Renegade (2013) Read Online Free PDF Page B

that the fighting was very nearly over.
    He stood, swaying, over the narrow valley of carnage and looked down at the corpses and blood that lay strewn across the ground. He had lost men. He knew that. Losses were an acceptable part of his war. In his heart, he knew that he had been saved to continue the righteous work that had been laid before him. He would climb over the bodies of his enemies and the kuffar alike to reach the feet of God.

5
    PIKE SAT AT A TABLE in the United States Marshals Office and tried not to be irritated. He stared at the shuttered window on the other side of the room and wished he were back at the garage instead of here. At least there he could have been doing something worthwhile. Talking didn’t get much done, especially with the prosecutor assigned to the case that had brought him into the witness protection program.
    “Is anything I’m telling you boring you, Mr. Morgan?”
    Squelching an immediate and scathing response to federal district attorney David Clement, Pike eyed the man. “Pretty much everything you’re saying is boring me.”
    Clement’s face turned red and his ears burned. He was in his late thirties, a guy who still viewed himself as on the way up in his job field. As a result, he was aggressive and a true pain. He was twenty pounds too heavy, soft from sitting at a desk job and pushing papers most of his days.
    Pike knew the type and didn’t respect the man. During his juvie years, while shuttled out to various foster homes from the orphanage, Pike had seen far too many David Clements. They were happiest when they were checking boxes and filing paperwork. Men and women like Clement didn’t want to get to know the people involved or the circumstances that had brought them together. They just lived to churn paper.
    Clement sat there in shirtsleeves and a tie, his hair moussed into place. His expensive briefcase lay on the table to his right. His tablet PC occupied the space to his left. Those were standards that marked Clement’s importance.
    At least, they were supposed to be. Pike was bored of them as well.
    Behind Clement, through the glass walls of the interview room, three US Marshals drank coffee and worked the phones at their desks. One of them was a woman Pike had seen before and thought was pretty good-looking. And she had a nice smile. He could tell from the smile that she went for bad boys. If she wasn’t careful, that would cost her one day.
    “You know, that’s a pretty pitiful attitude you have there.” Clement narrowed his gaze and tried to look tough.
    Pike could hear the silent “mister” at the end of the declaration that the prosecutor left out at the last minute. The decision was a good one. Leaving it in would have irritated Pike further and probably prematurely ended the conversation.
    Pike eyed the man. “How do you figure?”
    “We’re protecting you from people who want nothing more than to see you dead.”
    Pike folded his hands together on the table and barely resisted the impulse to reach across the space and grab the man by his shirtfront. At Pike’s side, US Marshal Bill Dundee tensed up a bit and leaned forward. He was an older man, in his late fifties, and had a calm air about him that reminded Pike of Caleb Mulvaney, the Dallas homicide detective who had gotten Pike into protective services.
    Dundee cleared his throat. “Maybe we could take a little break.”
    “Is that what you think?” Pike’s voice was a low roar in the room. “That you’re protecting me?”
    Clement was fast on the uptake, obviously realizing he’d screwed up, but he was too stubborn or too stupid to let go of it. Like a dogthat had shoved its head through a hole in the fence to get a bone but was unwilling to drop it when it wouldn’t fit back through. “Of course we’re protecting you. If not for the protection we provide, the Diablos would have killed you after they killed Peter Tull. You’d be dead by now.”
    For a moment, Pike wasn’t in the