“You’ve known the man longer than I have. Any ideas where could he have taken her?”

“Not specifically.”

“His company owns a mercenary ship. Is that where he’s taken her?”

“I don’t think so. He mentions his family roots. That implies dry ground. He could be talking about Spain, where the Baltazars moved after the Crusades. Although their ancestral home was on Cyprus. That’s where they prospered for many years. It’s either Spain or Cyprus. I’d stake my life on it.”

“Make up your mind, Saxon. It’s not your life I’m worried about.”

“Sorry. Um—wait. After my boat was torched, I learned what I could about the Baltazars. A shadowy bunch. But I found references to them in the history of the Knights Templar. The Baltazars were connected to the Templars but apparently broke off or they would have been wiped out with the rest of the Knights. The order’s symbol was the bull’s head, which can also represent one of the incarnations of Ba’al.”

The bull’s head.

Austin let his mind drift back to the helicopter flight he and Joe had taken after the containership hijacking. The chopper had come in low over a mineral ship and he had seen the bull’s-head symbol for the first time. Below the ship’s name was its port of registration.

Nicosia. Cyprus.

“Thanks, Saxon. You’ve been a great help. Tell Joe I’ll keep in touch.”

Austin clicked off and relayed the substance of his conversation to Flagg.

“Cyprus,” Flagg said. “That’s the other side of the world.”

“Close to the Turkish coast. If I had known Baltazar might be headed that way, I would have stayed in Istanbul. Do you have anyone there?”

“We’ve got a guy in place who grew up on the island. We’ve got additional assets in that region. I could spring a few guys to give the gentleman a big surprise.”

“Baltazar’s dangerous. He’s not going to let anyone get in the way of his family destiny. He’ll kill Carina before anyone can get to him. Have your guys track him down and move in only if they have to. I’ll see if I can commandeer a NUMA plane in the meantime. I’ll only be a few hours behind him.” Austin shook his head. “Unfortunately, he can cause a lot of trouble in that time.”

“That’s why I was thinking you might get there ahead of him.”

Austin was in no mood for jokes. “I didn’t know the CIA had mastered teleportation.”

“Nothing that sophisticated. I was thinking of the Blackbird.”