Pike made the boat for an eighty-footer, a fiberglass-and-steel diesel cruiser with a dark blue hull and cream decks. Boats were slipped by size, so this one was berthed with the other long yachts, near the end of the wharf with its bow to the channel. Pike didn’t see anyone on Jakovich’s boat, but he counted seven people moving on the boats nearby. Witnesses were good.

“Take us back to the gate, Jon.”

When they reached the gate, Pike gave Rina her phone. He had already told her what to say and how to say it.

“Remember—you’re alive as long as you help me.”

Rina made the call.

“Is me. I have to speak with him.”

They waited almost three minutes, and then she nodded. The old man had taken the phone.

“No, we did not get him. No, not Michael, either. Pike got the boy. Yes, he has the boy now, but Michael escape. You must listen—”

Pike could hear a male voice on the other side of her conversation. She talked over him to keep going.

“We are here at the gate, Milos. He is here. Pike.”

She glanced at Pike.

“He is sitting here with me. He want to see you.”

She glanced away.

“I cannot. If I say Serbian, he will kill me.”

Another glance.

“Yanni is dead.”

Pike took the phone.

“I shot him. I will do the same thing to Michael Darko, but I need your help to do it.”

The phone was silent for several seconds, but then the male voice spoke.

“Go to the gate. We will buzz you in.”

As Pike got out, Stone said, “Sink that bitch. Put it on the bottom.”

Jon was like that.

Pike was at the gate less than thirty seconds when he heard the lock open. He let himself through, walked down a long ramp to the wharf, then followed the wharf past the row of yachts. The sky was beginning to color, but the afternoon was still bright, and people were out.

Two large men were waiting, one on a lower fantail deck that jutted from the stern, and one a short flight of steps above on an upper deck. They wore Tommy Bahama shirts and carried a lot of fat, but they looked hard, with brooding faces and dark eyes. Pike decided he would be safe as long as he stayed on deck, and in the open. No one would pull a trigger with so many people nearby, and Pike didn’t think either or both men could beat him with their hands.

A balding man who appeared to be in his seventies was seated at a small round table on the upper deck. He had been a big man once, but his skin was beginning to hang like loose fabric. When Pike stopped at the stern, he motioned Pike aboard.

“Come on. Let’s see what you have to say.”