“I helped because we’re in over our heads in something that I never signed up for. Vinny helped because we’ve always watched each other’s backs and he gets married to my little sister next spring. He’s family. It’s what we do.” He gave me a little smile.
“I get it, but there’s more, right? What do you think you’re in over your heads with?” He’d helped me but I needed to be careful with what I said and what I revealed.
I was slowly getting my mental strength back. Protocol would suggest that as soon as I could move, I should get in touch with Wes and Ethan.
Protocol at the moment was bull shit to me, with all the variables I had to wrap my head around. I was more inclined to take a different approach and gather more intel. Not just act like I was used to acting.
Also…
Here I was acting like an agent but I wasn’t that. I might have been hired by Ethan and the Special Missions Forces, but I wasn’t an agent.
I didn’t have to think about protocol.
“For some time I’ve sensed something more than the usual going on in the background with Giovanni. More than what we do as gangsters. I’m all up for money but there comes a point when that line of reason has been crossed. He always does those high stakes games. Months ago I saw a guy linked with the Cuban Cartel and I heard whispers of selling something to the biggest buyer Giovanni had ever had. I didn’t get a name but… I knew the level of shit was serious. Political. Government related and not ours.”
A shiver ran down my spine.
When this thing all started, it was clear as the days unfolded that there were several players involved.
Giovanni was in league with The Chameleon, an illegal black market trader. And, Diego Sanchez, a notorious member of the Cuban Cartel. I’d bet Diego was who Frankie saw Giovanni with.
Giovanni had stolen blue prints from a military envoy. The blueprints were a design to build a nuclear weapon unlike any known to man. Those people: Giovanni, The Chameleon and Diego were all facilitators, working for someone else. My team and I were not sure who. But we assumed they were working for someone terrorist related. We never factored in that it could be government related. We never factored it in and we were too busy dealing with the other side of the madness which was that Balthazar and the Ra, were after the blueprints. Better to say Balthazar and the Ra because as I’d seen for myself just last week he didn’t just have his Spades with him. There were ordinary Ra guys helping out like worker ants, furthering the cause.
There was so much at work here. Too much.
Trying to process too much at once was hurting my brain.
One thing at a time… Frankie said government.
“Which one Frankie? Which government?”
“I think Russian. I don’t know for certain. The thing that got to me the most was the secrets. Giovanni sent in the four knights who were killed to steal something. The rest of us were not privy to knowing what the something was.” He glanced back at me again.
I’d come to that conclusion on my first day at work. It was when I knew I’d have to go looking for the blueprints old school. I’d assumed my job would have been to watch over the blueprints but then quickly realized the remaining knights didn’t have a clue about them at all.
“Why didn’t he share the details with you?”
“Giovanni is a very particular man. He has his host of men protecting him and his assets like an army. The knights however get chosen for different things. Vinny and I are muscle. Armand the closest to him is an advisor and consigliere. Freddo is business minded. You would have been chosen for your keen attention to detail and ability to outsmart him. You were what was needed I guess in an emergency. The other four were what I call ruthless bastards. They used to run a ring where they stole all types of shit. Giovanni classed them as his generals. They were the guys who went above and beyond. If he wanted something done, they’d do it and leave no trace. We were all shocked to shit when we heard they’d all been killed.”
It was their deaths that opened the position for me. Except Giovanni didn’t have four replacements, he just had me. It was my skill. From the beginning he was always impressed with it and my attitude. I sufficed for what he needed, which was mainly to watch the casino and keep my eyes open for trouble. He had the others watch Jia, especially when he found out we were involved.
“So, back on track, why did I help you? Several reasons. The first was I think you came to steal the thing we don’t know about, also kid, you stuck out like a fucking sore thumb. I thought straight off the bat that you’d been sent. You aren’t a cop, and you aren’t military either. You’re not clean enough to pass for that shit. Those guys move differently.” He cleared his throat. “I’m not about supporting terrorism or pitting government against government. That’s above me. What’s more above me is groups like the Ra. I don’t know a lot about them but when I realized they were involved, I was out from then. Out in every essence of the word.”
“When did you know they were involved?”
“The night of the shootout, kid. We got rid of the bodies of the guys who came for us. Giovanni ordered us to take them to his crematorium. When I was prepping the men I saw the tats that linked them.”
I nodded. “The Ankh.”
“Yes, the fucking Ankh.”
The general members of The Ra had a tattoo of an Ankh on their wrists. The Spades also had that in addition to a tattoo on their cheeks of a spade. Balthazar was their leader, however, to my knowledge he did bear any of the marks that distinguished his faction or The Ra as a whole. He was his own monstrosity of a person.
“Not everybody knows what it means,” Frankie pointed out. That was pure truth. The Ra were a secret group and you had to travel in some special government or underground circles to even know of their existence. “Vinny sure as hell didn’t and neither did Armand. I don’t think Giovanni thought we’d have any idea. He never thought I’d know. That bastard didn’t even have the decency to tell us what we were dealing with. He just assumed we were dumb as fuck. And, he still hasn’t said. Any extra is what I gathered from what he said to you as he tortured you.”
“How do you know about the Ra?
“Let’s just say I hear a lot of things I shouldn’t in the underworld. I see even more things. I knew what the tattoo meant. It could only have been them that killed the other four knights. Right from then though, I suspected a rat. A fucking rat. Seeing the tat told me hands down that there was definitely a fucking rat amongst us and I think it’s that prick Armand.”
Armand…
Jia had mentioned something about him. She said she saw him meeting with someone and it looked off to her. Hearing Frankie say this now was even more reason for suspicion.
“Armand, why do you think it’s him?”
“He’s shady as shit, Xander. I don’t know how you can ask me that. He’s the only one of us with that lackadaisical attitude. He has a get out of jail card on account of his ties back to Italy and connections to the Marchesi family. It means it gives him more freedom than the rest of us to move around and do stuff.”
The night of the shootout Armand was screwing around with one of the maids. But, he didn’t have to exactly be around at the same time the Ra guys came in. They could have already been there waiting.