In the Company of Killers by Bryan Christy (ebook reader for pc and android .txt) 📕

shouldn’t have. Chinese wall. But I can help them. Is something wrong?”

“What was their response?”

“They wanted to see it.”

“Who did?”

“Sehlalo.”

“Did you show it to him?”

“I did.”

“What did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything. He left.”

Klay’s jaw muscle flexed. “All right. See what else you can find, but keep it to yourself. Don’t share any more.” He turned toward the stairs. “I have to talk to Hungry.”

“She’s not here.”

Klay hesitated. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t say.”

“All right.” Klay turned for the door. “Get back to it.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Outside on the street, he texted Hungry: “Where are you?”

“Silverton HQ. Depos,” she responded.

“Need to talk.”

“Call in 30?”

“In person.”

“The Klipspringer. 3:30?”

He sent a thumbs-up emoji. And later, the room number.

•   •   •

They stood in the middle of a hotel room identical to the one where they’d made love days earlier. A faucet dripped in the bathroom. Sunlight burned through the muslin drapes, casting a yellow stain on the carpet. She’d come straight from the national prosecutor’s office. “What is it, Tom?”

Klay sat in a side chair and motioned for Hungry to sit on the bed. The hotel had been convenient to the restaurant that night and sufficiently down-market that she was unlikely to be recognized in the lobby. He hadn’t noticed the tacky furniture then and couldn’t recall whether the orange bedspread he was looking at now was the same design as in their former room.

Hungry looked at him with a puzzled expression and remained standing.

“I need to know how you arrested Botha,” he said.

“How? We pulled him over on N1, outside his game farm in Polokwane.”

Klay’s phone rang. It was Tenchant. He turned off the ringer and put the phone in his pocket.

“But how did you know to be there, Hungry?”

“We got a tip. We have a corruption hotline. The team monitors it. We get dozens of them every week.”

“Dozens? And you respond to all of them?”

“No. Not all.”

“So, why did you act on this one?”

“Is this an interrogation?”

“Humor me, please.”

“Officer Sehlalo phoned me and told me the tip looked legitimate,” she said warily. “There’d been a break-in at the police station in Polokwane. The safe was opened. According to the tip, an officer on Botha’s payroll had done it and Botha would be transporting the stolen rhino horns personally. We got a date and time. It checked out. Rhino poaching is outside my jurisdiction, but Botha has a hand in everything in this country. He knows the president personally. I knew we’d never flip him, but I thought, why not shake his tree, see what falls out. I authorized Julius to proceed. He organized a few of the Hawks and intercepted the car. The tip was accurate. They recovered the horn.”

“So, it was Sehlalo?”

“With my authorization. Julius Sehlalo is part of my team, my trusted team.”

“I went to see Botha this morning. He said he was in prison for me. Because of me, is what he said.”

“I don’t know what that means.” Her confusion was turning to anger. “I do know that you must not trust Ras Botha. Everything he says is a lie within a lie. He’s a master manipulator. You know that.”

“He knew things he shouldn’t know.”

“What things?”

That I am a CIA agent. The thought ricocheted inside his head.

“Is there a chance he got arrested on purpose. To get inside, somehow? To . . . I don’t know . . . to occupy your resources?”

Hungry sat down at the foot of the bed. “What are you saying?”

“He’s in prison because of me . . . What if he meant, to give The Sovereign a reason to send me? To give you a reason to let me in?”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

She was right. It didn’t make sense. Botha seemed to know he was a CIA asset. But if Botha was in with the CIA, why had Eady and Barrow sent him?

“Let’s go back. Does Sehlalo have history with the Americans? With the intelligence community?”

“Not possible,” she scoffed.

“What?”

“Sehlalo would never betray me.”

“Does he?”

“With your intelligence community? You mean the CIA?” She stood up from the bed. “Do you know what you’re suggesting? Are you completely ignorant of our history? Mandela spent twenty-seven years in prison because of your CIA. The CIA helped hunt and kill our comrades in Angola, Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique. And later, when Apartheid fell and the rest of the world said its humble apologies, your CIA and your State Department kept Madiba on your terrorist watch list! Our democratically elected president, an international terrorist, until he was ninety years old!

“Any connection, any appearance of a connection, between my team and the CIA would be fatal. I’d be branded Third Force. We could all wind up in prison. Or dead. This is no game, Tom. No,” she said, turning to the window, “Sehlalo would not help the CIA. It would jeopardize everything we’re doing, everything I’ve devoted my life to.”

Klay’s muted cell phone began buzzing. Something in his gut was buzzing more.

“You have a cache of files.”

She did not respond.

“Botha knows it, Hungry. He said to ask you where you got them.”

When she didn’t respond, he continued, “Was it Sehlalo who brought them to you?”

“Sehlalo did not betray me.”

Klay’s eyes narrowed. “But there is something?” His voice was determinedly steady. “I can see it. You’re not telling me something.”

“It’s not important. Not relevant,” she corrected.

“What?”

Hungry faced him. “It’s personal.”

“It’s all personal.”

“I’m engaged, Tom. I’m going to be married.”

Something in his chest tightened. He laughed bitterly. First Erin, now Hungry. “Well, I look forward to meeting him.”

Her eyes clouded in disbelief. She shook her head. “You already have.”

Sehlalo. He sighed. He’d missed that, too. “Well, I’m happy for you,” he said.

“It’s not public. The staff know. But you see, he would never betray me.”

“Not intentionally.”

She shook her head. “Not at all.”

“CIA can arrange things, Hungry. Arrange them so you don’t even know you’re working for them.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You know this from personal experience?”

He shook his head. “I’ve seen it. I’ve seen them succeed with people I know.”

She sensed his deception—he