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“He is a powerful ally for Navarro as long as he’s working for the FBI,” Piper said. “Pony told me that Navarro wants this territory as his. He’s been using Harris as a pawn, a proxy to make that happen for him. To take out your MC without Navarro having to get his own hands dirty.”
“And like she said,” Pony added, “he isn’t going to stop.”
It was quiet around the table, giving Pony more space and time for his own thoughts. During the course of the conversation, he’d remained unsure of exactly what and how he felt. But now, during this pause, he was starting to realize that despite his misgivings, he’d been coming to Piper’s defense again and again. Maybe that meant something.
Boomer spoke again before Pony could solidify those thoughts.
“All right. Piper, why don’t you step out for a moment. We’re going to talk amongst ourselves for a bit.”
Piper looked like she was searching for one more thing to say, but it seemed like it had all been left out on the table. Silently, she turned and left the room. Pony watched her go.
“Thoughts?” Boomer said, once she was gone.
“You heard what I had to say,” Jocko said. “This isn’t our problem.”
“Yeah, but it is,” Wyatt said. “She was right. Harris kills her, or her sister, and pins it on us? It’s a death sentence for the club.”
“There’s no winning a war with the FBI,” Griz agreed. “But we can remove the problem by cutting it off at the pass, stopping this Harris guy.”
“I just don’t like the idea of helping out someone who’s been sneaking around lying to us,” Jocko said.
“Either do I, but I think I get it,” Wyatt said.
“You do?”
“Sure. She gets told we’re working with some narcoterrorist lunatic like Navarro, and not knowing anything about us, she figures she’s doing the right thing.”
“An idealistic young lady,” Boomer said.
“Plus, setting all that aside,” Wyatt said, “from a strictly pragmatic standpoint, it would be nice to have a fed who owes usbig time. I mean, bottom line, it sounds like we have to help her for our own survival, so why not make it a win-win?”
Leave it to Wyatt to find the strategic win in finding an undercover fed in their midst. But then, Pony thought, he always was the clever one.
“Devil?” Boomer asked.
Devil shrugged. “I go with my man Pony. He was the one who got hurt the most by her. I go with what he says.”
“Thanks, Devil,” Pony said, and meant it. Devil could drive him directly up the wall some of the time… most of the time, really… but there was no doubt of his loyalty or his friendship.
“So?” Wyatt asked. “What do you think, Pony?”
Great question, Pony thought.I’ve been sitting here this whole time trying to sort that out myself.
His thoughts bounced around inside of his head, like ricocheting tennis balls moving too fast to grab on to. They swirled and swirled, slippery, elusive, and he decided the only way to sort it out was to talk it out.
“You guys know that I was in the Army,” he began.
“Yeah, Rangers,” Wyatt said. “We all know that. Afghanistan, right?”
“Iraq and Afghanistan. Here’s what you don’t know. When I was over there, I was attached to a group that went hunting for WMDs. Weapons of Mass Destruction. That was what we were sold on, that Saddam had started up this huge weapons program of nerve gas or possibly nukes.”
“I remember that, dude,” Devils said. “It all turned out to be bullshit, right? I mean, at first they tried to pretend that it was a conspiracy theory but…”
“Let the man talk, Devil,” Boomer said, before Devil could really get going.
“Well, Devil, you’re right,” Pony said, letting his words start to build some momentum in order to get past his lips. “It was allbullshit. All a lie, designed to take guys like me who signed up to defend and protect America, and set us loose on whoever they wanted to in Iraq so that they could keep the war going. And it worked. We believed them. Hook, line, and sinker. Me and my mates, we went out there, time and time again, and we attacked targets that were supposed to be this sort of lab or that sort of lab. And there was never any sign of WMDs. Never. But that didn’t stop us. We just kept going. And every time, we stacked up more bodies, and more bodies, and more bodies.”
“It was a war, Pony,” Wyatt said.
