The Extraction

The Job

New Orleans doesn’t sleep, but it sure as hell forgets. The city swallows its dead and moves on, same as always. I should learn from it. Should let things go.

But then Henry Mathis slides the photo across the table.

Blonde hair. Sharp blue eyes. Camille Mathis, twenty years old. Beautiful. Missing two months.

“She got lost,” he says. “Somewhere past Lafayette, past the roads with names.”

I pick up the photo. The edges curl, touched too many times.

“You sure she wants to be found?”

Mathis exhales, steady. His hand tightens around his glass. “I don’t care if she wants it.”

Something shifts in his jaw, and that’s when I see it—the real reason he’s here.

I saw unmarked FBI vehicles on my way into town. The extra antennas are always a giveaway— that and the suspension differences that make bureau vehicles more maneuverable, but also sit just a little too high to be regular and a little too low to be for show. Tires are different too. Thicker. Bulletproof. The harder they try to make those cars blend in, the more obvious they become—not to mention the exempt license plates.

I gesture toward one.

“It’s happening soon, isn’t it?” I say.

His fingers drum against the bar.

“The feds move in day after tomorrow,” he says. “Night raid.”

My stomach tightens.

“Jesus.”

Mathis drains his drink. “You get her out before that. Or you drop her in the swamp. Too many government contracts on the go. I can’t afford to have my name wrapped up in all her bullshit.”

This isn’t about his daughter. It’s about him.

He tries to read my face. I offer him nothing.

“You got a problem with that?” he asks. “I was told you’re the man for this job.”

I say nothing.

He slides a check across the table toward me. I glance at it. Lots of zeroes. I reach out and take it. I slip it into my pocket. I pick up my beer. I drain it. I do not answer him. I do not look at him. I stand. I walk away. Time to go to work.