him. He expected the men to throw a ladder over and haul him aboard. Instead, one of them was holding a rifle. Seconds later, bullets were piercing the surface of the water around him. When the shooting finally stopped, Oz was unhurt.

“That was to frighten off the sharks,” the armed man said. “Don’t think I missed. The next time will be for you.”

Oz could see that Dave was now holding a satellite phone. “You are stealing from Paul,” he said. “You need to tell us where you put the money.”

Oz, fighting off panic as he treaded water behind the boat, tried to focus his mind and understand what Dave could mean. What- ever they had heard, he told him, it was all a mistake.

“This is the deal,” Dave said. “Confess, and we’ll kill you now. Keep denying it, and we’ll wound you and leave you to the sharks. Your choice. Just admit it. We know you are talking to Levi.”

Now Oz understood. Somehow the business he and Kugel had discussed—the plan to open a pharmacy in the States—had gotten back to Le Roux. Why they were accusing him of stealing he didn’t know, but bobbing in the water Oz frantically explained that he and Kugel were just talking, that the idea was meant to help Le Roux, not steal his business. “I would have told Paul if we had done it,” Oz pleaded. “I would never do something behind his back.”

“He keeps denying it,” Dave said into the receiver, listening for instructions from someone that Oz now surmised could only be Le Roux.

Perhaps Oz’s boss had never intended to kill him, only to terrify him. Or perhaps Oz talked his way out of his own execution. Whatever the reason, one of the men finally pulled him back on board. They motored to a small, isolated island, where they an- chored for the night. Dave went ashore and brought a prostitute back to the boat. Oz spent the night on deck, pretending to be too seasick to stay in his bunk, but with no way to get off the boat.

Thirty-six hours later, they headed back to the marina. “We are like an octopus,” Dave told Oz. “We have tentacles all over the