The driver’s door opened, and a black Uzi submachine gun clattered to the stone slab. Its owner emerged a second later, a tanned male with dark brown hair, his back to Zack. His arms were raised over his head, and he knelt on the ground as instructed.

“On your face, hands behind your back,” Zack ordered, and the man complied. Zack let the HK hang from his neck on its tactical sling and unholstered his Glock. He moved forward and jumped down to the breakwater slab. “You move, you die. You understand?”

The man nodded in acceptance of his fate, and Zack reached him. Like a cowboy hog-tying a rogue calf, Zack secured the man as the rear doors of the Mercedes opened.

Zack spun on his heels, the Glock’s sights coming to rest on the beautiful, tanned face of Ray-Ray Moretti’s girlfriend. Moretti himself stood on the other side of the vehicle, watching Zack with interest. In his early forties, he was fit and handsome, with a dark complexion and slicked-back hair like a character out of the Sopranos, except that he had a look of bright intelligence that set him apart from the cast. He’s not afraid. How is that?

“What now? You going to execute both of us right here?”

“Weren’t you paying attention a few moments ago when I said that was exactly what wasn’t going to happen? I thought you were smart, other than your choice of friends,” Zack shot back. “Unless you want to die. If so, save me the time and tell me now, and I’ll oblige you. Your call.”

“No thanks. Not today,” Moretti replied in the defiantly sarcastic tone particular to New Yorkers.

“Good. Now, I need you to follow my instructions, which goes for you too, miss,” Zack said, directing his comment to Moretti’s stunning companion. “Please get back in the Mercedes and just wait there. I’m sure the Malta police are on their way. I’m sorry, but your boyfriend is coming with me.”

The woman looked across the top of the SUV at Moretti, who smiled at her, a genuine broadening of his face in warm relief and regret, and nodded. A moment later, she reentered the back of the SUV and sat stoically facing forward.

“Now what?” Moretti asked, looking around him as if waiting for more gunmen or a helicopter. “There’s nothing here, and like you said, nowhere to go.”

“Start walking toward the end of the breakwater,” Zack ordered as he circled around the rear of the SUV to join his captive.

“Are you serious?” Moretti asked with more skepticism than a man in his position should have.