CHARACTER INTERVIEW with JED CLEARWATER, from Master of Secrets, The Unredeemables Book 1, and SHANE MASTERS, from Master Of Chaos, The Unredeemables, Book 3, seen most recently in A Trio of Short Tales from the World of the Unredeemables.

(This interview takes place months after the events in Shane and Cass’s bonus story, Shining Through, available to my newsletter subscribers at http://shannonmckenna.com/connect.php, along with many other juicy follow-up stories!)

Delilah Miller, the interviewer, enters the reception area of the MasterTech corporate offices and approaches the receptionist: Hi. I’m Delilah Miller, and I’m here from Wild Card, an online magazine. I was told to come here to interview Mr. Shane Masters?

Receptionist: Let me find out where he is. (She punches buttons on the phone, murmuring into them, then looks up. He’s in Ethan’s office. (She points.) In the corner, that way. Last door on the right.

Delilah: (Knocking on the door.) Excuse me? Is Mr. Shane Masters here?

(a male voice calling from inside) Come on in.

Delilah enters to find Jed Clearwater, Ethan Masters and Shane Masters, sprawled at their ease on the couches in the vast corner office with the floor-to-ceiling glass walls showing a panoramic view of the city of Seattle, Puget Sound, the Olympic Mountains, Mt. Rainier, with glasses of scotch in their hands.  They greet her with cautious politeness.

Delilah gazes at them, dazzled, and takes a chair facing them: Hi. Thanks so much for agreeing to talk to me. I know you’re busy. (She looks at Jed.) Oh! Aren’t you Jed Clearwater? Also of Ready Line Security?

Jed: Yep, that’s me.

Delilah: Wow, two birds with one stone! Can I ask both of you questions?

Jed shrugs: You can try. There’s a limited amount we can share, as you can probably imagine, for security reasons. Care for a drink?

Delilah: Oh, no, not for me, thanks. Of course you’re right, about security, but everyone is desperate to know more about Ready Line Security now! That body-cam video from the hostage rescue in South Africa, well, whoa! It was just incredible! So dramatic! And it’s had, what, twenty million views now, since it went viral. Amazing to watch.

Shane: grimacing: That was a disaster.

Delilah, taking out her recorder: Disaster? Why? It was astonishing to watch. So heroic. That part where you do that thing with the stick, and disarm four terrorists in less than a minute? It was like watching a thriller movie, except that it was real! I had to watch it ten times before I could even see what you were doing, it was so fast!

Shane, looking pained: You never should have seen it. No one should have ever seen it.

Delilah: Oh! You meant, someone leaked the video to the public without your knowledge? Can I record this?

Shane: No, I’d rather you didn’t. All I meant was, that body-cam video was never meant for public consumption. And no video like that will ever, ever be made public again. At least not on my watch.

Delilah, putting her recorder away: Ah, okay. Sorry. So what’s the video for, then?

Shane: We record missions to analyze them after. Study how things went after the fact, see things we may have missed at the time, identify holes in our reasoning, improve our technique. We don’t do crazy shit like this just to get views. It’s deadly serious. Lives were at stake. We’re not in this to entertain anybody. So this twenty million views feels obscene to me. The person who uploaded that video is no longer employed by Ready Line Security.

Delilah, nodding and blinking rapidly: Oh. I totally understand. But … wasn’t it amazing publicity for the firm, though?

Shane, snorting: We don’t need any publicity. We have ten times the work we can handle.

Delilah: Oh. So, are you going to expand operations now that things are going so well?

Shane, shaking his head: Nah. We’ll keep it tight. Jed and I and our other colleagues are hands-on kind of guys. We don’t enjoy delegating. And I don’t need to make the big billions, like some overachieving types I know. (Shane eyes his brother Ethan.) From now on, I’ll only hire people who I know for a fact won’t do ass-for-brains things like leaking videos to the internet. Thank God none of the hostages showed up in it. What a shitshow that would have been. And Jed and I would have been responsible.

Ethan: Strike “a shitshow,” and sub in “a real shame,” since he’s on the record. This foul-mouthed gorilla is still trying to civilize himself after his ordeal.

Delilah, perking up, holding her pen over her notebook: Ordeal? What ordeal? Do you mean, the hostage operation? Or some other ordeal?

Shane, shaking his head:  No ordeals. None at all. Everything’s good.

Delilah, crestfallen: Aw, come on, people. Throw me a bone, here.

Ethan: Don’t mind my little brother. He’s bashful. Always has been. The video was great. Get over it, Shane.

Shane lifts a silent middle finger to his brother and turns to Delilah: It wasn’t publicity. It was real, but people respond to it as if it were fiction, and that just sticks in my craw. I can’t deal with my work being turned into a cheap, performative reality show. Want more content like this? Hit like and subscribe!

Ethan: For God’s sake. Stop clutching your pearls, you big whiner. The video didn’t reveal anything embarrassing. It just showed Ready Line doing its job spectacularly well. Big freaking deal.

Delilah, a little subdued: I guess we could talk about something else.

Shane, fervently: Thank God.

Delilah: Like why you disappeared for a year. And then reappeared, with this stunning redhead in your life, out of nowhere. Inquiring minds are desperate to know more about that. Could you tell us more about your mysterious disappearance?

Shane, exchanging meaningful glances with Jed and Ethan: No.

Delilah, putting down her pen: Oops. I didn’t mean to trigger you.

Shane winces: You didn’t. I’ll say this much, and no more. A monster was keeping me prisoner. An angel saved me. I wouldn’t be here, if not for her. She subsequently married me. I’ll be grateful for that for the rest of my life. And that’s all I’m going to share about that incredibly private part of my life. End of story.

Delilah: I’m sorry. I’m asking very awkward questions. But that’s what interviewers do.

Shane smiles at her and raises his glass. Delilah blushes bright red: Well, then. If I can’t talk about the video, or ask about your wife, what can we talk about?

Shane: Our business, by its very nature, is full of secrets I can’t divulge. I agreed to this video because I wanted to set the record straight. Ready Line never condoned divulging that video. It was done against our wishes, and no one will ever see anything like that from us ever again.

Delilah, with a sigh: Well. That’s too bad, but okay, let’s move right along, then. Tell me about the rumors flying around that three big modeling agencies are offering you guys the big bucks to use your image to sell trucks, cologne, and condoms. They call you guys the Ready Line Hotties. Will we be seeing you all, you know, naked to the waist, dripping with sweat, draped with combat gear, gracing the billboards in Time Square, or the cover of Vogue?

Ethan and Jed snort with suppressed laughter.

Shane: Now you’re just messing with us. But I guess we deserve it, for being such shitty interview subjects. No, we’re not planning on selling condoms any time soon. Ask me something else.

Delilah, with a heavy sigh: Could I have that drink after all?

 

Shannon McKenna is the NYT and USA TODAY bestselling author of over thirty novels, ranging from sexy contemporary romance to action packed, turbocharged romantic thrillers. She loves tough and heroic alpha males, heroines with the brains and guts to match them, terrifying villains who challenge them to their utmost, adventure, blazing sensuality, and most of all, the redemptive power of true love.
Since she was small she has loved abandoning herself to the magic of a good book, and her fond childhood fantasy was that writing would be just like that but with the added benefit of being able to take credit for the story at the end. The alchemy of writing turned out to be messier than she’d ever dreamed, but whatever, she loves it anyway and hopes that readers enjoy the results of her experiments. She loves to hear from her readers.

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