Tychus shrugged, removed his coat jacket, and put on the vest. He placed the watch securely in the slit pocket in the front. Jennifer gracefully slipped Tychus’s arm through hers, gave Jim a smile that melted him, and led Tychus off to the dance floor. Jim had to admit as he watched them go that Tychus looked positively dashing in his new vest.
Pity he wasn’t going to have it long.
Tychus had not lied to Jennifer and Jim: he couldn’t dance. He was large, and while he was agile, he was not graceful, and he knew nothing—less than nothing—about ballroom dancing.
While he stumbled more than a bit awkwardly around the ballroom floor, Jennifer lifted her lips to his ear and whispered. Not sweet nothings, no—she was whispering key information about the vest. He nodded, taking everything in, then whispered back comments about how it felt as he moved in it.
So far, all seemed to be perfect. Tychus felt good enough to execute a twirl, which Jennifer, as a gracious dance partner, spun through so easily, she made him look good. By now he was confident enough to glance around the room slightly as he pulled her back to him, even dipped her, and the dance ended.
He placed his hand on the small of her back and guided her to the refreshment table, continuing to look around as unobtrusively as possible. At first the crowd seemed to be typical for such a place: middle-aged men with red-rimmed eyes; women showing too much cleavage for their figures; some nice dresses and suits, most of them off the rack. It was—
They locked eyes.
Tychus stared at a man with a thick head of glossy black hair, piercing blue eyes, and a glorious mustache.
“Aw, shit,” Tychus Findlay muttered as he recognized Marshal Wilkes Butler.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jim was on his second beer when Tychus burst into the Blue Note and jerked his head toward the exit commandingly. Immediately Jim sprang up and followed, quickly tossing a few credits on the table.
“What is it?” he asked as they hastened outside and tried to flag a cab.
“What kind of convention is being held here?” Tychus asked suddenly. He seemed torn between anger and humor.
“Marshals Con—Oh, you’re shitting me.”
“Nope.”
“Wilkes is here?”
“In the flesh.”
“He see you?”
“That he did.”
Jim swore. They tumbled into a cab, and Tychus directed the driver not back to the hotel but to another casino. “Gotta throw him off our trail,” he explained.
“So, what do we do? We gonna tell Ash?”
Tychus shook his head. “Nope. They’re already looking for any excuse to cut us out of this. Butler’s not an idiot, but he’d have to act way too fast.”
“What if he tells the whole damn convention?”
“He won’t, not unless he has to. That ain’t his style. You know grabbin’ us has always been a personal thing with him. He’ll try to get us first on his own.”
“I cannot believe it,” Jim fumed. “Out of all the people in that place—what, a couple hundred? More?—you happen to catch his eye across a crowded room.”
“Almost sounds romantic, don’t it?” said Tychus, and finally gave in to the humor of the situation. He threw back his head and let out a loud guffaw. Jim stared at him furiously for a moment, then his lips twitched, and a few seconds later he, too, was laughing at the absurdity of it all.
Tychus wiped his eyes. “Well, I guess it woulda been too easy without a few more wrinkles to complicate matters,” he said. “Can’t have boring on our last heist, now, can we?”
“That woman! After her!” ordered Wilkes Butler. Rett immediately took off after the tall, attractive woman who a second ago had been at Tychus Findlay’s side. Butler went after Tychus. The crowd was thick, and it took too long for Wilkes Butler to push through it. He realized even as he tried that he would be too late to spot Raynor and Findlay leaving. He always was.
He emerged on the street, glancing around. There was no clue where they might have gone, and there wasn’t any indication that they had come out here. They could have doubled back into the hotel, taken the elevator to any one of the multiple stories, or ducked into the restroom. Maybe even all of those things. The marshals had been permitted to carry weapons with them to the event, but Butler had opted to leave his in his room, laboring under the mistaken impression that he might actually be able to relax for four days.
Rett came up behind him. “Did my best, but she vanished.”
Butler grunted. “Likely simply an expensive hooker.” Such women were paid to be discreet; her disappearing act probably was one of the reasons she was so expensive. Even so, any information, even from a high-class prostitute, would’ve been useful, and he was disappointed they’d lost her. Still, he did not rebuke Rett; his deputy had doubtless done his best.
“What now?”
What, indeed. “Well, he may have caught us off guard, but I don’t think he planned for that. He certainly looked surprised enough to see me. That could work to our advantage. I need to do some research first. Keep this quiet until we know what we’re dealing with. I’ll let you know as soon as I know what our next step is.”
Rett nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“Go back in and keep socializing. Don’t want to raise any alarms just yet.”
Butler sighed as Rett returned to the party. He mulled over his options, and the things he needed to find out, as he stepped back inside and returned to his room.
He had no misconceptions about his strengths and weaknesses. He well knew that he was not a lightning-fast, brilliant thinker. But he also knew he wasn’t stupid. He was careful, and methodical, and usually very successful. It was mainly for this reason that Findlay and Raynor had gotten under his skin as badly as they had. They were the two men he’d been chasing the longest without ever catching.
And he badly, badly wanted to catch them.
He closed the door, loosened his tie, and fired up his computer. He chafed at even the brief delay of the fingerprint scan required for him to access the most sensitive case files back on New Sydney.
First, he had to decide if he wanted to bring everyone in on this. There were certainly more dangerous criminals out there, but most of the people he’d attended seminars with over the last two days would know of Raynor and Findlay, and would hanker for the glory of being the one to bring them to justice. That didn’t sit well with Butler. Most of the crimes they had committed over the years had taken place on one of his planets, had wronged his people, and he wanted to be the one to have the satisfaction of saying the happiest of phrases: “You’re under arrest.” The feeling was a bit selfish, and he told himself that if he couldn’t figure things out quickly, he would enlist some aid. But for now, he wanted to see what he could come up with.
So … what sort of things were Tychus and Jim likely to be engaged in on Bacchus Moon? They had never been hired assassins, nor did they tend to harm innocent bystanders. Most of the people who got injured during their robberies were professional guards, and even then—and Wilkes admitted this grudgingly—Findlay and Raynor usually managed to disable the guards without killing them. So it wasn’t likely that they were here to kill anyone.
Second, they liked money. They liked to take it and they liked to spend it. Normally, that would mean Butler would focus on where they might acquire credits, and where they might spend them. Unfortunately, there were far too many places here where they could do both of those things.
He ordered a sandwich and a pot of coffee from room service and removed his tie altogether, tossing it on the bed with a sigh as he unbuttoned his collar.
It was going to be a long night.
The very audacity of the whole thing was why it was going to work, Jim thought. As Tychus had said somewhat more crudely, “This robbery has balls.”
They had gone over the plan several times. They had it scheduled down to the minute. All their information was completely up-to-date. They had checked and double-che
cked equipment, schedules, weapons, and blueprints, and now all that remained was to actually do the thing.
It was 1256 when the five of them entered the bank and stood in line for what Tychus called a “dry run.” It would give them a chance to familiarize themselves with the bank’s interior, tellers, patterns, and so on. They had decided to proceed exactly as they would tomorrow. So they had arrived in the hovercar they would be using, which was now pulled up close to the bank’s carefully manicured lawn. They wore what they would be wearing this time tomorrow, and they had brought their weapons just in case something went wrong.
Tychus was looking a bit flamboyant: in addition to the natty vest Jennifer had made for him, his suit coat pocket sported a silk handkerchief, his hands were encased in fine leather gloves, and every inch of him was creased, ironed, and spit-polished. The vest was, of necessity, so distinctive, they’d figured the rest of him should be as well. After all, Tychus was always memorable by virtue of his sheer size. The others, except for Jim, were clean-shaven and sported haircuts and tailored suits, but still managed to be nondescript and would likely not be recalled too clearly by witnesses.
The bank screamed respectability at every turn, from the conservative yet high-quality furniture, to the original paintings on the walls, to the polished gleam of the red-brown tile. Tasteful, luxurious, unobtrusive. Jim shifted his weight as he stood in line, feigning boredom and looking around. There was the entrance to the vault room; inside was the vault itself, where the money would be kept. Over there were meeting rooms. Down the corridor were staff offices, restrooms, custodians’ closets. Just as the blueprints had said there would be.
Casually, Tychus drew his pocket watch out and frowned. He glanced up at the large chrono on the wall. It ticked placidly, revealing that the time was now 1259.
Tychus shook his head at the pocket watch as if he were disappointed in it, pulled up the winding crown, mimed setting the time, then pushed the crown back down.
“Oh, dear,” came a voice.
Jim and Tychus recognized that voice. Their heads whipped around and they stared, mouths open, at a slender man in a business suit with a badge that proclaimed him as an agent of the Confederate Bureau of Protection of Monies and Valuable Items. His eyes were wide, and there was a look of resigned terror on his face. Jim was suddenly transported back to the train robbery, with this same shaking man standing in front of them, forbidding them access to the train’s safe.
“George Woodcock,” Tychus murmured.
“Woodley,” Raynor corrected in a hollow voice.
“Mr. Raynor, Mr. Findlay, I am so sorry to have to do this….” He reached for a comm unit on his black belt.
“Tychus”—it was Ash, his voice a yelp—“what the hell—”
“So much for a dry run,” Tychus muttered. He threw off his coat and twisted the winding crown of the watch counterclockwise twice.
Two things happened simultaneously.
First, the lights went out. The lobby suddenly went dim but not dark, thanks to the large windows.
Second, the small, glittering gems set into the diamond-shaped cavities of his vest sprang forward. The “jewels” fell to the floor, sprouted legs, and scuttled away with astonishing speed. Each was about as large as a thumbnail and about as thick, its dozens of tiny legs propelling it toward the now-screaming crowd. Even before the little things had hit the floor, Tychus had a gun in each hand.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Tychus said, pitching his voice loud, “listen very, very carefully to what I am about to say, and do not make the slightest move. Your lives will depend upon it.”
The crowd fell silent, save for the sound of quickened breathing and the occasional whimper.
“First, outside in the trunk of our vehicle is a large device that generates an electromagnetic pulse. It was just switched on from a signal from this charming, deceptively antiquated-seeming little Umojan device. Said EMP has deactivated every electrical system and high-tech microcircuit in this building and for several blocks around, so trying to flip any alarm would be quite futile. It would also be quite deadly. Deadly because, secondly, I direct your attention to those small spidery things that are currently right at your feet,” he said. “They got a long and fancy name, but I’m just gonna call ’em spiders. They are programmed to go toward any heat source between 96 and 102 degrees and stay there until they are deactivated by yours truly. They are also programmed to climb up your leg and inject a lethal toxin at the sign of any movement sharper or more sudden than normal breathing or facial expressions. Which means that, yes, you can blink.”
He was clearly enjoying himself. While he was speaking, Jim had his gun out, just in case something went wrong. Ash was already at the safe, and his men hastened to close the blinds and lock the door. Win turned the CLOSED sign to face out, then he and Rafe went to join Ash. Jim looked around the room and, reassured that the spiders were having their desired effect, asked, “Who is the highest-ranking bank employee present?”
There was a silence, then an elderly woman quavered, “I am.”
Jim went up to her and pointed the gun at her with one hand. “I know you have simple keys for the safety deposit boxes,” he said quietly. “Just for situations like this. Tell me where I can find them.”
“Over behind the main desk,” the woman whispered. “In the second drawer down.”
“Thank you kindly,” Jim said, and retrieved the keys. Sometimes, he mused, simple was better.
For having to act on the fly, they were doing well. The first level of security had been disabled by the EMP. The human factor had been disabled by the spiders and “closing” the bank. The door to the main vault room was unlocked, as it always was during business hours. All that remained to do was to employ extremely low-level but highly efficient technology and quite literally blow the door off the vault itself. Ash stood by, his eyes flickering from Rafe and Win—they were affixing the explosives and working up the wiring—to Tychus. A frown was deepening on Ash’s face.
“This is too risky, damn it,” he muttered.
Jim stepped over to him. He and the others could move freely without fear of spider repercussion. Each man either wore or had stashed in a pocket one of Jennifer and Gustav’s stylish-looking watches that emitted a signal that made the spiders regard them as “friendly.” The Umojan couple was proving to be an amazing team; Tychus had told Jim the spiders, as well as the vest, were Jennifer’s creations, whereas Gustav had crafted both the pocket watch and its ability to trigger an EMP.
“None of us wanted to go early,” Jim said. “Everything else is in place, isn’t it? Our end of it is going perfectly.”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s all in place. Our guy won’t be there to help us haul the creds, but things should be set up at the suite.” Ash wiped his damp face.
“Well, then, nothing to worry about. Just have to make a couple extra trips to get it all up there. We got time.” They had a full hour before the spiders self-destructed. That was one of the things Tychus and Jim had insisted on. Ash had wanted them to just kill everyone immediately rather than hold them hostage.
“No witnesses,” he had said as they sat plotting in Jack’s Spot. “Nice and clean.”
“Yeah, no witnesses, but a couple dozen bodies and a couple dozen counts of first-degree murder,” Jim had said. “And that certainly ain’t clean.”
“No one’s gonna find us,” Ash had retorted.
“Maybe not. But we still ain’t doing it. My source who makes the spiders don’t work that way,” Tychus had replied. “Besides, if the spiders self-destruct, they can’t be traced. And that, my friend, is operating clean.”
Ash had rolled his eyes, muttered something about “soft,” but had agreed. He’d really had no choice.
“I’d prefer to use that time to get out of here,” Ash said, bringing Jim back to the present, “but we gotta run with this.”
Rafe and Win rose and nodded. “All set,” they said. They hurried out of the vault ro
om and closed the door so that they would all be protected from the blast within.
A few seconds later, there was a huge but muffled boom. The five men exchanged grins despite the tension of the situation.
“That never gets old,” Tychus said.
“Let’s go, let’s go!” Ash ordered, his grin fading as he became all business again. The vault lock had been well and properly blown, and they pulled open the door.
Inside were dozens of safety deposit boxes, each containing hundreds of thousand-credit coins. It was an almost overwhelming moment, and it was fully three seconds before Jim stepped forward and quickly began manually unlocking the boxes. Ash’s men sprang into action as soon as the boxes were open. Tucked into the lining of their jackets were several bags made of material thin enough to fold easily and strong enough to support the weight of all those liberated credits. Jim followed, removing his own sacks and starting to fill them. A smile curved his lips as he did so.
Tychus had been right. The gamblers whose money this doubtless was would never miss it. However, it would give him the fresh new start he found himself yearning for more with every passing day.
“I have to say, Mr. Raynor,” came Woodley’s voice, “I’m right disappointed in you and Mr. Findlay.”
Ash sneered and reached for his weapon. Jim put a firm hand on his arm and shook his head. “Don’t. We don’t need to add murder to this.”
The blond man grimaced but lowered his weapon, impaling George Woodley with an angry stare.
“You should probably be quiet, Mr. Woodley,” Jim said.
“Well, I’m afraid I do have to say it. I’m mighty disappointed in you. I wasn’t mad at you when I was reassigned after you robbed that train. I was happy to get a new job here. I understand you need to, uh, do what you do and all, but from Farm Aid? I thought you was a better class of criminal than that.”
Jim froze.
Then, deliberately, he moved over to where Woodley stood stock-still, his hand still halfway to his comm, his eyes fixed on the tiny mechanical spider at his feet.
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