23
Connor and the rest of the Cobra team reached Denver in the early afternoon.
“Debriefing at zero-nine-hundred hours,” Tower said as they disembarked.
Connor carried his gear to his Ford F-150 and drove through traffic to his condo in LoDo, regret sitting in his chest, cold and heavy as lead.
Shanti.
He’d thought about her all the way home, dreamed about her when he’d slept, everything in him wishing he’d had the guts to tell her how he felt. He’d hurt her. He’d seen that in her eyes. He told himself it was better this way, that the two of them were just high on adrenaline, that they would both get over it.
Keep telling yourself that.
He went through his post-mission routine—laundry, grocery shopping, checking his gear, making a list for the debriefing.
A pair of NVGs. More MREs. Spare batteries.
Then he called his folks, let them know he was safe. The State Department had told them he’d been shot down, and he knew they must be worried.
“They going to give you any time off after this one?” his father asked. “Seems to me you deserve it. We would love a visit. It was Christmas when we last saw you, son.”
“I’ve got lots of apples,” his mother added. “I’ll make apple pie and homemade ice cream.”
“Yeah, we’ll see.”
When Cruz texted him to say that the guys were heading to the Pony, Connor joined them, tossing back one whiskey after another, and rebuffing the hot blonde who hit on him. She was pretty and clearly wanted a quick fuck—but she wasn’t Shanti.
“Another time maybe.” He left after that, took a cab home.
Alcohol made for a bad night’s sleep, nightmares about Shanti being swept downriver jolting him awake twice.
As Shields had predicted, it was an interesting debriefing.
“Why thefuckwould you leave a defenseless client alone and allow her to be taken by the enemy?” Tower asked.
It had been Shanti’s idea, but the responsibility for the decision rested solely on Connor’s shoulders. “It was a tactical retreat.”
“A tactical retreat?” Corbray asked. “You’re going to have to explain that, man.”
Connor told them how the dog had found them, the little girls following behind. “They saw my rifle and knife, and their screams brought villagers down on us. We knew the villagers would get the soldiers whose vehicle we’d just seen. We were caught between the two groups.”
“And Ms. Lahiri was incapable of walking,” Tower said.
“If I had tried to run with her on my back, they would have taken both of us. I would most likely have been killed on the spot, and Ms. Lahiri would have become Naing’s prisoner. By leaving her, I was able to choose my ground, take the soldiers out one by one, retrieve her, and commandeer their vehicle. She was out of my sight for about ten minutes. It was one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever had to make.”
And the longest ten minutes of Connor’s life.
“You’re damned lucky they didn’t rape her—or kill her.” Tower was pissed.
Connor couldn’t blame him. “It wasn’t luck. She managed to convince the villagers that she was a tourist and that I had hurt her. They helped her at first.”
“She is one smart woman—and brave,” Corbray said.
They had no idea.
“Eventually, one of the villagers brought a soldier, who recognized her. He struck her, and her head hit a rock. I didn’t see this. Ms. Lahiri told me afterward.”
Corbray and Tower didn’t ask whether he and Shanti had gotten intimate—and Connor sure as hell didn’t tell.