“It’s… We haven’t finished watchin’ it yet.”
“Watchingwhat?What’son the damned drive?”
“It’s a video.It might be of?—”
“Badger, what thefuck’son the drive?”
Badger closed his eye and rubbed his forehead.“We suspect it’s a video of Ray Dorland’s last minutes.We ain’t got that far yet, though.”
She gasped.“Shiiiiit!”
“I’ll upload it to the anonymous server once we finish watching it,” Trent added.“So don’t tell anyone yet.”
“Ken knows.He’s sitting right here, and you’re on speaker.”
“You know what I mean,” Trent said.“Let us finish watching this, then we’ll call you back.”
“Okay.”
Badger ended the call and looked at Trent.“Ready?”
Trent gulped half his glass, the liquor burning all the way down.“No, but we need to watch it.”He hitplay.
“—and I put her on a small private plane that showed up.”
“She walked onto the plane?”
“Nah.Told her I wanted to talk and drugged her.She trusted me.”
“Even though she should not have,”the Russian said.
Dorland harshly laughed.“That’s life in the Outback, ain’t it?My grandfather had it a lot harder when he got shipped here against his will, let me tell you.And he taught me how to survive.He weren’t soft like my brother and old man.I deserved to be head of the family, and my grandfather raised me to take no prisoners.”
“Who are your business partners?With this Faegan man?”
“I dunno their names.Faegan, that cunt, he dealt wit’ ’em direct.I didn’t want to be that close.I didn’t want Jake around when Carl got outta the military, right?No tellin’ what those two coulda done, oustin’ me or somethin’.So I took Jake out.Called Faegan and arranged it, and enjoyed the money that dropped into my account once they had him.”
Behind Dorland a shadow moved, backlit from behind the camera, someone standing.Trent realized there was at least one more man in the room besides the speaker.
“So this business dealing of yours was completely separate from our agreement?”the man asked.
“Fuck yeah!No offense, mate, but I didn’t want to shit where I ate, you know what I mean?None of that was ever supposed to cross over and cause us trouble.”
“Hmm.”The man heavily sighed.“But ithasnow ‘crossed over,’ as you said.Hasn’t it?”
“I swear!I had no idea!I don’t know how that nosy Mexican got in the middle of all of this!”
“You weren’t trying to strike a deal with his nephew, or later with his daughter, or him?”
“Nah!Like I said, I never even heard of him before you all told me.I dunno how he figured out who I was to get hold of me.”
“You do realize people with even the slightest bit of intelligence can research birth certificates, correct?”
“But I don’t know how that relates to me!”
“Your nephew has dual citizenship.He was in the military.They had records of his mother, you see.And she was born in Australia, as you of course know, since she wasYOUR FUCKING SISTER!”
He screamed the last three words, making Badger and Trent flinch.
