The Heist

said. “You’re going to stand there naked so we can laugh at you.”
    “I’d rather be shot,” Griffin said. And he bent down and pulled up his pajamas.
    Bob pressed a gun against Griffin’s forehead. “What makes you think I won’t give you what you’ve asked for?”
    “You can’t ransom a corpse.”
    Bob grinned. “I see you understand how my wealth management program works.”
    A sixth pirate dragged Willie out of the woods, shoving her into the clearing. Kate sucked in air, not sure if she was going to burst into tears of relief or coldcock Bob out of pure rage. She pulled herself together and managed to do neither.
    “We found her when we boarded your boat, which by the way was a big disappointment,” Bob said to Kate. “No jewelry. No money. No six-month supply of Cristal champagne and caviar. For a spoiled bitch, you don’t know much.”
    “I know you’re a disgusting pig,” Kate said, back in character. “What about Sam? Wasn’t he on the boat as well? Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a mate who can cook?”
    “You’ve got the pig part right,” Bob said. “But I rarely kill servants. I do, however, occasionally kill their masters. Your man is alive, too. He wasn’t on the boat, but we know he’s somewhere on the island. We won’t hurt him unless he puts up a fight.”
    No problem there, Kate thought. Nick wouldn’t put up a fight. Nick would sweet-talk Bob into giving up the gold fillings in his teeth.
    “I didn’t hear them board,” Willie said to Kate. “I didn’t know they were there until one of them came up behind me and put a knife to my throat.”
    Four more of Bob’s men led Dumah, the chef and his wife, and the bewildered Torajan household staff down to the beach at gunpoint. Bob spoke to them in Indonesian, his inflection more like that of a car salesman making a pitch than a pirate warning his captives. Dumah nodded at Bob, said a few words to the rest of the staff, and they all turned and walked away as if there was nothing interesting left to see.
    “What just happened?” Griffin asked, bewildered. “Where are they going?”
    Bob turned to Griffin. “I told the villagers I had no quarrel with them, they were free to go back to their daily lives, and if they didn’t try to intervene in our wealth management transaction, they wouldn’t even notice that we were here.”
    It made sense to Kate. Their loyalty was to themselves and the island, not to the rich guy who’d leased their land. It apparently made sense to Griffin as well, who accepted the explanation with a nod.
    “What did you say to Dumah?” Griffin asked.
    “I asked him how loyal he was to you. He said, not at all. So Igave him your yacht and wished him a good life. He is a Bugis and a mercenary, like me. He knows not to betray us to the law. We would find him and kill him and every member of his family.”
    “But what about betraying me?” Griffin said. “Doesn’t that count for something?”
    “No,” Bob said. “Not really.”
    “Isn’t he worried about me coming after him for stealing my yacht?”
    Bob laughed, said something in Indonesian to the others, and they laughed along with Bob.
    “You really know nothing about our people or this country,” Bob said to Griffin. “And you take us for fools. Don’t you think we know you are hiding from someone or something?”
    Griffin avoided looking at Kate. “Are we going to stand on the beach all night, Bob, or can we go back to the house and begin the negotiations?”
    Bob told two of his men to take Willie to the mountain cave where the Torajan tribe buried, then visited, their dead, and to make sure she didn’t escape. The Torajans went back to their homes to sleep. The Balinese chef and his wife were sent back to their kitchen to begin preparing an early breakfast for Bob and his men, several of whom watched over the couple to make sure nothing bad got slipped into their food. Kate and Griffin were force-marched back to the house.
    “Nice place you had here,” Bob said, standing in the foyer, stressing the past tense in the sentence. “Where is your satellite phone?”
    Griffin gestured to the doorway. “In the library.”
    Bob went in first, followed by Kate and Griffin, and then therest of the pirates. Kate was doing mental rehearsals, denying any knowledge of the missing laptop, when she realized the case wasn’t missing. The laptop case was on the table, beside the satellite phone. Nick must have slipped back