Lo was at the stove trying to whip up something. I felt bad that it was because of me that we were back to gruel and grub, especially since we weren’t sure if it was safe to go into town for a bite, but a man’s gotta stick to his guns.
Cord passed him two separate envelopes. “I took that from them while they were asleep.” Inside were two locks of hair.
“Cool, now all we have to do is set something up so we know if we can trust the chief or not. My gut says yes and I always follow my gut, but we’ve got too much at stake now to take chances.” He looked at little Zakira who was taking it all in from her place on my chest.
She seemed to have some weird fascination with her toes. I’m gonna have to read up on that shit because she kept pulling off her socks to get at them and stick them in her mouth.
“How do you plan on doing that?”
“Not sure yet, but we’ll think of something. I’m hoping to find something in the commander’s files that we can use, something that maybe only those two would know about.”
This shit was getting more and more complicated. If I thought that it would be better for my daughter to be somewhere else, if I was sure I could send her somewhere safe, I would do it in a heartbeat, even if it meant giving her back to her mother. But with so many different variables at play, there was no way I was gonna make that move. I wouldn’t even send Vanessa out there and I hated her guts.
“I got another call from the asshole last night, and no we still haven’t been able to triangulate the calls.”
“What, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because brother, it was your first night with your baby girl and there was nothing you could do. I’m telling you now.” He put his phone on the table and pressed replay so that the tinny robotic voice came through for all to hear.
“Hello my friend, I see you’ve been busy. Too bad the little pigeons you netted weren’t of any use to you, better luck next time. Oh by the way since you have decided not to adhere to our warning to stay out of our business, we have decided it’s only fair to go ahead and expose your old commander for what he really was, and by so doing, discredit your whole team. All that hard work for nothing.” There was a very sinister laugh at the end of it before the line went dead.
“Hold it, that ‘hello my friend’ where the fuck have we heard that before? That’s not American speak.”
“You’re right, see, one more clue to add to the puzzle.”
“Yeah but how much time do we have to put this puzzle together? I say we go back to the beginning and put everything together from scratch starting with when the men first came to us. Then we add in what we’ve found so far from the commander, factor in what Davey knows and see what we’ve got because so far, we ain’t got shit.”
Chapter 11
ZAK
The brainstorming begun, and we all threw around ideas. There was no immediate worry because we all recognized the call for what it was, a fishing expedition. On calls like that you listen out more for what’s not being said than to what is. So far we knew that the men we’d released hadn’t told them anything useful, more to the point, the one we were trying to turn hadn’t spilled his guts.
That could mean also that the chief was on the up and up since he was our man inside and knew what we were up to, but Lo was right, with what was at stake we needed more than that.
“That phrase, ‘my friend’ that’s middle eastern, most of them say it like that so that’s no help, but who do we know or have had run-ins with in the past that would feel comfortable enough to call us like that? And that knows about our relationship with the commander?” My mind was still working thank fuck, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to switch gears as easily as I used to, but that hadn’t changed. I just had to compartmentalize shit in my head. I kissed my baby’s hair because she was being so good and not complaining. Then again that could be because every so often one of her uncles would stop to tickle her or make faces at her.
Lo’s oatmeal was sitting like a lump of cement in my gut so I knew it was only a matter of time before this bunch mutinied and turned on my ass. And the closer it got to lunchtime I was waiting for one of the greedy fucks to break.
Davey was back and adding his two cents along with the rest of us, and it was amazing how easily the kid held his own. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if it turns out that he really is the commander’s, but I guess we’ll know one way or another in a couple of weeks at least.
We hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the females but when the baby started rooting around on my chest I knew that shit was about to change. She’d made it pretty clear as shit that she did not care for the formula, but maybe I could sidetrack her with some strained peas, or one of the other equally repulsive fuckery they had for her to eat. “Here Ty hold her.” He was only too happy to snag her as I went to get her food.