“We’ve commandeered a restaurant in Gustavia for dinner. But first we’re going to a villa on the other side of the island for drinks.”

“Have you commandeered the villa, too?”

Zizi laughed. “Actually it’s being rented by a business associate of ours.”

A cell phone shrieked. It was answered on the first ring by Hassan, who handed it to Zizi after ascertaining the identity of the caller. Sarah looked out her window. They were speeding now along the Baie de Saint-Jean. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the headlights of the last Land Cruiser trailing close behind them. An image formed in her mind: Yossi at the helm of his scooter, with Rimona clinging to his waist. She dropped the image into an imaginary shredder and made it go away.

The convoy slowed suddenly as they entered the busy little beach town of Saint-Jean. There were shops and restaurants on both sides of the narrow road and sunburned pedestrians weaving haphazardly through the sluggish traffic. Jean-Michel swore softly as a man and a woman on a motorbike squirted past through a narrow opening in the traffic jam.

On the other side of the village the traffic thinned suddenly, and the road climbed the cliffs along the edge of the bay. They rounded a hairpin turn and for an instant the sea lay below them, mercury-colored in the light of the newly risen moon. The next town was Lorient, less glamorous than Saint-Jean and far less crowded: a tidy shopping center, a shuttered gas station, a beauty salon that served local women, a burger stand that catered to shirtless boys who rode motorcycles. Seated alone at a chrome-topped table, dressed in khaki shorts and sandals, was Gabriel.

Zizi closed his cell phone with a loud snap and handed it over his shoulder without looking to Hassan. Nadia was holding a strand of her own hair and inspecting the ends for damage. “There’s a decent nightclub in Gustavia,” she said absently. “Maybe we can go dancing after dinner.” Sarah made no reply and looked out the window again. They passed a cemetery with aboveground gravesites and started up a steep hill. Jean-Michel down-shifted and pressed the accelerator to the floor. Halfway up the grade the road bent sharply to the left. As the Land Cruiser swerved, Sarah was thrust against Nadia’s body. Her bare skin felt feverish from the sun.

A moment later they were heading onto a narrow windswept point. Near the end of the point the convoy slowed suddenly and turned through a security gate, into the forecourt of a large white villa ablaze with light. Sarah glanced over her shoulder as the iron gate began to close automatically. A motor scooter sped past, ridden by a man with khaki shorts and sandals, then disappeared. The door of the Land Cruiser opened. Sarah climbed out.