“Like the man said, we promised not to kill him. Never said anything about turning him over to his victims. Guy had already stopped screaming by the time we were out of earshot.”

That was what had sent Juan back to Switzerland for a meeting with Bernhard Volkmann, which, as Juan recalled while sipping at his brandy, had gone as well as he’d expected.

Volkmann had agreed to buy the sixty tons of gold that had followed Juan to Switzerland in a couple of airfreight containers. He agreed to establish a trust with half the proceeds on behalf of the Chinese workers who’d mined the gold, and he agreed that he would then sell his bank and retire to the slums of Calcutta, where he would devote the rest of his life to charity.

For his part, Juan agreed not to put a bullet through the greedy bastard’s head.

A light knock on his door jerked Juan back to the present. The press interest in the explosion and kidnapping of Rudolph Isphording had long faded, and he looked nothing like the dark-haired, dark-eyed, and mustached Spaniard he’d pretended to be when he’d rented the safe house, so he walked calmly across the living room and swung open the door.

“Hi, sailor, remember me?” Tory wore her hair up, accenting the long line of her neck, and her blue eyes captured the glow of the fireplace and reflected it back at Juan. She wore a loose gray suit over a white oxford shirt buttoned low enough to catch his attention. Her lips were brushed with gloss and were poised in an unsure smile.

“I never expected to see you again,” Juan finally stammered. She’d disappeared soon after the Oregon docked in Vladivostok without so much as a word of good-bye.

Her smile faded slightly. “Are you going to invite me in?”

“Sure, sure.”

He fixed her a drink and was careful to sit opposite her in a chair rather than next to her on the couch facing the fire.

“I didn’t think you were going to see me again,” she began, “but Max called me in London and dispelled some of my preconceived notions. I saw you as the rakish sea captain with your merry band of swashbucklers and figured you would have a girl in every port. I realized that I didn’t want to be another notch on your sword belt, so rather than let myself get hurt for falling for the wrong kind of man — again — I decided to go home and spare myself a touch of heartache.