1808, South China Sea.

The infamous Chinese Pirate Queen Ching Shih was as powerful as she was feared. When a rogue captain in her fleet dares defy her wishes, devastation awaits - and a ship full of plundered treasure sinks into history's deeps.

Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala have spent months on the trail of this legendary hoard. But their search is interrupted by a present-day threat - a freighter carrying eight of the most advanced computers ever produced has disappeared in the Western Pacific. In the hands of the enemies of the West, these could be the Information Age's most dangerous weapons.

Plunged into the middle of a cyber-war, Kurt and Joe's only allies are a group of pirates who operate under their own crude laws.

But with hackers to one side and pirates to the other, and the world's digital information at stake, the NUMA crew soon finds that knowing who to trust could be their most daunting mission yet . . .