“I’m sorry about your brother,” he said, “but those two ships were overinsured by almost forty million dollars, so let’s not overplay the victim card. Each of—”

“How dare you—”

“Each of the missing ships had a very similar profile in terms of tonnage, cargo, and routes, which means that these hijackings were not targets of opportunity. These were intelligence-led operations, led by a very capable and very dangerous organization. Someone knew the ships’ routes, cargo, and timing—probably someone on the inside.”

She sat down behind the desk.

“First of all,” she said, “the excess insurance proceeds were closer to thirty-three million, and you obviously have no idea what happened to that money.”

She typed something on the computer keyboard in front of her and turned the monitor to face Jake.

“Excluding my brother, forty-one crewmen did not return home. Their families each received a million dollars—all of the excess proceeds, plus eight million from the company, which is one hundred percent owned by my family.”

Jake examined the spreadsheet. It was the names of the forty-one sailors, their beneficiaries, addresses, bank routing numbers, local currencies, and dates of payment. It could have been fake, but she hadn’t even known he was coming.

Athena stood and walked him to the front door. “We didn’t call you because we lost a couple of ships,” she said. The edge in her voice could have split a block of marble.

“Good-bye.”

TWENTY-THREE

JAKE WASN’T GIVING up just yet. The more he analyzed the data, the more convinced he became that the pirates had someone on the inside—someone who was feeding them advance intel on the targets.

And the two Romanos ships were the first to fall.

He spent the night at the Westin Astir Palace in Vouliagmeni and called Athena’s office the next morning to schedule an appointment. She acquiesced after his sixth attempt and agreed to see him for ten minutes at the end of the day.

The company’s offices occupied the top three floors of a five-story glass-and-steel building in Glyfada. Jake arrived ten minutes early and was escorted into a conference room with seating for thirty and a spectacular view of the Saronic Gulf. The island of Aegina, twelve miles off the coast, looked as if he could reach out and touch it. Lining the conference room walls were models of ships and dozens of deal mementos called “tombstones,” eight-inch-high acrylic blocks with the details of various ship purchases and cargo deals encased in the heavy plastic. Jake found the tombstone for the Lindos, the first ship taken by the pirates, and took it down from the shelf to read the details.

“That was my brother’s ship,” said Athena. She was wearing a fitted black suit and a printed silk scarf. Her dark wavy hair was pulled back tight.