Cabrillo opened his mouth to reply, but Max continued speaking. “Actually seeing that we’ve got enough money to retire to a private island someplace and live the good life has made you understand just how much we risk every day. You and I have always put our lives on the line. It’s what makes us who we are. Only now we both know our lives are worth a little more than we thought.”
“And our mission?”
“You have to ask? We’re the last line of defense, my boy. We agree to the jobs Langley and the E-ringers need done but can’t touch. The gloves have come off in the twenty-first century, and we’ve become the iron fist.”
Cabrillo absorbed the words before asking with a smirk, “When did you become such a poet?”
Hanley grinned as if he’d been caught. “That actually just sort of came out. Sounded damn impressive, if you ask me.” He turned serious once again. “Listen, Juan, what we do is important, and I for one am not going to feel guilty because we’re getting rich doing it. There’s no shame in profit, only in failure.
“And as for doubting Dick Truitt, you can forget about it. Dick put a lot of sweat and blood into the Corporation. He was there at the beginning and believed just as strongly as you and I. But he’d reached his limit. He’d had enough. Him leaving wasn’t about the money; it was about Dick listening to that little voice inside his head that we all have, and it was saying he’d run his course with us. You can best believe, though, that Dick Truitt hasn’t given up the fight. I wouldn’t be surprised if he poured his money and expertise into a security company or intelligence think tank. I bet —”
Max stopped in midsentence. He’d noticed the spark in Cabrillo’s eye and the crooked, almost piratical smile that played along his lips. As always, Juan Cabrillo had been one step head of his corporate president. Juan had been testing Max, getting a sense of how he felt about Truitt’s leaving. Cabrillo had never doubted his mission or himself, but this was a pivotal time for the Corporation, and Juan needed to make certain Hanley was still 100 percent behind their goals. Juan had set the trap perfectly by acting unsure, and Max had wandered blindly in. This was why no one played poker with the chairman.
“You’re a crafty one.” Max said with a throaty chuckle.
Just then, a high-pitched hiss sounded from the
“Murph and Stone must have found the spot of ocean for us to play staked goat,” Max said offhandedly and checked the time on an old pocket watch looped with a chain to his coveralls.
Cabrillo thought about the awesome arsenal of weapons secreted about the
A day later the
A legend had been created concerning the ship and her cargo and was hacked into various databases in case that was how the pirates found their marks. The ship was purportedly carrying a mixed cargo of timber and electronics from Pusan to Nigata, Japan, but what made her a tempting target was the presence of a passenger on her manifest, an eccentric American author who wrote while tramping around the globe on cargo ships.
Richard Hildebrand was a real person, and his fondness for working at sea was well documented in the media. He was currently working on his next bestseller aboard a supertanker deadheading back to the Persian Gulf from Rotterdam, a detail the Corporation doubted the pirates would verify. Between book royalties and the price his books commanded in Hollywood, Hildebrand was one of the wealthiest writers in the world and ripe for kidnapping. While the pirates had yet to attempt such an act, Murph and Stone, with Juan agreeing, believed snatching Hildebrand was a logical escalation of their criminal activities.
