Four young men in white jeans and blue shirts sat around a table toward the rear of the large common room, eating their dinner as they watched a flat-screen television. None of them was the Bulgarian he’d passed earlier on the staircase. That man, therefore, was elsewhere, and so was the seventh deckhand. Perhaps they were in their rooms.

The television was showing a war film, and he heard American voices coming from the soldiers on the screen. They looked like brave young men, and they seemed confident as they fired at ill-dressed and bearded men carrying Kalashnikov rifles. Iraq, perhaps, or Afghanistan. There was a lot of blood. He wondered if the prince would approve of this movie.

One of the deckhands noticed him and said something to the other three men, who took their eyes off the television and stopped eating.

None of them stood, but at least one recognized him, because the man called out, in Russian, “Are you lost?”

Petrov remembered the man from the tender garage and replied, in English, “No. Are you?”

The man laughed tentatively, then asked, in English, “What do you have there, sir?”

“A gift from the chef for the crew.”

No one replied, and Petrov asked, “Where are your mates?”

The Russian-speaking man replied, “You will find Malkin on the bridge, standing watch. As for Diaz, he just left to assist your ladies in the salon—in any way he can.” He smiled.

The other three men laughed, and Petrov, too, smiled, knowing that six deckhands were now accounted for—Diaz dead in the valve closet, Malkin on the bridge and now similarly indisposed, and these four men a few seconds from joining their mates, leaving just the Bulgarian to find. Petrov asked, “And where is your Bulgarian shipmate?”

No one answered, and Petrov realized he had asked one question too many and the men were now staring at him and glancing at his towel-wrapped arm.

One of them asked, “What have you brought us?”

Petrov, still standing outside the door, glanced over his shoulder, raised his arm, and aimed the towel-wrapped submachine gun. “Smert.” Death. He fired a long burst at the men around the table, and the towel smoked and caught fire.

He ripped the towel off and flung it aside as he strode quickly into the crew area to the table where all the men had been knocked off their chairs and now lay on the deck in spreading pools of blood. Petrov flipped the MP5 onto single shot and fired into each man’s head, then turned and looked at the table, which was covered with splattered blood, food, and broken dinnerware. He spotted an unbroken bowl filled with sliced apples, and he helped himself to a piece before checking the pantry and the crew’s galley, which were empty. He then went from door to door and checked each room, but they were also unoccupied. The seventh deckhand, the Bulgarian, was still missing.

Petrov took a handheld radio from the belt of one of the crewmen and listened, but no one was communicating. Well, he thought, if Gorsky was having equally good hunting, The Hana was now a ghost ship. He put the radio in his pocket and found a pillowcase in a linen closet and put his submachine gun into it.

He looked again at the flat-screen TV. An American soldier with a sniper rifle was taking aim at a bearded man in a turban who held a Kalashnikov rifle. Yes, this was Afghanistan, but it reminded him of Chechnya. He pulled his Makarov pistol and fired two quick shots—one at the American sniper and one at the Islamist fighter. The screen transformed into a kaleidoscope of colors, then went black. Petrov smiled and walked out of the room.

Viktor Gorsky stepped off the spiral staircase onto the salon deck. A set of glass doors led to the long salon where a buffet dinner was laid out on the sideboard, though the ladies, still in their bikinis and cover-ups, seemed to be ignoring the food and enjoying the champagne that was being poured by two stewards. Soft music came from the wall speakers, and he recognized Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, which he supposed the prince had requested for his Russian guests.

One of the ladies saw him and called out in Russian, “What do you have there, Viktor? Come in. Why are you standing there?”

He stepped into the silk-draped salon and his eyes scanned the twenty-meter-long room of floor-to-ceiling windows. To the left was the side balcony, which was now occupied by three of the ladies. At the far end of the salon was the al fresco lounge where another three ladies were smoking and drinking.

One of the ladies in the salon said to him, “Where is your lover, Viktor?”

The other ladies laughed, but when Gorsky looked at them they stopped laughing. Gorsky forced a smile and said, “He has left me for the chef.”

The ladies laughed again, and one of them reached for the gift-wrapped submachine gun. “Is that for us?”

Gorsky held the blue package over his head and replied, “Yes. But you must earn it.”

A steward walked over to him and asked, “Can I help you, sir?”

“I am just seeing that my ladies are being taken care of.”

“They are, sir.” He reminded the guest, “Dinner is being served in the dining room.”

“Thank you.”

“May I show you to the dining room?”

“In a minute.”

Gorsky noticed that the other steward was on his handheld radio, apparently trying to call someone. Or someone had called him. But who was alive to call? Or to answer a call? In any case, it was time to act, before either of these stewards sensed that all was not right aboard this ship.

Gorsky called out, in English, “Ladies! I need your attention, please!”

The six ladies in the salon looked at Gorsky and he said, “I need everyone here.” He said to the stewards, “Go get the others.”

One steward went to the balcony, and the other who had been on his radio walked to the outdoor lounge.

One of the ladies asked, “What is it, Viktor?”

“Some good news.”

She replied, in Russian, “We don’t have to sleep with these Arab pigs?”

They all laughed.

Gorsky smiled.

The ladies from the balcony and the lounge were in the salon now, and the two stewards looked as though they were about to leave, but Gorsky said to them, “Please stay. This will take only a minute.”

Gorsky stood motionless, looking at the twelve women, and a feeling of sadness came over him. He had killed women before, but not Russian women—only Muslim women who were enemies of the Russian Federation.

“Viktor! Why are you standing there? Are you drunk?”

He looked at the woman, Tasha, the one who had given her phone number to the American. He would have liked to question her about the man, but Colonel Petrov wasn’t interested in any information that would abort this mission. And in any case, now that the killings had begun aboard The Hana, the mission was unstoppable.

The ladies were getting restless, and they were all probably drunk, Gorsky knew, and therefore more difficult to communicate with than usual.

One of them called out, “We want our cell phones back, Viktor.”

They all joined in agreement. “Our cell phones. Give them to us.”

He took a deep breath and said, “Yes, but first, the prince has a gift for all of you.” He held up his package, and though it was poorly wrapped and oddly shaped, he said, “There are diamond necklaces in here. And the prince wants a photograph of all of you wearing them.”

The ladies became excited and one of them called out, “Open it!”

“Yes, but now…” He motioned to the chairs around the coffee table. “You must sit and I will give them to you for the photo.”

A few of the ladies seemed impatient, but they all moved to the seating area where Tasha took charge, seating six of the women, with three standing behind them, and three kneeling in front, including herself.

“Excellent,” said Gorsky.