“Well,” said Paul, staring pensively out to sea. “It’s time to get the band back together.” The sea, impassive, just waved.

There were five of them in the band, two on guitars, one on a bass, two on drums, and between them they had a world class safecracker, a demolitions expert, a getaway driver, a marksman, and a face. Oh also two of them were elves and one of them was an orc. Probably also there was some kind of robot in there, robots are de rigger.

They’d split up over “creative differences” after their last big job twenty ago, split the take and the royalties and gone their separate ways, but they’d kept in touch, or at least enough that Paul could get a start on tracking them down. Or at least at tracking Stuart down; Stuart was the only one who’d gone meaningfully solo, you couldn’t not know where Stuart was at all times, usually making the rounds of the talk shows, giant shoulders straining against immaculately tailored blue serge as he towered over some runt usually named Jimmy. His voice on the phone echoed tinnily. “What’s the job, Paul?”

Paul grinned, the old boyish charm still flickering. “How would you feel about stealing the Crown Jewels?”

Long, sober pause, but it’s a done deal, it was always going to be this way. They were all just waiting for this moment to arrive.