“Nothing has changed.” Byrd cut off the complaint, but he saw the look that passed between the other men. Armored glass cost money, lots of it. Now they worried about other countermeasures, greater risk. “We knew he was rich when we took the job. I’m sure he has nice furniture, too. So stay cool. Do the work.” He gestured north along the wall. “Side door. Forty feet.” When they got there, he said, “Pugh.”

Pugh examined the lock. “Four-ton dead bolts. Hardened steel cylinders. Drill plates, probably. Ball bearings…”

“Alarmed?”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Do it.”

Pugh unfolded a packet of picks and bypass circuits, then put pressure on the door handle, just in case. The handle turned, and Byrd shook his head, disbelieving.

Easiest half million ever …

Reece gave them five seconds to clear the door, then triggered a circuit to close and seal it.

No handle on the inside.

No access to the hinges.

Reece waited for that to sink in, then triggered the second door.

“Byrd, what the hell just happened?”

Byrd waved Pugh to silence, drawing a pistol as he did so. The floor was mortared flagstone, the walls concrete. Thirty feet down, a second door had just slammed shut, and it looked every bit as solid as the first.

“I don’t see any nice furniture.”

“Can it, Wilkinson.” Byrd pointed at the second door. “Pugh, check it out.”

The second door was solid steel, exactly like the first, nine feet tall, and faceless. “We’re not getting through this,” Pugh said.

“Talk to me.”

“Hardened steel in a recessed frame. I’d need an oxyacetylene torch and at least thirty minutes.”

“Jesus. You want a sandwich with that?”

“You see the cameras?”

Byrd did: one mounted high at each end of the hall.

Wilkinson said, “What do we do about this, boss man?”

Byrd studied the trap they’d sprung: thirty feet of concrete, stone, and steel. “I’ll figure something out.”

“I would love to believe that.”

“I’ve been in worse places,” Byrd said.

But he was wrong about that, too.

As soon as Reece got bored, he gassed them. The process wasn’t pretty. Pumped into a confined space, most incapacitating aerosols caused vomiting, seizures, or death, sometimes all three. Reece used a mix of methyl propyl ether and bovine anesthesia, a concoction perfected by a Mennonite serial rapist who liked to creep about in the dark and spray it into open windows. Reece found it acceptable, but only if the odd death was not a problem. He’d never use it on Sara, for instance.

But for these guys …