The Blood Flag Read Free Page A

and said, “He won’t be here for another fifteen minutes.”
    The waitress came over and brought us coffee, even though we hadn’t asked for any.
    â€œWho are we waiting for?”
    â€œYou’ll know as soon as he steps into the restaurant. I promise,” he said cryptically as he sipped his black coffee.
    I took in everything in the café. It was right out of an
American History
magazine: red vinyl booths with hard white tables, and a long counter flanked by silver pedestal stools with red vinyl seats. It was mostly clean, but I noticed some dead flies in the corners of the large front windows. It was eleven o’clock. The place smelled of bacon and toast. We sat awkwardly on the same side of the booth facing the front door. The diner held about sixty people, but there were no more than fifteen people there at the time. The coffee was good and fresh. The waitress was quick to recognize we didn’t seem particularly hungry, but felt obligated to give us menus. We likewise felt obligated to order, but told her we would wait until our other friend arrived.
    Finally the door opened and a man walked in slowly. I felt Karl’s elbow touch mine as he looked at his coffee.
    I looked up and tried not to show my surprise. I’m not sure what I expected, but this wasn’t it. He was about my height, five foot ten inches, but had to outweigh me by fifty pounds. He was maybe two thirty or two forty. I’m told I can look intimidating. But this guy was in a different league.
    He was built like a weight lifter with the neck of a bull. His buzzed head accentuated his muscular build and ferocious look; yet nothing about his appearance had the impact of his tattoos: an iron cross on his throat and two tilted swastikas on either side of his neck. He was wearing a white T-shirt, just a plain white T-shirt with a round neck. The tattoos were dark and bold and incredibly aggressive. His shoulders had tattoos that you could see through the white material of his T-shirt but not enough to identify them.
    The tattoos extended down his arms, outside the sleeve of his T-shirt down to his wrists. As he walked with his hands in his pockets I couldn’t make out what the tattoos were on his arms. I tried not to stare. He was looking me right in the eye, which made it difficult to do much more surveying of him. He was the most intimidating person I had ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of intimidating people. He looked like he could kill you in one motion and would be more than happy to if you gave him a reason.
    He slid into the booth across from me. He glanced at Karl, and then looked back at me. The waitress put a mug of coffee in front of him, which he took in his hand. I noticed that there were letters tattooed on the knuckles of his right hand. On the third knuckle of his ring finger was the capital letter
H
, and on his middle finger knuckle was the letter
I
, and on his first finger was the letter
T
. When he made a fist you could see
HIT
on his right hand. Nice. It’s probably what people saw right before he smashed them in the face.
    He continued to look at me as I stared at his knuckles. “Who the hell are you?”
    Karl intervened. “This is Kyle Morrissey. He’s with the Bureau.”
    He nodded and said intensely, “I told you. I don’t want to talk to anybody except you.”
    â€œAnything you can say to me you can say to him.”
    The man looked at Karl. “Why him?”
    â€œHe had a recent experience that was unsettling. He wants to know what can be done.”
    He looked back at me, bored. “What experience?”
    I extended my hand to shake his. “It’s nice to meet you.”
    He looked at my hand and did not shake it. “What experience?”
    I lowered my hand. “What’s your name?”
    He stared at me like he was trying to bore a hole through me. He had very dark blue eyes, the color of an ocean. His eyebrows were blonde.