Page 3 of Four Calling Birds

“No. I would definitelynotbelieve that.”

“Well, Iamin the area,” he said, and paused, letting that linger in the static between us.

“And?” I pried, because there was always a catch when it came to liars like Brett Bradley. Liars. Spooks. Company men. Agents. They were all scum.

“Remember when I took a bullet for you in Mozambique?”

“Jesus.” I wiped my face with my hands. “You stole my wife! Don’t you think that makes us even?”

“I didn’t steal your wife!” His protest fell on deaf ears. If I ever saw him again, there was a huge chance I would fucking kill the bastard. “And we are far from even.”

“So, what do you want?” Then I added with an uncharacteristic amount of optimism, “Money?”

He laughed, loud from his belly. The sound irritated me so much that I almost crushed the phone in my hand.

When I didn’t join him, he suddenly shut up. “Oh, shit! You were serious?”

“I’d like to hang up now.”

“You owe me a marker.” His voice was somber. Stern. Martial. Like the military man he had been before he switched sides and went over to the CIA. We had almost died in Ranger School together, many moons ago. That was the highlight of our acquaintanceship. “I’m coming to collect.”

“What the fuck do you want?”

“Well, it’s not for me” I heard him chattering to someone in the background, but I couldn’t make out the words. “One of my agents was burned. They got out, but they’re in bad shape, but stable. They’re on the run, and I need to stash them somewhere while they recuperate until I get their backsides clear, you dig? I need a place off the beaten path and hard to find. Somewhere no one wants to go. Naturally, I thought of your new house.”

Of course, he knew where I lived. I had kept records down to a minimum, had no social media to speak of, and other than my parents who lived a half hour away, I told no one outside of 6th Group Special Forces where I put myself out to pasture… But Brett had found me.The fucking asshole…

I ran my finger through my graying hair, and looked up at the gray clouds that threatened to dump snow on me.

I knew I had no choice.

“Okay.” I owed him. Honor dictated that I paid him back. Letting someone crash at my house seemed… well… like I was getting off light. “Fine. You know where I am, I’m sure.” Still, there was something about this whole deal that made me uneasy, so I just asked outright, “What’s the catch?”

There was silence on the other end. Seconds turned into minutes. The silence got so loud, I felt a tension headache coming on.

Still, he said nothing.

I checked to make sure we were connected. We were. The numbers measuring the length of the phone call kept on ticking by, and I could still hear static and the sound of an engine on the other end.

“No catch,” he said quickly. Too quickly. Then hung up.

There was going to be a catch the size of Moby fucking Dick.

Bo barked twice, then groaned. Animals have a sixth sense about disasters, and he could probably smell it in a cloud of Brett-scented bullshit.

2. Brett the Bastard

Mack

Theinconsiderateprickrolledin at 0200 hours. Of course, he did. He couldn’t have done the drop-off in the middle of business hours.

The loud pounding on my door could have woken the dead. Thankfully, I knew it was him. They triggered my alerts the moment they entered the mile-long road from the main thoroughfare. Motion cameras hidden in the trees followed his Gray Audi A6 up the winding path, to the circular driveway in front of my house. Motion-triggered flood lights announced their presence.

Despite all that, Istillwaited for the fucker to knock on my door because I wasn’t in the business of making Brett Bradley’s life easy. I could have met him at the car, but nope. I made him traipse up the stairs to my porch, and then I made himwaitout in the frigid November cold as I took my sweet ass time getting up from the couch, and strode to the foyer.

“Hey, champ,” he said, giving me a playful punch on my shoulder.

I wanted to give him a playful punch to the throat.

---