Verdoorn said, “If you think the Director will just change his mind about seeing her in Venice, or about bringing her to Rancho Esmerelda, you can forget it. He is a hell of a lot more headstrong than this stupid whore we’re transporting below.”

Riesling sighed. “I know. It’s up to us to have her ready for him.”

“Are you making some sort of a request?”

“I think some additional . . . intervention is warranted.”

The South African said, “You want her beaten? I can do it, but the boss won’t like it. He’ll want her healthy for his visit tomorrow.”

The American woman shook her head. “No. Not beaten. I need to create some sort of a bond with her quickly, so it might help if we could initiate some trauma of a . . . of a more personal nature. This will help her look at me as something of a lifeline, a kindred female. Right now I’m just another of her captors as far as she sees things.”

Verdoorn nodded as he ate his pork. “You want her sexually defiled, and then you want to come to her side to tell her you had nothing to do with it but can help her cope with what has happened.”

“That’s it exactly.”

“The Director won’t like that, either.”

“I can give him my professional opinion that this was the prudent move.”

Verdoorn thought this over, then nodded. “He will defer to your expertise.” After a sip of beer, he said, “I can send one of the Greeks into her cabin tonight.”

Riesling thought it telling that Verdoorn immediately said he could beat her, if necessary, but when it came to sex, he suggested someone else.

“I think that might prove extremely effective in cooling the fires of resistance in her. I suggest Kostopoulos himself. I know how he is with the girls. She will need a lot of help in her recovery after a night with him, and it will only make my job easier.”

Verdoorn agreed. “I’ll talk to him. No doubt he’ll be happy to do his duty for the cause.”

“If he does it tonight, by tomorrow when we get to Italy, I can all but assure you Maja will be more obedient and ready for the Director’s visit.”

“That’s what we pay you for,” Jaco said, then his attention returned to his meal.

TWENTY-SEVEN

   Thirty minutes after Talyssa Corbu and I climbed into the speedboat, the Romanian woman has vomited twice, and I’ve almost thrown up a half dozen times. I came the closest when she didn’t quite make it to the side and puked all over the deck, but I managed to hold my lunch in, and now La Primarosa is at least two miles behind us: still heading north, still a little off our port quarter, with its brilliant lights perfectly visible in the clear night.

I’ve been monitoring my fuel gauge, knowing I’m burning a lot of gas, and now see I’m down below half a tank. Over the sounds of the engine and the waves, I say, “We’re not going to be able to lead them all the way up the coast. We have about thirty minutes of fuel left.” I think it over for several seconds, then spend a few more seconds trying to talk myself out of the plan I’d devised while motoring along.

But the voice of reason can’t break through and put an end to this insanity.

I hold the wheel with one hand while I bring the binos to my eyes, looking to see if there is evidence of anyone standing on the deck of La Primarosa. From this distance, while bouncing up and down on the water, it’s impossible to tell.

With a sigh, I say, “Looks like I’m going to have to try a bottom-up under way.”

“A what?”

“Raiding a ship from the waterline while it’s on the move.”

“That sounds difficult.”

I laugh. “It’s a little challenging, yeah. I’ve done it before, but not without a lot of equipment, and not alone.”

“How will you—”

She stops talking when I throttle back hard, putting the Mano Marine speedboat in neutral. It slows violently, knocking Talyssa and me both forward.

I could have warned her, but I hear the ticking clock in my head telling me I have to act fast. The time to hold her hand has passed. I tell her, “You’re going to have to drive the boat.”

After the ceaseless full-throttle engine rumble and the noise of the boat beating against the waves, the relative silence now is shocking. Talyssa stares at me in disbelief and dread, and I know what she’s going to say.

“Look. You showed me some things . . . but . . . but I’ve never done this before. I still don’t know how.”

“Do you know how to raid a vessel from the waterline while it’s moving at fifteen knots?” She doesn’t answer me, likely because she’s tired of my smartass comments. I add, “Trust me, you’ve got the easy part in all this.”

Talyssa leans over the side and vomits again. I just barely manage to suppress my own desire to hurl while I hold the wheel and focus on the approaching boat. I need to position myself nearly perfectly in the water to have any chance of pulling this off, and to get closer to the vessel’s path, I turn slightly to the west and add a little power.

It doesn’t take me long before I throttle back yet again, and we bob there in the darkness. The yacht is less than a mile and a half away, and closing steadily.

Talyssa sits there, staring at me, and I can feel the trepidation pouring off her.

“How are we going to do this?” she finally asks.

“I’m getting in the water, and you are going to pilot the boat in the direction of those lights on the coastline. Go slowly, one-third power. Make your way about halfway between me and the shore, maybe one mile out, and then throttle back to neutral. After La Primarosa passes by, keep your eyes out to sea, right here. If you see a light waving around in the water, that’s me, and I wasn’t able to get on board. Come and pick me up. If you don’t see anything for five minutes, head for land. You should be able to beach it easily, but be sure to pick an area where the shoreline isn’t too rocky.”

“I don’t know if I can do this,” she says.

“I can’t do it without you, and if I miss that boat and you don’t come for me, then I’m dead.”

“Don’t put me in that position!”

“Look around you! We’re in that position! We can go home and forget this, or we can go forward. The only way forward is for me to try to hit that boat, right now, while it’s on the move.”

Her meek voice has returned. “I’m just . . . scared.”

My voice isn’t meek at all, but I share her sentiments. “Yeah, me, too. Trust me, it doesn’t go away, but after a while, you get used to it.” I pull a bag of equipment up on the deck, retrieve my wetsuit, fins, mask, and snorkel. I leave my tank and the rest of my scuba gear because, as much as I’d love the ability to breathe underwater, there is no way I can pull myself aboard a swiftly moving boat with fifty pounds of shit on my back.