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kept her cool. “I need my phone back.”
    He found the unit in his pocket, dropped it to the floor, and shattered it with the heel of his shoe. With his trash in hand, he and his companion strutted away.
    She watched as they left the mall.
    Pleased the fish had not only nibbled the bait, but swallowed it hook, line, sinker—even the whole damn boat.

 
    SIX
    V ENICE
    Malone fired up the inboard motors, which sputtered then, as he readjusted the throttle, roared to life. He backed the launch out of the boathouse. The V-hull looked to be a fifteen-footer, all wood, and he could feel the engines’ powerful hum. He knew little about the lagoon except that its navigable routes were defined by lighted pilings, bicoles, there to help boats avoid the mudflats, tidal islands, and salt marshes. Merchants and men-of-war had plodded these waters for centuries, the currents fed by the ebb and flow of the sea, so treacherous that no enemy had ever taken Venice by force.
    He decided to follow the lighted route and head back toward town, then round the main island for the cruise ship dock that sat on its west end. When he’d left the ship earlier, water taxis and private launches were ferrying people to and from that dock. Another one would not be noticed.
    He found the lagoon and shifted the throttle from reverse to forward. Boats were no strangers to him. His late father was career navy, achieving the rank of commander. He’d matched that rise, spending nine years on active duty before being reassigned to the Magellan Billet. Back in Copenhagen he occasionally rented a sloop and enjoyed an afternoon on the choppy Ø resund.
    He swung the bow around.
    Another boat appeared from the darkness, its profile rushing straight at him at high speed. In the dim light he saw two men, one aiming a gun his way. He dove down as pops rang out and bullets thudded into the windshield.
    Where the hell had they come from?
    He yanked the wheel hard right and headed away from Venice, toward the island of Murano and its glass factories, which lay just northeast of Isla de San Michele. A channel about half a mile wide separated the two locales, marked with more bicoles, their lights signaling a path north in the darkness toward Burano and Torcello. He pushed the throttle forward, and the diesels’ even roar knifed the bow across the calm water.
    His assailants were behind him, but gaining, both boats scudding across the surface in clouds of noisy spray. He found the channel and stayed between the lights on either side, the path about fifty yards wide and illuminated like a fairground. He could take the two men behind him, but he needed room to maneuver—and some privacy would be good. That helicopter crash had certainly attracted attention, and the guard on San Michele had surely called the authorities by now. Police boats could come from anywhere at any time.
    He turned east, then back north, heading away from Murano. The boat behind was gaining. He still toted his gun with a full magazine, but hitting anything from a pitching deck in the dark, while trying to stay in the channel, seemed unlikely. Apparently his pursuers had come to the same conclusion, as no more shots had been fired.
    The second boat swept in close.
    One of the men leaped across, slamming his body into Malone. He lost his grip on the wheel. They tumbled to the deck. The boat veered left. He catapulted the man off him and tried to regain control, but his assailant lunged. In the darkness he noticed Asian features, the compact frame hard as steel. He swung around, pivoting off the wheel, and kicked the man in the face, sending him reeling toward the stern. He stuffed a hand into his back pocket, found his Beretta, and shot the problem in the chest. The bullet’s recoil propelled the body over the side and into the water.
    The second boat remained on him, pounding into the starboard side, trying to maneuver him out of the channel. They were racing along, still within the lights that