Chapter 31 #2
Ferguson cackled. “I found him crouched back there once with both cheeks full like a fucking hamster, and he tried to tell me they were electrolyte supplements or some shit.”
The laugh hit Tyrone before the pain could, because for a second, Dwight was twenty feet away instead of years gone, and Tyrone could see the son of a bitch doing exactly that.
“He never shared.”
“With you.”
“Fuck you, too.”
Ferguson smiled, but it faded as he looked around the room. “I miss having that motherfucker around to drive us batshit.”
“Yeah.” There was nothing else to say. Ferg didn’t know.
Tyrone could see that now, and knowing it made what was coming hurt in an entirely different way.
Ferguson was standing beside Dwight’s old cage, remembering a dead brother with affection, unaware that within minutes, Tyrone was going to reach into years of shared history and tear out something rotten none of them had known was there.
Voices rose near the entrance as more men came in, not only the handful Tyrone had served beside directly, but Raiders from across Ferguson’s career, men who had worked under him, beside him, or known him through the battalion.
The room filled with the easy noise of brothers gathered for one of the good reasons, and Tyrone stayed where he was while Ferguson was pulled away again.
He curled his fingers through the wire. This was where they had trusted each other.
Where a man could turn his back because the brother behind him had it.
Where they had prepared deliberately because competent men didn’t wait for a crisis to discover whether they were ready.
Where nobody gave a shit how expensive the equipment hanging in the cages was if the human being wearing it couldn’t be trusted.
Where quality had always mattered more than quantity because the right small team could punch so far above its weight class that the enemy never saw them coming.
This was where men had learned, lived, and eventually taught the same standards to the Raiders who came after them.
Always Faithful. Always Forward. Earn it every fucking day.
Tyrone looked toward the door when Sullivan walked in. He barely restrained the snarl that raged up from his soul when the first thing the son of a bitch saw was Tyrone standing in Dwight’s cage.
Sullivan’s reaction was tiny, there and gone quickly enough that anyone who hadn’t spent years studying faces for the things men tried not to show might have missed it.
His stride broke for less than a second before he recovered, his gaze moving over Tyrone and then around the room as though checking whether anyone else had noticed.
Nobody had…Yet.
“Tyrone.”
Sullivan didn’t use Zorro, and that interested him.
“Sullivan.”
Ferguson glanced between them. “Well, shit. Look at this. I finally retire and manage to get both you stubborn assholes into the same room without a court order.” A couple of men laughed, but Tyrone didn’t, and interestingly, neither did Sullivan.
Ferguson’s smile faded a little. “Okay. Apparently, I missed something.”
Tyrone looked at Sullivan. “Kunar.”
The word hit the room softly enough that most of the men probably didn’t understand why he had said it, but Sullivan did. His shoulders changed, not much, only enough to tell him the bastard’s body had reacted before his brain could shut it down.
“What about it?”
“Dwight’s last mission.”
“I know what Kunar was.”
Seeing the bastard trying to figure out what he knew and if he had the balls to say it out loud told him Sullivan had clearly forgotten his reputation as a straight shooter. “I figured you would.”
Ferguson’s attention sharpened.
Sullivan looked around the room. “Is this really something you want to do today?”
Tyrone almost admired the attempt at deflection. Make him the asshole ruining Ferguson’s retirement by dragging up old grief. Give everyone a reason to resent the conversation before they knew what it was about.
Almost… but not quite.
It would take shooting you here and spending twenty to life paying for it to ruin this day.
Ferg frowned. “Do what?”
Tyrone kept his eyes on Sullivan. “Tell them.”
“Tell them what?”
“What happened to Dwight.”
Silence began spreading outward from the men nearest them, conversations dying as heads turned to see what was going on.
Sullivan shook his head. “We’ve been over this.”
“No. We went over what we thought happened.” Keep squirming, motherfucker. Keep on squirming. “I’m asking you to tell them what actually happened.”
Ferguson moved closer. “Zorro?”
Tyrone ignored him for the moment. He had promised himself Sullivan would get one opportunity, not because the bastard deserved it but because he needed to know whether there was enough of the man they had once trusted left inside him to tell the truth when it finally came for him.
“It was an ambush.” Sullivan looked straight into his eyes and lied to his face. “We lost Dwight. You know that.”
There it was. Tyrone felt something inside him settle. He’d given him the chance to come clean. Clearly, John Sullivan didn’t have an ounce of integrity in his body.
“Okay.”
Sullivan’s brow furrowed as Tyrone reached behind him, picked up the folder he had left on the bench inside Dwight’s cage, and held it at his side.
Ferguson looked at it, and then at him. “What the fuck is going on?”
Tyrone finally turned toward the room. There were enough men packed into it now that the open space between the cages had almost disappeared, serving Raiders standing alongside men who had gotten out years ago, different generations connected by the same title and the same standards.
Some had known Dwight. Others hadn’t. A few had probably never met Sullivan before today.
They were about to learn exactly who he was.
“Our brother didn’t die because the enemy got lucky.” He opened the folder. “His operational pattern was compromised.”
Nobody spoke as confused looks crossed their faces. Tyrone looked back at Sullivan.
“It was motherfucking sold to the enemy.”
Ferguson went still.
Somewhere behind him, a man muttered, “What?”
Sullivan’s face hardened. “Be very fucking careful.”
There he was, trying to use his commander voice.
Tyrone almost laughed. Once, that tone could have straightened his spine before he consciously registered it.
Sullivan had been his CO, and he had trusted the man issuing orders enough to follow them into places where hesitation got people killed.
Now all he heard was a frightened old bastard reaching for authority he no longer possessed.
“We rebuilt the financial trail.” He flipped pages in the file. “Debt. Payments. Contact with Palmer. Communications lining up with Dwight’s movements and the ambush. It took years because whoever buried it knew what the fuck they were doing, but not well enough.”
Ferguson stared at Sullivan. “No way.” It sounded like a man rejecting something his brain couldn’t fit into the world he knew. Tyrone handed him the first pages, and Ferguson took them automatically.
“Ferg,” Sullivan said.
Ferguson’s eyes dropped to the paper. Tyrone watched him read, as did the rest of the room.
He turned one page, then another, his expression changing so gradually Tyrone couldn’t identify the moment disbelief became comprehension.
He went back to the first page and read part of it again before looking at Tyrone.
“Where did you get this?”
“My people.”
“Verified?”
“Every fucking piece.”
“By who?”
“More than one source. The evidence has already been turned over.” There wasn’t a hope in hell he was going to give up the names of the people he worked with. These men were smart enough to figure that shit out for themselves.
Sullivan’s head snapped toward him. “Turned over to who?”
Yeah… now you’re interested in doing this today, aren’t you?
Ferguson looked at Sullivan. “Tell me he’s wrong.”
Sullivan’s attention shifted to him. “Ferg, you don’t understand what you’re looking at.”
“Then explain it.”
“You’re seeing fragments without context.”
Ferguson held up the pages. “Then give me the fucking context.”
The room had gone completely silent as everyone leaned closer to ensure they didn’t miss a single word.
One of the older Raiders stepped forward and held out his hand. “Let me see it.” Ferguson passed him the pages. The man read them, asked Tyrone for a date, and went still when Tyrone gave it to him. “I remember this.”
Another man looked over. “What?”
“The shift.” He tapped something on the page. “We changed the movement window.”
Tyrone nodded. “Yeah.”
“That wasn’t widely distributed.”
“No.”
The Raider looked at Sullivan, and a look crossed his face; it wasn’t anger yet, or rage, but there was something far, far worse… betrayal. “You knew.”
Sullivan’s mouth tightened. “A lot of people knew.”
“No.” The man shook his head. “Not this. Not then.”
Another Raider took the paperwork from him.
Questions started coming in the precise, methodical scrutiny Tyrone had hoped for from men who had spent their careers refusing to accept information simply because somebody told them it was true.
Tyrone answered what he knew and said he didn’t know when he didn’t.
He didn’t embellish or allow his emotions to surface.
The evidence had to do the heavy lifting.
Payment dates, Contacts, communications, the change in Dwight’s operational pattern.
Everything from the ambush that had been too fucking ready to Palmer, and everything in between until the questions stopped one by one.
Ferguson had gone pale. He looked at Sullivan again, and Tyrone saw something in his face that made him want to look away because this wasn’t the anger of a Raider confronting a traitor. This was a man discovering one of his brothers had never been the man he thought he was.
“Tell me Zorro’s wrong.”
Sullivan exhaled. “Ferg.”