“But they sure met a lot,” Marco added, pushing the plate toward Chad. He glanced at Archie again and shrugged. “He’s probably just curious if the rumors about you are true.”
Chad scoffed.
They ate in silence for a few minutes, until he saw Marco frown. “What?” Chad asked.
“There’s our guy,” Marco muttered, his eyes on a couple of men by the bar. “The one in the khaki coat.”
Vision swimming, Chad peered at the man. He was wearing a military coat, dark pants, and army boots, a beer bottle in his hand. For a man who’d come to a bar to enjoy a few beers, he didn’t seem relaxed, tapping his foot against the bar, his eyes darting all over the room.
“Does he look familiar to you?” Marco asked, grabbing some bacon.
The man’s companion tossed a couple of bills on the bar, got up, and left.
Chad turned to Marco to say that no, he didn’t think he knew the man, when Marco froze.
He went so unnaturally still, the forgotten bacon strip dangling from his fingers, Chad’s heart skipped a beat.
“It’s him,” Marco whispered. He looked away when the man glanced their way, and Chad frowned, confused. “It’s the guy from the video!”
“What video?”
The man took out a cigarette, saw Archie shake his head, and got off his stool. He fished in his pocket for a second, dropped a bill on the bar, and headed to the door.
Marco turned back to Chad, his eyes wide. “It’s a fucking Commando, here, in our bar!” he hissed.
At this, Chad’s eyebrows reached his hairline. “No way.” Chad looked at the man’s back. As he opened the door, something made him turn and look over his shoulder, and his face…
Chad bolted to his feet. “This fucking guy!”
“I told you!” Marco’s fist slammed into the table as the door banged shut after the Commando.
He gestured to Archie—either ‘gotta go’ or ‘gonna kill someone’—grabbed the bottle, and hauled them both to the exit. Chad barely had the time to grab his jacket.
He focused on avoiding people’s feet and treacherous chair legs, but even as he stumbled through the bar, the fog over his brain began to lift. “Come on, come on,” Marco muttered, eyes wild. And if everyone wasn’t watching them before, now they sure were, their eyes hungry for action.
“We’re gonna follow him. Inconspicuously,” Marco said, pushing the door open.
Cold air hit them, sobering but not freezing, with the whiskey still burning through their blood—and not just that. Anger, hate, murderous thrill. Chad could barely hear Marco’s voice through the white noise in his head.
“If he sees us— Hey, calm the fuck down,” Marco snapped.
“What?”
“Your eyes are all crazy!” Marco gestured wildly with his hands. “I said inconspicuously. If he sees you like this, he’s gonna run for his life, you drunk fuck.”
“Inco-conspicuously. Got it.” Chad’s loud hiccup didn’t help him sound convincing. He caught Marco’s frustrated look and took a few deep breaths, shaking his head to clear it.
Marco didn’t wait for him to recover and strode right to a group of men smoking a few feet from the door. “Hi there,” he said, shaking someone’s hand. “Seen a guy in a khaki coat? Where’d he go?”
“That way,” someone pointed to the right.
“Need help?” another one asked.
“Nah, I don’t think so. You heading home?” The men nodded, and only then did Chad recognize them. “Do me a favor: If I’m not back in a half-hour, get Rooney to track us down, will you?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks, mate.”
Marco returned to Chad, who’d waited by the door all this time, as much an outsider as ever. “Let’s go. The bastard ain’t gonna catch himself.”
“What if it’s a trap?” Chad asked. “We’re doing exactly what we were told not to do—going after a Commando without backup.”
Marco grimaced and started walking in the direction he’d been pointed. “They don’t know we got his face on tape. We’ll just follow him, no harm in that.” He sniffed, zipping up his parka.
“What if they do know we’ve got them on tape? There could be a rat.”
“Well, then the last thing they’d do is send him to a bar full of our men, don’t you think?”
Chad chewed on his lip, nodding. “Unless!”
“Oh, enough! What do you want me to say? Yes, it could be a trap. Yes, there might be a rat or a whole bunch of them. Does it change anything? You wanna go home instead?”
“No,” Chad said quickly.
“Then stop distracting me, sober the fuck up, and let’s get to that roof and track the bastard down.”
* * *
It took them two minutes to find the Commando—and then ten more to lose him.
“You sure he turned that way?” Marco asked Chad for the tenth time, making him curse under his breath.
“Yes, and you saw it, too. Stop asking me about it.”
“There’s nothing here. It’s a dead end. Where the hell did he go?”
“I don’t know, but my ears are about to fall off.” Chad looked at Marco, barely keeping his teeth from chattering.
“No way.” Marco jumped off the rooftop, probably to inspect the street once again.
They’d followed the Commando through a maze of narrow streets, keeping just a few steps behind—and a few stories above. The man was most likely armed. Knowing the Commandos though, they hadn’t let him out of their sight even for a second. He had turned a corner into a dark dead end and never come out.
Marco stood down there now, looking first one way, then the other. There were no doors, and the only window was boarded up. Nowhere to hide, nothing but litter and sleet around them.
Chad sighed and jumped down after Marco.
“Maybe
