They're telling me that I am going on a suicide mission. NOW, if I actually was the one who betrayed the boss who is sending me on this suicide mission, than I am not showing up that day. If I know that I am a traitor and now figure that my boss knows it to, if I refuse to carry out the order, I am a dead man. If I carry out the order, I am a dead man. So I accept the order and then run for the hills.

However it didn't play out that way. It actually was Rocco who told Mike that getting to Roth would be "difficult, but not impossible."

So it's obvious, by his own words, that Rocco figured that he could pull it off. And If he did pull it off, he would be bigger and better than Neri ever was and then Michael would have to at least treat him as an equal to Neri.


Rocco was expendable. Neri was not.