Caomhnóir - 14

“Come on, sweet thing,” Keegan said in perfectly accented Hindi. “You know I don’t want to harm you. I just need to know where to find him.”

“I swear, I don’t know,” she replied in a trembling voice as she struggled against the bonds that restrained her.

Keegan smiled tightly. Asking a question like that was tantamount to telling someone not to think of the word elephant. Once that was said it was impossible for the person not to think of elephants. So it was with the woman, although a bit more pressure had been required to bring the exact location he was seeking to the forefront of her thoughts.

Of course he wouldn’t tell her that. He tapped her temple with one finger. “Consider the options if you don’t come up with the answer. I’ll return in an hour.”

With that he strolled out of the room. He had no intention of returning as he had the information he needed. If she was lucky someone would find her sooner or later. For his sake he hoped it was later as that would give him more time to prepare for the battle to come.

His next stop was at a small shop on a teeming street in the center of the city. Using the information he had extracted from the woman, he gained entrance to a back room there. A man, the nephew of the Scriostóir that Keegan was seeking, swung around from what he’d been doing.

“Who are you?” the nephew asked angrily as he placed one hand on the gun riding on his hip.

“A compatriot of Rashid’s.” Keegan then spoke three words in the local dialect and the nephew relaxed. That was his first and last mistake. “One word, one sound from you and you will be dead, with no redemption,” Keegan told him with quiet ferocity as he pressed the double-curved blade of the kahnjarli against the man’s throat while holding him tightly against his chest.

Then Keegan began questioning the nephew, each question eliciting a shake of the head from the man, and once a muttered, “You will never learn that from me.” After punishing him for speaking with a deep jab into his jaw with the point of the kahnjarli, Keegan continued his questions, drawing the answers from the nephew’s thoughts. Finally, satisfied that he had learned all that he needed, Keegan dispatched the drug-dealing terrorist by severing his throat. Dropping the body on the floor behind some packing crates, Keegan slipped from the room, jammed the lock, and proceeded quickly back to the street.

His next stop would be his final one, one way or the other.