“I understand.”
“Do you?” Chai’s voice carried a sudden edge. “Three years ago, we barely got out alive. Six dead civilians because we trusted the wrong contact.”
Skeet’scontact, and he waited for Chai to say that.
Instead, his friend’s voice cut low. “I can’t risk my son’s future for someone who’s probably already dead.”
The garden fell silent except for the distant sounds of traffic, a child’s laughter from inside the house.
“Yep. Forget I asked.” Skeet stood to leave. Chai had earned the right to choose family over mission. Had earned the right to say no to dangerous requests from an old teammate who... well, had nearly gotten him killed once before.
“Wait.”
He turned back.
Chai’s expression had changed. Something harder. More familiar. He blew out a breath and kneaded a muscle behind his neck. “There’s been news from the border villages. Yesterday.” His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “A foreigner found dead. Western woman. Murdered.”
The words hit like physical blows. “Chloe?”
“Is that your friend’s name? I don’t know. Could be a tourist, aid worker, journalist. Could be your missing woman.” Chai picked up his pruning shears, gripping them until his knuckles whitened. “You’re walking into trouble, Skeet.”
He nodded, met Chai’s eyes.
“Aw,” Chai said and threw the pruner into the dirt. “At least let me eat first.”
Skeet’s mouth lifted in a smile.
Two hours later, Chai paced his family room, his cell phone to his ear, making arrangements while May packed them food.
It felt a little like old times, with loaded tactical packs and communications equipment. A map was rolled out on a table, their route marked.
Chai finally hung up. “We leave in one hour. Friend of mine runs medical supplies to refugee camps. He’ll give us cover for the border crossing.”
Good.
“One question,” Chai said as he grabbed his pack to carry it out to the car. “This journalist—she important to you personally?”
Skeet picked up his pack. “She’s a sister of a former teammate. Promised him I’d watch out for her.”
“That all?”
The question hung in the cooling air. Was it all? Professional obligation to a teammate?
Or something else? Something that made the thought of Chloe Silver dead in a Myanmar village turn his gut tight?
“That’s enough.”
Chai’s expression suggested that he didn’t buy the simple explanation. But he didn’t push.
Night was descending, a glorious pink-gold scrape across the mountainous hills to the west.Please, God, let her still be alive.
Through the kitchen window, he could see Chai hugging his wife, holding his son. Yeah, Chai had built the kind of life worth protecting.
This time had to be different.
This time he wouldn’t fail.
TWO