Page 32 of Shadow Lies
She cringed. “I can’t be sure but things don’t add up for me.”
“What did you find?”
“There was a missing person’s report filed for his daughter Peng about a year ago. Then suddenly, he withdraws the report and says it was all a mistake. She wasn’t missing at all. That was just about the time he began to publicly support the camps.”
He frowned. “How did you find all this?”
She shrugged. “I have some resources. And computers are kind of a hobby of mine.”
He couldn’t help but wonder who or what her resources were. Without the CIA at her disposal, she’d still managed to get a hell of a lot of information.
He forced his mind off Alexis and her wily ways of obtaining intel on the Chinese mining executive and focused on what she was saying.
“You think the Chinese government took his daughter and forced him to be the public face of the Uyghur camps?”
She nodded. “If not the government then maybe the mining corporation. Or a combination of the two, working together.”
“So Charley would have me assassinate the wrong man. The puppet rather than the puppet master.”
“That’s the thing though. I’m not sure she knows what I know.”
His brows rose. “She seems to know plenty about everything to me.”
She wobbled her head. “The missing person’s report was very well buried.”
“Then how did you find it?”
She pressed her lips together.
“Don’t say yoursources,” he warned.
“I’m friends with a girl from college. We met in one of my cybersecurity classes. She has a hacker contact who is—Chinese.”
His brows shot up. “Cybersecurity class, huh? That’s ironic.”
“Her hacker friend isn’t one of the bad ones. I promise. He only targets people who deserve it,” she defended.
Kane scowled. “I’m not sure the people he hacks would agree with you.”
She lifted a shoulder. “That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?” he asked.
“If Charley doesn’t know, maybe we should tell her. If she doesn’t have you do it, she’ll just get somebody else.”
“Probably.” He nodded.
“And that’s the other thing I’m worried about. What if Charley making sure you’re there in Beijing at the same time as Wei is a set up? What if, because you said no to the job, she has someone else do it and frames you for it?”
He ran a hand over his face. Not worrying or caring where he was at the moment, he let out a string of cusses. “This is too much like the Warner Group.”
“I know. That’s what I’m thinking.”
“Which would make me the perfect patsy to hang for the assassination. The dishonorably discharged SEAL sniper with a record of going rogue.”
He shook his head and let out another choice word that seemed to echo off the hallowed walls of the abbot’s office.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
