He sits back and looks at Dushane. “What the fuck, Dushane?”
It’s Saxon who answers. “We’ll turn you loose in a moment, Mr. Keller. I promise. But I’d like to ask you some more questions. About Adnan Khoury. Mohammed Al-Mansour. And the stolen money.” She leans into the backseat. “You know how interrogation works, Mr. Keller. The more background you have, the more the person being interrogated thinks you know, and the more willing they are to cooperate. The Dudayev sisters are international terrorists. Assassins. Torturers. But they’re just tools. Weapons. Help us find the hands that direct those weapons.”
Keller leans back in the seat. “Okay. I’ll tell you what I know. It may not be much, but there’s still a price for the debrief.”
Keller’s surprised to see Saxon bow her head, even more surprised to see the smile on her face as she raises it and looks for the first time at the person in the driver’s seat. “You called it.”
“Of course I did.” The man in the driver’s seat turns around to look at him for the first time. He appears to be in his late fifties or early sixties, but his face is lean and tanned. His bright blue eyes bore into Keller’s. “Sergeant,” he says, in the voice of one used to command. “I’m Colonel Bishop. And I think I know the deal you want to make.”
“Do tell,” Keller says.
“Protection for the Khoury children,” Bishop says. “Protection from deportation back to Iraq. Protection from Mohammed Al-Mansour.”
“You’re telling me you can do that?”
Bishop nods. “Mr. Keller. The organization that I’m in charge of can do that and more. Especially when it comes to protecting children who are potential witnesses in a terrorism investigation.”
Keller takes a deep breath. He’s not used to trusting people who claim to be from the government. But there’s something in Bishop’s eyes, a dedication that some might describe as fanaticism, that strikes a chord in Keller. “Okay,” he says. “What do you want to know?”
ONE HUNDRED-
THIRTY-SIX
Hera stands at the edge of the clearing, unnoticed, watching men she doesn’t know moving to and fro around what used to be her home.
Her mate is dead. The man who fed her and her pups is dead. The kind human female who used to ruffle her fur pleasantly and say soothing things to her is gone. None of them are dead or gone for reasons that make sense to her.
Hera didn’t have a whole lot of trust in humanity to begin with. Now, she has none. After watching the humans die, then leave, the kind one wounded and possibly dying, she’d decided. There was nothing here for her or her children.
Laboriously, carrying each whining and complaining pup farther into the woods by the scruff of the neck, she’d moved her den to a depression under an over-arching rock where erosion has carved out a perfect little cave.
Now, watching the unfamiliar humans move back and forth across the landscape, calling to one another in their incomprehensible sounds, Hera has had enough. Quietly as a whisper, she fades back into the forest, confirmed in her earlier conviction.
There’s nothing in the world of men but death.
THE END
About the Author
Born and raised in North Carolina, J.D. Rhoades has worked as a radio news reporter, club DJ, television cameraman, ad salesman, waiter, attorney, and newspaper columnist. His weekly column in North Carolina’s The Pilot was twice named best column of the year in its division. He is the author of six novels in his acclaimed Jack Keller series: The Devil’s Right Hand, Good Day in Hell, Safe and Sound, Devils and Dust, Hellhound on My Trail, and Won’t Back Down, as well as the stand alone novels Ice Chest, Fortunate Son, and more He lives, writes, and practices law in Carthage, NC.
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