Swords of Exodus [Dead Six 02] Read Online Free PDF Page B

kid.” Carl muttered. “Really stupid.”
    “Sorry.”
    “I can understand you asking,” Train said. “Me, I’ve had to do it a few times. Carl here, if you had to get all of the people he’s killed together, you would probably fill a bus. A big Greyhound bus. He and Lorenzo were mercenaries in Africa for a few years.”
    “Dude . . .”
    “Shut it, Train,” Carl growled.
    “What about Lorenzo?” Reaper asked with a reverent tone.
    “Lorenzo, well . . .” Train hesitated.
    Carl responded. “If I need a bus, then Lorenzo needs a football stadium. Now both of you shut up.”
    I sighed, and banged my head against the window.
    I intercepted Katarina on the lawn as she hung up her phone. She got right to business. “Big Eddie is not happy.” Her accent was Swiss. She was half Spanish, half Swiss, and sometimes when she wasn’t playing at being something else, her accent was very obvious. It sounded like “ Big Eddie eez not happy.”
    “And why’s that?”
    “Too much attention. Too much collateral damage. He says that next time—”
    I cut her off. “There is no next time. You tell him I’m done .”
    “Lorenzo . . .” she spoke calmly. “Think this through. Nobody is ever done with Eddie.”
    “I am. Sorry, Kat, it’s over.”
    “Are you talking about our employer, or are you talking about us too?” She looked sad, and even bit her lower lip, but I knew that was an act. A year ago I would have believed she was capable of sadness but now I knew that it was fake. Any normal human emotions Katarina had, had long since been expunged.
    “Both.”
    “I thought you loved me . . .” she said, voice cracking, and this time, I almost could believe her. Almost . I turned my back on her and walked away.

Chapter 1: Paradise Lost

    LORENZO
    St. Carl Island
    The Bahamas
    February 6th

    Seven years ago. Why was I dreaming about seven years ago ?The clock by the bed told me that it was three in the morning. I was having a hard time sleeping again, just too restless.
    Jill grunted in her sleep. Trying not to wake her, I got up carefully and went to the bathroom. The nondescript face in the mirror stared at me. What’s your problem, Lorenzo ?It was weird to think about Kuala Lumpur again. It had been a turning point for me. Of course, Eddie had come back to haunt me, dragging me into the mess in Zubara, but he was dead now and I was still alive. So what had I become? I was a free man. I was my own man. I was a retired thief. I was wealthy. I was in a relationship with a wonderful woman, even though I didn’t deserve her.
    But at what cost? A football stadium . The face in the mirror scowled. That’s what Carl had described. So what was I now? For some reason, the words of my foster father were on my mind that morning. I could hear his deep voice, fading on his death bed. Warning me about good and evil . . .
    I wouldn’t be getting back to sleep tonight.

    “Welcome to St. Carl!” the waitress said with extra cheer. Those simple words got my attention. St. Carl was a small enough island that anyone who wasn’t a regular got that greeting, especially during the off season when tourists were few and the staff was hungry for tips. The room was kept dark, in sharp contrast to the bright Caribbean sunshine trying to force its way through the now-open entrance. The lunch patrons were sitting in a few tight clusters, mostly workers from the nearby docks, and a handful of others, all of whom I recognized, but I didn’t know the three newcomers standing in the doorway.
    The lead was a striking woman of Chinese descent, dressed casually, but not casually enough to pass for a St. Carl resident. Her black eyes were scanning across the room, looking for something, or someone. She was flanked by two men, one short Asian guy built like a cage fighter, and the other, a black man so tall he almost had to duck to get through the door, with a shaved head and more muscle than a side of beef.
    Tourists, my ass. The door