Oh, well, that seemed to work.
Clint didn’t hesitate to keep talking.
“When the upper leadership was taken out in a firefight, the code was up for grabs. A bunch of us worked forThe BlackStone Group, on the DL.”
Zayn growled.
“So traitors.”
The man shrugged.
“I was in the Sandbox risking my goddamn life for thirty thousand a year. If someone was going to give me more moneyto be there, I was taking it. I had to live too. My life was worth more than that. You all know the government pays soldiers shit.”
Well, he was right there.
Unless you were some special elite team, you didn’t make squat.
Oh, you could die for the country, but you couldn’t be given a decent paycheck.
That’s why Marines took harder jobs.
To provide for their families.
“Anyway, the code went missing. That pissed off Von Donore. He wanted that code in the worst way. I think he had the leadership ambushed.”
Well, that was more than likely.
“Elizabeth, are you hearing all of this?” Maura asked the woman back at base.
“Copy,” she said into Maura’s earpiece.
Because he didn’t want to die, the man kept talking.
“We had to find that code. Then, one day, word got out that Hemmingway took the code so that the Marines and soldiers there wouldn’t be betrayed to the Taliban. He took the code so Von couldn’t pay off the bad guys.”
Well, someone was a hero.
“So, we killed him.”
Zayn went to punch the man in the face, and Jagger stopped him at the last second.
“Down, big guy. We need him to talk, not eat his teeth,” he said.
“Fucking piece of shit traitor,” he said. “I lost friends there. I lost brothers there. I was shot there! And you fuckers were screwing with the enemy?”
It took him, Raphael, Gunny, and Ivan to hold Zayn back. In fact, they had to sit on him, and keep him on the ground, and still, he fought.
Someone was angry.
“Keep talking, or they’re letting him up,” Maura stated.
The man did.
“Von called for the man to die. He wanted that code back, and Hemmingway wouldn’t play. So, he set it up that we all went up on a mission. We killed Hemmingway.”
They stared at him.
He began crying.
