Rising Tiger: A Thriller (89)

Asha accepted the card and replied, “Thank you. Promise me you won’t do anything rash while I’m gone?”

“I’ll try.”

He was only human, and he was a guy, so he watched her as she walked away. She was a beautiful woman.

She was also highly intuitive because she glanced over her shoulder and caught him.

If it bothered her, she didn’t show it. In fact, he could have sworn he saw her smile. He would need to be careful. He didn’t want to send the wrong message. He was more than happy with S?lvi and the wonderfully crazy relationship they had together.

Sitting down in the bar, he was handed a cocktail menu, as well as an extensive food menu from the adjacent restaurant.

As a Southern California native, he was immediately drawn to the sushi, but he remembered Leahy’s warning of not eating anything raw and staying as far away as possible from rice.

Instead, he opted for another Southern California favorite—Mexican. He was always hungry after an op, and a blackened chicken quesadilla sounded perfect, even if he did have to err on the side of caution and pass on the guacamole and pico de gallo. Better safe than sorry.

While he waited for his meal, he asked for a Woodford Reserve, neat, with a bottle of water on the side.

Sitting back in his chair, surveying all the glamorous patrons, he could see why it had been dubbed the drawing room of the crème de la crème of Delhi society and luxury international travelers.

The waitress brought his beverages and a place setting. Once everything was set up, she departed and he added a splash of water to his bourbon.

There were a million questions banging around in his brain and, for the moment, he was content to let them keep banging. Sometimes his best breakthroughs came when he wasn’t even trying. It was also healthy to put work to bed for a little bit.

He sipped at his bourbon and enjoyed the people-watching until his quesadilla arrived and he dug in. It was delicious—even without the guac and pico de gallo.

He was on his last bite when Asha materialized, fresh from her shower.

“Thank you,” she said, putting his keycard on the table and sliding it over to him.

“You’re welcome,” he replied, tucking it into his pocket. “Hungry?”

“No, thank you. But I could go for a drink.”

Harvath gestured the waitress over. Asha placed her order—an espresso martini—and he asked for another bourbon.

Once the waitress had left, he said. “I have to ask. How’d you end up in Paharganj tonight?”

“RAW has an informant in G-Company. He told us where to find Sayed. What about you?”

“We got lucky.”

“Well, you know what they say, better to be lucky than good.”

Harvath did know. That was one of his favorite expressions. “There wasn’t a Plan B, so all’s well that ends well. Speaking of which, any thoughts on what to do with Sayed, long term?”

“Obviously,” she replied, “nothing you extracted from him tonight would be admissible in court. And my presence, though I’d never admit I was there, makes it problematic to get him prosecuted for coming after me—not once, but twice today.”

“So, he’ll walk.”

“No. We’ll use him to track down and take out G-Company’s founder, Zakir Rahman Gangji. Then we’ll finger him for it and watch the organization implode as all the senior leadership go to war with each other.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Just another day in the office,” she said with a smile as the waitress brought their drinks over and set them on the table.

Once she had walked away, Harvath continued. “Who do you think put you on Durrani’s radar? How many people even knew you went down to Coonoor to investigate the crash?”

“Only Raj and Gupta. I used an alias while I was there.”

“A clean alias?”

“Brand-new,” she replied.

“How solid was its backstop?”

“I was posing as a senior investigator with the Defense Security Corps. The helicopter had just gone down. Raj had to work fast to build my cover. I don’t think my file was super thick.”

“Was there a service photo in there?”

“Probably.”

“If I were suspicious of you, that’s where I would have started. It doesn’t take a lot of computing power to set a facial recognition program loose to search for a match. And, if you do have elements within your government sympathetic to the Chinese, it’s conceivable that they could access any of India’s databases.”

Asha didn’t like it, but she knew he was right. “Here’s to tomorrow being a better day,” she stated, raising her glass.

“Come on,” said Harvath, as he raised his glass. “I came all the way to India. I want to learn the most common drinking toast.”

“Cheers,” she said, clinking his glass.

“Seriously? Cheers?”

“Yep. That’s it.”

They each took a sip of their drink and before he could ask her another question, Asha steered the topic away from work. “Married?”

“Excuse me?”

“Are you married? I don’t see a ring. Or are you one of those wheels-up, rings-off kind of guys?”

“Definitely not one of those guys,” he replied. “I’m engaged.”