The Heist

that need to be taken down.”
    “Derek Griffin is in a league of his own.”
    Which reminded Nick of the meeting on the beach. There was something about the fake name that Griffin chose for himself that was nagging at him. Where had he heard of “Daniel Dravot” before?
    Nick grabbed the binoculars and scanned the island. Kate wasin a bikini on the beach, lying facedown on a towel and letting Griffin untie her top and smooth suntan lotion on her shoulders, back, and sides.
    “She’s really working it,” Willie said. “You don’t need binoculars to see what’s going down.”
    “She’s just doing her job.”
    “Yeah, but looks to me like she’s enjoying it. You aren’t gonna fly off in a jealous rage, are you?”
    “Not in the immediate future.”
    “You should have let me be the honey trap. Being that you already rejected me, the least you could do is give me a shot at the bad guy.”
    “Kate has more experience with criminals.”
    “Yeah, but I
am
one. And I have experience with men. Her, I’m not so sure about.”
    Nick swung his attention back to the island. Kate had retied her bikini top and was wading waist deep in water with Griffin watching from the beach. She turned and waved at Griffin, dove in, and headed for the boat, slicing through the water using a killer freestyle stroke.
    “I have to give it to her,” Willie said. “She sure can swim.”
    Nick stepped down from the flybridge, got a towel ready like the dutiful manservant he was supposed to be, and was standing on the swim deck to meet Kate when she emerged from the water.
    “How’s it going?” he asked, draping the towel across her shoulders.
    “Seducing him is going to be easy,” Kate said.
    “So I’ve noticed.”
    “His only security is that guy Dumah, and I don’t see him as much of a threat.”
    “Did you happen to see half a billion dollars lying around?”
    “No, but Griffin’s laptop is in his library. At least the case is there. And the case is built to survive a nuclear war, so I’m guessing the information we need is in the laptop. How hard could it be to crack?”
    “Impossible without the password that unlocks it. Tell me what you saw, especially anything that seemed meaningful to him.”
    Kate told him about the mountainside burial ground, the water buffalo horn totem, the waterweed carvings, and the inscription above the front door. She also told him about the environmentally controlled library of first editions and Griffin’s ridiculous story about how he developed his interest in old books.
    “Eureka,” Nick said.
    “What eureka? You’ve figured something out?”
    “Something big.” He looked past her to see Griffin standing impatiently on the sand. For a guy who’d stolen half a billon dollars, Griffin turned out to be a very easy mark himself. “What was your excuse for swimming out here?”
    “To let you know you’re welcome to dine with the household staff at six P.M. tonight.”
    “Where will you be eating?”
    “I’ll be having a private dinner with Griffin, and then I’ll spend the night at the main house. You and Willie will spend the night on the boat. It all works to our advantage, because later tonight I’ll slip into his room and suggest we take a skinny dip. That’s when I’ll bring him to the boat, willingly or otherwise, and we’ll make a quiet getaway. Mission accomplished, quick and simple. Now tell me what you know.”
    “What about the laptop?” Nick asked.
    “I’ll go back for it after we have Griffin on board, not thathaving it will do us much good without the password, which I don’t think he’s going to tell us.”
    “It’s ‘Sikander’ or ‘Sikandergul.’ That’s what I figured out.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “I’ll tell you later,” Nick said.
    “No! I want to know now!”
    “You need to go. You’ve talked too long to the help already, and I don’t want Mr. Dravot to get suspicious.” He lifted the towel away from her, nodded stiffly as if accepting an order, and went up to the flybridge.
    “Jerk,”
Kate murmured under her breath.
    Nick smiled down at her, and she dove into the water and swam back to shore.
    Kate and Griffin were the only guests at dinner, sitting cross-legged on a bamboo mat on either side of the low table on his torchlit veranda under a crescent moon. They each had a glass of wine, a bowl of white rice, and the requisite dish of sambal in front of them. There were no eating utensils. Kate would be eating with