“Okay,” Sams said. “It’s all going to happen very, very fast, so be ready.” He took another look as the Agafias stern came into view, and added, “And she’s making ice as fast as the Sojourner Truth, so watch your asses, Ryan.”

“Watching our asses, aye aye, sir.”

Sams banked rapidly to slide up her hull, slowing speed as they approached the bow. The only even reasonably empty space was a triangular section forward of the mast and boom, framed by the two massive anchors and the bow itself. He estimated a bare twenty square feet, if that. The good news was that the six containers stacked on the foredeck hid the helo from the windows on the Agafias bridge.

“Lieutenant?” Laird was looking at him.

Sams shook himself back into the present. “Are we good to go?”

Cho had the line hooked to the hoist. The helo came around the bow and Sams popped up on a rapid flare, virtually halting the helo in midair, letting it hang there like it was painted on the fog. Cho dropped the line and out of the corner of his eye Sams saw it hit the deck. A second later a man in a Mustang suit was sliding down it. He grabbed the end, belayed it around a stanchion, and five more men, bristling with weapons, hurtled down in rapid succession. Cho disconnected the line at the hoist and let it fall and Sams let the helo fall forward.

He stood off far enough to grab some fog for cover but not too far to be out of range of the boarding team’s radios. He made a wide circuit of the ship and was rewarded when Ryan’s voice came over the air. “All down safely, Lieutenant. See you back in Kodiak. You did say the beer was on you, right?”

“In your dreams, Ryan. Good hunting. And watch your back!”

Laird brought up Cape Navarin on the GPS and set a course, and as he did so the Sojourner Truth loomed up out of the mist looking like the wrath of God. She was even throwing a few thunderbolts by way of the portside 25-millimeter cannon.

The shells crossed the Agafia’s bow with inches to spare and were immediately followed by a voice on a loudspeaker turned up high enough to be heard on the moon, never mind over the storm. “Fishing vessel Agafia, this is the United States Coast Guard cutter Sojourner Truth. Heave to and prepare to be boarded. I say again, heave to and prepare to be boarded.”

And the guns on both sides opened up and Sams pointed the helo’s nose at three-five-zero and hit the gas.

THE MEN ON BOARD the Agafia were demoralized and panicking, especially the mercenaries. They had shot at the American ship and then proceeded to lead it farther south, as Jones had instructed. The storm was hitting them hard, tossing the ship around like a Ping-Pong ball in a bathtub full of Jell-O. It never stopped, everyone was getting slammed into bulkheads, hatch handles, and other crewmen.

Fang’s men were more disciplined and had the advantage of time served at sea, but they, too, were growing increasingly alarmed. Someone had come at them out of the snow and the sleet and the hail and had begun shooting. Windows had shattered; men had been hit and were screaming in fear and pain. At first Chen thought the ship’s crew must have broken loose and were trying to retake the ship, and then he remembered that Jones had put them all over the side.

And then a blue-hulled ship with a rainbow on the bow materialized on their starboard side on what looked like a course to ram them amidships. Even Jones yelled at that. Chen spun the wheel into a blur, only to find that way blocked by the Sojourner Truth. All three ships were pitching and tossing violently, adding to the feeling of an uncontrollable and imminent doom.

During those precious minutes when the bridge crew of the Agafia was preoccupied with finding some sea room in twenty-foot seas, Ryan’s men were working their way aft, picking off the enemy one at a time. Later, his report would state that most of these fell overboard into the Bering Sea. Hank Ryan had helped carry Captain Lowe’s body below. He still had the captain’s blood on his uniform and he was not inclined to show mercy, especially when he didn’t know what his team was facing in the way of opposition on board the Agafia. He knew that they had at least one big gun, and that was all he needed to know.

The first man they took out was the mercenary who had run aft to man the Browning machine gun newly bolted to the Agafia‘s deck. Ryan disarmed the weapon by pulling the bolt securing it to its stand and letting it follow its gunner over the side.

They were on the bridge fifteen minutes later without a scratch on any of them. One Asian guy was screaming something at them in his native tongue, which no one understood or even tried to very hard. From the way the other four surviving crew looked at him, he was the boss.

Ryan almost shot him down where he stood before he remembered that command might actually want to talk to the boss, so he said, “Secure them all below somewhere and mount a guard. If they so much as sneeze, shoot ‘em. The rest of you, let’s start looking for Mr. Rincon’s missile launcher.”

An hour later, they had inspected the Agafia bow to stern, containers hold, engine room, galley, and staterooms, and they still hadn’t found it.

ICE WAS BUILDING UP on the rescue hoist. No one in the aircraft said anything about it because what was the point, but the silence was getting a little strained.

Laird pointed at the radar screen. Sams nodded without leaning over to look. The radar was degrading because ice was building on the nose of the aircraft, too.

They’d left the Agafia with forty-five minutes of fuel remaining in their tanks. They’d been in the air forty-seven minutes. Sams avoided looking at the fuel gauge, concentrating instead on the horizon, a dark gray, featureless expanse. He’d put some altitude between the helo and the deck so he’d have some choices when the time came.

When it did, it came fast, and it looked like a tall iceberg, so he didn’t see it at first. Laird shouted and pointed, and there it was, a steep cliff footed with a narrow strip of beach. He eyeballed it. It ought to be wide enough for the fifty-one foot rotor.

It had to be.

One engine died, and they made the beach.

The other died, and they started to fall.

After that, they started to spin.

JANUARY

ON BOARD THE USC6 CUTTER SOJOURNER TRUTH

SARA WAS ICILY CALM. “I believed you, I backed your story with the captain. Now he’s dead and there is no missile launcher on the ship we just boarded at gunpoint.”

Hugh was standing on the bridge, his hands dangling at his sides. “I don’t understand it,” he said.

“That makes you and a ship full of Coasties who don’t understand it,” she said.

There was a rumble of agreement which she stilled with a glare.

“Noortman gave me the port, he gave me the ship, he gave me everything.” Hugh stopped suddenly, brows furrowing.

Sara waited. When he didn’t say anything else, she said, “Yeah, well, your thumbnail-pulling skills must not be quite up to CIA par because it looks like he lied through his teeth.”

Hugh met her eyes and the words dried up in her mouth. She’d never seen that expression on Hugh’s face. “They were running with their lights on,” he said.

“Who was?”

“The Agafia. They were running with their lights on.”

“So?” she said. “It’s kind of, oh, I don’t know, the law?”