The Heist

ended up having to take Griffin against his will.
    “A dozen, including me,” he said. “There are eight members of the tribe, the chef and his wife, who runs the house, and Dumah, who I suppose you could call my property manager.”
    And head of security, Kate thought. She could tell by the wayhe scrutinized them as they approached the island and by the telltale bulge under his shirt where he hid his gun. So far, it seemed that Dumah was her only real obstacle, and she was confident she could neutralize him.
    “Can I see the rest of the island?” she asked.
    “Of course.”
    He drove her past the terraced rice paddies to the river, where a herd of water buffalo rolled in the mud, and then down to the eastern cove, where his fifty-three-foot yacht and a single-engine high-winged seaplane were tied to a long, narrow dock. The seaplane was like the small aircraft she’d taken to Mount Athos, only this one had two pontoons mounted under the fuselage and wasn’t being used as a henhouse.
    Two more options for a quick escape, Kate thought. If Willie could fly a turboprop, she could probably handle a seaplane.
    “A sport yacht and a plane,” she said. “You get around in style and with speed.”
    “We’re remote, but with those little toys I’m never far from the action.”
    “I’m sure a man like you gets as much as he wants,” she said. “What do you do for a living?”
    “Absolutely nothing,” he said as he steered the golf cart back to the house.
    “Me neither. Rich parents?”
    “Even better.
Dead
rich parents. I shrewdly invest their money and live off the proceeds.”
    “Maybe you could teach me a thing or two about that.”
    “There are all kinds of things I could teach you,” he said, his leering smile and suggestive inflection making it clear where his thoughts were going.
    “I’m filled with anticipation,” she said. Gak, she thought, what a creep!
    Griffin pulled up to the house and led her past the totem of water buffalo horns to the front door, which was surrounded by carvings of vines of some kind, and over the door were the words “Not God, Not Devil, But Man.” He told her about the horns, how they and his herd of water buffalo were important signs of wealth and power respected by the Torajans. Moreover, they encouraged prosperity for all those symbolically under his roof.
    She gestured to the sign. “What’s that?”
    “A reminder to keep humble.”
    “And the vines?”
    “Fast-growing waterweeds, a Torajan symbol of fertility.”
    “You’ve got a lot of weeds and horns on your place,” she said. “So much for remaining humble.”
    “There’s a difference between being humble and stating an indisputable fact,” he said.
    “Which is that you’re loaded in more ways than one.”
    Griffin sent her another suggestive smile. “You’re very perceptive.”
    Just stick a fork in my eye, Kate thought. It would be less painful than this.
    The interior of the house was modest but elegantly colonial, almost what she imagined the Raffles hotel in Singapore must look like, based on Nick’s description. There was lots of rattan furniture and white paneling that stood out against the polished dark hardwood floors. The hot, humid air was pushed around to good effect with ceiling fans, the blades fashioned to resemble palm fronds.
    Griffin showed her his library, which was windowless and filledwith first editions. It was two floors tall, with a winding staircase to the second level, and ladders on rails made it possible to reach the highest shelves. Man-size leather armchairs were spread throughout the room. Antique side tables and old-fashioned reading lamps had been placed beside the leather chairs. An ornate mahogany desk was tucked into a back corner. There were only two items on the desk. One was a phone that Kate assumed was the satellite phone. The other item was a reinforced computer case that looked sturdy enough to withstand being run over by a truck or tossed off a cliff. Presumably the computer was locked up inside the case.
    “I have first editions of Rudyard Kipling’s entire body of work, as well as novels by Ernest Hemingway, Somerset Maugham, and John Steinbeck, to name a few. The room has an environmental control system to protect the books from the moisture in the air,” Griffin told her.
    She didn’t care about the books. She was focused on the laptop in the gorilla-proof case. It was probably how he contacted his bank, and it might be possible to find