Free Wet Work: The Definitive Edition by Philip Nutman Page A

had told him when he arrived was that he was suspended pending an extensive investigation.
    Corvino merely shrugged at the news. He’d expected as much.
    Del Valle read over Corvino’s report. Every detail was precise, just as he’d recounted it to them in the limo the day before. He had an almost photographic memory. That, combined with his lethal skills, made him a great asset. But his usually calm demeanor had slipped. Corvino was edgy and had paced Del Valle’s office until he’d asked him to either stand still or sit down.
    “ Where you involved with Mitra?”
    Corvino said nothing.
    “ Dom?”
    “ Yes,” he replied, continuing to face out the window.
    “ When did it start?”
    Nearly a minute slipped by before he answered. “Two years ago. The first time I worked in Panama.”
    Corvino turned, his lips pursed together into a thin line, pain lurking behind his dark eyes. “I know. It wasn’t professional. It should never have happened.”
    “ Sit down.” Del Valle gestured compassionately with his left hand, then opened a manila folder in front of him. Corvino went to the desk, lifting the knees of his black cotton pants to preserve the sharp creases as he sat. Mitra’s face stared up at him from the photo Del Valle pulled from the file. He looked away towards the window.
    “ Did she remind you of Suki?”
    Corvino didn’t reply.
    Del Valle picked up the picture. Mitra Alonso had been a very good-looking woman with the classical features of a Latino. Large brown eyes, an oval face, long black hair, a fine olive complexion. But if you changed the eyes from Occidental to Oriental and changed her skin tone to the hue of a Vietnamese, she could have been Suki Dien Phu. The two women— two dead women —had been the same height, the same build. Both were 5’2” and slim yet muscular. One had loved Corvino; maybe the other, too.
    “ Tell me about it.”
    Corvino reached inside the pocket of his navy cotton jacket to retrieve a pack of Camels. He lit one. Said nothing.
    Suki had been the one woman Del Valle knew Corvino had loved. A Vietnamese prostitute still in her teens with a four-year-old son. Whenever Corvino was due R & R, he’d visited Saigon to stay with her—until the Pussy Oom Mow Mow club where she worked as a hostess had been blown apart one Sunday afternoon by a North Vietnamese bomb. She died instantly in the explosion, as did the child, who was in an upstairs room with the other hookers’ kids.
    It had happened towards the end of their second tour of duty, and for that stint in Nam, Corvino had been a happy man. Or at least as happy as Del Valle had ever seen him. Dominic—The Silent One, as the rest of the A Team had dubbed him—kept to himself, hid his emotions, didn’t let anyone get close, not even Del Valle, although they’d been friends since they both joined Special Forces. But Del Valle had seen a change in the Operations Sergeant, sensed him soften despite the daily horrors they faced. Then, on R & R one time in Saigon, Dominic had introduced him to a delicate woman with the hardened eyes of a street girl. For the first time, Del Valle saw his friend reveal real emotion. But the bombing erased that in a flash, and Corvino, the most disciplined of the team, began to push himself harder until he was pulling himself apart. By the end of the second tour, the team leader recommended Corvino be sent to Fort Bragg for psychiatric evaluation. Six months later he received an honorable discharge. Within a year he was in Angola, fighting as a mercenary.
    “ I had my suspicions. The fact you volunteered for the Orejuela hit last year, and that you didn’t question Hershman’s decision to send four of you in for this one—an assignment I was opposed to from the start.”
    “ You were?” Corvino frowned.
    “ Yes. I thought it would be better if we used local talent and then disposed of them. It seemed unnecessary to send in four top men for such a simple operation. And in light of