Niceville

and transplantedsago palms and overflight interdiction systems and rolling lawns and a private golf course and countersurveillance jammers and an artificial lake where a large flock of trumpeter swans whose wing bones had been professionally snapped were required to glide gracefully about amidst the koi and the water lilies. How the hell a gaboon viper like Byron Deitz had managed to insinuate himself into this lucrative gig was a question that kept his competition awake at night.
    But he had pulled it off somehow, and he was rocketing through the rolling brown slopes of the Belfair Range, with Lady Gaga’s volume set on STUN and a nervous but lovely wife and two nervous kids waiting for him in his mansion in The Chase, and he was thinking that all was right with the universe when his truck phone rang.
    The phone was linked through the Hummer’s OnStar system, so the call shut Lady Gaga up in mid-screech with a gentle bell-like tolling.
    Deitz glanced at the caller ID on the Hummer’s LCD screen— PHIL HOLLIMAN —frowned, shook his head, and touched the ANSWER button on the steering wheel.
    “You’re not supposed to use this number.”
    “Had to. We got an issue.”
    “I’m waiting.”
    “You heard about the bank thing in Gracie?”
    “How could I miss it? It’s everywhere. They know about it on the moon.”
    “Yeah. Well. I heard from our guy.”
    Deitz felt his belly go cold and take a slow roll to the left. Because the First Third in Gracie handled all the payroll and banking for Quantum Park, Deitz had a man inside the bank.
    Deitz swallowed twice.
    “Yeah?”
    “Our guy in Gracie,” the voice said, with an edge.
    “I got that part, Phil. What’d he say?”
    “The guys—two of them—went through the vault, jamming shit in their bags. The Fargo truck had just dropped off all the cash for the ATMs in the sector, plus all the migrants working on the ADM farms, also the draw for Quantum Park.”
    “Coincidence?”
    “I doubt it. Shit like that is never luck.”
    “So they got … what?”
    A pause.
    Giving Deitz bad news was best done over a phone. “Fuck of a lot of cash, mainly. They figure over two mill.”
    “Mainly cash? What the fuck is
mainly
?”
    A silence, during which Byron Deitz heard a sound in his skull like walnuts cracking. He was grinding his teeth, an irritating habit that drove his wife and family bats. He had no idea he was doing it, and often wondered where the hell that weird walnut-cracking sound was coming from.
    “They got into some of the lockboxes—”
    “Oh shit.”
    “Yeah. After they’re gone, there’s an inventory. Our guy can’t find the—”
    “Don’t say another fucking thing.”
    Silence while Phil Holliman, on the other end of the line, didn’t say another fucking thing.
    “Okay,” said Deitz, focusing. “Is he sure?”
    “Oh. I can talk now?”
    Sarcasm.
    Phil Holliman was like that, a sarcastic prick. With a nasty temper. But good at his job.
    “Don’t be a dick.”
    “The drawer is open but not totally cleaned out. Only thing they got was some bonds and … the … ahh, item.”
    Deitz was watching the road uncoiling at him, a long black snake with a white streak down its back.
    A skunk snake
, he was thinking. Just what he didn’t need right now.
    “Fuck. We gotta
find
those fucking pukes.”
    “Mind you, might be random,” said Phil. “Might be nothing to worry about. I figure it was the stainless-steel jewel case that caught their—”
    “Random? Know what, Phil? I don’t believe in
random
. Why take the item at all? And when they open it and they see what’s inside it, with that Raytheon logo all over it, you think that’s going to make them say, hey, move on, nothing to see here. No. This is enemy action. We
move
on this. First thing you do, you get our guy in Gracie a box somewhere and take him apart. No way anybody knew the thing wasthere unless he shot his fucking mouth off. I wanna know to who. Got that?”
    “Does he get
out
of the box?”
    “Up to you.”
    “Be best if he did. Him not being around wouldn’t look too good. It would be, like, lousy optics.”
    “Yeah. Okay. I got that. Maybe I’ll go see him myself. But you should drop by his place—tomorrow morning, early—throw one of your monkey-rangs and scare the living shit out of him. Tell him I’ll be by the bank at noon, for a chat. Tell him he better be in a talky mood.”
    “Right there at the bank?”
    “Why not? It was a Quantum Park