Burn Bag — a Shadowboxer file

“I don’t’ know how to start this conversation,” she said. “So I’m just going to say it. I was almost raped last night.”

He choked on the coffee but kept himself from sputtering it across his mahogany desktop.

“What?”

“I went to the Club where those mobsters hang out so I could get some intel and rescue the shop girl,” she rattled off. “Before you say anything I know it was wrong, and I should have had backup.”

“Are you hurt?” he wiped off the desk with one of the napkins.

“I’m fine,” she answered quickly. “A good Samaritan came to my rescue.”

In one smooth motion he reached into the upper left hand desk drawer and pulled out a cardboard folder. He set it on the empty desktop and flipped open the cover to reveal five dead bodies in an alley in a black and white photo. It was the mobsters.

“Was this your rescue?”

He took a sip from the steaming cup and watched her over the lid.

She breathed in deep and took a sip of her own. How she answered would determine the course of the investigation. It could get her caught up in a local shit storm, it could even derail her career.

“They weren’t like that when we left,” she said.

“What were they like?”

“Bruised. Then he got me out of there.”

“I’m going to need his name,” said the DIC. “We need to bring him in for questioning.”

Em quirked her head to one side and half smiled.

“I didn’t get his name?” she almost said to herself.

“That’s convenient,” smirked the DIC.

“No really, I didn’t think to ask his name. I guess the trauma of being assaulted and almost raped had my thinking a little cloudy.”

He shut the folder and swept it back into the desk drawer.

“It’s almost a cliché for the new guy to rock the boat and think they can change things,” he said as he took another sip of coffee. “But you’re applying American sensibilities to a foreign nation. That’s not our job. Our job is to protect American interests overseas and provide cultural intelligence when asked.”