"Max?"
"Max is my buddy. He lives inside my computer."
"If you say so. Go on."
"Every time Max tried to get into a data file with Shang's name on it, computers from just about every intelligence agency in town blocked our inquiries and demanded to know our business. It seems you're not the only one interested in this guy."
"Sounds like we opened a can of worms," said Pitt. "Why would our own government throw a security
lock around Shang?"
"My impression is our intelligence agencies are conducting a classified investigation and don't appreciate an outside probe slipping under their fence."
"The plot thickens. Shang can't be pure as the driven snow if he's under a secret government investigation."
"Either that or they're protecting him."
"Which is it?"
"Beats me," admitted Yaeger. "Until Max and I can carry out a heavy hacking project into the proper data sources, I'm in the dark as much as you are. All I can tell you is that he's not the second coming of the Messiah. Shang slithers around the world like an eel, making enormous profits from a myriad of what appear to be perfectly legal enterprises."
"Are you saying you have no evidence that he's involved with an organized-crime group?"
"Nothing shows on the surface," answered Yaeger. "Which doesn't mean he can't operate as an independent."
"Maybe he's Fu Manchu reincarnated," said Pitt lightly.
"Mind telling what you have against him?"
"His flunkies tossed my cabin. I'm not keen on strangers probing about my underwear."
"There is one thing you'd find interesting," said Yaeger.
"I'm listening."
"Not only do you and Shang have the same birthday, but you were born in the same year. Under his culture Shang was born in the year of the rat. In yours, under the sign of Cancer."
"That's the best the finest computer whiz in the business can come up with?" Pitt said dryly.
"I wish I had more to offer," Yaeger said regretfully. "I'll keep trying."
"I can ask no more."
"What do you plan to do now?"
"There isn't much I can do," said Pitt, "except go fishing."
He didn't fool Yaeger for an instant. "Watch your back," Yaeger said seriously, "or you may find yourself up that famous foul-smelling creek without means of propulsion."
"I'll be my old, usual cagey self."
He punched off the CALL button, reached up and set the Indium phone in the fork of a tree. Not the greatest of hiding places, but better than allowing it to lie around the cabin in the event of another search while he was away.
Pitt hated brushing off Yaeger's loyal concern, but it was better the head computer guru at NUMA knew as little as possible. For what Pitt was about to do he could get arrested. And if he wasn't careful, the probability was even greater of getting shot. He only hoped to God there were no unforeseen consequences. He had a leaden feeling in the pit of his stomach that if he made a mistake, his body might never be found.
There were two hours of daylight left when Pitt walked the dock to the boathouse. In his arms he carried a jumbo-sized ice chest and a large mounted salmon that had hung over the cabin's fireplace mantel. Once inside he opened the ice chest and lifted out a small autonomous underwater vehicle built by Benthos Inc., an undersea systems technology designer. Inside a black housing no more than twenty-five inches in length by six inches wide, the AUV held a high-resolution color video camera. Its battery power supply could propel two counterrotating thrusters for slightly over two hours.
Pitt laid the compact little unit in the bottom of the sailboat along with a fishing rod and a tackle box. Next he opened the outer doors to the boathouse, climbed down and took his place at the tiller. Pushing off the dock with a boat hook until it was free of the boathouse, he stepped the mast, raised the sail and lowered the centerboard.