The Heist

and Willie saw when Kate nudged them awake at 2 A.M. were two unconscious pirates stripped to their underwear and lying side by side on the ground, bound and gagged with garments pilfered from the dead. Kate stood over the men, one AK-47 slung over her shoulder, the other one propped up beside her.
    “You took them both out on your own?” Willie asked Kate.
    “I didn’t want to wake you.” Kate held out the second AK-47 to Willie. “You might need this.”
    Willie looked the gun over. “I’m more a buckshot kind of girl. You want to walk me through this?”
    “It’s easy. Here’s the safety catch and the selector for semiautomatic or fully automatic fire. As you can see, it’s got a pistol grip. All you have to do is point and shoot. You’ve got thirty rounds.”
    “Ignore what she just told you,” Nick said. “You don’t need to know any of that.”
    “She does if she’s carrying a weapon,” Kate said.
    “Carry it, but don’t use it,” Nick said. “If you shoot at people, they usually shoot back.”
    “What if the pirates start shooting at me?” Willie asked him.
    “Duck and run,” Nick said.
    “And if I’m cornered?”
    “Surrender,” he said. “Having a gun is a good way to get shot, which is why I don’t ordinarily carry them.”
    He reached for Kate’s AK-47, but she swatted his hand away.
    “Eunice Huffnagle wouldn’t carry an assault rifle,” Nick said.
    “Fine. Great. Wonderful,” Kate said, rolling her eyes. “Take the gun. I don’t need it anyway.”
    They picked their way around the boulders and followed the winding route to the mouth of the cave, where Nick grinned at the two wooden effigies dressed in the pirates’ clothes and standing on the ledge. From a distance, and in the darkness, they would easily pass as the guards.
    “Nice,” Nick said to Kate. “I assume this is your work?”
    “I tried to make one of them smoke a cigarette but it wouldn’t stay lit.”
    Kate looked at the compound below. She could see two armed pirates patrolling the main house, but otherwise there didn’t seem to be anyone around.
    “Everybody’s asleep and nobody’s expecting any real trouble,” Kate said to Willie. “You should be able to make it to the plane without a problem. Be careful.”
    Willie disappeared into the shadows, and Nick and Kate crept down to the house. Not a lot of action going on. The two guards were patrolling the outbuildings at the back of the property, talking and laughing. Nick pointed to a guest room veranda, and theysilently scuttled across the lawn and climbed up onto it. Kate eased a window open, and they slipped inside the empty room. Nick closed the window, and they crossed the room and moved into the hallway.
    “Okay,” Kate whispered. “You get Griffin, and I’ll get the laptop.”
    She watched Nick until he disappeared around a corner, and then she headed down the hall to the library. The door was open and she could see the laptop on the table. Unfortunately, Bob was sleeping in an armchair beside it, and he wasn’t alone. Three other pirates were asleep in the room, two on chairs, one on the floor. They were all snoring.
    Not gonna happen, she thought, and she scratched “Take the laptop” from her to-do list. She moved across the hall to the operating room, eased open the door, and stepped inside. When she closed the door behind her, the windowless room became pitch-black. She’d thought ahead and taken matches and a candle from the cave. She lit the candle and set it on the operating table, and in the dim, wavering light she disconnected the oxygen tank from the anesthesia machine. She carried the tank to the far wall, bunched some towels around it, and soaked the towels with iodine and alcohol. She opened the tank valve just a bit, allowing it to leak oxygen, and left a trail of spilled iodine and alcohol from the tank to the operating table. She was about to ignite her makeshift firebomb when she heard a commotion in the hallway.
    She recognized Bob’s voice, and it wasn’t hard to tell he was furious. There were more voices, more feet running, more yelling in Indonesian. She blew her candle out and listened at the door. People were being hustled her way, and she heard Nick’s voice in the mix.
    “How was I supposed to know you wanted to stay?” Nick asked.
    “Because I live here, you idiot,” Griffin said. “I’ve already paid my ransom. I’m just waiting around for you to go.”
    “We’d be on our way if you