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"Good for them. How is that a problem for us?"
"I’ll explain everything when I get there. Just call Jett. I’ll be there in about twenty-five minutes." I must have been driving faster than I thought, ’cause I was there in fifteen minutes. Jett was there when I got there, which would save me the trouble of telling the story twice.
"Are you sure it’s the same guy?" Jett asked pacing back and forth around the living room.
"Yeah, I’m sure. It’s too much of a coincidence not to be."
"Something ain’t right about this. It’s too messy, too public. The police can tie this back to us. Felix should never have put us in this position," Monika said.
"Have you tried to call Felix?" Jett inquired. "Find out what the fuck is goin’ on?"
"Not yet. And if I did, what’s he gonna say? I don’t know anything about it, this shouldn’t have happened. Best he doesn’t know that we even suspect he had any part of this."
"If the cops connect us to Vogel, the shit is over. Fuck Felix. He set us up to take this fall," Monika said.
"We don’t know that," Jett said.
"The hell we don’t, who else could it be? I never did trust Felix," Monika said as she got up and looked out the window. "I mean what do we know about him anyway?"
"It all goes back to that last mission."
"What are you talking about, Nick?" she asked.
"The way the whole thing went down. I mean, what were we really doin’ down there?"
There was silence.
"We’ve all thought about it. I know I have. There we were in South America killing drug dealers, blowing up drug plants and seizing their financial records. We were small teams, each working independently. But all of a sudden, the entire unit is needed to take out one plant. Then boom, everybody dies."
"Except us." Monika asserted.
"And we’d be dead too if you didn’t fall on approach and break your ankle."
"I never will forget searching the area for survivors," Jett said. I looked over at Jett; he looked like he was in another world, sitting there in the middle of the floor. "Knowing that there wouldn’t be any," Jett continued. "But the whole time I’m thinkin’, Nick. I’m thinkin’, something ain’t right. Something in the milk ain’t clean."
"I hate it when you say shit like that, Jett. Like white milk is so pure, so clean that—"
"Give it a rest for now, Monika. Okay! We pick up the whole black, white thing at 0700 tomorrow," Jett said and bounced up from the floor. I had to agree. This wasn’t the time.
Jett resumed his pacing routine. "Then the way they got us out of there. Quick and quiet. Like we were down there doin’ somethin’ we didn’t have no business doin’. But shit went wrong and everyone died but us. Well shit, we don’t know what we know, so what could we tell anybody. And who’s gonna ask? You have to know what was goin’ on to even ask the damn questions."
What he said was confusing at first, then I realized just how right he was.
"Then we get processed out. And the very next day there’s Uncle Felix. But the money’s been good so I ain’t sayin’ nothin’."
"Imagine if we had told Felix no," Monika said.
"Like I said, it’s not like all of us haven’t thought about it. But that’s the case with any of the shit we’ve done, in or out. If we become expendable, we die. More so now."
"We don’t know who the fuck Felix is. He never identified himself as a representative of — shit, anything!" Monika exclaimed. "We all just went along with it for the money. The fact of the matter is that we’re mercenaries."
"She’s right Nick."
"Don’t you think I know that? We aren’t some kinda high-powered secret government agents. They didn’t recruit us into the CIA or any shit like that. They pushed us out and threw some bones our way to keep us happy and quiet."
"I need a drink." Monika picked up a bottle of gin. "What do we do now?"
"Make it two." Jett got up and followed Monika to the kitchen. She poured herself and Jett a glass. "You want one Nick?"