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Asia as well as facilitate the delivery of the artifact to its new home by armored car. He was almost home free.

3
    S IX days after depositing the Cubans in San Juan, the Oregon had rounded the Cape of Good Hope. Inside the control room, the seas beyond the bow were projected on a high-definition four-by-eight-foot screen. There was little to see. The sun was dipping in the west, and the Oregon was in an empty part of the Indian Ocean where few cargo ships steamed. Twenty minutes ago, Hali Kasim had caught a glimpse of a blue whale. Triggering the underwater sensors, Kasim made a record of the mass of the beast, then began to scan his data banks for a match.
    â€œShe’s a new one,” Kasim said.
    Franklin Lincoln, the huge pitch-black man who was sharing duties in the control room, stared up from his game of computer solitaire. “You need to find a different hobby.”
    â€œIt passes the time,” Kasim noted.
    â€œSo does this,” Lincoln said, “and it barely uses any computer power.”
    A buzzer sounded, then the ship slowed and went dead in the water.
    From the north, a black amphibious plane approached, made a pass over the Oregon to check the direction of the wind by the flag on the flagstaff, then gracefully dropped into the water and taxied alongside.
    â€œThe chairman has arrived,” Kasim noted.
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    O NCE safely aboard the Oregon , Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo made his way to his stateroom. Walking inside, he shut the door, tossed the bag containing his gray wig and fake beard on the bed, then kicked off his shoes and started unbuttoning his shirt as he made his way to the head.
    Unlike most ships, where the bathroom facilities are almost an afterthought, his was large and opulent. A sunken copper tub with jets sat against the side of the hull, with a brass-lined rectangular porthole giving a view of the water outside. Angled next to the tub was a separate shower decorated with Mexican tile. Along the bulkhead toward the bow was a cabinet containing a copper sink, with drawers beneath.
    The floor was dark hardwood with thick cotton throw rugs. A recessed toilet was set back in the bulkhead across from the sink and a Philippine carved mahogany sitting bench graced one wall.
    Cabrillo stared at his image in the mirror above the sink.
    His blond crew-cut hair was in need of a trim and he made a mental note to schedule an appointment with the ship’s barber, who also doubled as a masseuse. His skin had a light pallor, the result of stress, he knew, and his eyes showed red from the strain. He was tired and his joints felt stiff.
    Sitting on the mahogany bench, he slid off his trousers and stared down at his prosthetic leg. The leg was the third he had owned since he had lost it in a naval battle with the Chinese destroyer Chengdo , when the Corporation had been covering a NUMA operation in Hong Kong. But it was a good one—it worked almost as well as the one he had lost.
    Rising, he walked over and began to draw a bath in the copper tub.
    While the bath filled, he shaved at the sink and brushed his teeth, then removed the prosthetic limb and climbed into the water. As he soaked, his thoughts drifted back….
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    C ABRILLO came from a family that had descended from the first explorer to discover California, but despite his Spanish surname, he looked more like a Malibu surf rat than a conquistador. He’d been raised in Orange County by an upper-middle-class family. California in the 1970s had seen wild times, filled with sex and drugs, but Cabrillo had never drifted that way. By his nature, he’d been both conservative and patriotic, almost a throwback. When everyone he knew was growing long hair, he’d kept his short and well groomed. When clothing tastes had run toward torn denim and T-shirts, his wardrobe had remained neat and presentable. But this had not been his own form of protest against the time, it was just who he was.
    And even today he was still a bit