The private jet banked eastward as it ascended out of Lisbon. After passing Madrid and Barcelona, it flew over the Mediterranean and the Italian peninsula — Rome on the left, Naples on the right.

The husband and wife enjoying the plush cabin with their black dog were convicted swindlers from Los Angeles on the sixth day of a daring getaway. With police worldwide on alert to arrest them, they had slipped off to Portugal and hoped to vanish in the Balkans by nightfall.

Their destination was Montenegro, a small mountainous nation a few hundred miles up the Adriatic coast from Greece — an appealing alternative to prison in the United States.