“You’re crazy,” Fester managed to spit out.

“Come on, man, admit what you’re here for. You want my dick, don’t you? It’s all right. You can have it. Here.”

His heart was pounding so hard now he could feel it in his neck. He stood up and pulled down the front of the track pants.

“What the fuck?” Fester said.

“It’s all right, man,” Dox said, shuffling toward him. “I’m attracted to you, too.”

“You’re fucking sick!” Fester hissed, rooted to the spot.

Dox kept moving forward. Eight feet, six…

“Here,” he said, reaching inside with a manacled hand and freeing what a long-ago girlfriend had christened Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster. “There you go, it’s okay.”

Five feet. Fester’s face was contorted in horror and confusion.

Three feet. Dox let the track pants snap back in position. He bent at the waist, aimed with his shoulder-

Fester’s paralysis broke. He turned to the door as though to escape.

With a wild yell, Dox hit him in the back with his full two twenty-five. Fester slammed face forward into the door and the battery and wires hit the deck. Dox shuffled back, ready to launch himself again, but the chains slowed him. Fester turned. Dox shot up from underneath, and the top of his head nailed Fester in the face with a satisfying crunch. The impact rocked Fester back into the door. He grabbed Dox’s shoulders on the rebound to try to shove him away, but Dox surged up against him, his palms forward, the chains cutting into his wrists. His straining hands found Fester’s package, and he latched on and squeezed for all he was worth. Fester screamed and tried to jerk away, but he was up against the door now, Dox’s weight pressed against him. He managed to shove Dox’s shoulders back but couldn’t break the death grip on his balls. Dox twisted inside Fester’s hands and slammed up against him again, then shifted his grip and squeezed harder, yelling now with the effort.

Fester braced his temple against the side of Dox’s head and tried to lever him away. Dox retracted a fraction and as Fester’s face slipped past him he lunged forward like an adder and bit down on Fester’s nose. Blood spurted into his mouth and Fester, shrieking now, managed to jerk to the side and create space. Dox tried to adjust but again the chains slowed him. An elbow connected with his cheek but he hung on. He could barely hear Fester screaming now, the whole of his being was focused on squeezing, squeezing…it was all he had and if he lost it, if this didn’t put Fester down, where he could bronco stomp him or knee drop him, he was done.

Fester hit him with another elbow, then a third time, and suddenly Dox was falling. He couldn’t break the drop with his manacled hands and took the impact on his shoulder. He brought his legs in, trying to roll away and get to his feet, but Fester stayed with him, kicking him now, wildly, out of control.

Dox kept rolling, but Fester, screaming, didn’t let up for a second. One of the kicks connected with the back of his head and he saw an explosion of white. When the flash faded, Fester had stepped in front of him, and the next kick caught him squarely in the face. He head rocked back but he couldn’t do anything to cover up. He tried rolling away again, dazed, but Fester easily stepped around him and just kept kicking.

Dox managed to roll to one of the walls and fetal up with his face to it, and for the next minute Fester vented his rage at Dox’s back and legs. The blows didn’t really hurt, exactly; he was too jacked on adrenaline and fear to feel much, and anyway there were too many impacts to distinguish. Mostly what he felt was a series of cascading thuds that reverberated through his body, like he’d fallen down under a rock slide.

Finally it stopped. Dox blinked and spat out a mouthful of blood, his or Fester’s or both he didn’t know. He tried to get his feet under him, but he couldn’t move. He wondered distantly whether Fester had cracked his spine. Well, it didn’t really matter now.

He felt the heel of Fester’s boot in his shoulder, easily turning him onto his back. He lay there, numb and exhausted and helpless. Fester squatted next to him, his breath heaving, his nose mangled and his face a bloody mask, and presto-a blade appeared in his hand. He took Dox by the hair and brought his face close.

“You like showing your dick, motherfucker?” he hissed, his teeth strangely white through all the blood. “You know what I’m going to do now? Cut it off for you and stuff it in your mouth. And your balls with it.”

Dox spat a huge wad of blood and phlegm into Fester’s face. He did it without thinking, but he was immediately glad. Without exactly meaning to, he’d answered the question of how he would leave this world, and he’d answered it well. Maybe it wasn’t much, but it was all he had now, and he held on to it tight, hoping it would carry him through the rest.

Fester wiped the glob from his face and flung it away. He kneeled on Dox’s chest, driving the breath out of him. Dox tried to twist away, but he might as well have been nailed to the deck.

“Here it comes, motherfucker,” Fester said. “I hope you like the taste.”

32

HOW’S IT COMING?” I said, into the wireless earpiece I was wearing.

“Good,” Boaz answered. His words were slightly slurred, and I understood it was because he was talking without moving his lips. “A lovely afternoon. So far no one who looks like a sentry.”

“I can see you now,” I said, and it was true, his Hawaiian shirt was impossible to miss, even without the binoculars. That was part of the point-he looked like the antithesis of someone trying not to be spotted. If you’re going to be noticed anyway, you’re better off hiding in plain sight.

I was kneeling in the back of Kanezaki’s van. The van was configured for cargo, not passengers, and had no seats beyond the two in front. We were parked nose out in the yacht club parking lot. Naftali was diagonal to us, facing us from twenty feet away. Both vans had a pair of fake plates magnetically attached over the real ones. Layers again.

“Good, good, everything is good,” Boaz said, taking his time, a fishing pole slung over his shoulder, the camera pack and the bolt cutter case hanging off his back, the Nikon dangling from his neck. He was wearing a baseball cap and shades, a sensible enough precaution against the strong tropical sun. The blond wig protruding from the back and sides of the cap would be a little more difficult to explain on practical grounds alone, but it would certainly throw off witnesses. The rest of us were similarly attired.

I watched him go down the first perpendicular pier. With the binoculars, I could make out the names of a few of the boats, but not many. I didn’t see Ocean Emerald.

“Don’t see it yet,” I heard him say, and watched him turn around. He walked back to the main pier, then repeated the operation on the second perpendicular. I scanned the area, looking for anyone reacting to him. Everything seemed okay.

I watched him walk down the third perpendicular, then the fourth. I started to get nervous. What if they’d put to sea? Maybe Hilger got spooked, decided they’d been in Singapore too long, put the boat in north to Malaysia, south to Indonesia. Or he’d changed the boat’s name somehow. Or Kanezaki’s intel was off…

Boaz walked to the very end of the pier and made a right on the last perpendicular. He strolled slowly along. The bows of the boats were facing toward me, and so was Boaz, as he examined their sterns.

“It’s here,” he said, continuing to walk to the end of the perpendicular as though appreciating all the lovely yachts. “Halfway. I just went to the other side of it.”

“I’m on my way,” I said. I stepped out of the van, a fishing rod in my hand, the coveralls concealing the HK on my thigh, my heart starting to kick with adrenaline.