He pointed to a sleek yacht, thirty yards away down the wharf, in the shadow of the rusted bridge.

“Bézy is there?”

“You’ll see Mr. Bézy soon.”

That wasn’t an answer. Alessi was pushing me now, gently, toward the gangplank. I resisted. “Come with me,” he said.

“You lead the way. I’ll follow.” I didn’t understand what was happening. Was this a trick? Was this the moment to abort, as Rubino had insisted I must do if anything went wrong? I couldn’t know without going further.

Alessi walked up the plank to the wharf and turned left. This was my moment to flee. I could bolt off to the right and run, and keep running. But where would I be then? What would be my destination? It seemed to me, in that instant of decision, that the only thing I would prove in running away was my own cowardice. The impossible ambiguity of my position—half-reporter, half-spy—would remain with me.

I followed Alessi, walking several steps behind. As I moved off the dock onto the stone walkway that girded the wharf, several men fell in behind. I saw flickers of recognition from faces up ahead, in the direction we were heading. It was like watching a slight breeze blow through a field of grass. The blades barely moved. Theirs was a world of precision and discipline. They had their rules of engagement written out, neat and clean, telling them precisely what to do. I didn’t have any rules.

Alessi and I walked briskly down the stone walkway toward the waiting cruiser. I could see the name of the boat on her stern. She was the Serendipity, a fifty-footer rigged with radar and other gear for ocean navigation.

“Slow down,” I said to Alessi. We were almost there. There were more ripples of movement along the line of the dock. People sitting in outdoor cafés were poised in their chairs; loiterers in doorways were moving out of the shadows. Up ahead was a bus with smoked windows, its doors opened.

Alessi stopped. We were alongside the boat now. A steward was on deck, extending his hand to help me down.

“Time to go,” said Alessi. The boat was waiting. The engines were idling; the crew, fore and aft, was ready to shove off. Inside the cabin, I imagined, sat Michel Bézy, waiting for his moment to dicker with a reporter from The New York Mirror.