At those words, the mask she’d tried to hide behind slipped.
She raised her cup to drink, her hand stopping midair, her mind on the women’s faces, the horror in their eyes. “What those women lived through—no one should have to suffer like that.”
Dark brows drew together. “All of the things I’ve seen, all of the things I’ve had to do—what happened to those women is some of the worst.”
All the things I’ve had to do.
What did he mean by that?
“You were listening?” Shanti had promised these witnesses privacy.
“I didn’t mean to overhear. The walls aren’t very thick.”
Their conversation last night came back to her. “Then you know what soldiers have accomplished in this part of the world recently—mass rape, burning babies…”
The moment the words were out, she regretted them.
His blue eyes went cold, his face hard. He set down his tea and stood. “I thought you would want to know that the two men who fired the RPG yesterday have been found dead. Their bodies washed up on the western bank of the Naf River.”
Shanti had been about to apologize, but this news took her by surprise. She hadn’t expected them to be found. “They drowned?”
“No, they’d been shot—a dozen rounds each. We’re still gathering intel. We’re going to try to identify them. If we can do that, maybe we can piece together the last days of their lives and figure out what they were doing in Nayapara with that RPG.”
“Shot? But why would—”
“What’s the first rule of assassination?” He turned and walked toward his room.
“I don’t know.”
He opened the door, looked back at her over his shoulder. “Kill the assassin.”
“Connor I’m—”
With that, he shut the door behind him.
“—sorry.”
Connor leaned backagainst the closed door, rage and guilt churning in his gut. Could the woman not tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys?
Maybe there’s not as much of a difference as you’d like to believe.
He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to block the memory.
Frag out!
BAM!
He hadn’t meant for it to happen. He wouldn’t have thrown the damned grenade if he’d known. There hadn’t been a goddamned thing he could do to take it back.
Fuck.
He drew a deep breath, stripped out of his clothes, headed for the shower. He washed away the sweat and the mud and then stood under the spray, his eyes closed, willing himself to let go, to forget. What was done couldn’t be undone. He couldn’t make it better by hating himself for the rest of his life.
He had no idea how much time had gone by—a minute, five minutes—when he opened his eyes again. He turned off the water, stepped out, and dried off.
The problem here was that he’d let himself get emotionally caught up in a client and her mission. He didn’t give a damn what Ms. Lahiri thought about him. If she wanted to tell herself that he and the other Cobra operatives were no better than General Naing and his band of murderers, that was her bad judgment. He didn’t need to deal with her bullshit while risking his life to keep her safe.
He sat at his desk, towel around his waist, and typed up a report for his bosses—Tower and Corbray—leaving out the personal conversations with Ms. Lahiri. He tacked on a request that someone in Denver drive up to Ault to get his box of Hot Wheels out of storage and ship it to Bangladesh as soon as possible. He knew that would raise eyebrows, so he explained that he wanted to donate it to the camp hospital. Then he shot his parents a quick email, telling them to expect someone.