Free Lethal Redemption by Richter Watkins Page A

aged, creviced face.
    As they drew closer Kiera saw that McKean wore shorts, sandals and a loose shirt and had a shock of corn silk hair, a wispy white beard and was every bit a scarecrow. Right out of Rudyard Kipling .
    She followed Porter off the boat, sidehilling up the muddy bank.
    “Charlie,” Porter said, “this is the woman I told you about. Neil Hunter’s granddaughter, Kiera Hunter.”
    McKean said, “So this is the lady stirred up the snakes.”
    “In the flesh,” Porter said.
    “Pleased to meet you,” McKean said, thrusting out his hand. He had a firm handshake and feisty, somewhat drunken eyes and whiskey breath. Then, before releasing her hand, he kissed it.
    “My pleasure,” Kiera said, retrieving her hand and thinking, This is who I’m flying into the jungles of Laos with?
    “You are even more beautiful than Porter said you were,” Charles McKean said. “Wait, come to think about it, he forgot to mention that.” McKean chuckled at his own sense of humor.
    Kiera gave Porter a wry glance. He shrugged.
    “Follow me,” McKean said. “I’m putting my gear together. We need to get moving. I want to see those pictures.”
    He talked fast, walked a little unsteady and led them to one of the thatched houses hidden in the palms.
    As he opened the door and ushered then into the wood slat house lit by oil lamps, he said, “Your grandfather, by the way, was a legend among the Hard Rice boys.”
    “Hard rice?”
    “Hard rice drops are what they called guns, ammo and supplies dropped into Laos to the insurgent force we created there. He was working with the crème de la crème.”
    A Khmer woman entered from a back room and greeted them with unbridled hostility. Either she didn’t like Porter, or knew he was bringing trouble into her world. She said something in Khmer to McKean, before retreating through the curtain. He followed her and there was a sharp argument.
    “She’s upset,” McKean said, “but that’s normal. Getting worse, actually. Her family was killed by the Khmer Rouge. She got raised by some farmers and nearly starved to death and she’s always believed the Khmer Rouge are gonna come back and get her and everybody around her.”
    Ah, Jesus, Kiera thought. I’m taking this man away from a woman who’d gone through hell and was still traumatized.
    McKean returned, looking grim. He went to the cabinet and poured himself a stiff refill.
    “I’m almost ready. You folks like a drink?”
    They both declined.
    “You have some extra stuff?” Porter asked. “I have nothing. All my worldly goods have already shipped off to Bangkok.”
    “I can outfit a battalion. I got a couple extra backpacks and too much gear as it is.”
    The two men went off into a back room. Kiera sat at the small table and took out the pictures for McKean.
    She looked around at the room.
    His woman brought her tea and small, tasty treats and retreated, never making eye contact with Kiera.
    McKean and Porter returned with three backpacks. Porter had a lot of gear in his arms and started packing while McKean studied the photos and looked at entries in the diary Kiera had taken from her backpack.
    McKean tapped the photo on the table, glancing at it from time to time as he scanned the entries in the diary.
    The old soldier’s hands were veined, weathered and rough, his fingers gnarled and yellowed like they been broken many times. They had the slightest tremble at times. McKean’s lined face had skin like a cracked leather veneer.
    While he examined the diary he talked about her grandfather. How he’d been shot down maybe four times re-supplying Montagnards and Special Forces. How he and the others had to fly with unreliable radio beacons for navigation, rotten weather, overloads. “Good soldiers in a messed up war,” he said. “Kinda getting to be a habit with us. Porter tells me you are a war reporter. Been to Afghanistan, Syria.”
    “Yes.”
    McKean lit a cigarette. He looked more animated now. “I