He said,Please, brother. She's all I've got.
And here I am.
"How bad's the threat."
"Bad enough that her editor pulled her off the story and her paper put her on forced leave. Some politician's son. Laundering operation. Threats started as emails. Moved to her apartment building. Dead bird on her doorstep last Tuesday."
"Jesus."
"Yeah."
"She know I'm ex-Special Forces?"
"She knows you're my buddy. She thinks you're letting her crash at your place because I asked nice."
"You want me to tell her."
"I want you to use your judgment."
That's Marcus. Always leaving the hard calls to the person on the ground.
"Fine."
"Gray."
"What."
"Don't let her die."
He hangs up.
I sit in the truck a long moment, phone in my lap, watching a hawk trace a slow circle over the ridge.
I doa walk of the property before I unload.
Tree line to the north, maybe sixty yards of open ground between the porch and cover. Rough. Means someone would need optics or a patient approach. No vehicle access except the one road in. Cell service is spotty which is good because it means any bad actor can't coordinate easily and bad because it means I can't either.
Propane tank's full. Woodpile's stocked. Generator kicked over on the first pull.
I check the sight lines from the upstairs windows. Good enough. Lock all the downstairs shutters anyway. Habit.
The kitchen's small. Coffee maker that's seen better decades. I put beans in the grinder and let the noise fill the space for a second, because the quiet up here gets loud if you let it.
My hands are steady. That's the thing people don't understand. They were steady in Amman too. Steady all the way through.
Steady doesn't fix anything.
I hearthe SUV before I see it.
Forty minutes out, engine climbing through the lower switchbacks. I'm on the porch with my coffee and my sidearm tucked in the small of my back under the flannel, because I don't care how quiet Marcus says this threat is, I learned a long time ago that quiet is just loud that hasn't arrived yet.
The vehicle rounds the last bend. Black Suburban. Tinted windows. Driver's a contractor Marcus uses, guy named Ben, good enough.
They roll to a stop twenty feet from the porch. Dust settles.
The passenger door opens.
And the first thing I think, God help me, isoh no.
