Hard Asset

by Pamela Clare

  Take that, you murdering bastard.

  While the first file uploaded, Shanti wrote her report and emailed it to Bram, highlighting for him the fact that some soldiers had recorded these atrocities on cell phones. Maybe there was footage out there somewhere that could prove Naing had ordered his soldiers to rape and kill.

  She set the second file to upload and took a shower, tried to wash away mud and the lingering stench of cruelty. And still, the women’s words, voiced by Noor, echoed through her mind.

  A soldier slit her husband’s throat and shot her children then raped and shot her. She pretended to be dead.

  He took her baby and threw it into the fire. He and five other soldiers raped her while her baby burned.

  I recognized my sister’s voice. They were burning alive.

  How could anyone be so vicious, so cruel?

  Shanti turned off the water, leaned her forehead against the tile, helplessness and rage welling up inside her.

  Don’t do this.

  She wasn’t helpless. She was one of the few people in this world who could do something about these atrocities. She’d come to bring justice, to make sure that the man in charge of these crimes was punished.

  She stepped out of the shower, toweled her hair dry, then put on a white top and a blue cotton sari, the one she wore on weekends at home.

  The second file was still uploading, so Shanti sent a text to Connor asking for cha.

  Do you want something to eat?

  She couldn’t even think about food right now.

  No, thanks.

  Ten minutes later, a knock came at her door.

  She opened it to find Connor with a cart that held not only cha but a tray loaded with Bengali sweets—sandesh, amriti, and chomchom. Her mouth watered.

  Maybe she was a little hungry after all.

  He had changed out of his wet clothes and wore shorts, a black T-shirt, and flip flops, looking like a guy on his way to the beach if you ignored his shoulder holster and pistol. He pushed the cart into her room and closed the door behind him. “I ordered traditional tea, and they sent this up.”

  “I used to eat these as a child. I love sandesh.”

  “If you’ve got a few minutes, I have some news.”

  Shanti wasn’t up for human contact tonight, but she remembered how reassuring it had felt to hold his hand. She willed herself to smile. “Join me.”

  She sat across from him and poured the tea, instinctively turning to light topics of conversation. “I hear more rain is forecast for tomorrow but not until late afternoon.”

  “Thanks.” Connor accepted his cup of tea. “You don’t have to play hostess for me, Shanti. I know you’ve had a hard day.”

  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 back against 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.

  He had just hit send when a light knock came at his door—not his main door, but the door to Ms. Lahiri’s room. Figuring she wouldn’t knock if it weren’t important, he answered, still in his towel, shirtless, his hair uncombed and damp.

  She stood there in that blue sari, the curve of her hips and her bare belly exposed, her mouth open as if she were about to say something. Her pupils dilated, her gaze sliding over him as if she’d never seen a man’s bare chest before. “I … uh…”

  “Is it something important?”

  “I just wanted to apologize.” Her gaze was fixed on his abs now. “I shouldn’t have said what I said. It was thoughtless of me.”

  All the signs of sexual arousal were there—the flush in her cheeks, her dark pupils, the way she was looking at him, the rapid pulse at her throat.

  Connor’s body responded, the rush of blood to his groin a warning that this was about to get extremely awkward. He willed his cock to knock it off, but it didn’t want to listen, not with a beautiful woman staring at him as if he were dinner.

  She seemed to catch herself, her gaze lifting to meet his. “Sorry to bother you. I just wanted to apologize.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate that.” He truly did, but he couldn’t stand here and chat about it. He started to close the door, afraid his dick was about to pitch a tent.

  But she wasn’t done. “I don’t know why I said it. I was upset. I didn’t think about how it might come across to you.”

  “Makes sense.” He didn’t want to shut the door in her face, but his dick wasn’t obeying orders. “Don’t worry about it.”

&nbs
p; “I know you’re not like General Naing.”

  “Damned by faint praise.” He closed the door enough to hide his groin, suppressing an insane impulse to drag her into his arms and shut her up with a kiss. “Maybe you should stop while you’re ahead.”

  “Sorry.” She was flustered now, her gaze again on his chest. “You’ve been hurt.”

  “Yeah. Shot. A few times.” If she didn’t move now, he was going to take her in his arms and kiss the hell out of her, his job be damned.

  “I … uh... should let you dress. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight.” Connor shut the door, leaned back against it, looked down.

  Oh, for fuck’s sake.

  Shanti uploaded the third and final video file, her mind filled with images of Connor. She’d known he was well-built. She’d been able to tell that from his biceps and the way his T-shirt stretched over his chest. But … wow.

  Smooth, tanned skin. Pecs sprinkled with dark curls. Flat, dark nipples. Ridges of muscle on his abdomen. A trail of dark curls disappearing behind that towel. A very respectable bulge.

  Very respectable.

  Shanti shivered.

  She’d mostly dated other attorneys, men who spent their days sitting at desks. Some of them liked to work out, but none of them looked like he did. She had never actually met a man with a six-pack or full pecs—or so many scars for that matter. The sight of him had made her blood run hot and turned her into a babbling idiot.

  Her face burned at the memory of her own stupidity.

  He probably didn’t notice.

  He’d stood there, staring down at her like an angry Greek god, all that strength, all that physical power right at eye level.

  What would it feel like to run her hands over him? What would it be like to have sex with him and have all that man and muscle focused on her?

  You’ll never know.

  She clenched her thighs together, tried to ease the ache there. She shouldn’t be thinking like this. No, she shouldn’t be, but who could blame her?

  It had been more than a year since she’d slept with a man. Working sixty hours a week didn’t leave much time for dating, and the last guy she’d dated had been so awful in bed that he’d made her want to swear off men. Finding a woman’s clitoris couldn’t be that difficult.

  While the file loaded, she closed her eyes and let herself imagine what it would be like to be in bed with Connor. Soft skin and hard muscle beneath her palms. Those lips on her mouth, on her nipples. That muscular ass clenching as he thrust into her.

  Heat flooded her belly, pooled between her thighs, the ache irresistible.

  And then what?

  Was she trying to torture herself?

  She was working on the most important case of her life so far, perhaps the most important case she would ever have. Survivors were trusting her to do all she could to bring the monster who’d destroyed their lives and killed their loved ones to justice. She didn’t need the distraction of a sexual liaison with the head of her security team.

  No, really, she didn’t.

  She didn’t.

  She. Didn’t.

  He was probably lousy in bed. In Shanti’s limited experience, most guys were.

  Besides, the two of them were nothing alike. He lived in the US and worked for a private military company. She lived in The Hague and worked for the International Criminal Court. It’s not like they could have any sort of future together. The last thing she wanted to do was to get involved with a man who spent his time in armed conflict—or who might go to work and not come home.

  She thought of those scars. A round scar on his chest from a bullet that had to have come close to his heart. A deep gouge in his right shoulder. A scar on the left side of his abdomen that looked relatively recent.

  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.

  In his own way, he was a victim of violence, too.

  Apart from child soldiers and others who were forced to fight at gunpoint, she’d never thought of professional soldiers being a victim of violence before. He had almost certainly killed, but he had also suffered as a result.

  He’d shown empathy for the Rohingya people based on his own experience, and she’d thrown it in his face, following it up after her apology by telling him she knew he wasn’t like General Naing.

  Could she have been any more insensitive?

  Her email alert told her that she had a new message. Bram had written to say that he’d downloaded the three sound files and the first two video files and had saved them. He thanked her for her work and told her he was leaving the office for the evening and would download the third in the morning.

  She glanced at her watch, saw that it was growing late. While the third video file finished uploading, she set her phone, camera battery, and her digital recorder to recharge and then got ready for bed. It was almost eleven when she finally crawled between the sheets, but it was much later before she finally fell asleep, her thoughts on Connor.

  7

  Connor rose early after a restless night, splashed water on his face, and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. He’d been too horny to sleep and had finally given in and taken the problem in hand, jerking off to a fantasy of Shanti. Peeling off her sari. Exploring every inch of her sweet body. Fucking her on that king-sized bed.

  Afterward, when he’d finally fallen asleep, Shanti had followed him. In his dreams, she’d been investigating him, asking him questions he didn’t want to answer. It was a ridiculous dream. He’d already been exonerated, his combat record exemplary. He wasn’t a war criminal.

  This is what happens when you get too personal with a client.

  That was then.

  This was now.

  Resolved to keep a professional distance, he left his room and walked to the ops room, where Shields was already at work on Pauline’s list. “Anything?”

  “Nada.” She turned from her computer, picked up her coffee, took a sip. “So far, everyone checks out. It’s not a long list.”

  “Maybe she overlooked someone.” Connor poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “I’ll keep digging.”

  “How about the two DBs? Has anyone identified them yet?”

  “Nothing on that yet, either, but the Bangladesh Police seem fired up to resolve the case.”

  “Well, that’s something.”

  Shields turned back to her computer. “What’s this about a box of Hot Wheels? Are you bored?”

  Connor didn’t feel like explaining the whole story. “The kids at the camp have nothing. My old Hot Wheels were just sitting at home. I thought I’d give them to the hospital for sick kids to play with. They’d get more use that way.”

  “Aw!” Shields looked up at him, a smile on her face. “Under that Kevlar and that don’t-give-a-shit exterior, you’re a softie.”

  “Keep that secret, got it?”

  “Sure.”

  Connor checked his messages and the weather forecast and then ate breakfast with the others. He had just finished his omelet when Shanti buzzed him on his cell phone. He placed her breakfast order with room service and sent Isaksen to take it to her room.

  When Isaksen returned, Connor started their morning briefing. “Shields is still working on the list we got from the UN representative. We’re still waiting for the Bangladesh Police to ID the two bodies. In the meantime, we should—”

  Shanti flew through the doorway, wearing a fluffy bathrobe, a bright smile on her face, her phone in hand, her feet bare. “You’ve got it. They said ‘yes.’”

  “Got what?” Connor wasn’t keeping up here.

  “Permission to fly a drone. Doctor Khan just called.”

  “That’s great news.” Connor tried to ignore the way his pulse had picked up when she’d run in. “Thanks for letting us know.”

  Shields gestured toward a vacant chair. “Would you like to join us for the briefing?”

  Shanti shook her head. “Thanks. I need
to finish breakfast and get ready to go. I just wanted you to know as soon as possible.”

  Connor gave her a professional nod. “We appreciate that.”

  He waited until she’d gone. “Shields, get on the phone to Dhaka to confirm. Segal, get that drone ready. The rest of us can go over yesterday’s exfil. Flooding made it difficult and downright dangerous. I had to hold onto the client to keep her from falling, which put my focus on her and not our surroundings. What are our options?”

  “You mean besides Noah’s ark?” Cruz asked.

  The men laughed.

  Shanti sat in the middle in the back seat of the Land Rover, Dylan on one side of her and Malik on the other, while Connor sat in the front passenger seat. Connor hadn’t said a word to her since they’d left the hotel. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he was still upset with her.

  Can you blame him?

  She had apologized. There was nothing else she could do. Besides, her job here was to collect evidence that could be used to support a warrant for General Naing’s arrest, not to start a relationship with the very sexy head of her security team.

  “Copy that.” Connor turned to the driver. “We’ll wait in the car until we find out what’s happening.”

  Shanti wanted to know. “What is it?”

  “The drone is showing a crowd of people not far from the hospital.”

  “I hope nothing bad happened.” She knew from her experience yesterday how easily the camp could flood.

  At least the rain had stopped—for now.

  Pauline and Noor were waiting for them once again, but rather than getting out, Connor rolled down the window.

  “What’s going on?”

  “It’s awful,” Pauline said. “A mudslide buried some shelters on the hillside just south of the hospital. We’re trying to find survivors and bring them to the hospital, but so far, we’ve only recovered bodies.”

  Oh, God.

  Connor talked it over with his team, trying to decide whether the situation warranted returning to the hotel.

  Shanti wanted to tell him that she couldn’t go back. She had four witness interviews today, four interviews she could not miss, but he already knew that. She had agreed to abide by his decisions, and she would honor that agreement. But she didn’t have to like it. She let out a relieved breath when Connor told her they could go ahead with the day as planned.