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guard into an arm lock that forced his face down and set his head up like a football on a kicking tee. He’d miscalculated, inviting a world of hurt, and now all he could do was suck it up and take it.
    The key to a knockout blow is overwhelming the central nervous system and effectively tripping a circuit breaker. Boxers do this by delivering a jaw strike powerful enough that the brain not only smacks into the back of the skull, but also recoils forward to concuss the front, creating a two-pronged neural attack. I was no heavyweight boxer, but I was using a knee rather than a fist, which was like upgrading from .22 to .45 caliber ammunition, and my cross-country skier thighs packed a magnum load.  
    The sound told me I’d gotten it just right, a clean crack reminiscent of a home run baseball swing. The effect was as stark and immediate as flipping a light switch. He went from rigid to limp in a millisecond. I caught him and dumped him back behind his little podium while Jo looked on with wide eyes.
    “You were saying something about tactics and price?” she said.
    I shrugged. “He didn’t like my tactics, and so he paid the price.”
    “Will he be okay?”
    “He’ll be fine. Five hundred euros buys a lot of aspirin. Unfortunately, we’re now marked if anyone was watching. Let’s move.”  
    We headed back toward the VIP gate, hoping to get lucky and spot Emily right away. Without prompting, Jo split off a couple feet to my left, helping us better blend into the crowd. Her instincts were good.  
    The blue-carpeted dock was lined with pristine white vendor tents on one side, and envy-provoking yachts on the other. I hand-signaled Jo that we should divide our attention, with her scanning the yachts while I checked the booths.
    My eyes still roving, I got Oscar back on the mike.  
    “Where are you?” Oscar asked.
    I ignored his question and asked one of my own. “Who owns the jet?”
    “They’re peeling back the last layer of the onion now. Hold on. How are things on your end?”
    “We’re at the Monaco Yacht Show. We lost them at the VIP entrance — no tickets — but are inside now attempting reacquisition.”
    “You better do more than attempt, Achilles. Failure is not an option.”  
    Failure is not an option . Anyone who said that had never been in a firefight. I’d learned pretty fast when bullets were flying that failure was always an option. A bit of bad luck with a ricochet, or a weapons malfunction, put failure front and center. But I wasn’t about to fail.
    We were scanning the busy crowd with the intensity of desperation as we walked in the direction of the VIP gate. Michael had shed half his chauffeur’s uniform in the Mercedes, and emerged wearing just a white shirt and black slacks. Dressed that way, he matched half the male crowd, but with his broad shoulders and 6’ frame, I still hoped to spot him quickly. Emily, now about 5’8” with heels on and hair up, was wearing blue and gold silk. The dress would make her an easy mark in most crowds, but not this one. Blue and gold were nautical colors, and silk dresses more plentiful during cocktail hour in Monaco than either shorts or jeans.  
    “Got it,” Oscar said. “Arman Voskerchyan owns the jet. Know the name?”  
    “Russia’s wealthiest citizen, according to Forbes, although I’m sure his actual wealth pales in comparison to President Korovin’s. Is it his jet?” Of course it was , I thought. That made perfect sense.  
    “It is.”
    “I’m sure he owns a yacht or six. Are any of them at the Monaco Yacht Show?”
    “If he’s got his boats nested like his aircraft, it’s going to take a while to build a query. Voskerchyan controls over a hundred corporations, and they’re registered all over the world, from Shanghai to Lagos to St. Kitts.”
    “NASA allegedly spent ten million dollars to develop a ballpoint pen that would write in space. Know what the Russian Space Program did?”
    “Paid a NASA engineer a