Page 2 of The Deeper Game
Just getting him on the crew as a last-minute replacement for the real guy had taken more planning than the storming of Normandy, but it had worked. Naturally, Zeus knew everything about engineering from his time working for a very secret branch of U.S. Intelligence. He was probably giving the Prime excellent value for their maintenance dollar, if you didn’t count the fact that we’d be ripping them off.
The other rip was that my guys’ criminal friend Matteo had acquired something called the tertiary codes, which he’d gotten off a drug-addicted guard. Between Zeus inside, the ceiling sensor compromise, and Matteo’s codes, the opportunity was just too big for them to pass up. It was like one of those once-in-a-lifetime astronomy events.
Of course, there was also the matter of a very weird warning that we’d received. A note from an Abe Lincoln cosplayer telling us not to follow our passions or there’d be trouble. Specifically: “Passion has helped us, but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence.”
We still didn’t know who had delivered the warning, but it didn’t work; in fact, it had the opposite effect, like a flag to a bull, or more like three very growly and sexy bulls. “We need to putreason over passion? They can fuck off!” Zeus had said. “If they have info, then tell us or fuck off, because the Prime is ours.”
Sure, it’s healthy not to worry what other people think, but I couldn’t help but burn with curiosity. What kind of person delivered a note like that? Why in that manner? What was their motive? Did they know something they wanted us to be wary about? Or were they just messing with us?
It was so weird!
“Someday we’ll know,” Thor had said.
Not hugely helpful.
And we were full steam ahead with the bank. For twelve days we’d been outside in different vehicles. Twelve long, boring days. We all had accounts, and each of us had been inside making deposits.
You got to know a lot about a place in twelve days.
I’d already identified the softest time, security-wise—it was fifteen minutes every day, starting at eleven. That was when the manager went out for bagels. At that point, the guards relaxed. One of them liked to flirt with one of the desk clerks. So far, it had happened each and every day.
I grabbed the iPad from Thor. “My turn for an awareness break.”
Instead of taking my turn at my favorite online game, Dazzle Dipper, I had something to show them. A hotel on the Tunisian island of Jerba.
We had made some great scores in the past few months, and I’d insisted on socking away the money in an offshore account. We could retire as is, but if we got half the money they thought we’d get for this job, we could retire in disgusting luxury. And Tunisia doesn’t have an extradition treaty, always a plus.
I got to the page and showed it to Odin first.
He gazed at it, all amber eyes under lush, dark lashes, moppy hair, and all of that extreme hotness. The scar over hisdeeply bronzed right cheekbone moved as he twisted his lips in disapproval.
I was there when he’d gotten that scar—and when he’d refused to let Thor stitch it up.
Poor Odin. He’s always looked more like a model than a hardened criminal, much to his own disgust. He’d obviously thought that a big, nasty scar would change all that, but no.
The scar only made him hotter.
“I know Jerba,” Odin said. “Fucking-gparadisiacal spot.” He always pronounced certain g’s hard, which made him delightfully easy to mimic.
“That’s the idea.” I handed the thing to Thor.
“Nice.” Thor scrolled through the images.
“They have hot tubs. A hot tub on the balcony overlooking the sea,” I said.
“Sure,” Thor said. “But we’re not the vacationing type.”
“It’s not for a vacation. It’s where we should live.”
They both looked at me as if I’d sprung boing-eyes out of my eye sockets.
“We can’t live there,” Odin said.
“Why not?” I asked.
Thor snorted. “Because.”
“Oh, thanks for clearing that up,” I said.
