The blade and the pistol go in the utility pocket on my right thigh, and then I begin climbing the sea stairs again. I only make it a couple of feet before I drop back down, because a man in a short-sleeved black shirt is walking by from my right to my left. Luckily, I saw him before he saw me, but I nevertheless draw my blade and prepare to launch myself up the three remaining steps to shove it into his windpipe if he comes over here and peers down on me.

Thirty seconds later I chance another glance and find the deck clear of hostiles, so I move up the stairs towards the rear door to the saloon.

My objective is the master stateroom, at the top of a staircase out of the saloon on the bridge deck and then down a hall, aft. I don’t know who is in this room, but I’m certain that whoever the big cheese on board is, they are going to get the best cabin.

I make it up to the windows into the saloon and then duck down, crawling behind a little rear-deck bar area to get a view into the well-lit room. Right across from me is the diving deck. Several scuba tanks, buoyancy control vests, hoses, and other equipment are fixed by bungee cord to racks along the bulkhead.

I rise up on my knees but lower back down out of view as a slight list to port becomes apparent. It takes me only an instant to realize the boat is turning to starboard. Seconds later it begins to slow.

Are we heading in to land? Pulling my phone out of my pack, I take it from its waterproof case and turn on the GPS. It takes a minute to catch the satellite, but when it does it shows that I’m a couple miles off the coast of the Croatian city of Rovinj.

Shit, I think. Talyssa wasn’t exactly right, but she was close. La Primarosa was coming to northern Croatia, but to a smaller port than Pula for some reason, probably because I spooked them into changing their plans.

Thinking over my next move, I decide to take advantage of the opportunity the nearby diving deck affords me. I shoot across the aft portion of the lower deck crawling on my hands and knees under the windows to the saloon, and I grab the first scuba tank in the rack. Working in the dark I strap a vestlike buoyancy control device to it, and then I attach the regulator and BCD inflator hose to the tank itself.

I grab a few kilos of lead weights and drop them in pockets in the vest to help me sink below the surface.

Now I open the tank valve and check to make sure it’s full, test the regulator and emergency regulator by sucking air from them both, and then screw the valve shut again. I move the entire rig into the corner and throw a towel over it.

I crawl back over behind the little bar, knowing that’s the best hiding place here on the aft deck, unless, of course, some jackass decides to come out to make piña coladas.

But as I rise, I check the saloon again and see a man moving up the circular staircase on the far side, thirty feet or so from me. He’s wearing a black polo and carrying a small submachine gun on his chest.

I duck back down to cover but keep my eyes looking through the glass.

Right behind the armed man I see a woman. She is young with short blond hair. I don’t know who she is, but when she is followed by more women and girls, and they, in turn, are followed by a second armed man, I know exactly who they are.

A total of eight sex trafficking victims walk across the saloon and towards the port-side hatch to the main deck. The lighting in the saloon is good, so I’m able to look over the faces, but of the eight women I see, I don’t see anyone who looks even remotely like the picture I saw of Talyssa’s sister.

They are dressed in warm-up pants and yoga pants and T-shirts and sweatshirts; it appears their captors are treating them a lot better here than they’d been treated in Mostar.

At first I can’t figure out where they are going, but the mystery about where the women are headed is solved thirty seconds later when I hear voices and then footsteps across the aft deck on the other side of the little bar. The women round the stern of the vessel, then head on to the starboard side, where they disappear, moving along together towards the bow.

When the entourage comes back around a second time a couple of minutes later, I understand. The women are being walked around up here for some air and exercise.

I wait for them to pass a third time, but before a fourth trip around the deck I see the girls walked back into the saloon and led back down the stairs belowdecks.

I like my hiding place, but it’s not going to get me anything I need, unless some guy who looks like a sex-smuggling mastermind happens to walk by alone on the aft deck. I decide again I have to go for the master stateroom, which means the staircase that runs up the brightly lit saloon thirty feet away, but before I can move, I see motion through the window again. Another group of women, seven this time, are brought up and walked through the port-side hatch.

These girls are being escorted around the deck, just like the first group, obviously as a form of exercise.

Shit. I can’t go anywhere right now.

Eventually these ladies are taken back belowdecks, and six more come up. They travel the same slow, monotonous route around the deck.

I’ve looked at every single woman, and none of them look like Roxana.

After the last group goes down, the engines of La Primarosa begin to slow more, then it sounds as if they are being powered back to neutral. Boat crew and armed men in suits walk around in the saloon, so I’m still stuck where I am.

Soon I hear the voices of crew members over a walkie-talkie at the stern, and I imagine men standing back there, lowering the tender into the water.

Almost on cue, the tender’s outboards start up and I hear it rumble around to the port side.

I worry that they are going to start loading up the women to take them to shore, but instead I see a tall bald-headed Caucasian man in dark clothing coming down the stairs, with three armed men at his heels. All three head out the port-side saloon hatch.

A minute later I hear the tender leaving the yacht, and then the quiet returns.

The women have been given exercise and then they were taken back below, so the only thing I can assume is that the men who boarded the tender are heading to land to pick up supplies, or perhaps even more women.

I decide to wait here another few minutes, and then to make my way for the stairs.

TWENTY-EIGHT

   Kostas Kostopoulos had readied his quarters, showered and dressed himself, taken his pills, and sprayed on copious amounts of cologne.

He put on a red silk robe, leaving it open enough to reveal a hairy chest and a thin gold chain. He fingered the rings he kept on six of his fingers, and he slicked back his thin silver mane.

And when he heard the tender rumble away from the port side of his megayacht, he looked in the mirror and pronounced himself ready.

He walked over to the little built-in nightstand next to his king-sized bed and pressed a button on a console, and the lock in the door to the upper-deck passageway clicked open. He called out to his bodyguard.