Page 5 of The Honeymoon Heist

Miles mulled over the words, then said, “So what do we have to do? What’s our risk?”

And that was the crux of the problem, because the risk was extensive. His contact in Italy wanted a clean break—absolutely no way to be connected with the transfer, and he’d created a mess of a way for the repatriation of the real painting to make sure that happened.

Buck sighed and said, “Well, it’s not that easy. We put the fake back into the system for the retrospective in Positano, so it’s clean, but we have to take the original to Croatia, then rent a boat and transport it to a cave on the coast of Capri, Italy.”

Miles looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “You think I’m going to leave here and fly to Croatia, rent a boat, then travel to Italy to drop off the real one? Why don’t we just ship it like the fake? How hard is that to do?”

Buck knew that was going to be a problem with Miles, because it didn’t make any sense to him either, but it was what the client wanted. The client didn’t care about the shipping, but did care about the endstate of the transfer. That had to be clouded, without any shipping labels or billing codes, and that was why he demanded the method that he did.

Buck said, “Weareshipping it like the fake, just without the fanfare. But we can’t send it to the guy’s house. He wants a cutout. That’s all this is. He can’t own two of those paintings. He gets the one you did, shows it at the exhibition, and takes it home. Meanwhile, we transfer the real painting to him undercover. When he gets home, he peels off the painting you did and hangs the real Caravaggio back on the wall. He has them both.”

Miles looked at the two paintings and said, “This is really convoluted. What happens if our transfer is intercepted? What happens if we’re arrested shipping stolen artwork from Croatia to Italy?”

“We’re in deep shit, and I don’t mean from the cops.”

Miles sighed and said, “I don’t know, man. This is a lot more than just painting something.”

Buck pressed, saying, “It is, but twenty-five million is the reason why. You don’t get that price point paintingMona Lisas for the New York jet set.”

Miles turned to him, thought a moment, then said, “I’ll do it, but you need to remember something here.”

“What’s that?”

Miles returned to the paintings and said, “You can’t spend any money if you’re dead.”

Chapter 4

Jennifer said, “Are we really going to sit here until that guy leaves? Seriously?”

I looked at Amena and saw her imperceptibly nod. Jennifer saw it too and rolled her eyes. She said, “The upper deck of the grotto is closed, Pike.Closed.Does that mean anything to you?”

I smiled and said, “Not really.”

“We have dinner reservations in one hour, and we’re out here in the middle of the ocean.”

I said, “The restaurant is just around the point. Plenty of time.”

She shook her head and said, “Okay, pirate. But if this goes bad, it’s on you.”

Unbidden, a smile broke out on Amena’s face, immediately wiped by Jennifer glaring at her.

We were sitting off the coast of the island of Capri in a boat we’d rented from an agency in Positano, Italy, and the craft was pretty sweet. Forty-three feet long, it was something called a “Seaway SeaCube,” and was way out of my price point. It had a lower cabin for sleeping that included a tiny kitchen and a shower, and was literally a small yacht, and its cost reflected that fact. The boat rented for over two thousand euros a day, but we’d managed to get the cost down to about five hundred because we didn’t need a captain (silently patting myself on the back), and the curator of the church being excavated in Positano knew the owner of the craft.

Our meeting with the church people wasn’t for a couple of days, so we’d opted not to start our hotel expenditures until that time. There was no way we’d be able to write off the expenses of our hotel before we’d actually met the UNESCO folks, and our room was over seven hundred a day, so I’d rented the boat for the first night.

We’d flown into Naples and taken a shuttle to Positano, riding in a Mercedes van provided by the hotel, a crazy guy at the wheel who spent most of the time honking his horn and alternating between slamming the accelerator and hammering the brakes. The coastal road was one hairpin turn after another, and while I wanted to show confidence to Amena, by the time we reached our future hotel, I was gripping the overhead handle with white knuckles, and the only thing keeping me from punching the driver in the face was Jennifer’s glare. Well, that, and I was sure if I did we were going to plunge four hundred feet into the ocean.

Our hotel was the Villa Magia, a beautiful boutique hotel, and while we couldn’t stay there the first night, they’d agreed to take our bags and store them, which was pretty nice. The cursing driver had stopped literally on the side of the road on the upper level of the town and two porters had popped out of a stairwell leading down the cliff, grabbing our luggage and running off down the stairs like stevedores.

We’d stowed the luggage, checked in for the next night, and then had proceeded on our adventure, taking what was on the map a short walk to the marina. A short walk as the crow flies, but we were on a mountain. To get there, we had to traverse one gigantic staircase cut into the stone that threaded through the various pastel buildings on the cliffs, with one selfie-taker after another capturing the view. It went on forever. I meanforever. We passed several groups of tourists on the way back up, and all of them were panting and holding the rails, with a few stupid enough to be lugging suitcases. All I could think about was that we would have to climb back up the damn thing the next day.

We met the boat owner, I proved I had a license to drive it from the United States, and off we went, with Jennifer giving me the side-eye the whole time about my abilities. But Amena loved it, becoming my first mate. I didn’t even say a word about the bikinis, mainly because Jennifer was wearing one. It was a little brisk out on the water, the September air not as warm as the summer, but Jennifer wouldn’t let on that she was cold, because in so doing, she’d have to admit the bikini she’d bought for Amena was a waste of money. I enjoyed the challenge as I wore a jacket for the weather.

We’d traveled all around Capri, seeing the usual tourist sights, like the Green Grotto and the infamous Blue Grotto—which was a little bit of a pain in the ass. We had to park the boat, then get in a little skiff that traveled through a hole that was barely large enough for the width of the bow, with us ducking down when commanded. The interior was just like they’d advertised—it was spectacular. Like being in a miniature boat in an aquarium in a doctor’s office, only it was real. The water was sky blue, and the lighting was something that Hollywood would have spent countless dollars to recreate, but it was here every day, and natural.

We’d decided to end our tour at “Grotto Bianca,” or the White Grotto, before heading into a marina at Capri for dinner. When we’d approached, we’d found five other boats lined up to see the grotto. I didn’t really care about another grotto, especially this one, because all it had as a claim to fame was that its dripping stalactites were all white, giving it the name. The only reason we’d even traveled here was because Jennifer said it had some historical significance. Apparently, one of the stalactites looked like the Virgin Mary, and was a huge draw.

I’d seen the boats waiting and said, “Okay, we’ve seen enough grottos. Let’s go get a beer.”

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