Page 95 of The Best Trick

Odin nodded grimly.

Zeus rewound the recording device to the beginning. That's when we hit the jackpot. An angry meeting, male voices arguing. People blaming each other for not keeping somebody they referred to as “Snapdragon” under control. They blamed each other as the conversation wore on. It became clear that Snapdragon was some kind of a double agent, and he was also the person who was responsible for “Incident A” aka the hundreds of deaths that got blamed on my guys.

They were talking about what to do about the doctor.

“Thor,” I whispered.

Everybody agreed that the doctor needed to be handled after Snapdragon was sent away. The doctor was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Collateral,” one person said.

“War is hell,” another voice said.

“Let’s send Rashad,” another said.

Zeus clicked it off. “This is everything. Just this alone will get the case against us eviscerated. They can voiceprint this. It’s a smoking gun.”

“Oh my god, it is,” I whispered.

We sat there, silently absorbing the hugeness of what we had. The moments ticked on. My guys sat there, stunned, I suppose.

Screw that!

I sprung up from the table and went around and pulled them into a hug, all my three guys at once.

Zeus snapped out of the stoic thing suddenly, rising up with a roar. He hoisted me up into his arms and spun me around the living room. “Fuck. Yes!”

“Yesssssss!” I said.

“It's everything!” he said.

“In the right hands it's everything,” Odin said.

Thor stood up and hugged me and Zeus, and then Odin stood up.

“Group hug!” I screamed.

Odin complied. “We have to be smart about this,” he said, pulling away. “Denko’s gotta know we have the bag, and he's not going to want to lose his little policy. The manhunt that’s on for us right now is going to make past manhunts look like a toddler’s Easter egg hunt.”

My guys went to work, copying the contents, making multiple sets of evidence. The plan was that Odin would take one set personally to his contact at the CIA. Zeus would accompany him out to Washington, D.C., but he’d bring a set of evidence to one of the congresspeople who had been on the committee looking into the incident. Thor and I would offer a set to anL.A. Timesteam of journalists who had been following the story since the beginning, a team who was familiar with a lot of the players. Of course they believed my guys were the culprits.

“They're going to be shocked when the murderers themselves walk into the newsroom,” Zeus said. “But they'll be very pleased when they verify this stash.”

Other copies were earmarked for other people. And we made one set to give to the Gigis. Just in case.

An hour later, Odin and Zeus were in a car headed for Phoenix. They’d hop on a plane to D.C. from there.

Thor and I stayed back with Doris. After dropping a set of evidence off at the newspaper offices in El Segundo, we hung back and kept a low profile, making simple food together, taking lots of walks in a nearby park. We lived for the check-ins from Zeus and Odin.

They’d had good meetings with a few people.

Rumors were starting to fly.

Heads were going to roll.

Epilogue number3

They say people who have their backs against the wall are more dangerous because they fight harder.

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