In the Company of Killers Bryan Christy (good books to read for beginners .txt) 📖

“Any questions?”

“Just one.”

“Shoot,” Klay said.

Tenchant sat up. “It’s serious, though, okay?”

“Sure, Tenchant. Okay.”

“If you add it all up on that story, from the very beginning, I mean, what would you estimate is the total time you spent with your balls in Porfle’s hands?”

REUNION

Pretoria, South Africa

Klay raised his glass, drinking in Hungry’s deep-set brown eyes. “To catching up on four lost years.”

“Five,” she corrected, not lifting her glass from the tablecloth.

“Ah,” he said. “And to your new appointment. Congratulations.”

She smiled. “Thank you.”

Their eyes remained locked as they touched glasses. Hungry had come to the restaurant from her office. She wore a red jacket over a black dress and the trademark pearls her grandmother had given her. “The Crocodile in Pearls,” the newspapers called her. She wore her hair natural now. It had been straight when they met. Time had added a few more lines at the corners of her eyes, responsibility weighing on her in a way that made her even sexier somehow. Another layer he’d like to take off, he found himself thinking.

“Now that you’ve surprised me, what is it that brings you to South Africa?”

“You.” Klay smiled. “I heard you were short on staff.”

“Always.” She nodded. “But I know you, remember? You’re here for Botha. Am I right?”

“I am.”

“I read about what happened in Kenya. I was very sorry about Bernard. I texted you, but no response. Not a surprise, really . . .”

“I’m sorry, Hungry. It was a bad time.”

“Was he behind it—Botha?”

“That’s what I want to find out. Do you have enough to hold him?”

“Oh, he threatened me in the courthouse, in front of the judge. So, we’re holding him without bail. We can do that for years, frankly. But no, there is not a lot to the case, legally. Politically, it is a different matter . . .”

“I heard.”

She sighed and tapped a crouton with her salad fork. “As usual, we’ve had more attention from the West over a handful of rhino horn than we have for the people here, the children . . .” Her voice trailed off.

He nodded. “You’re investigating Ncube.”

She glanced to her left, where two men at a table across the restaurant were staring at her, pretending to chew. “It is not a secret.”

Klay had noticed diners looking in her direction and whispering since she’d walked in.

“I can help you with Botha,” he said, taking a bite of his roll. “It doesn’t have to be just a magazine assignment. I know him. I could take him off your plate. I’ve got staff with me.”

Hungry studied him. “‘Off my plate’?”

Klay shrugged. “Off your hands. Act as your investigator— unofficially.”

Hungry chuckled and shook her head. “Always ready to cut a corner,” she said disapprovingly.

“Bernard was my friend.”

Hungry sighed. “It’s unethical, Tom. Ordinarily, I’d say impossible. But I have a chance to do something important for this country. It requires all of my attention. Botha’s not officially my mandate. He’s an accident of fate, I suppose. I saw the case and I knew it would be problematic, but I took it anyway. Let me think about this.”

“Define ‘this,’” he said, and smiled.

She smiled, too. It was an old joke between them. Back when they were dating he used to ask her, “Can we make this work?”

“Define ‘this,’” she’d reply.

But he never could. And the years had passed.

Still, one thing had always worked between them.

He signaled for the check.

•   •   •

Standing in a hotel room, Klay let his eyes linger on her face, momentarily overwhelmed as he considered this singular, brilliant woman, the one he felt he was meant to share his life with. He pulled her towards him more roughly than he intended, but she pressed her mouth just as fiercely on his. He unzipped her dress, felling himself rise as she undid his belt. She shrugged off her dress. He kicked off his shoes and stripped off his shirt. In a single motion she undid her bra and stepped into him, pressing her full breasts hard against his bare chest.

He cupped her ass intending to lift her, but she spun away from him, stood beside the bed and faced him, hands on her thighs, legs apart, challenging him with her eyes to remember, watching him as he did. He came to her then, put his mouth to her breasts, then dropped to his knees and pressed his face into her, drawing her thong down, taking in the smell of her, the taste of her. He lifted her and she wrapped her legs around him. The room dissolved and the past returned, and locked together, they fought and fucked and loved. And then it was over and they were themselves again, looking up a ceiling fan making its rounds, sweat cooling their damp skin.

He used to tell himself that being dishonest about the CIA was the best thing he could do for their relationship. If he was honest in every other way, then eventually, when he did share his truth with her, they could weather what came next. This time, he told himself each time they kissed hello. Next time, he vowed each time they said goodbye.

Now he’d crossed a line. Hungry was his mission. Yes, he was after Botha, but everything else was deception. He had to manipulate Hungry into giving him her files. It was true that they were on the same side, so success for him should mean success for her, but targeting her suddenly made him feel sick.

Hungry turned to him. “Botha,” she said.

“Who knew he could be a force for good?” Klay smiled.

A shadow crossed her face and she looked away.

He touched her hand. “My new editor loves your life story. She wants to send over a documentary film team once I’m done. Says you’re a brilliant woman.”

She forced a smile. “I did go to Harvard.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I might have.”

When she was twenty-six, she’d turned down a full scholarship to Harvard Law School to stay home and help draft Mandela’s post-Apartheid constitution.

“You might have,” he agreed. “But then you’d be eating black