Page 11 of End of Days

My internal radar starting to fire, I said, “Can’t we do this tomorrow? It’s really late and we’re having breakfast together.”

I saw her scowl and said, “Usually, you’re trying to kill me, and now you can’t get enough of me?”

Which was true. When we’d first collided, we’d both tried mightily to slaughter each other. Luckily, we’d both failed. Since then, she’d threatened to kill me on a number of occasions, but she’d also saved my life just as many times.

Jennifer misread the situation, thinking that Shoshana was just trying to be a normal person, trying to fit in and show how she had an ordinary relationship with Aaron, which, given the person, was impossible. Jennifer thought of herself as a mentor, and honestly probably was.

She touched my arm and said, “One drink. I’ll drive home.”

I shook my head and said, “Okay, okay. Let’s get this over with.”

Shoshana said, “That’s how you feel? This is something to get over with?”

“No. I mean whatever it is you’re about to tell me.”

She gave me her weird glow, her face splitting into a smile that looked like a wolf, full of teeth without any joy. She said, “Youarelike me. You can see into someone’s heart.”

I rolled my eyes, opened the door, and said, “Okay, Carrie, let’s go.”

She scowled at that, exiting on the far side. Carrie was the callsign Knuckles had given her on an operation, because she really did act a lot like the Stephen King character. Aaron exited on my side and said, “Careful. She doesn’t like being toyed with.”

I closed the door, watched Jennifer and Shoshana walk out to the street, and said, “I thought she liked that callsign?”

“She does, when you use it for real. Not as a joke.”

We followed behind the women and I said, “So what’s this about?”

“Upstairs. Let’s get to the room.”

I shook my head, now knowing my radar was right. We went into the small alcove for the boutique hotel, up the elevator, and down the hall to their room. We stopped outside the door and I said, “Are you shitting me? You have the same room the Russians were in? Was that on purpose?”

Shoshana smiled and said, “Complete coincidence, but I thought it appropriate.”

She unlocked the door, turned on the lights, then the television, raising the sound. The last thing she did was unplug the Alexa on the desk, grinning at me as she did so.

We’d hacked that very Alexa to determine our kill box for the Russians.

Aaron opened the minibar and said, “Rum and Coke, right?”

I said, “Let’s forget the drinks and get to the point here.”

Jennifer heard my tone and said, “Pike, what’s that mean?”

I turned to Shoshana and said, “You want to tell her?”

Aaron opened his suitcase and pulled out a piece of paper, placing it in front of me. I read:

You attack us with impunity in Syria and Iraq from the air, like cowards. And now we attack you man to man. Our reachis long, and our patience is infinite. This man is not the first to die, and it will not be the last, Little Satan. Tell the Great Satan they are next.

I passed it to Jennifer and said, “No idea what that is. Did you think I did? I can’t help with that.”

Shoshana said, “No. We already know what it is. It was on the body of Gideon Cohen, but the police have kept it quiet.”

Gideon Cohen? Why do I know that name?And it clicked. He was the guy who had bailed Jennifer and me out of an Israeli jail after we’d stopped a terrorist attack. And was also...

Like fog dissipating under the sun, it became clear. Gideon Cohen was the only person on earth who had believed in Shoshana. The one man who’d ignored her past and put her on Aaron’s team. And Aaron had nurtured her back to the world of the living, until she’d become a ferocious force of nature.

I said, “He’s dead?”

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