Page 22 of The Warrior
“Really? You stood up to Finn?”
Hans shrugged. “It wasn’t hard. Finn has the deepest respect for me, and I would say he and I became very close while he was here.”
I doubted that was true, but kept my answer civil. “Good to know. Now can we look at the leads and get going?”
After climbing inside the small drone, Hans used his wristband to project a list of names for me to see. The Nmen were rated according to level of danger and Hans pointed to the bottom of the list. “Let start with Luke.”
Luke wasn’t one of the five Khan had deemed dangerous. He had no criminal record, so I pointed to the top of the list instead. “No, let’s go after Devlin; he’s a nasty piece of shit who spent time in jail after stabbing some guy in a bar once. Definitely not someone we want running around in the Motherlands.”
Hans’ fingers fiddled with his lower lip. “Maybe we could pick someone else to begin with.”
“Are you scared?” I asked.
“No, of course not. It’s just that you’re not a trained mediator, and I would like to see you in action before we go after the worst criminals. I’ll need to know how much you have to lean on me.”
I looked Hans over. The guy slumped in his seat and after knowing him for less than ten minutes, my guess was that he had spent more time on his make-up this morning than he’d spend on fight training in his entire life.
“All right, then let’s start with that guy in the middle of the list, Jonathan. According to my sources he’s a thief with questionable morals. But he only has a few fights to boast of.”
Hans frowned. “Who in their right mind would boast about fighting?”
“It’s a saying. Do you have any leads on him?”
Hans searched his information. “Yes. Someone reported a break-in in New Munich and the thief was described as having a large scar that fits his description.”
“Then let’s go.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to start from the bottom of the list?” Hans asked with a hopeful tone. “With this being your first time tracking down criminals, we should start out slow. At mediator training they always encouraged caution.”
“I’m sure,” I said. “And caution isn’t really my thing.”
Hans’ smile was stiff. “Right. It’s the same for me. Some people call me a daredevil.”
I suppressed a laugh. “Well, come on then, Daredevil. Let’s find Jonathan, shall we?”
CHAPTER 8
Flirting
Laura
Our drone looked tiny when it landed next to a larger aid-drone in the city of New Munich. Rescue workers were handing out blankets, food, and water to people affected by the earthquake.
Some of the Motlanders in line looked at Hans and me with hopeful eyes. That made me wish we had brought something to distribute.
It took us a while to locate the woman who had reported the sight of an Nman. She was one of the lucky ones whose house hadn’t suffered much damage.
“Can you tell us what happened?” Hans asked with a serious tone.
“I saw a man behind my house and at first I didn’t think anything of it.” The small woman was in her sixties and spoke in a soft voice. “There are so many strangers in town these days. Still, I should have recognized his jacket as Jeremy’s right away. I’m afraid my mind has been rattled with the shock of the earthquake. It wasn’t until I got inside and saw Jeremy’s closet open that I got suspicious.”
“Who is Jeremy?”
“My son. He’s traveling for work at the moment, so I knew it wasn’t him that had opened the closet.” She shivered. “It was shocking to realize that someone had been inside our house, but then I remembered seeing Jeremy’s jacket on a man outside and I ran to find the culprit.”
“And did you?”
“Yes, he was speaking to Karen Marie over by the dog park.”
