Chapter 7 Connor
CONNOR
Sophie’s name lit the screen as she answered his call. Her slightly husky voice with its crisp British accent took him by surprise, braced as he’d been for another aborted call. “Are you finally calling to tell me what’s really going on?” she demanded.
“Sophie.” Instead of answering, he leaned back in his padded ergonomic chair and deliberately slowed and softened his tone. “I was beginning to think you were ignoring me.”
“Too busy putting children to bed and hunting expert thieves to deal with you and your schemes.” Her voice carried the blend of frustration and anxiety that had become familiar. “Connor, we need to talk about the museum thefts.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
He needed to see her. Craved it, even. Plus he wanted to gauge her responses by watching them. “Can we switch to video?”
Sophie didn’t answer—but a moment later, his phone screen bloomed to life, filled with her frowning face.
Something inside him unknotted, relaxed.
Just looking at her soothed him, even when she was backlit by unflattering blue monitor glow that highlighted how her eyes were circled with tiredness.
The scar from a near-fatal case stood out on her cheek more when she was fatigued.
The scar pulled her eye down on one side, a faint ridged line paler than the rest of her golden-brown skin.
Nothing could dim her beauty, but she was more precious to him for these frailties and flaws.
Sophie seemed to be studying him too. She glanced away at last, blinking those luminous eyes and giving a little shake of her head. “Damn you,” she said.
“I’ve missed you,” he said. “So much.”
“You have a funny way of showing it, as the Americans say.” There was no mistaking the bitterness in her tone.
“There’s a lot going on over here. I had no choice but to return. I can’t explain everything, but the consequences could be catastrophic—for whole countries.”
“You do realize how grandiose that sounds,” Sophie said icily. “And whatever you’ve been trying to do isn’t working. Someone’s coming after us here—and they have ties to the Yām Kh?mk?n.”
Of course she’d already found the connection. Sophie’s brilliance with technology matched his own skills. “You found the digital signature.”
“Yām Kh?mk?n protocols, but watered down. As if a student learned from an apprentice.” She glanced down and he heard the soft click of keys in the background.
“Another thing you might know about. There’s a jet held by a shell company making runs between Honolulu and Bangkok.
Tail number November-Four-Seven-Nine-Kilo-Papa. ”
“Yes.” Connor’s jaw tightened; he knew that plane. “That used to be one of ours.”
“Used to be?” Sophie’s tone sharpened. “Connor, what haven’t you told me?”
Connor stood and moved away from his desk.
He paced the large stone chamber whose chill walls were softened by luxurious tapestries.
His bare feet sank into silken rugs. Through the narrow arrow-slit type windows, dawn was breaking.
He stepped outside onto a stone balcony and paced.
“When I came back to Thailand, not everyone accepted my return to leadership. Some felt I’d .
. . compromised the organization by leaving. By choosing you and the children.”
“And these people are now on my island, threatening my family’s safety?” The controlled anger in her voice made him wince.
“I’ve been tracking them. I have people in Honolulu, watching. They won’t get any further with this play.”
“These perps are stealing from museums using your organization’s techniques, and they tried to breach my home. Your splinter faction is operating in my territory.” She took a breath and blew it out forcibly, calming herself. “How many are involved?”
“As I’ve regained control over here, those that left the compound—maybe twenty, but well-trained and higher in leadership—have been recruiting, training others who have no connection to us.” He paused. “I don’t know exactly. But that could be why the programming was—different.”
Sophie was quiet for a moment. She was pacing now too, the low light of her office caressing her profile like a silver finger.
“The artifacts they’re taking aren’t random.
There are themes.” She described the items that had been stolen.
“Is this group making a statement? What are they doing with these symbols of royalty? Does it have something to do with the original mission of the Yām Kh?mk?n, as Thailand’s guardians of the royal family? “
“It could,” Connor said. He thought back to an earlier conversation with Feirn, his majordomo and confidante, where they’d brainstormed motives. “I believe the burglaries are a ploy to draw me in. The question is if they’re using you to do that, or they have some other plan.”
“Does it matter? Either way, they’re a threat.
” Another pause, longer this time. She turned to face him in the camera; her eyes were wide, hypnotic.
He wished he could see her in person and read the color of her energy field.
“Connor, I need complete transparency. No shadows, no half-truths. The children’s safety depends on it. ”
Sophie’s words landed like blades between Connor’s ribs, each one precisely placed.
He had known this moment would come—had rehearsed versions of it during sleepless nights when the weight of his position pressed down like the humid Thai air before a monsoon.
Even so, nothing could prepare for the reality of disappointing Sophie.
“The faction is led by someone called Sunan,” Connor said.
The name felt strange to say aloud, like disturbing a grave—they’d avoided using it in discussions here.
Through the tower’s stone-lined windows, fruit bats began their evening hunt, dark shapes against a purple sky.
“He was one of the Master’s most devoted students, a true believer in the old ways.
Blood for blood, strength through fear, loyalty proved through pain. ”
The stone floor beneath Connor’s bare feet still held the day’s heat, radiating upward with the memory of violence. Connor had walked these same stones the night he’d taken the Master’s life. The ancient floor had been slick with blood, and his own body battered by a fight to the death.
“When I eliminated the Master, Sunan tried to raise resistance but was rebuffed. He left and that wasn’t long after your mother had disappeared.
She was the Master’s lover, as you know.
” He could still see them together in his mind’s eye, Pim Wat’s elegant beauty complementing the Master’s coiled power.
They’d moved through the ninjas in the stronghold like paired jaguars, leaving unease in their wake.
“We assumed he’d gone to ground permanently, possibly even been eliminated by Pim Wat during her flight. She was never one to leave loose ends.”
“But this man has been building a following instead.” Sophie’s voice carried across the miles and in the tiny screen, her level brows drew together in a frown. “Waiting for his moment.”
“We think so. No one has actually seen him.” Through the windows, the jungle around the fortress began its evening chorus—gibbons calling their territories, insects beginning their night songs, the distant scream of a hunting bird. Familiar sounds now seemed full of foreboding.
“The timing can’t be coincidence,” Sophie said. “Why surface now? What’s changed?”
Connor moved to the window, pressing his palm against stone worn smooth by centuries. The dampness of evening was beginning to creep in, carrying the green smell of jungle rot and growth, life and death intertwined. Below, mist rose from the canopy, ghostlike in the failing light.
She deserved honesty, even if it burned.
“Next month marks an anniversary since my ascendance in the Yām Kh?mk?n.” The words felt heavy.
“In our laws—old laws that even I cannot change—that’s when leadership can be formally challenged.
Before that, any move against me would have been rebellion, would have united the organization against him. ”
“So he’s preparing his challenge by stealing artifacts in Honolulu?” The skepticism in Sophie’s voice was sharp enough to cut. “That doesn’t track. The Yām Kh?mk?n doesn’t care about Hawaiian cultural pieces.”
“No, but they care about strength.” He gripped the window’s edge until the stone bit into his palm.
“Every theft on your island that goes unpunished by the Yām Kh?mk?n is a public declaration that I’ve grown weak.
That my connection to you, to the children, to the outside world has compromised my ability to lead.
He’s building a case that I’ve lost my way. ”
The truth of it lodged in his throat; Sophie and the children had changed him. Made him dream of being something more human than the leader of a shadow organization. But in Sunan’s world, such dreams were blasphemy; they showed vulnerability.
“Politics.” Sophie’s laugh carried no humor. “Even criminal organizations can’t escape bureaucracy and power plays.”
He heard the creak of her chair as she sat back down.
Sophie’s eyes dropped to her keyboard. Rapid keyboard clicking followed.
“I’ve recorded everything I found tonight,” she said.
“Digital fingerprints from the museum intrusions, network signatures, correlation patterns between the thefts. I’ll pass it all to Marcus in the morning, let him run it through official channels .
. .” She added, “Though we both know they won’t find anything actionable—your people are too good for that.
I’m also going to reach out to Agent MacDonald, my contact with the CIA.
They might have intelligence on Sunan’s movements. ”
“Sophie—” Connor ran his hand into his hair, gripping hard enough to ground himself. The ache in his scalp was nothing compared to the constriction in his chest. “I wish you’d wait. This is an internal matter. Let me handle it through our channels.”