"I certainly am," Nick said. "I know that allowing us to be here with you means that you take us, and our business relationship, very seriously."

"Thank you, Nick. The people I contacted on your behalf entertained your proposal because they have personal relationships with me. If you have misled me, and cheat these people in any way, they will blame me for it. And then I will seek Diogo's advice on how to deal with you." Alves gestured to the jar. "My ancestor is not a forgiving or merciful man. Some of these jars contain recent donations to the collection from people who have disappointed me."

Kate couldn't help but glance at the nearest jar. A big floating eyeball stared back at her. She knew the chance to deliver this threat was the real reason Alves had summoned them here.

"Don't worry," Kate said. "We're all going to get very rich from this. n.o.body is going to be disappointed."

"I hope so." Alves reached into his breast pocket and handed Nick a slip of paper. "Here are three names. If you wish to contact them, I will make the arrangements. My commission will be deducted before you receive any funds."

"Works for me," Nick said.

"Let me and Diogo give you a piece of advice. Think very carefully before you take the next step," Alves said. "These are not men who suffer fools. But they do enjoy making fools suffer."

Nick and Kate returned to the ship, booted up Kate's MacBook at a table in the mess hall, and ran the three names that Alves had given them against Ryerson's list of chocolate customers. One name was common to both lists. Demetrio Violante.

"I'm not surprised," Nick said, sitting across the table from her.

"You know him?"

"I know about him. The same is true for every person who was suggested to us. I've sized them all up for fleecing at one time or another."

"I didn't know it was such a small world."

"The kind of person who has tens of millions of dollars to play with and is still greedy enough to take outrageous risks to acquire even more money is also the perfect mark for me."

"Was," Kate said. "You aren't swindling people anymore. What kind of hustle were you thinking about running on Violante?"

"A real estate scam," Nick said. "I considered selling him a resort development that's a ghost town now near Puerto Ba.n.u.s. The financing collapsed and it was abandoned when it was half-completed."

"But you don't own the land."

"I don't let insignificant details like that concern me."

"What made you think Violante would be interested in the property?"

"He showed up in Marbella a few years ago with lots of cash, ambition, and good luck. Within a few days of his arrival, he managed to buy one of the biggest and most successful construction companies in the Costa del Sol for next to nothing."

"How did he manage that?"

"The founding partner of the firm accidentally set himself on fire at a Marbella gas station and blew the place up."

"That's an unusual accident."

"The police say he lit a cigar while filling up the tank on his Bentley, which was odd, because he didn't smoke. The gas station, which was completely destroyed in the ma.s.sive explosion, happened to be on a key piece of property that the construction company needed to build a condo complex. But the owner's stubborn refusal to sell had forced them to scuttle the project."

"Let me guess. After the 'accident,' the remaining partners in the construction company suddenly decided to retire and the gas station owner sold the property."

Nick nodded. "And the detective who investigated the death and determined that it was a tragic accident later moved into one of the new condos. It's funny how things just manage to work out for some people."

"Hilarious," Kate said. "Let's see what Lester Menendez looks like now that he's Demetrio Violante."

"You won't find any photos. Violante doesn't allow his picture to be taken. He's very concerned about his privacy."

"I'm sure he is," Kate said. "Even with a new face and body. Where does he live?"

"On a peak outside of Marbella. It's like a fortress. The only way to access it is from a private road or by air. He has a completely un.o.bstructed 360-degree view from his property. He can see all the way to Africa. There's no way to reach his place without him seeing you coming."

"Which means he's probably got a secret escape tunnel."

"Who doesn't?"

"If you knew so much about Violante, how come you weren't aware of his pa.s.sion for chocolate?"

"There were a lot of things I didn't know about him. For instance, I wasn't aware that he was actually one of the most powerful and s.a.d.i.s.tic drug lords on earth."

"Would knowing that have made you sc.r.a.p the con you were thinking about?"

"The risk might have made it even more enticing to me. But the point is, I only knew the big picture. I would have learned the small details before mounting the con."

"More than what we know going into this one?"

"A lot more," he said.

"Doesn't that scare you?"

"I'm protected by an exNavy commando, a retired pirate with a razor-sharp machete, and a senior citizen with a garrote in his underwear," he said. "Why would I be afraid of anything?"

Reyna was naked and supple, with smooth, natural curves, a flat stomach, and long legs that she leisurely kicked, propelling her firm body across the lap pool. Her string bikini bottoms were draped carelessly over the arm of a patio chair and her ever-present AK-47 was propped against it.

Demetrio Violante sat in a silk bathrobe on his balcony, watching his bodyguard swim while he snacked on black chocolate truffles filled with champagne and flecked with twenty-four-karat gold flakes. The chocolate was delicious, and it pleased him to know that he was so rich that he c.r.a.pped gold.

From where he sat, he could look out over his lushly landscaped hilltop property to the whitewashed walls and terra-cotta rooftops of Marbella, to the peak of Gibraltar, and to the sh.o.r.es of North Africa across the Mediterranean Sea. Spectacular vistas, Violante thought, but not as spectacular as Reyna.

He watched her leave the pool and stretch out on a chaise longue. He liked to look at her. It was part of their foreplay. He studied her strong cheekbones, and her lips. It was a face shaped by evolution and DNA, not by implants and a scalpel. He especially appreciated that because he was now sewn into an uncomfortable costume of flesh.

In less than an hour Violante's driver would deliver the Hartleys. He hoped the Hartleys were the real deal because he was bored. He needed a new adventure. Acquiring the Santa Isabel treasure was especially appealing. He knew every detail of the shipwreck. He'd been obsessed with it as a child. Of course, there was no way he was going to pay the Hartleys the millions they wanted. Nor would he let anyone live who knew that the astonishing fortune had been found. The Hartleys, their crew, and even Alves would all have to die, but only after he'd made sure they hadn't told anybody else about the gold. That part would appeal to Reyna. She was really a delightfully sick young woman.

Nick and Kate were driven into Marbella by Violante's chauffeur in an S-Cla.s.s Mercedes along the aptly named Golden Mile. The boulevard was lined with ocean-view mansions and led into a shopping district filled with famous names such as Versace, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton. The streets were clogged with Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, Lamborghinis, Bentleys, and BMWs.

The driver steered them out of the city and headed north on the A-376 up into the Sierra Blanca hills. It wasn't long before the housing developments thinned out and the only homes left were widely s.p.a.ced modern-day castles on private hilltops separated from their neighbors by deep gorges.

They turned off the highway onto a winding single-lane strip of asphalt that climbed steeply, and precariously, up the hill. The road ended at a large iron gate set into a high stone wall with cameras mounted on the top and a small security booth out front, manned by an armed guard.

The guard peered in to look at the driver, gave Kate and Nick a quick once-over, and waved them through. The gate yawned open onto a cobblestoned driveway that cut through lush tropical landscaping and led into a courtyard ringed by eight garages. An elaborate fountain with a sculpture of Neptune holding a trident was in the center of the courtyard.

The sprawling two-story house was typical Spanish Mediterranean, with brilliant white stucco walls and brown-orange terra-cotta tiles on the roof. The exterior architecture included lots of arches, elaborate wrought-iron railings, rounded pillars, awnings, and balconies of all sizes, all adorned with overflowing flower boxes. It was a surprisingly floral touch for a bloodthirsty killer.

Kate noted the large satellite dish on the roof. She doubted it was used for watching ESPN and pay-per-view movies. It was large enough to contact extraterrestrial life.

Violante was waiting on the front steps to greet them. He was tall and slightly pudgy, and dressed in a loose white linen shirt and slacks. His wet, slicked-back, artificially brown hair had an unnaturally orange tint that matched the terra-cotta tiles. His tight, plasticized face looked to Kate more like a computer-generated videogame character than an actual human being.

"Thank you for coming to Marbella. I am Demetrio Violante." He gestured to the woman standing beside him. "And this is Reyna Socorro, my head of security."

Reyna's pixie-cut hair was platinum blond, and contrasted sharply with her pitch-black eyebrows and deeply tanned skin. She was also dressed in white linen, with an AK-47 slung over her shoulder as casually as a purse. Kate could tell from the way Reyna's flinty eyes studied them that the rifle wasn't a fashion statement. This woman was a killer.

"You've got nothing to fear from us," Nick said, shaking Violante's outstretched hand. "We're harmless archaeologists bearing gifts."

"You can never tell," Reyna said, looking at Kate. "It's the ones who appear harmless who are often the most dangerous."

"Thank you for sending the car to pick us up," Kate said, though she knew they'd done it more as a security precaution than as a courtesy. They wanted to control how and when their guests arrived. "It was very kind of you."

"We know we can be hard to find," Violante said. "Intentionally so, to be honest. Please come inside."

They followed him into a grand two-story gallery filled with natural light that flowed from overhead skylights, down through a transparent Plexiglas floor. A lap pool ran under the floor like a river, through the house and out into the garden. More light spilled in through the gallery's huge windows, intensifying the effect of the white-on-white furniture.

Kate squinted against the glare and thought it would be a miracle if everyone in the house didn't have cataracts.

To the left of the gallery was a book-lined study, and a guest bathroom, the door ajar just enough so Kate could see it was larger than her sister's kitchen.

"I thought you might enjoy something sweet while we talk," Violante said, leading them across the gallery.

The gallery opened to an outdoor living room that overlooked the Mediterranean. It was an unusually large covered balcony with overhead fans and comfortable white-on-white cushioned wicker furniture. A table in the center of the room was piled high with a huge selection of gold-flecked and gold-covered chocolates arranged around bowls of fresh fruit and a burbling chocolate fountain. It was the most amazing display of chocolate Kate had ever seen. She half-expected Oompa Loompas to come dancing out to introduce it.

Kate carefully selected one of the gold-flaked chocolates. "I a.s.sume these are edible?"

"Of course." Violante demonstrated by popping one of the smaller golden chocolates into his mouth. "The flakes are pure twenty-four-karat gold and biologically inert."

Nick chose a truffle and admired it as if it were jewelry. "Why would you want to eat something so valuable?"

"Don't let the glitter fool you," Violante said. "The chocolate is far more valuable than the gold coating it. Each piece is seventy-five percent pure dark chocolate, made with scarce single-origin cacao from private plantations in Madagascar, Chile, Cote d'Ivoire, Trinidad, or Ecuador."

"You really didn't have to do this for us," Nick said.

"On the contrary," Violante said. "A treasure in golden chocolate seemed only fitting to celebrate and honor your discovery of the Santa Isabel."

"These chocolates are fabulous," Kate said. "But they would look even better on golden dishes on a one-ton solid gold table."

Violante nodded. "I agree."

Nick handed Violante a picture of the table that Rodney had digitally created. The table was half-buried in silt and covered with concretions. It still looked magnificent.

"This would be treasure enough on its own," Nick said, "but the seafloor is covered with gold dishes and piles of coins. It's a spectacular sight."

A second picture showed gold coins and dishes strewn across the ocean floor, covering rocks, peeking through silt, wedged between bits of coral.

"How did you find it?" Violante asked.

Nick reached for another chocolate. "Years of research going through historical records, old maps, logbooks kept by sailors on other ships who saw the sinking, descriptions of the stars in the sky, that sort of thing. Boring, academic detective work. Then it came down to instinct and technology. We spent months at sea in the area where we thought the Santa Isabel had gone down. We dragged sonar equipment behind our ship and mapped the seafloor, looking for telltale anomalies. We were in our eighth fruitless month, our money and morale critically low, when we pa.s.sed over this vast, abyssal plane. That's when we started to see huge sonar spikes that didn't look like rocks."

"What did they look like?"

"Cannons," Kate said. "So we dropped our ROV, an unmanned sub loaded with cameras and things, into the water and sent it to the bottom for a look. We found the cannons, and a whole lot more."

"How deep down is the treasure?"

"About twelve hundred feet," Nick said. "It's not going to be an easy salvage, particularly if you don't want to attract any attention while you're doing it."

Violante waved off the concern. "Blindness is easy to buy."

"If you have the power and the resources," Nick said. "You do, we don't. That's why we're here. You can't imagine how infuriating it is for us to find one of the greatest treasures in the history of mankind and not be able to keep it all for ourselves."

"Coming to you is our way of at least getting something out of it," Kate said.

Violante's face was a frozen mask and eerily devoid of expression. "Seventeen and a half million dollars is more than something."

"It is if you take that amount out of context," Nick said. "But given the cash value, rarity, and historical significance of what you're getting in return, it's a pittance. Your treasure will make England's crown jewels look like costume jewelry by comparison."

"Not that anyone will know you have it to make that comparison," Kate said, helping herself to another chocolate. "Except us."

"And your crew," Reyna said.

"We'll take care of them from the money you pay us," Nick said.

"By the time we've paid Alves and everyone else their share," Kate said, "we'll be lucky if we can walk away with a measly ten or eleven million."

"You could be lucky if you walk away at all," Violante said.

Kate smiled at him. "You mean, what's to stop you from beating the location of the Santa Isabel out of us right now?"

"If I was that sort of person," he said.

"Thankfully, you're a civilized gentleman," Nick said. "But like Reyna said, you can never tell, so we've taken precautions. The wreck is mined with explosives. If the two of us don't return unharmed in the next eight hours, our crew will blow it up."

"So what?" Reyna said. "The gold will still be there."

"Over a much wider area and in particles so small, you'd have to sift them out of the sand," Nick said.

"It would take you months, and cost you millions of dollars, just to end up with the same amount of gold you've got right here decorating your candy. Hardly worth the effort. It would be much cheaper just to pay us."

Violante dipped an apple slice into the chocolate and took a bite as he leisurely considered what they'd said.

"You tell an interesting story, but that's all it is," he said. "You could be a couple of daring con artists. The coins could have come from a previously salvaged shipwreck and these photographs could be fakes. I will have to see the Santa Isabel for myself before I give you any money."

"Your concerns are entirely understandable," Nick said. "But at the same time, we have to protect the location of the shipwreck from being discovered or we have nothing to sell. If you'd like us to take you out to it, you'll have to let us search you for any communications or tracking devices, confine you to a windowless room during the voyage, and do whatever else is necessary to prevent you from learning exactly where you are."

"You'd be treating me like a prisoner," Violante said.

"Or a kidnapping victim," Reyna said. "This could be a clever trick to get you to hand yourself to people who intend to ransom you for your fortune. If you survived, you'd be ridiculed for the rest of your life as the dumbest kidnapping victim ever."