“How are you getting home?” Shanti had come to like Elizabeth and to respect her skills. She didn’t want to say goodbye.
“We’ll catch a commercial flight back to the US tomorrow.”
Shanti hugged her. “Thanks for all your help yesterday, and thanks for all you’ve done to keep me safe.”
“You’re welcome.” Elizabeth hugged her back. “You just get that bastard, okay? The world doesn’t need men like him.”
“I’ll do my best.” Shanti stepped into the elevator with Connor, Dylan, and Malik, who carried her bags.
She wanted to make a joke about how she could get used to traveling like this—men to carry her luggage, helicopters waiting for her at the airport, private luxury jets—but they were all business now, just like they’d been on the trips to and from Kutupalong. At first glance, they looked like tourists—jeans, casual button-down shirts left unbuttoned and untucked over black T-shirts, baseball caps on their heads. But hidden beneath the button-down shirts were shoulder harnesses and weapons.
When the elevator doors opened again, she expected to see a shiny, black Land Rover. Instead, a green auto-rickshaw waited for them. She understood why they’d chosen this vehicle. It might not be bullet-proof, but it would blend in with the hundreds of others just like it on the roads.
“It’s been a while since I’ve traveled in one of these.”
Connor helped her in. “We’ll need you to sit in the back and wear that headscarf. Cover your face if you can.”
She did as he asked and found herself sandwiched once again between Dylan and Malik. She supposed she ought to be nervous, but she wasn’t.
Hadn’t they kept her safe so far?
The gate went up, and they drove out onto the streets to be swallowed up instantly by traffic, auto-rickshaws, bicycles, pedestrians, vendor carts, and buses all vying for space on the crowded roadway.
Shanti inhaled the familiar scents, a sense of sadness settling over her at having to leave so quickly. When she’d first heard she’d be coming here, she had hoped to visit her father’s cousins. She would just have to come again.
It didn’t take long to reach the airport. They entered through a controlled gate and drove straight onto the tarmac, where Cobra’s helicopter was waiting for them, its rotors running. It was smaller than the UN helicopter had been.
“Heads on a swivel,” Connor said to his team.
He led Shanti straight to the helicopter and helped her climb in, the two of them taking their seats while Dylan and Malik got her bags out of the rickshaw. “Buckle up.”
It all happened at once.
The helicopter starting to lift off without Dylan and Malik. Connor drawing his weapon. The co-pilot firing at Connor. Connor slumping to the side, blood spilling from his head. The co-pilot firing at Dylan and Malik below.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
Terror slid through her veins, her heart beating so hard it hurt.
She’d been abducted.
Connor was dead.
She was alone with his killers.