Remo looked in the direction she had her binoculars trained. Chiun did, too. Neither of them saw anything unusual.
"What are you looking at?" asked Remo.
"Nothing in particular. I'm thinking out loud. We're smack in the middle of what may be the battleground for the twenty-first century the way these waters have been overfished."
"Maybe."
"Look around you. Show me the difference between sovereign Canadian waters and U.S."
"Can't. It all looks the same to me."
"How about international waters? Can you tell it apart from the others?"
"No," Remo admitted.
"No. Not by color of sea or sky. Not by the crinkling of the waves. Nor by the peaks of the waves or the depths of the troughs or the taste of the salt spray. You can't fence it off or build on it or grow food on it, but you're looking at something that other nations have fought over before. The right to take fish. NAFO's got this area treatied up pretty well now, but it can't hold. The center cannot hold."
"What center?" asked Chiun.
"Figure of speech. NAFO treaties stipulate the takings. But the way the groundfish stocks are dwindling, it's only a matter of time before those treaties are discarded. People have to eat. And fishermen are going to fish. It's in their blood."
"Don't you mean NATO?" asked Remo.
"No. NATO's the North American Treaty Organization. NAFO stands for Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization."
"Never heard of it," grunted Remo.
"You will. Everyone will. When I joined the Coast Guard out of Ketchikan, I thought I'd be rescuing boaters and breathing clean salt air. Instead I ended up chasing drug runners and gun runners and trading shots with low-life scum who figured it was better to burn their own boats to the waterline than be boarded. Finally I got so sick of it I requested to transfer to Atlantic duty. I have a feeling deep in my nautical bones that I'm on the front line in the next great global war, and before long all this foggy salt air is going to be full of hot, burned gunpowder."
"Not a chance," said Remo. "People don't kill over fish."
Sandy looked at him steadily. "You were down there. See much life?"
"No."
"Seafloor looked like it had been dredged clean, correct?"
"Yeah. But it's winter."
"Where do you think the fish are? Wintering off Florida? Hah! The big factory ships just come along with nets the size of football fields, weighted down with chain and tires, and scoop everything up. The fish they don't want, they throw back dead. They call that the by-catch. Only now people have to eat by-catch trawler trash because the prime fish are gone."
"It's a big ocean and it's not the only one," Remo said defensively.
"Today was Fort Sumter. Tomorrow we'll have Pearl Harbor," Sandy replied, turning her gaze back on the seemingly limitless sea. "And it's happening the world over. The Pacific salmon catch is verging on collapse. In the Gulf of Mexico red snapper is down. Russian trawlers are trading shots with Japanese and Korean poachers in the Sea of Okhotsk. The Scots are shooting at Russians in their waters. French and English destroyers have faced off over Channel Islands fishing rights. So have Norway and Iceland up in the Arctic. The Palestinians and Israelis are at each other's throats in the Mediterranean over grouper. The marine food web is coming part, and we're all responsible."
"Fishmongers!" Chiun hissed venomously. "I will not be denied my rightful share of the ocean's bounty."
"Another port heard from," Sandy said quietly.
Remo said nothing. He was thinking of how close he had come to being fish food.
AS DUSK DESCENDED, they came upon a great gray ship.
"Take a look," Sandy said. "You are looking at the prime reason fisheries are falling to ruin. That's a factory ship. A floating butcher shop for unlucky fish."
Remo sniffed the air. "I can smell it."
Sandy trained her glasses on the gray vessel's fat stern. "Let's see if she belongs in these waters or not."
Remo read the stern. "Hareng Saur?"
"French," said Sandy.
"What's it mean?"
"Don't know. My French is stuck in the fourth grade."
Remo looked down at the Master of Sinanju. "Little Father?"
Chiun's hazel eyes were on the name on the boat's stern. "Pah! It is only a red herring."
"What's that supposed to mean?" said Remo.
"That is the name of the vessel. Red Herring."
Sandy made a face. "Strange. I never heard of red herring."
"Nor have I. I do not care for herring. Too many bones."
"A red herring is a fake clue in a mystery story," said Remo. "What kind of ship would have a name like that?"
"A ship of death," grunted Sandy, turning her field glasses elsewhere.
They left the Hareng Saur behind them, where it was swallowed by the gray of the sea and the lowering leaden sky.
An hour later the sonar scope started to ping strangely.
"What's wrong with this thing?" the helmsman wondered aloud.
Sandy Heckman took one look and said, "The scope's blank. It's pinging."
She grabbed up a set of hydrophones. "It's even worse on this." She listened intently.
Chiun leaned in, interest on his parchment mask of a face.
"Pingers," Sandy said, snapping her fingers suddenly.