Two hours after finishing our conversation with Solon, Boomer turned into a crushed shell parking lot at the top of a low-lying hill overlooking a small marina. The Petalioi Gulf lay before us, its deep blue water spread out as far as the eye could see. Boomer pulled into a parking space and killed the engine. I stepped out into the sunlight and met him at the back of the car. He opened the trunk, pulled up the spare tire, and reached his hand into the space behind it, coming out with an envelope. He slipped it into his back pocket and slammed the trunk shut. We took a series of plank steps down the hill to the marina, where a small white hut sat beneath a cluster of palms.
“I’ll meet you down at the docks,” Boomer said. “I’m going to call back to the team and check in.”
I stepped up to the window and tapped on the glass with my finger. It slid back, and a cool stream of air rushed out. An old man offered a broad smile, his leathery face deeply seamed from decades spent in the sun.
“How may I help you?”
“I would like to rent a boat.”
“Then you have come to the right place.” He produced a laminated page that outlined detailed options for rentals: deck boats, pontoons, jet skis, and sailboats.
“You are here on vacation?” he asked.
“Yes. A buddy of mine is with me. We thought we would get in some time on the water before we head back home.”
“And where is home?” he asked.
“Florida,” I said. “Key Largo.”
“Ah.” His face lit up. “I have been there. Many years ago. The climate here—it is like your Florida Keys. Do you want to fish?”
The temptation was real. I could almost hear the fish calling to me. “Not today. Let me get whatever deck boat you’ve got.”
“Certainly. I have a nineteen-foot Northstar. Two hundred horsepower Yamaha engine. Is that okay?”
“Does it have GPS?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I’ll take it.” He nodded and handed me a form to fill out.
“How long would you like it? Two, four, or six hours?”
I didn’t expect we would need more than four, but I told him six to be safe. After filling out the form, I handed it back and gave him a credit card. “Do you own the marina?”
“I do. My father made his living from the waters of the Aegean Sea.” He swiped the card down the side of the reader and handed it back. “And his father before him. And even his father before him. But I had to open up this marina almost twenty years ago. The fish—they are not what they used to be. Half of the species that remain are threatened by overfishing. They say that many of them will be completely gone in the next ten years. It is a very hard thing to believe.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Me too. Fishing has always been my life. Even now. But it does not pay the bills anymore.” He handed me a set of keys. “Slip number eighteen. On the second row.”
I thanked him and then found the slip with the Northstar. The boat wasn’t anything to write home about, but all we needed was something to get out on the water and safely back. I stepped aboard and had just finished entering the coordinates into the GPS when Boomer showed up.
“Everything good?” I asked.
“Langley is running down a list of all Adonis Galatas’s known associates and looking into their recent correspondence and activities. Other than that, everyone is pretty much holding their breath.” He stepped aboard and tossed off the lines as I started the engine.
I backed out of the slip and eased the throttle forward, idling through the no wake zone. Once we hit the marker, I opened up, getting us on plane before shoving the throttle to the stops. The wind rushed by, and I happily soaked in the smell of saltwater and the feeling of the sun on my face. Something about being at the helm of any boat has a way of making me come alive. A boat on the open water is the perfect marriage of technology and nature.
We arrived on location with ten minutes to spare. Boomer tossed the anchor, and I backed down on it, setting it into the sandy bottom thirty feet down before cutting the engine. The water lapped quietly at the hull, and a steady breeze rolled over the boat. Other than a sailboat on the eastern horizon, we were completely alone.
We waited the full ten minutes, and then another twenty. He still hadn’t shown. Boomer raised the bimini and got us under some shade. “I’ll give him another five minutes before I call Chachi,” he said. “I’m not in the mood to be jerked around.”
I wasn’t either, and with every passing minute, a small knot in my stomach grew increasingly larger. This was the only thread we had to follow. If this guy didn’t show, or if he did but didn’t have anything worth pursuing, then we were back to square one. Which was absolutely nowhere.
Ten minutes crawled by, and both of us grew more agitated. Finally, Boomer reached for his phone. “Hold on,” I said.
I listened and heard it again. A faint drone to the east. Boomer put his phone down. The drone slowly grew louder until we could make out a center console bearing toward us, and finally the rushing sound of water displacing across its hull.
Drawing near, the pilot throttled down until he was at idle speed. He raised a hand to us and tossed two fenders over his port side. The boat drifted over.
