Except for a single black bag, he carried nothing. He’d deposited $400,000 in a safe-deposit box at the Mail Boxes Etc. on the corner of Washington and Elwood—three miles from the airport in New York. Another $300,000 rested in the watertight money belts that clung to his waist under a suffocating coat. Thirty-seven hours had droned by since he’d abandoned his car to the lake, most of it crammed into window seats aboard four separate jetliners.

The yellow taxi he’d hailed at the airport slid to a stop on the gravel road by the pier. His mind hummed as if it remained at thirty thousand feet.

Casius tossed two hundred pesos over the seat and climbed out. Two cargo boats hugged the dock a hundred meters off, each loading for departure to the northern port of Tobago. From Tobago, their fruit cargo would be sold throughout the Lesser Antilles within the week. Passage would take either boat within two miles of Venezuela’s coastline just north of the Guyana—on the Venezuela border.

An old man with crooked black teeth squinted at him lazily. Casius nodded and smiled gently. “Señor.”

The man grunted and looked on.

Casius’s deeply tanned skin favored him in this environment, as did his khakis. But the crowd serving these boats was a rough one. He spent an hour roaming the pier, mixing in and passing by the ships as if he belonged.

He boarded the larger of the cargo boats on his third pass, during an especially boisterous argument over a spilled load of bananas, found a deserted cabin belowdecks that looked by the mess as though it had been used for the drying out of frequent drunks, locked the door, and slid under the bunk.

Midafternoon, the boat left the harbor under full power. Twice in the night men tried to open the door to the cabin. Twice they retreated mumbling angrily. By midnight, the boat ran just off the borders of Venezuela.

Casius peered from the window into a dark, pouring rain. He focused his eyes through the rain but couldn’t see the coastline. The thought of swimming in the dark now made his stomach turn.

He flipped the latch that secured the porthole window and pushed out. Layers of hardened varnish gave way with a snap. The window swung out to sea, immediately inviting gusts of wet sea air through the opening. He checked the gear he’d strapped to his bare body one last time—the money belts were cinched around his waist and one change of clothes was sealed in the black bag. The coat, the khakis, the shirt, and the shoes he’d worn on the flight would go out the window before him. Didn’t need them.