13. Eva
EVA
“Red, you’ll coordinate with Thumper and?—”
The door flew open and Fox came running in, interrupting Lock’s orders. I was there strictly to listen. It had been way too long since I sat in on a meeting at OPS.
Lock sighed heavily at the interruption. Or maybe it was the fact that it was Fox. Then again, it could have been the extremely large sack he was dragging behind him. It was hard to tell.
“Fox, what the fuck are you doing?” Lock snapped.
His eyes widened as he shoved Eli and Red apart from their spots around the table, then hoisted the bag, or tried to, onto the table. It kept flopping to the side as crunching sounds rattled from inside the sack. Every time he started to get part of the sack up, another part fell.
“Hold on,” he cried out. “Almost got it. Red, get that side.”
“Get it yourself,” Red muttered.
“I was at home, waiting for my weekly delivery when something amazing happened,” Fox grinned, still trying to push the huge sack onto the table. “I mean, it was kismet.” He stopped struggling and frowned. “Is that the right word?”
“Does it fucking matter?” Thumper sighed.
“Well, if I used the wrong word, it wouldn’t make sense, so I guess it does. Then again, maybe you don’t care about what word I used.”
“We don’t,” IRIS said in a bored tone. “Is there any chance you could send me out on a job that’s actually exciting? Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve blown something up?”
“You’re not supposed to blow things up,” Slider griped in irritation. “You’re supposed to dismantle.”
“Yeah, that’s totally what I meant,” IRIS corrected, though I could see that gleam in his eyes. He was dying to have some fun.
“Fox, what are you doing?” I finally spoke up.
“Oh, I’m glad you asked,” he grinned. “It’s about time someone showed some interest in me. Not that you should show too much interest. That might be weird. If you know what I mean.”
“Fox, we always know what you mean,” Lock sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Can we finish our meeting?”
“No can do, capitaine ! I’ve had a breakthrough. You’re gonna love this. I mean, it’s great, really amazing. Probably better than when Scottie and I danced the tango for the first time.”
“That was not amazing,” Brock snorted.
“You weren’t even there,” Scottie argued.
“It was a fucking dance!” Brock shouted. “Two dudes dancing. How fucking amazing could it be?”
“Clearly, you don’t understand the beauty of mixing guns and the art of fine dancing,” Fox chuckled.
“Fox!” Lock shouted, getting more irritated by the second. “We’re in the middle of a meeting!”
“Yeah, I know,” he scoffed. “Which is why it’s so important we talk about this now.” He finished hoisting the sack on the table, then sat there panting like he’d run a marathon. “Whew! That was quite the expedition.”
“It wasn’t an expedition,” Dash grumbled. “You carried a bag.”
“A very big bag,” Fox corrected.
I shoved to my feet, hoping I could move things along. “Alright, Fox. Tell us what you have in the sack.”
Fox’s face contorted into a look of shock. “Just like that? No big reveal? No fireworks? IRIS, surely you have a little something in your pocket you could pull out to make this more exciting.”
“Fox!” Lock shouted, losing his shit.
“Alright, geez. Keep your pants on.” He started untying the sack and looked at all of us pointedly. “Now, as you all know, I get a weekly delivery of my favorite treat.”
He waited with bated breath for one of us to acknowledge the snack. When no one did, he sighed.
“You know, just once it would be nice if someone took an interest. Anyway, as I was saying before I was so rudely not interrupted, my weekly delivery arrived. Now, we all know this is special, because…” he said, drawing it out.
“Seriously, guys. When you know the answer, just shout it out. It’s like I have to do all the work around here.”
“Fox—”
I stood, interrupting Lock. It was best if he just got this out. “Tell us what you found.”
“Thank you, my lovely lady,” he said, bowing his head to me.
“As I was saying, my weekly delivery arrived. I signed for it as usual. You know, I almost lost my delivery one week because someone else signed for it and placed it in the wrong location. It was this whole horrible experience that I never want to repeat.”
“Fox,” I grinned at him, hoping he would take the hint and move it along.
“Right!” His face lit up as he snapped his fingers jauntily before continuing. “So, in my usual delivery, I get precisely fifty bags. This has never been wrong. Each week, like clockwork, I get fifty bags delivered to my door.”
He looked each of us in the eye before continuing.
“But this week, I received my shipment a day early, and…” He paused for effect. “Only forty-nine bags!”
Silence greeted him as we all looked at each other, wondering what he thought this meant. When it was clear no one else was that interested, I took the liberty of playing into his ridiculous conspiracy.
“Okay, and what do you think this means?”
Scoffing, he rolled his eyes. “Well, obviously it means that Cash is signaling us for help!”
That gave me pause, and as I looked around the room, everyone else seemed pretty curious about his logic as well. “Um…how do you think Cash is signaling you?”
“Well, obviously, he’s in trouble and he needs our help.”
Lock cleared his throat uncomfortably, his eyes flicking to mine. “Buddy, Cash is dead. We went to his funeral.”
Fox laughed at that, wiping the tears from his eyes as he did so. “Man, you are so funny. Really, that’s great.”
“Fox, we were all there. We saw the body.”
A body that wasn’t Cash’s, but I wasn’t about to say that.
“Clearly, it was a fake. Just like when FNG faked his death. What? You think FNG can fake it but not Cash?”
Everyone was silent at that. Of course he could fake his death. It was so obvious to me that he had, but then again, I had intel on my side.
“Look, I understand this transition is hard for you?—”
Kavanaugh interrupted Cash. “No it’s not. He’s the one who fucking killed him!”
I swore Fox paled slightly as he looked around the room. “You…you actually believed that?” He waited for an answer, then he threw his head back and burst out laughing. “Why would I kill my own brother?”
“Fox, he’s not your brother,” Lock argued.
“I mean, we’re like this,” he said, crossing his fingers.
“Not nearly as close as me and The Kamau, but there is no way I could actually kill someone that I’m linked to by blood.
Then again, I’m pretty sure I could have killed my father if he had bothered to stick around, but that’s a theory to put to the test another time. ”
“Fox,” I cut him off. “Why don’t you tell us why you think Cash sent this to you.”
“Well, first, because he’s not dead. I mean, he wasn’t actually in that vehicle when it blew up. He opened the hatch in the floor of the car and slipped down the manhole. It was classic Cash,” he grinned. “Everyone else blew up, and I had to have a body in the car to look like Cash.”
“What about the body in the casket?” Red asked.
“Well, obviously, it was a fake,” he scoffed. “I thought briefly about putting Rafe in there, but he was too decomposed. It would not have been pretty.”
“Alright,” Lock sighed. “Let’s say that you really didn’t blow up Cash.”
“I didn’t.”
“And let’s say that you placed a body in that casket.”
“I did.”
Lock clenched his jaw in irritation. “Then why would you put a perfectly good version of Cash in there, sans any burn marks? Wouldn’t it have been more believable if he was…” Again, he looked to me. “Charred?”
“Like I could ever mar Cash’s beautiful face with a charred body,” Fox laughed.
“Come on! That was his big sendoff! I wanted it to be amazing. In fact, I nearly had music playing, but Anna convinced me it wasn’t the right time for show tunes.
I happen to disagree. Cash loved going to the theater with me.
In fact, we’ve seen Oklahoma thirty-three times together. ”
“And that’s impressive,” I cut in. “But why do you assume Cash sent you the Funyuns?”
“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?”
When no one answered, he looked at all of us, shaking his head incredulously. “Seriously? No one else sees it?”
“I think you’re going to have to explain this one.”
He rolled his eyes dramatically, but grinned at the excitement of it all. Jumping up on the table, he walked around his pile of Funyuns, making sure each of us could hear him, loud and clear.
“For starters, in a spiritual context, the number forty-nine symbolizes a significant turning point, particularly the end of a cycle or the—” he held up his fingers in air quotes— “‘time of the end.’ Which totally makes sense because the time for Cash to be on the run is over. So, you see, that alone should be enough to let you know this is from Cash. But if you’re not convinced, I have another example for you.
In Judaism, there are forty-nine days between Passover and Shavuot, which is a period of spiritual preparation. ”
“And…that means?” Lock asked.
Fox jumped over his Funyuns and rushed over to Lock, bending over to get in his face. “It’s a time of spiritual growth and reflection! What more do you need?”
“A hell of a lot,” Lock muttered.
Fox held up his hands placatingly. “Alright, alright. I can see you need more. So, what if I told you that the square root of forty-nine is seven?”
He waggled his eyebrows at all of us, turning in a circle. When no one answered, he threw up his hands. “Oh, come on! Seven! Seven is the exact number of times that Cash has thrown up in his life!”
“Why do you even know that?” I asked before I could think better of it.
“Because Cash means something to me. So, I take an interest in his life. Something the rest of you clearly need to do.”
Lock scratched the back of his head, clearly trying to connect the dots the same way Fox had. “Look, all of this is very interesting?—”
“Forty-nine is also the country calling code for Germany,” he continued. “Does anyone know the significance of that?”