Page 18 of Exposed

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Her heart squeezed. “What are you saying?” Madison knew full well what a golden parachute entailed. A pile of money that would push him away from D.G.I. forever. “You can’t step down from D.G.I. You are D.G.I.” The history of D.G.I. and the man who created it flashed through her mind, a history she’d come to know by heart. She recalled every major corporate milestone. Every worldwide headquarters. Every award. Alex Drake’s fingerprints were on every achievement and honor. She couldn’t imagine Drake Global Industries without Drake. She wouldn’t let that happen.

He persisted. “Truth is, I’ve been fighting for a lot of years now. I don’t want to fight any more. I just want some peace.” He took a moment. “And I know it’s unfair to say, but I just want you, Madison.” Madison wasn’t sure what to say or do, but she knew this wasn’t the outcome anyone wanted, least of all her. “Paco can tell you anything you want to know. Everything. And tomorrow, I’ve cleared my calendar. If you want to talk, or meet, or anything at all ...” He trailed off as an incoming call demanded his attention. She remained speechless. “Madison, I’m sorry, but I need to take this. Just know that I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you.” With that, the phone clicked back to the home screen. He was gone. Her brow knit as she stared at it, wishing him back. A whimpering sigh escaped her. So much had been left unsaid.

Paco emerged from her the bedroom, wearing one of her over-sized T-shirts, pajama pants, and fuzzy, pink slippers. The pale pink T-shirt had a Queen logo on the front, making it doubly apropos. Madison looked up, and couldn’t restrain a smile, despite the roller-coaster ride of emotions she’d cascaded through. He hopped next to her on the couch, crisscross-apple-sauced while facing her. He pulled her hands towards his chest. “There’s a lot for us to discuss. I’d rather be comfortable if I’m going to bare my soul tonight. How about you get some pajamas on while I wrestle up some snacks and drinks.”

She inhaled, nodding in agreement, but realized she hadn’t lived there in weeks, and, had used it more like a crash pad before that. “Oh, I don’t think I have any groceries in here. And any I do have are probably a science experiment of epic proportions.” Just then, the doorbell rang, and Paco answered. The delivery man had an assortment of Chinese food, and a bag filled with a bottle of Grey Goose and all the fixings for cosmos, including the ice and glasses.

“We’re good.” Paco pointed the delivery man to the table, where he set the bags. As Madison rummaged through them, he waved her away. “Change first. Comfy jammies and comfort food to get us through this night.” Under his breath he said, “We’re gonna need it.”

Madison could tell he was trying to make the best of it but got the feeling this was all to build her strength, as the worst was yet to come. After a quick hug from behind, she obeyed, reacquainting herself with her comfiest loungewear.

With the bedroom door cracked, she could hear Paco fixing drinks. In his best Bette Davis impression, she heard his soft voice exaggerate, “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

He vigorously rattled the cocktail shaker. She heard two pours. She peeked out as he downed one, and pursed his lips at the empty glass, unsettled by its transparent emptiness. Watching him, it appeared the upcoming conversation would have a two-drink minimum.

“Hey, save some for me,” she insisted. Then heard another rattle of the shaker as he promptly proceeded to fix more.

Paco looked up as Madison returned. She walked in, the epitome of the girl next door. Wavy locks hidden in a bun atop her head, cinched, plush, pink robe, flannel pajama pants, and fuzzy panda slippers. Hands on her hips, she could see a slight wobble in his stance. “Exactly how many am I trailing by?”

“Three,” Paco retorted staunchly. His expression turned curious. “What’s under the robe?” He insisted on seeing what shirt ranked as her go-to comfort piece.

“Oh, just a shirt.”

“Come on ... let’s see the goods.”

Madison rolled her eyes as she opened her robe, revealing a very worn and wildly snug E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial shirt. She noticed Paco’s eyebrows raise and she cautioned, “Not a word.” Paco lowered one eyebrow. “Jack gave it to me for my eighth birthday. It’s my favorite movie, and wearing it somehow always makes me, I don’t know, feel better. Like everything’s going to be all right. And before you go thinking E.T. is juvenile, Neil Diamond wrote the song “Heartlight” because it’s such a beautiful movie.”

Paco, feeling the effects of that third cocktail, asked in genuine fascination, “Really?”

Sitting on the couch, with “Heartlight” softly playing from Paco’s phone, they both tended to their boxes of chow mien, each adept with chopsticks. Paco ate, but otherwise remained unnervingly quiet. Madison picked at her food, quickly deciding she was done. She set the takeout box on a side table, and watched Paco, wondering if he intended to keep this a girls-night-in to cheer her up, or if the food and booze were devised to soften the blow of what was to come. Taking her cue, he bit off a mouthful of noodles and cleared their meals to the kitchen, grabbing the tall bottle of liquid courage on his way back. He took a breath, stopping the music on his phone, and returned to his place on the couch. Her eyes beseeched answers to so many questions, all of which he seemed fully prepared to answer. She wasn’t sure what to ask or how to start but didn’t need to decide. After a swig from the Grey Goose, he wedged the bottle between his lotus-crossed legs, then asked a question of his own.

“Madison, what do you know about Jack’s death?”

That question demanded she take a sip from her glass, readying herself to rip the bandage from her freshly sliced emotional wound. What do I know about Jack’s death? She took a deep breath, hoping not to start another round of relentless sobbing, then forced out a breath and responded. “Nothing at all, I guess. The military wouldn’t say a word about what happened or even where he’d been or what he’d been doing. Only that he’d been killed. A few years ago, I tried to investigate it, but everything turned up empty. I was told after one inquiry that the records were most likely misplaced and would be nearly impossible to find. I almost thought it was some sort of cover up, like maybe friendly-fire.”

Paco sipped from the bottle again. “Where’s that picture you had?” Madison pulled it from the end table, carefully handing it to him. He looked at it for a moment, then held it up to her face, dangling it from his hand with his knuckles facing her. “What do you see?”

She wasn’t sure where he was going, but glanced it. Looking back at him, she shook her head ever so slightly, indicating she wasn’t sure what he was getting at. “I see Jack and Alex. Jack right after his commission. And a much younger Alex. Maybe about the same age as Jack.”

Paco was insistent and held it higher. “Look closer. Study it again.” Madison broke his gaze to look again, determined to find whatever she’d missed. Alex was in what looked like a grey-green sort-sleeved linen shirt, but not a military uniform, with his arm around Jack on one side. The hand of someone else hung around Jack’s shoulder from the other side. From the sleeve, Jack and this other person seemed to be wearing the same uniform. Her eyes worked around the photo until she caught it, and it pulled her closer. She gleaned what Paco hoped she’d find, gasping at the discovery. As Paco showcased the photo, Madison’s eyes climbed from the photo to his hand, then to the glimmer of his pinky ring. The hand dangling from the other side of Jack’s shoulder was wearing that same ring. Paco’s ring.

“You were there?” Madison asked, looking up to see Paco exaggeratedly nodding, the alcohol creeping in, taking stronger effect.

“I was there. I was there when it happened. All of it. Every—” he pinched his index finger and thumb to the bridge of his nose, stopping the tears from forming in his eyes.

“Why are you cut out of the photo?” Madison wondered, now noticing the edge was subtly frayed, like paper when creased repeatedly, then torn.

He took another swig. “I’ll get to that. But I need to start with the night it happened. The night Jack ...” he closed his eyes for a moment. Regaining his composure, he started again, now glossing his thumb over Jack’s smiling image.

“Jack and I were recruited separately. They were seeking soldiers who possessed ... special skills, you could say. They needed a very small, high performance team who could go in and get the job done, whether it took two days or two months or, God forbid, two years. We each were incentivized a little differently, each with a carrot custom tailored to our needs and wants. But it wasn’t just our skills they wanted. Each of us had just the cocky, bad-ass side they sought, and this type of mission satisfied the adrenaline junkie fix in each of us. Well, except Alex.”

“Alex?” Her finger scrolled over his image. “Why isn’t he wearing a uniform?”

“Because Alex wasn’t military. He wasn’t one of us.” Paco pulled the photo closer, regaining his focus. “God, I hated that son of a bitch back then.” He welcomed another swig. “Alex was there for the cold, hard cash. Period. I mean, back then he was barely fluent in three languages, and one of those was English, so why him?” He shook the bottle at her. “I’ll tell you why. Because he could tech-geek speak like no other. He had the best comm and surveillance goods you could imagine, and, even then, had a reputation for keeping his mouth shut. He never took a risk he didn’t calculate, and what we were doing was a big fucking risk, so you know the reward had to be insane.” He handed the photo to Madison to hold. “And so damn brilliant, in business and in tech.” A smile curled up as he continued. “But the biggest fucking downer you could ever meet. Worried about every little detail, constantly going over plans to the nth degree. It irritated the shit out of Jack, so it irritated the shit out of me. But the mother fucker was right. And we were wrong.” The smile vanished. “Really, really wrong.”

He took a bigger gulp than before and pressed on. “The night Jack died—the night he was killed—we all should have died.” Paco rubbed the bridge of his nose, attending to an emerging headache, then pushed through. “We were in a jeep on the outskirts of town, late at night, waiting for an exchange. We were swapping Made in the USA weapons parts for cash, but the parts weren’t just any old parts. These parts had embedded micro transmitters in them. They could track and transmit locations and sound, and unless you really knew what you were looking for, you might just think they were part of the casing. To them, we were just a bunch of GIs getting one over on our government with a black-market scam. But the truth was we were selling goods for our government, so we could spy to our hearts’ content.”

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