Page 102 of Rising Tiger

“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.”

“Second time around?”

Harvath didn’t respond.

Asha was excellent at reading people. “I’m sorry,” she said, instantly pivoting off what was obviously a painful subject for him. “Tell me about your fiancée. Tall? Short? Blond? Brunette?”

“Tall and blond.”

“SoAmerican.”

“She’s actually Norwegian.”

“Where’d you meet her?” Asha teased. “On the ski slopes?”

“Through work.”