The needle on the dial is moving now, passing down through twenty-five meters. The deck twists under Bischoff’s feet as she recoils from another depth charge. But he can tell from the way it twists that this one has detonated too high to deal serious damage. From habit he glances at the dial that tells their speed, and notes it down along with the time: 1746 hours. The sun must be lower and lower in the sky, its light glancing off the tops of the waves, forcing the pilots of the Catalinas to peer down through a screen of bright noise. Another hour and V-Million will be completely invisible. Then, if Bischoff has kept careful records of their speed and course, dead reckoning will tell them approximately where they are, and enable them to run down the Palawan Passage in the night, or to cut west across the South China Sea if that seems like a good idea. But really he is hoping to find some nice pirate cove on the north coast of Borneo, marry a nice orangutan, and raise a little family.