Roxana stayed where she was, eyes locked on the knife.

“No?” he said after a few seconds. “Maybe you would like me to bring some friends. That will make this a very special night for you.”

She said nothing.

“Yes . . . one of my roughest men holding you down, with he and I passing you back and forth.” He smiled. “Won’t that be fun?”

He stepped around to the left of the bed. Roxana scooted to the other side, but he didn’t leap for her or come at her with the knife at first. Instead he pressed the button on his end table. She heard a loud click and realized he had just unlocked the door.

The Greek called out now. “Anton? Come in.”

Roxana said, “I swear I will kill you if you touch me again.”

Kostas just laughed and crawled onto the bed in front of her, and unsheathed his knife. She backed away as much as she could, pressing herself tight against the headboard. When he moved closer she slid off the bed but found herself in the corner by the other nightstand, with nowhere to go.

Kostas lunged at her, forcing another scream out of Roxana. He crawled all the way over the bed and landed on the floor on the other side, all but pinning the young Romanian girl between the bulkhead and the side of the bed, with the nightstand and the wall behind her.

He waved the shiny blade back and forth in front of his face, then moved forward again. This time she clawed at his face, scratching at him.

He swung the knife towards her reflexively. It missed her face by inches, but only because she fell backwards on the nightstand and then down to the floor.

Roxana was on her knees in front of the Greek in the red robe now; she couldn’t see who came through the door behind him, but she heard it open, then close and lock.

The old man had all the advantages here: he had the knife, he had another man to help him, while she had her back to the wall and nowhere to maneuver.

The young Romanian woman readied herself for his move down onto her; her plan was to try to take the hand with the knife and jerk the man off balance, then disarm him and slit his throat.

She knew the guard behind him would only shoot her for doing this, but she told herself she would rather die than submit.

She reached up and clawed again, and her nails raked across the old man’s right cheek.

The man rubbed a hand over his face, then looked down at the blood on it. He screamed now. “Jaco was right about you! You aren’t worth the trouble! Better I just cut your bitch throat and toss you overboard. I’ll tell the Director you committed suicide, and no one will ever talk.”

He moved at her with the knife poised to strike.

And then, without warning, Roxana watched as his scratched and wrinkled face turned from pale gray to bright red in an instant. Roxana couldn’t tell what she was looking at, but quickly she realized she wasn’t, in fact, looking at his face. It was a red silk scarf being brought down over his head, finally continuing down lower to wrap around his throat.

And there it cinched tight.

The old man’s eyes went wide with shock. He tried to swing back with the knife, but Roxana watched while a gloved hand at the end of an arm in black deftly disarmed him, and then the old man in the red robe was lifted up into the air, his arms and legs flailing just feet from the Romanian in the corner on her knees.

She stood up, pushed herself tighter into the corner, and she could see the new person in the room now. He wore a wetsuit and a hood over his head, but she saw enough of his face to register a short beard and intense eyes. He dragged the man over the top of the bed, finally heaving him back and into the middle of the stateroom, his bare feet dangling over the carpet as he was hanged by the silk scarf.

Behind him, just this side of the door to the hall, the bald-headed guard in the black polo lay crumpled, his eyes open in death.

The diver must have dragged in the body before shutting the door.

The man in black spoke now, right into the Greek’s right ear. In a soft, low voice that was strained with the effort of holding the man in the air by the throat, he said, “You like it rough, buddy? I’ll show you rough.”

The old man’s eyes locked on Roxana’s, and then they slowly rolled back in his head.

She held her hands in front of her mouth as tears ran down her face.

The man in the wetsuit lowered the dead body down to the floor, then stood back up and looked her way.

Roxana wanted to scream, but instead she held her breath, terrified of what would happen to her now.

The killer moved a few steps closer to the end of the bed, looking to her. He jerked his head towards the body in the red robe. “Who’s he?”

Roxana cocked her head in bafflement.

TWENTY-NINE

   The girl doesn’t appear hurt and, from the look in her eyes as I put my makeshift garrote around the old dude’s head, she’s a fighter. She was prepared to die in combat rather than yield to her attacker, and I have nothing but respect for that.

Maybe I shouldn’t have killed him, but the logistics of getting him off this boat along with Roxana didn’t compute. I figure I can swim out of here with one person, and I’d much rather that person was going along willingly. The moment I saw Roxana I decided she would get the other ticket off this boat. She could tell me where they were heading and who was who in this organization.

She spends five seconds staring me down, before replying in a halting voice. “He was . . . I don’t know who he was. How is it you don’t know?”

I don’t answer her. Instead I ask another question. “Are you hurt?”

She replies by saying, “There are many men with guns on this boat.”

“Tell me about it.” I ask again, “Are you hurt?”

She looks me up and down, and then at the two bodies on the floor. “How can you kill two men and then just have a normal conversation?”

I don’t agree this is a normal conversation, but I take her point. I look down to the two bodies. “They’re bad guys, right?”

She nods. “Very bad.”

I shrug. “Fuck ’em.” And then I ask a third time, “Are . . . you . . . hurt?”

“I . . . I am okay.” The shock of the moment seems to have her in its grip, but her eyes soon clear and she looks into mine. “It’s you . . . you were the man in the red room. The one who killed the Serbian?”

“You were there?”

She nods, looks to a point on the wall. “I was there.”

I want to ask her about what happened after I left the farm, but I have more pressing matters at the moment.