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Florian’s divers jumped from the catamaran onto the deck of Merrit’s Azimut. The diver was tall and black, in a loose white linen shirt and trousers. MacClary spoke to him in French, instructing him to take the recovered artifact onto her dive boat.
    The diver hefted the water-filled cooler and its contents as if they weighed nothing. He asked MacClary what they should do about
le captif.
    “Rien,”
she answered. She glanced back at Krause. Merrit understood. He was not her problem anymore.
    MacClary’s diver nodded, turned, and stepped up on the Azimut’s side bench, heavy cooler in both hands, timing the swell of the waves for the perfect moment to leap from boat to boat.
    Merrit timed the waves as well.
    Just as the diver tensed to make his move, Merrit sprang from the deck, trailing nylon rope from his wrists, Renault’s yellow-striped knife in hand. With the same sure motions he practiced every day, with the same sense of calm he felt while diving, he swept out one leg, throwing the man off balance, the attack enhanced by the sloshing water in the cooler.
    “Florian!”
The cry came from MacClary’s dive boat—her second diver.
    Merrit’s momentum didn’t falter as the white-clad man fell back onto the deck and Merrit slashed once, deeply, across his throat. The man’s groping hands couldn’t stem the fountain of blood that spurted with each heartbeat of his dying body.
    Before Krause could even make it halfway through the forward cabin of the Azimut, Merrit had wheeled to face a startled MacClary and smoothly grabbed her and twisted so he stood with his back to the bulkhead, one arm around her chest, Renault’s knife at her throat.
    MacClary instantly resisted, attempting to drive her heel into his instep, but Merrit countered swiftly, slamming the knife haft into her temple.
    “Try that again, you’re dead. Understand?”
    Her body shuddered with fear or shock. Merrit didn’t care which. He shouted the question again, violently shaking her as he did. “Understand?”
    “Yes!”
    “Then tell them!”
    Krause was in the doorway to the cabin, transfixed by the sight of the knife at MacClary’s throat. The second of MacClary’s divers stood on the catamaran, struggling to keep an Uzi submachine gun trained on Merrit despite the rocking of both decks.
    “Stay where you are,” MacClary called out.
    “Throw the Uzi in the water,” Merrit ordered.
    The gunman hesitated.
    Merrit put pressure on the blade and felt MacClary stiffen as she tried to pull away. “Do it!” she cried.
    The diver’s face twisted in anger, but he pitched the weapon overboard.
    “Now both of you,” Merrit ordered him and Krause. “Into the water. Swim for the rocks.”
    Neither one moved.
    “After I’ve left, you can swim back to the cat. I only want the artifact.” He put his lips close to MacClary’s ear. “You’ve read my file. You know I can kill all three of you if I want.”
    “Go!” Florian said.
    Her diver leapt into the water. Merrit inched forward to see the man resurface, shake his head free of water, then strike out for the barren atoll one hundred meters distant.
    In the doorway, Krause slowly shifted position.
    “Don’t even think about it,” Merrit said. “Think about him.” He jerked MacClary’s head toward the body on the deck.
    The dead man’s neck wound gaped like a second mouth, his white shirt sodden with blood. The meteorite gleamed on the deck beside him, a shimmering black island in a sea of red.
    “Last chance,” Merrit said. “I don’t count to three.”
    Krause sprinted for the side of the boat and dove into the waves.
    “If you’re just in this for the money,” MacClary said, “I can pay you more than you’re getting now.”
    “I doubt that.” Her diver had reached the atoll and was now standing on the rocks, shading his eyes to look back at the two dive boats. Krause was still in the water, swimming.
    “One million? Two?”
    Merrit pushed MacClary away. “Your