The Master Falconer Read Online Free PDF

nothing. He listened for the sound of a vehicle outside on the tarmac.
    Rocky lit a cigarette with trembling fingers. “We kept the bar open until very early this morning,” he said. “The owner wanted to close at two, but we sweetened the pot for him. The whole town had a wonderful time.”
    “It wasn’t the whole town,” Nate said. “Just some drunks and derelicts. Your friend Khalid wasn’t with you, though.”
    Rocky looked up, the match still burning in his fingers. His ever-present smile was missing.
    Nate said, “He was with me.”
    Al-Nura used his hands on the arms of the chair to turn himself so he could see Rocky behind him. Father and son exchanged glances.
    “Where is he now?” Rocky asked, almost in a whisper.
    “Outside.”
    “Let me see the birds,” Al-Nura said, turning back to Nate. His eyes were hard.
    “Where are my falcons?” Nate asked.
    Al-Nura gestured outside with his chin. “They are safe in the hangar we rented. It’s the second one from the left out there. They’ve been watered and well fed.”
    Nate nodded, backed up, and pried the lid off the crate. The birds began to chirp furiously when exposed to light.
    Al-Nura asked quickly, “Are they hooded?”
    “Nope.”
    “They’ll see us!” he said angrily. “They’ll be imprinted for life!”
    “You said—”
    “Close the box!”
    Nate put the lid back on. While he fastened the clips, a horn honked outside. Rocky looked at the curtained window, then back to Nate.
    “You asked about Khalid,” Nate said, gesturing toward the window.
    Rocky inhaled deeply on the cigarette and crossed the cabin to the window and brushed the curtain aside. Nate watched Rocky’s eyes widen and the cigarette drop from his fingers, then Rocky stumbled backward, flailing his arms.
    “What?” Al-Nura asked his son. “What has happened?”
    “Khalid—” was all Rocky could say.
    The sound of war cries erupted from the monitor as the Apaches attacked the fort.
    Al-Nura reached up and opened the curtain. Nate could tell from Al-Nura’s lack of alarm that he had seen worse in his life, and it had probably been on his orders. Bastard, Nate thought.
    It had taken two hours to mount the Sun Dance pole onto the back of the flatbed truck, spearing it through a missing fifth-wheel mount on the truck bed. But it had taken only twenty minutes to hang Khalid from the leather ropes, from sharpened bones pierced deeply through his pectorals. Now the bodyguard was suspended in the air, his hands limp at his sides, his face tilted to the sky.
    “He comes to every once in a while,” Nate said. “He screams a bunch of crap in Arabic, then he passes out again.”
    “How could you do that to a man?” Rocky said, his face contorted.
    “It’s not so bad,” Nate said. “I did it once myself. But when he gets cut down, he’ll be a warrior.”
    Al-Nura swiveled slowly to Nate, his face a mask. But Nate could see his lower lip tremble involuntarily.
    “It’s time for you to go,” Nate said. “You’ve got five minutes to order your pilot to fire up the jets.”
    Al-Nura was frozen with rage. He looked like he wanted to leap out of the chair and attack Nate with his hands.
    “You don’t threaten my father,” Rocky said.
    Nate nodded toward the windows on the other side of the plane. “Check that out,” he said.
    Nate didn’t even need to look because he knew what Rocky would see. A dozen Northern Arapaho warriors in full dress on horseback on the edge of the tarmac, feathers from lances and rifles riffling in the breeze.
    “Just like Fort Apache ,” Nate said.
    Al-Nura slowly shook his head back and forth. “You’ll never get the rest of the money,” he said.
    “Don’t need it,” Nate said. “And don’t ever contact me again or you and your little boy will end up on the Sun Dance pole, too.”
    “But don’t you want the money?” Al-Nura asked.
    “I’ll be the first: no.”
    With that, Nate opened the hatch and clambered down the