The Heist

“Tell me another, and I will pluck out one of your eyeballs.”
    “I can give you all of your money back,” Griffin said. “With interest.”
    “You already have,” Diego said, and lifted a towel on the chaise beside him to reveal Griffin’s laptop computer. “I may even rename my new estate Sikandergul in your honor.”
    Griffin went light-headed, as if he’d experienced a sudden and profound loss of blood. Five hundred million dollars, he thought.
Gone
. All those years of diligent embezzlement and fraud. All his careful planning. All his extraordinary risk. All for nothing. He was completely broke, homeless, and facing prison time in the United States and, perhaps, Indonesia as well, if he was ever caught. How could it have gone so wrong so fast?
    “As you can see, Griffin is a ruined man,” Burnside said, not able to contain himself any longer. “I think we can also agree that you’ve been made whole on your losses, and richly compensated beyond any reasonable measure for the insult, the despair, and the misery that you and the people of Boriga felt as a result of his betrayal. The suffering and humiliation he faces now will be an everlasting torture that’s deeper and more agonizing than any physical pain you could inflict.”
    Griffin was convinced this was true. In fact, he was tempted to ask Char to slit his throat right there. But his fear of death was greater than his fear of poverty.
    “You’ve had your vengeance and retribution,” Burnside said to Boriga. “Is there really any purpose served by punishing Griffin any further or holding me in any way accountable for his actions? You’re an intelligent, honorable man. You know in your heart that there’s no reason not to let us both go free.”
    Burnside was confident that this would end like all of his other trials. He’d get to walk out of the courtroom no matter what the jury, in this case Diego de Boriga, decided about his client. His reasoning was simple. It was Griffin who’d committed the crime. Burnside was just his lawyer. Yes, he’d helped his client avoid justice, but isn’t that what a good lawyer is supposed to do? Diego would certainly understand that and not begrudge him for bending the law on his client’s behalf. Wouldn’t Diego expect the same level of representation for himself? Of course he would. So Burnside felt pretty good about his chances. He was far less certain about Griffin’s odds.
    “You make a very persuasive argument, Mr. Burnside,” Diego said.
    “Thank you.”
    Diego nodded to himself and slapped his hands on his thighs, making a decision. “Very well. You may go.”
    Burnside smiled to himself.
You are a superstar, baby. Doesn’t matter if the trial is in federal court or a drug lord’s living room, you’re the lion king amid a herd of zebras
.
    “Excuse me?” Griffin said, blinking hard. It was not the outcome he was expecting.
    “My men will blindfold you, drive you to a remote location, and set you free.”
    “How do we know you won’t execute us?” Griffin asked.
    “As Mr. Burnside pointed out in his eloquent argument, I aman honorable man. I keep my word. Where you go after you are released, or how you get there, is your problem. But if you ever speak of me, or tell anyone that we have the money Mr. Griffin stole, I will slaughter you and anyone you’ve ever loved, including pets. How does that sound?”
    “Very generous,” Burnside said.
    Diego smiled. “That’s what people always say about me.”
    Kate and Nick were watching on monitors in the surveillance room on the second floor of the house. Kate had watched covert shakedowns and stings before. This one was especially satisfying.
    Nick was sitting in the chair beside Kate and gave her a nudge. “Sweet, isn’t it? And the fun isn’t over yet.”

Char put hoods over the prisoners’ heads, bound their wrists with plastic zip ties, and led them to a panel van parked in the compound. Burnside and Griffin climbed inside and sat down. The door slid shut with a heavy clank. The truck left the compound and they rode over the bumpy, rutted roads in silence.
    Burnside was relaxed, basking in his success, but Griffin was shaking, convinced that they were being taken for execution to the pit where the bodies of Diego’s enemies were left to rot.
    The truck came to a stop fifteen minutes later. The rear door was opened, and Char pulled them out, stood them in the sandy dirt on the shoulder of the road, and cut the zip ties