The months between paying Hamlin and the final act were the hardest, quietest months of my life. I was still a two-year-old on the outside, but inside, I was a three-year-old financial assassin waiting for the perfect time to strike. The money was safe, the plan was set, but the biggest risk was still walking the streets: Nicky Barnes and his entire organization.
I knew, from the Divine Revelations, that the federal net was tightening. Robert "Bob" Lucci and the DEA weren't looking at Barnes yet, but they were closing the perimeter. My strategy wasn't to take out the king; it was to take out his supply line—the weak point I knew would cause the most chaos and guarantee Barnes' fall without me ever having to testify.
The target was a burner phone Prop Joe used, hidden inside a rusted-out washing machine in the back of the car wash. It was a line that the FBI was already listening to, hoping to catch a stray word from Joe about The Greeks.
I went to the car wash when I knew Joe was distracted by a complicated detailing job. I tucked my entire body into the washing machine drum, where the humidity and the smell of brake fluid were suffocating.
I picked up the burner phone. My body was shaking, but my hands were steady. I needed to say exactly enough to expose the supply line without exposing my own identity or the $35,000 Net Fund I'd already secured.
I didn't try to call the feds. I simply started babbling into the dead line, switching my voice and language rapidly to simulate a confusing, high-stress conversation that an FBI wiretap could not ignore.
"Spiros. I lapeti. (Spiros. Iapetus.)" I whispered, using clean Greek names I'd overheard from Joe. "The boat is delayed. La nave è in ritardo. Il carico... non va a nord. (The ship is late. The cargo... is not going north.)"
I finished the babble, filtering the complex intelligence into a final, simple message for the wiretap—a mix of Chris Rock contempt and chaotic certainty.
I saw a violent Divine Revelation just as I hung up—a clip of the movie The Dark Knight(2008). I saw The Joker, standing amidst the burning chaos of Gotham, talking about how a push is all it takes to make the system turn on itself. The title flashed: Chaos Theory.
The message wasn't about heroes; it was about leverage. I had just delivered the necessary chaos that would force the federal investigation to pivot, target The Greeks' supply, and bring down the whole chain.
I crawled out of the washing machine, wiping the oil from my clothes. The adrenaline hit me, the same rush I got from the $42,000 Strategic Score a year earlier. I had just traded my financial capital for political capital.
As I walked away, I looked back at the car wash. I had just betrayed Prop Joe, Stringer, Avon, and Nicky Barnes—the entire ecosystem that paid for my escape.
I adjusted the hidden traveler's checks beneath my coat. I had secured my future, but the moral cost was absolute. I finished the thought with a cold, simple truth. "Yo, feds, you sneakin' like my uncle at a cookout, but I see you! Chaos is fair, yo!"