The slight sounds of the night, the background noises of wind and tide were abruptly shattered by the distinctive crack and scream of the approaching shell. It exploded on impact with the water not twenty feet from the "Pallas'" starboard bow. The "Pallas," the defiant snarl of her emergency klaxon echoing across the water and challenging the dying wake of the explosion crash-dived. Lieutenant Commander Duncan Graham knew they had been lucky on this mission. Getting a desperately wounded man out of the Japanese-occupied Philippines had seemed an impossible task, but they had made the contact and succeeded. Now it seemed that their luck had run out. They were under attack, and all the advantage lay with the enemy. The Pallas was in enemy waters, and on board was the man the Japanese so desperately wanted to silence - the man who knew of their plans to wreck the Allied war effort in the Pacific. Moloch they had named him, and he had won the reputation as the best intelligence agent ever to operate against the Japanese. But Moloch was dying, the last great secret locked in his mind. And he was dying aboard the submarine sent out to bring him home.