Read Online The Monarch by Jack Soren - Free Book Online

you should,” Jonathan said. Sometimes listening to someone talk told you more about him than a profile could.
    â€œAll right,” Lew said, his grin returning. Jonathan knew his type. If you made it a game, he was up for almost anything. “Let’s see. You’re obviously a spook. You’re not with the major agencies, at least not directly. You’re on your own. And you like it that way. But I’m thinking you’re about as happy with your career as I was.”
    â€œWhat makes you say that?”
    â€œThose melon heads that grabbed you and brought you to Bogotá. There’s a sheen on you that says if you really were on your game, no way they would have gotten you. Or survived to transport you. You let them take you. You wanted to see what adventure they took you on. You were so bored, anything else was better. Especially if there was some risk involved. Which landed you in my little sandbox.”
    â€œInteresting theory,” Jonathan said, hiding his amazement at Lew’s intuitiveness. This guy is way smarter than he looks.
    The next few hours were filled with more such discussions; some opinion and some confessional. And lots of alcohol. Jonathan told Lew that he did indeed feel the same way. He’d become a spy to fight the supposed evils in the world. But more often than not, he watched the powerful prevail while the weak suffered.
    The restaurant owner finally got them to leave so he could close by giving them each a bottle of whiskey to take with them. With no destination and enjoying their newfound friendship too much, they wandered the streets of northern Bogotá, alternately singing and laughing.
    Stopping in an alley to relieve themselves, Jonathan fell backward over some garbage cans while trying to do up his fly.
    â€œJeshus, you okay?” Jonathan said from the ground.
    â€œYeah, I’m fine. You I’m not so sure about,” Lew said, bending over to help him up. Instead, Jonathan ended up pulling Lew onto the ground with him. They laughed and sat up against the alley wall.
    They stared at the night for a while. Their wild ride was over and they knew it. Pretty soon they’d fall asleep or pass out, and tomorrow they’d wake up to a world of hurt and unknowns.
    â€œYou know my only regret? Well, my recent regret,” Jonathan said.
    â€œYou weren’t man enough to join the army?”
    â€œHa-­ha. No, seriously. When I was in Brazil I was doing a handoff to this fat cat in the government. Guy had a house the size of my old high school. And you could tell by the way he walked around he didn’t think anything could hurt him. He was completely untouchable. But that wasn’t even enough for him. After the handoff, he had to march me around and show me all his shit. Stuff he’d had stolen for him from all over the world. He was one of these private collectors. Art, antiq . . . antiq . . . old expensive shit, books—­you name it.
    â€œHe shows me this secret room he’s got in the basement where he keeps his best stuff. Stuff that should be in museums. And all I keep thinking is why do you have this stuff if you keep it locked away in a room in your basement? What’s the point, you know?”
    â€œYeah. That’s your regret?”
    â€œNo, no. In this room, he has this one painting. I kid you not, a fucking van Gogh. He had some guy steal it for him years ago and replace it with a copy he had made. I mean, the museum has been showing this fake to ­people for years and they don’t even know it. All these ­people who spent their tiny amount of vacation time to go see this work of art, this thing of beauty, and they’ve been staring at a fake. It just made me mad.”
    â€œI hear ya,” Lew said.
    â€œMy regret is that I didn’t have the balls to lay him out and take the painting back to the museum where it belongs.”
    â€œSo why don’t we steal