Chasing the White Lion by James Hannibal (best free e book reader .TXT) 📗

her chair, out of sight. “Don’t get me wrong. This is so generous. But like you said, it’s a big step.”

That was that. The numbness didn’t go away for the rest of the meal.

Talia hardly ate and hardly spoke. Bill and Wendy went on with the meal, trying to act as if nothing had changed, playing gracious and unwitting hosts to a reformed assassin, a mad bomber and her CIA hacker boyfriend, a wheelman with questionable loyalties, a cat burglar, and a con woman.

Through the fog, Talia heard snippets of conversation from all sides.

Tyler growled at Mac for taking too many helpings of fish.

Val, playing a role as ever, swapped cooking secrets with Wendy as if she had stepped off the pages of Better Homes and Gardens.

Eddie recounted his endangering-the-mission joke for Finn and received a pity laugh. “Heaps funny, mate. A real ripper.”

Darcy clapped her hands. “Excellent, Eddie. You never tell jokes.”

He pursed his lips. “I tell jokes all the time. You just never get them.”

During the meal, Jenni spoke as little as Talia, and ate even less. After a while she excused herself, mumbling that she didn’t feel well.

Talia pushed her chair back, glad for an excuse to leave the table. “I’ll go see if she’s okay.”

She found Jenni in the room they had shared through high school and college.

Jenni sat cross-legged in the middle of her old bed, hugging a teddy bear dating back to the Build-a-Bear craze. “I’m okay, Talia. You didn’t have to come up.”

“Oh yes I did. I used you as an excuse to escape.” She closed the door behind her, kicked off her shoes, and took up her old spot on the other bed, laying her box of legal papers on a conglomeration of pillows. “Is this about the adoption, because—”

“It’s not the adoption.”

“Okay . . .” Talia waited for her to clarify.

Jenni took the cue. “Remember I told you about the missing kids?”

“Sure. The refugee camps on the borders of Myanmar. You’re still upset about that?”

Jenni shot her a frown.

Talia held up her hands. “You know what I meant. It’s work. You can’t bring it home with you.”

“I can’t help it. There was a fire at a camp in Thailand. More kids went missing—thirty-four in one night.” Still clutching the bear with one arm, Jenni handed a folder to Talia. “This time we have names and faces.”

An organization called Compassion International had put together a brief for the State Department. Talia flipped through the pages. Each child had a full profile: name, birthdate, parent information. There were handwriting samples for the older ones. “This is a lot of detail.”

“Compassion is detail-oriented, especially when it comes to their kids. They helped the local pastor create a school and care program for the camp—something called a Child Development Center—and they were working to get these children registered in Thailand. Now they’re putting pressure on State to find them.”

“Pressure applied through you.”

Jenni shrugged. “My boss gave me the same answer as always. State can only do so much. We’re restricted by diplomatic barriers. But, Talia, you—”

Talia held up a hand. “Whoa. Hang on.”

Too late. The request came flooding out. “I know about your work. You think I don’t, but I do. Your posting reads Foreign Service, but you’re never in the Foreign Service wing. And you’re gone all the time.”

Talia didn’t answer.

Jenni seemed to take that as confirmation. “Find me some answers. Anything. Compassion’s man on the ground, Ewan Ferguson, is worried the kids were taken by traffickers working out of Myanmar. He’s heading up to the camp to investigate.”

“Myanmar.” Talia said the name for her own benefit, not Jenni’s. A knot began unraveling in her brain. “Rangoon is in Myanmar.”

“Yeah, sure. They call it Yangon these days, their commercial capital. So?”

Tyler had mentioned Rangoon right after Volgograd. Boyd has his fingers in criminal operations in every major city, from London pickpockets to human traffickers in Rangoon to forgers in Volgograd. Talia echoed his words out loud. “Human traffickers in Rangoon.”

“It’s Yangon. Talia, are you listening?”

Boyd had a human trafficking operation in Myanmar. He was about to hold his annual black-market deal-making extravaganza in Thailand’s capital. And children from a camp on the Thai/Myanmar border had gone missing.

Too many coincidences.

Talia focused on the file in her hands. A little girl named Hla Meh looked up at her from the top page with an expression more grave than sad, as if she knew more of the world than a little girl should. Talia had worn a similar expression at that age.

“I’ve seen that look before. You know something about this. Can you talk to someone for me?”

She closed the folder, stealing a phrase from Tyler. “I think I’m experiencing what a colleague of mine calls operational overlap. And if I am, I’ll do way more than talk.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY

WOLF MANOR

WOLF TRAP, VIRGINIA

TALIALINGERED at Bill and Wendy’s house after the others left. As she opened the front door with the box of adoption papers tucked under her arm, the evening sun poured into the family room. She clasped Wendy’s hands. “I’ll give you an answer soon. I want you to know this means the world to me.”

Then why not go through with it? She could see the unspoken question on Bill’s lips.

What could Talia say? Two of the people she cared for most in the world had thrown her a miracle curveball, and she had no idea how to swing.

As she reached the sidewalk, an Audi R8 rolled up, passenger window down. Finn revved the engine. “Need a ride, princess?”

“What if I say no?”

“You’re the boss, but it’s a long walk. And I’ll be idling at your heels the whole way. Tyler’s orders.”

The walk was tempting, if only to put him through the long, slow drive. But her frustration was with Tyler more than Finn. “I’ll save you the pain.” She dropped into the bucket seat. “But only if you stop calling me ‘princess.’”

He pressed the gas and let the acceleration close her door. “No problem, your highness.”

“Why