Page 86 of Burn Bag

“Exactly. Plus, they communicate with these awesome calls. I always wanted to speak another language.”

“You already speak five,” I retorted.

“Yeah, but imagine a language I could speak that only monkeys knew. How useful would that be on a job? Huh?” he grinned.

“Fox…” I didn’t know what to say. Seriously, what the fuck did you say when a friend said he wanted to keep a Capuchin monkey so he could talk to him in secret?

“Ooh, added bonus, they don’t eat meat. Well, supposedly. Which means I don’t have to worry about sharing my shawarma with him.”

“Yeah, just your Funyuns,” I muttered.

“Nah, I really doubt they’d like the onion flavor. Ooh, maybe you could learn to speak cat language. That way, we could have a cat army.”

“Fox—”

“Now, hear me out. Imagine we’re on a job and you have to go down a dark alley. You could send a cat first and wait to hear back from him. One meow is the all clear, but two meows means there’s danger. And I bet those Ashera cats you just brought home would be perfect for the job because they act like dogs. How could it go wrong?”

“How could it go wrong? Did you seriously just ask me that?”

“Yeah,” he said succinctly. “Cats have been used for all kinds of things in war. Did you know they brought them on ships in World War II?”

“Yes, to kill rodents. Not to go into combat zones!”

“Au contraire mon frère,” he grinned. “Cats were used to detect mustard gas during the war. In fact, it’s because of their heightened sense of smell that they were so helpful.” Then he frowned, turning away from me. “Which makes me think we might be missing out on some vital points. IRIS could use them to detect bombs. Imagine all we’re missing out on. We really could have a cat army! Your wife is brilliant!”

He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my cheek, then jumped back. “I have to talk to IRIS. We need to set up cat housing and start a whole program for training. It’ll take some time, but we’ll be up and running in no time. Ooh, and you know who will want in on this?”

“FNG?” I said drolly.

“Yes!” he laughed. “It’s going to be so amazing!” He walked away, still muttering to himself and making plans. I sighed, running my fingers through my hair in frustration just as Lock approached.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Aren’t you off today?”

“I came in to get a workout, but apparently, I inadvertently got Fox to start a cat army.”

Lock sighed heavily. “I guess I’d better look into the price of mice.”

21

DAPHNE

I tripped over another cat,yelping when I nearly squashed him on the way to answer the door. Even I had to admit that we had just a few too many cats. It had never been my intention to walk away with this many cats, or even keep them all. In my mind, they would all get a good home, but finding them was a different situation.

The doorbell rang again and I jumped over a cat, sliding to the door in my socks. “Coming!”

I yanked the door open, blowing my hair out of my face just as Fox pushed through the door. “Um…”

“Yes! This is what I’m talking about!”

I looked around, wondering what on earth he could mean. “What is?”

“This!” He spread his arms wide, grinning as he turned to me. “The cat haven.”

“Oh, we’re not?—”

“I applaud you, madam, for saving these wonderful creatures. You have no idea how much use they’ll be.”

“Use for…”

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