I sit up straighter in my Jeep Wrangler, get ready to return to my quest.

“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?” I ask.

Freddy sighs. “This information…I hope it turns out to be useful.”

“You have no idea.”

“You’ll let me know?”

“Sure,” I say. “At our mutual retirement ceremonies, if we live that long.”

She laughs. “Okay…you know what you’re fighting for, right?”

I look at the freeze-frame of my Tom and my Denise, on Virginia Beach.

“I sure as hell do,” I say.

She hangs up and so do I, and I’m about to return to traffic when I look in the rearview mirror and see the flashing blue lights of a Tennessee Highway Patrol cruiser pulling up behind me.

CHAPTER 24

LESS THAN a year ago an orphaned Hamid Aziz left his nearly destroyed village in Afghanistan to fight for his tribe, for his leader, for his God, and to send money home to his remaining family, and he left with dreams of being a powerful lion, a man who would be feared in the West, and what is he now?

A waiter for a soft American and his little brat.

Hamid is at the door leading into the cell that holds the two Americans, carrying a metal food tray, with two dishes that are covered by round white plastic tops. Another man is with him, named Tonton, and Tonton is the muscle, wearing a short-sleeved white shirt and tight blue jeans, with a pistol hanging off a shoulder holster about his wide arms. He wears sunglasses all the time, and has a thin strip of a beard that crosses his bulky chin.

From his pants pocket Tonton pulls out a simple key, and inserts it into the lock—Hamid senses something is off. There are muffled, loud voices coming from inside the room, but if Tonton is nervous, he doesn’t show it. He unlocks the door, keeps a good hold on the handle. As he opens the door, the yelling gets louder.

The father is yelling at his daughter, and the daughter’s stamping her feet, screaming at the father, and Hamid thinks nothing like this would be allowed in his village, and Tonton yells, “Hey! Shut up!”

The girl is still screaming and turns and says, “I want my mommy!” and she starts running to the door.

Hamid juggles the tray—the chef, a bulky Mexican man with a thick scar on his face and one eye missing, always says, If you drop it, I’ll cut you—and tries to block the little girl from running, and Tonton moves by, bumping Hamid so he’s practically dancing in place, trying not to drop the two meals.

The girl manages to push by, and Tonton grabs her hair, twists it, and she screams louder and higher. The father finally does what a father should do—protect his daughter—and he comes at them both. Tonton’s pistol is in his hand, and he shouts at the father to step back, and the father yells and holds up his hands, and the little girl is grabbing onto the open door frame with both hands.