Juan Cabrillo and his motley crew aboard the spy ship Oregon have made a very dangerous living from working for high-powered Western interests. But their newest clients have come from the east to ask for Cabrillo's special brand of assistance.

They are Japanese shipping magnates, and their fortunes are being threatened by brutal pirates trolling the waters of Southeast Asia. Normally, such attacks on the high seas are limited to smaller ships and foreign-owned yachts - now, however, giant commercial freighters are disappearing. But when the Oregon confronts the enemy, he learns that the pirates' are hiding a deadly international conspiracy-a scheme of death and slavery that Juan Cabrillo is going to blow out of the water....