“He’s more than that. I mean, he’s not a regular guy—right? A regular guy doesn’t fly all of us to Amsterdam like that and start fixing to fool a drug cartel. A regular guy doesn’t fly us to England just so we can ruin some other guy’s life by doing a deal with the cartel.” Chase shook his head. “So, no. No, sir. He ain’t a regular guy.”

“Why do you care?”

Chase stared out over the city. “He’s military?”

Hicks took another pull on his water, unsure of how much Milton had told Chase about who he was and what he had done. “I know about as much as you.”

“Come on,” Chase said, glancing across at him. “You and him and Ziggy? I can see it. You’re tight enough to raise a blister. Seems to me like y’all have done this kind of thing before.”

“That doesn’t mean that I know any more about him than you do. Don’t waste your time worrying about who he is—he’ll tell you what you need to know and that’ll be that. You’d be better to focus on why we’re here. On what the goal is. Don’t worry about things you aren’t going to get an answer to.” Hicks shook his head. “It won’t get you anywhere.”

Chase chewed on his bottom lip for a minute. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Military?”

“Just a guy on a job.”

Chase frowned. “Come on. Give me something.”

“It’s better you don’t know.”

“How’d you figure that?”

“The less we know about each other, the less we can say if we get into trouble with the police or the cartel. I’m serious. I know it’s dull, but you’ve got to stay focused. Don’t waste time and energy on things that don’t matter.”

“It does matter to me. It matters because I’m putting all my trust in some guy who says he knew my old man. I met him once; then the next thing I know, my dad’s dead and he’s saying he’ll help me fix the mess he probably made in the first place. I’d like to have a better idea of just who he is.”

“That works both ways. Milton didn’t need your help to go after the cartel. He would’ve done it anyway. And he doesn’t know you, either, yet here you are. He’s brought you in. He’s trusting you not to fuck up. A guy he barely knows.”

Chase thought about that for a moment, then took another gulp of water. “You trust him?”

“Completely.”

They heard an exclamation from the room and went back inside. Ziggy had stood up and, as he saw Hicks and Chase, he turned his laptop around so that they could both see the screen.