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Five minutes later, Tall entered the office in the front of the house. The room had been stripped except for the makeshift desks and a few chairs. He heard the Air Force staff outside loading their equipment into a truck to take it back to the base.

  He removed his shoulder holster and placed it on the front edge of one of the desks. He slid his Beretta pistol out of it and laid it beside the holster. Then he walked behind the desk and sat down to wait.

  Two minutes went by before Ellie led Penelope Foster into the room and said, “Tall, you wanted to see her?”

  “Yes, Ellie. Thank you. Would you mind finding Major Wainwright and asking him to arrange a flight back to the Air Base for us?”

  “Glad to.” Ellie left the room.

  Tall rose from the chair and smiled at Penelope. “I won’t keep you long. Please. Sit down.” He motioned toward a chair in front of the desk.

  She said nothing and sat with her hands folded in her lap and her head down.

  Tall walked around the desk and leaned back against it beside her. “Penelope, you’ve been through a terrible experience. I want you to know we all consider you a hero for holding yourself together through it all. If there’s anything we can do to make it easier for you, all you have to do is ask.”

  “Thank you,” she said without looking up. Her voice was soft, her tone without emotion. “I’m fine.”

  “Good. I was afraid those animals might have harmed you in some way. Women are not held in high regard in their culture.”

  “Thank you for your concern, but they treated me well.”

  “I’m a little surprised knowing what those men are like, but I’m glad. Even though they didn’t harm you physically, what you’ve been through is bound to have had an emotional impact on you. The government has counselors to help people deal with that sort of thing. If you’d like, I’ll arrange that for you.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I’m fine. I just want to go home.”

  “I understand. Where is your home?”

  “Kansas. My mother is there.”

  “I’ll see what I can do to arrange that.”

  “Thank you. If it’s okay, I’d like to go rest now.”

  “Of course. You must be exhausted.” He chuckled and stepped back to a window behind the desk and looked out. “I have to tell you, though, it was a real pleasure for me to put a bullet in Rashid’s head.”

  “You’re the one who shot him?”

  Tall chuckled again and kept his back to her. “Yes, I shot that worthless sonofabitch and I loved it. I wanted to go over and empty my gun in him, but he wasn’t even worth the bullets. He was no better than a cockroach. People like him need to be exterminated.”

  Tall paused and listened. A squeak from her chair. She’d stood up.

  “You didn’t know him,” she said.

  There was something different in her voice now. Anger. Defiance. He’d struck a nerve.

  “Oh, I knew him. Him and all the others like him. They preach their nonsense about Allah, Muhammad and the Quran, and it’s all nothing but meaningless bull crap. It’s their excuse to seize power by murdering innocent people. I won’t rest until I put the rest of the vermin like Rashid in the ground. Even that’s too good for worthless garbage like him.”

  He listened again. The sound of metal moving across wood. She’d picked up his gun. Then he heard the slide on his Beretta being pulled back. She’d cocked it. He turned around.

  She pointed the Beretta at his chest.

  “You didn’t know anything about him,” she said. The softness was gone. There was a hardness in her voice and in her eyes. “He was Allah‘s chosen one. He was empowered to unite all of Islam into one army and lead us to victory over all of you infidels.”

  “So that’s what it was about. You and Rashid planned it all, didn’t you? The phony defection, the demands, the ransom. You’re the one who smuggled guns in to him.”

  “Yes. Together, we were going to fulfill Allah’s plan. But you ruined all that. Now, you have to die.”

  “You’ll never get away with it. Remember where you are. This place is full of armed personnel. Put the gun down.”

  “You think I care about that? I don’t care what happens to me. There’s nothing left for me. You took it all away. And you killed the only man I could ever love.”

  She said something in Arabic and pulled the trigger. Tall took the impact in his chest, stumbled back against the wall, and slid down to the floor.

  Immediately, Ellie and Ben were in the room. Ellie twisted the gun from Penelope’s hand. Ben shackled her hands behind her back.

  Penelope screamed “No! No! No!” and fought to free herself from Ben’s grip on her arm.

  Mountain came in and took her by the other arm. “There’s a closet down the hall with a lock. Let’s put her in there.”

  She screamed in Arabic as the two men pulled her out of the room.

  Ellie walked over to where Tall lay face down on the floor and knelt beside him. “You going to lie there all day?”

  Tall turned over, pulled himself into a sitting position against the wall, and rubbed his chest. “You were right. Those rubber bullets hurt like hell.”

  “Want me to rub it for you?”

  He grinned. “Later. Next time, let’s use blanks. Help me up?”

  Once he was on his feet, Ellie said, “You were right about her. How did you know?”

  “A lot of coincidences, but I wasn’t sure. I had to find out.”

  “Well, you did. What do you think will happen to her now?”

  “She has a lot to answer for. I don’t think she’ll see Kansas for a long, long time.”

  As they walked to the door, Ellie said, “Yesterday, you said something about us taking a few days off.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “And you’re going to hold me to it?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “How does Paris sound?”

  “Perfect.”

  The End

  Want more of Tall Chambers?

  Tall Chambers first appeared in the novel JUSTIFIED ACTION. At the age of 38, Tall retires from the Army and joins a secretive agency that tracks terrorists and stops them before they harm innocent people. Tall is able to put his experience and training in Special Forces to good use. His main objective becomes stopping the worst terrorist of them all, Anatole Remski. When someone close to Tall is murdered, however, he puts all that aside and concentrates all his resources on finding the killer. His quest becomes more difficult when he learns he is also marked for death. Before it’s over, he must deal with Remski and a conspiracy to put the wrong man in the White House.

  JUSTIFIED ACTION is available in ebook and print form. Read Chapter 1 at: https://earlwstaggs.wordpress.com

  About the Author

  Earl Staggs earned a long list of Five Star reviews for his novels MEMORY OF A MURDER and JUSTIFIED ACTION and twice received a Derringer Award for Best Short Story of the Year. He served as Managing Editor of Futures Mystery Magazine and as President of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, is a contributing blog member of Murderous Musings and Make Mine Mystery and a frequent speaker at conferences and seminars.

  Email: [email protected]

  Website: https://earlwstaggs.wordpress.com

  An Invitation from Earl

  You’re invited to visit https://earlwstaggs.wordpress.com where you can:

  Read Chapter 1 of JUSTIFIED ACTION

  Read Chapter 1 of MEMORY OF A MURDER

  Read “The Day I Almost Became a Great Writer” a short story some say is the funniest one I’ve ever written

  and more.

 
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