“We are not armed. We are in your power,” Charles said, placating.

“Who is in charge on this bridge?” Domville demanded.

“I suppose I am.” The second mate actually raised his hand, like a schoolboy.

“Then get this ship headed away from land, back into international waters,” Domville ordered him.

“I can’t sir. The helm is not responding.”

“What? Nonsense. Put this ship about this instant!” “Sir, the helm is locked out. All controls are locked out. The captain did it, sir. It’s all computer-controlled. He locked it out when he realized we wouldn’t be able to stop you.”

Every eye looked toward the bow. Off to the left there was a very strange sight: Sleeping Beauty’s Castle rising in spotlights peeked up from Disneyland Hong Kong. All around the ship was a series of small green islands like lumps of bread dough waiting to rise. Directly ahead, what looked to be waterfront warehouses and blocks of residential skyscrapers. Ahead and to the right a veritable wall of skyscrapers, twinkling now, some limned in neon, loomed over swarms of cargo ships, tankers, cruise liners and smaller craft cutting phosphorescing wakes in the water.

Already the small craft were scattering as the Doll Ship plowed on at a relentless fourteen knots.

There were now two Hong Kong Police vessels racing to intercept, but both were relatively small patrol boats. A larger Chinese ship kept its distance, but Domville saw them unlimbering a deck gun.

“All engines stop!”

“Sir, as I said, we are locked out!”

“Then we’ll go to engineering. Sergeant, you’ll stay here with Ms Valquist. You two, and you, mister,” he said, indicating the baffled and increasingly worried second mate, “you are with me and if you hesitate in the slightest I will have you shot.”

They ran from the room.

“It looks as if we’ll run straight into the harbor,” Benjamin said. “I wonder what happens to the natural gas tanks when that happens.”

“Do you have a way to stop this ship?” Pia demanded.

“The only one who could seems to be dead.” Charles waved an arm at the dead Captain Gepfner.

“The admiral will find a way,” Valquist said, projecting confidence she didn’t feel.

“I devoutly hope so,” Charles said.

“There will be quite an international contest to see who gets to try you two first. I hope the Chinese win. Unlike my country, or Britain, they still have a death penalty.”

To her amazement, Charles laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re mere passengers aboard this vessel. You’ll find nothing proving that we own this ship or hire its crew.”

“You think your lawyers and your money will protect you? You’ll be tried for a thousand different felonies. Kidnapping, torture, murder. You’re monsters.”

“Don’t call us that,” Benjamin said, twisting his mouth into a brutal snarl.

“None of the people on this ship will testify in your courts,” Charles said smugly. “You’ll find they are absolutely loyal. They are happy, and we are the source of their happiness. We’ll produce a hundred witnesses to every one of yours.”

Pia felt rather than heard an explosion down deep within the ship. Suddenly the whole ship careened sharply, turning radically to starboard.

Pia staggered, slammed into the captain’s chair, saw the Twins fall over onto their back.

The small Asian woman, Ling, lurched into the remaining marine.

Pia heard a strangled sound, dismissed it, then realized too late what it was. A knife was buried to the hilt in the marine’s throat.

The remaining crew bolted en masse.

Pia turned her pistol on Ling, fired, missed, and suddenly the smaller woman was on her, delivering sharp blows to Pia’s midsection, head and throat.

The blow to her throat stopped her breathing. It was like sucking air through a collapsed straw. She fired again and Ling spun and dropped.

Pia fell to her knees, dropped the gun and tried to squeeze her throat open, digging desperate fingers into her windpipe, but now blood was filling her mouth.

Min, shot but not dead, got up, whipped off her belt, stepped behind Pia, wrapped it around her throat and twisted.

Pia thought how unnecessary it was to strangle her when she was already choking.

That was not her last thought.

Her last thought, her very last thought, was that she hoped someone would take care of her cat back in Stockholm.

(ARTIFACT)

Council on Foreign Relations

Liquefied Natural Gas: A Potential Terrorist Target? an expanding “pool fire.” A 2004 study by the Sandia National Laboratory, a division of the Department of Energy, suggests that such a fire would be hot enough to melt steel at distances of 1,200 feet, and could result in second-degree burns on exposed skin a mile away.

Natural gas is at least 90 percent methane, which is combustible. Though in its liquid state natural gas is not explosive, spilled LNG will quickly evaporate, forming a vapor cloud, which if ignited can be very dangerous. Yet the likelihood of this happening is somewhat remote: in order for a vapor cloud to combust, the gas-to-air mixture must be within the narrow window of 5 percent to 15 percent. Furthermore, the vapor is lighter than air, and in the absence of an ignition source it will simply rise and dissipate. Under windy conditions, which frequently exist on the waters where LNG tankers sail, the likelihood of such a cloud forming is further lessened.

Nevertheless, should one of these vapor clouds catch fire, the results could be catastrophic, says James Fay, professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Describing one scenario, he says that a hole in an LNG tanker could result in liquid leaking out of the storage vessel faster than it would burn off, resulting in