The Sixth Day: A Sidney Stone Private Investigator (Paranormal) Mystery Book 6 by K.J. Emrick S.J. Wells

Author:K.J. Emrick, S.J. Wells [K.J. Emrick, S.J. Wells]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781393012429
Published: 2023-12-12T19:26:54+00:00

Chapter Seven

Al-Qura. I wouldn’t want to live here, but I guess it’s a nice enough place to visit, now that I see it up close.

Here’s a thing I learned early on when I was in the Marines and stationed in different places throughout the Middle East. Over here, there’s not a whole lot that distinguishes one place from the next. Sure, there’s some real places of beauty over here in the cradle of civilization. The Jeita grotto in Lebanon. The rolling hills of Jizan. The rock tombs of Mada’in Saleh. There’s beauty here to be sure. Even so, most of what you see is a harsh, dry terrain dotted with specks of civilization carved out of the sand.

This village is no exception.

It’s daylight by the time Farrad lands the helicopter in the ramshackle airfield. It’s a couple of hours after sunrise, and the few shops on the main street have their doors wide open. Wooden carts along the sides of the dirt street are filled with jars of spices and stuffed animals and woven rugs, whatever they can scrounge up to sell this late in the year. The street is already loud with voices calling out to try their wares, buy their goods, the best in all of Yemen!

Farrad claps his hands together eagerly. “Oh, I wonder if I might find some whole red coffee beans.”

Looking around, getting my bearings from a Google map search on my phone, I try to imagine our new black-market friend kicking back with a good strong cup of freshly brewed joe. “You didn’t strike me as a coffee connoisseur. I took you for more of a Red Bull guy.”

I am not…

“I am not a coffee drinker, usually. I much prefer karak chai. However, the fine coffee beans grown here in the Yemeni mountains are among the rarest and most sought-after in the world. A pound of raw beans can go for as much as a hundred dollars in the right markets. Triple that on the black market. In the whole country, no more than a few hundred thousand bags of coffee are produced each year.”

Of course. He’s still chasing that almighty dollar. “Maybe,” I suggest, “we can worry about lining your pockets some other time.”

He frowns at me. “You do not understand, Sidney Stone. Yemen is on the brink of famine. Many places in the Middle East are. War, and corruption, and bad weather have crippled these places. These poor people need the income. They need the money for the fruit of their hard labor if they are to survive.”

Huh. When he puts it that way, it kind of puts him in a different light. He’s not just looking to make money for himself, after all. He honestly cares about the people who live here. A criminal with a heart of gold. He knows they aren’t out here begging for a sale for the fun of it. They’re desperate, but they’re proud.

Sure enough, now that I’ve looked away from my phone for a few

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