t get your bowels in an uproar. My relief arrived last night, and I showed him around Asian Trader and gave him my turnover this morning. Alex will be expecting a call. I was just waiting until it seemed