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into her constricted hands and fingers was almost more than she could bear. She held her hands together, then tried to make herself rub them.
    “Okay, I did for you,” Svetlana snapped. “Talk.”
    Heather wanted to ask her to free her legs, too, but she didn’t want to piss Svetlana off. But it was hard work to form words.
    “They sent their luggage ahead,” she said. Svetlana scowled at her. Maybe she didn’t understand. Heather tried again. “The cruise ship company took their suitcases. They sent them to Los Angeles. To put on the ship.”
    Understanding dawned. Svetlana closed her eyes slowly as if in frustration.
    Try to grab the knife , Heather told herself, staring at it. She won’t expect it. Go for it.
    But she couldn’t make herself do it. She was paralyzed, both with fear and the trauma of the long hours in restraints. Her legs were still tied to the chair. And how much damage could she do with a knife? Ilya was probably somewhere around here. Svetlana would yell for him. And tell him to bring a gun.
    “Okay, good, Heather Chandler,” Svetlana said. She turned to go and started walking out of the cell.
    The door was open all this time , Heather thought. If I hadn’t been tied up, I could have made a run for it.
    “Please, Svetlana, my legs?”
    Svetlana stopped walking. She hesitated for a beat. “ Nyet ,” she replied without looking at Cat. Then she shut the cell door behind herself.
    “Cat, I’m sorry,” Heather whispered.
    Come back for me…
    * * *
    “You understand what I am saying, Miguel,” Anatoly said. He had removed the SIM card from his phone and inserted a fresh one to place this call. He had stacks, piles of SIM cards and throwaway phones. It was nine a.m. in London now. Why did everything move so slowly every time there was need for urgency?
    “ Sí , Anatoly. No worries. You know what I can do. I have lots of people in L.A. for this kind of thing. I’ve done many jobs like this before. Successfully. I’ll get my people aboard and no one will know who they are.”
    “No one suspicious. The woman is a police detective.”
    “They’ll melt into the ship’s population. No one will realize they’re my operatives. I swear it.”
    Anatoly tried to picture the kind of people Miguel Escalante would send. Not gangbangers, that was certain. Miguel was a wealthy, classy Angeleno. He had moved himself out of the barrio early in life, become educated, moved in high circles. Yet no dirtier street fighter walked the alleys of East Los Angeles.
    If Anatoly were aboard the Sea Majesty himself, would he be able to identify Escalante’s soldiers?
    “Very well,” Anatoly said. “Do it.”
    “ Por favor , put the deposit in my offshore account.”
    Anatoly could feel himself relaxing. Just a little, but it was a welcome respite from all the tension. In his early years, he had questioned his suitability for this path in life. In the movies, those who operated outside the law were portrayed either as depraved monsters or heartless sociopaths. He was neither. He was a normal person, and just like any other normal person, he got nervous when business wasn’t going well. Even billionaires bit their nails when the stock market tanked.
    But he had more faith in the individual to whom he was speaking than anyone in his own organization, sad to say. Faith, however, was not the same as trust.
    “By the way, amigo, I assume you have not been contacted by anyone else,” he said slowly, “for any reason, about the Sea Majesty. ”
    “No, and if I am, I will explain to him—or her—that I am unable to be of service.”
    Like hell you will.
    Yes, faith was not the same as trust. The best strategy he could employ was to diminish the value of the chip to anyone but himself. No one else need wonder why he wanted it. Even though, of course, any good businessperson would.
    “Once we hang up, I’ll move them in. And I won’t call until I have results,” Escalante continued.
    At last. Someone who