But the pain didn’t matter. And neither did the fact that he was nearly killed. What mattered was that he had been there to protect one of his brothers.

He felt guilty for not being there now. What if they had to breach? What if something went wrong, or the gunmen had more surprises in store for them?

If he hadn’t been there that morning, Strom would have likely been laying on a slab in the morgue right then. He knew that he couldn’t be there every time, all the time. But he should have been there now instead of wasting his time getting a sales pitch from a shark in a suit.

He checked his watch and said, “Sir, with all due respect, we really need to get back to Henderson. They’re expecting you to deliver the food they requested.”

Carter smiled, and maintaining his maddeningly calm, the-world-can’t-touch-me demeanor, he said, “Patience, Nic. Getting ahead of these guys takes precedence over feeding them.”

With a reluctant nod, Nic said, “Yes, sir.”

The vault room in which they now stood didn’t seem nearly as complicated as Ty Loria made it sound. It was basically just a room with no windows, which contained some heavy-duty wheeled carts of various sizes, a couple of metal sorting tables, and a pair of massive conveyor belts. The room smelled faintly of rubber and hydraulic fluid. The walls were a drab gray and held no pictures or decorations of any kind. The only aspect of the room that struck him as odd was the wall behind the conveyer belts. It had been set up as some kind of accent wall, and gray and black glass tiles covered it from ceiling to floor. He had seen similar tiles in other parts of the building, but it seemed strange to spend the extra money to decorate a room that was clearly meant only for utilitarian purposes.

“The automated system is tied remotely to the security checkpoint,” Loria said. “So as soon as the customer verifies his or her identity, then that person’s GoBox is sent up.”

“What if they have multiple boxes?” Carter asked.

“Then they have a different passcode to identify the different boxes. One of our technicians receives the box and delivers it to the appropriate private viewing room.”

Carter rubbed his precisely manicured and graying goatee. “So the boxes obviously go back down after the client is done. What’s to stop our guys from crawling down the tube and prying open some boxes?”

Loria laughed. “Our system is very sophisticated, as you can clearly see. Do you honestly think we haven’t thought of every possible scenario? Especially one as mundane as crawling down a tube.”

“No, I honestly don’t believe you’ve planned for everything.”

“What have you seen that could possibly make you doubt our security?”

“Nothing, but shit happens. Everything that’s been created can be broken.”

“Perhaps,” Loria said, “but I hardly think that some common criminals—”

Carter raised a hand a said, “There’s nothing common about these men.”