Hidden Impact (Safeguard #1)(10)
Nobody would blame him. His teammates didn’t ease down from the heightened state of awareness they all lived in either. It kept people alive overseas. He’d done three tours already, two on active military duty and one as a private military contractor. He planned to go out on a fourth as soon as his team had enough time to rest and recover. That’s what the Centurion base in Washington State was for: training new recruits and recovery for teams recently returned. It was a good setup.
Setting down his dubious meal, he opened his laptop and jabbed the power button. While it booted, he shrugged out of his suit jacket and pulled his tie out of his pants pocket. Belt, shoes and socks came off next. He sighed. Something close to heaven when the damned dress socks were peeled off. He had no idea why the things were so uncomfortable. They didn’t breathe.
He snorted. Tough Gabe Diaz, luxuriating over the chance to wiggle his toes. What. The. Fuck.
He sat down and shoveled a mouthful of Beefaroni before logging on to his laptop and bringing up the VPN. Once he was on Centurion’s private network, he quickly scanned his email for urgent messages. One from headquarters caught his eye. The subject read “Safeguard Project” but it wasn’t marked at high priority so Gabe flagged it to look at later and focused on the task at hand.
He shot out a couple of inquiries to see who might be active in the area. Mercenaries followed the jobs, and people in his line of business tended to bump into each other again and again. Somebody he knew probably had an idea of who was after Maylin or had gotten wind of the job involving her.
One net cast, he started the first of the information searches he had planned to catch other fish. Lizzy would verify Maylin was who she said she was and that her sister really was missing.
Not that he didn’t believe her, but Maylin was emotionally compromised. Too close to the situation to think clearly or evaluate circumstances objectively. Even if he wanted to believe her, he needed to confirm the veracity of her story via third-party sources. Meanwhile, he wanted to get an idea of what this missing person looked like.
An-mei Cheng was a fairly easy-to-find person, at least on the internet. First-generation Chinese American, born and raised in the Seattle area. Her father’s family was from northwestern China. Her mother had been from Beijing. She was a few years older than the little sister he’d pictured from the way Maylin spoke about her. Regardless, both sisters looked young in the way most people of Eastern ancestry managed, with smooth skin and ageless eyes. He was betting a lot of people mistook them for way younger than they really were. Maylin’s maturity came from her air of competency and the confidence she exuded. At least, when she didn’t have to deal with *s like him.
Water under the bridge, Diaz. You’re helping her now.
Still, this was the last kind of job he wanted for him or his team. This kind of job sucked a person in, made them care. It was the kind in which only a sociopath could avoid getting emotionally invested. He’d been there and been burned, bad. Nothing about this was going to end well.
But he’d decided to help Maylin, at least far enough to ensure she didn’t end up dead in the near future. And who the hell else would be able to? Nobody in the Seattle area had the resources Centurion had.
His smartphone rattled on the desk with a notification. There wasn’t much point setting them to vibrate when the vibration could be heard across the damn room. He picked up the phone and gave the screen a swipe.
Lizzy had completed her search already.
He pushed away from his laptop and headed back up the hallway to the surveillance room.
“Lizzy.”
She didn’t turn from the multiple monitors this time either.
“Search didn’t take long.” Lizzy reached for a pile of printouts. “To be honest, I was curious after tonight’s fun so I started a basic background query on Maylin and her sister before I settled in for surveillance. Finding out how An-mei Cheng disappeared was quick because there’s not much out there to find.”
Curiosity and paranoia worked hand in hand, mostly to their benefit. Lizzy would have given him a heads-up right away if anything about Maylin’s situation set off red flags. Gabe took the printouts from her. “You’re a freaking goddess.”
“Basic” for Lizzy was more detailed than most background checks run for standard employers. There’d probably be more in there about Maylin and her sister than they knew about themselves.
“Yes, and how about you stand night watch for me next time I need to switch shifts?” Lizzy sounded cold but a small smile played on her lips. “This missing person—police haven’t done more than contact the authorities in China. They’re sticking to the exact letter of standard operating procedure. The US Embassy over there has an alert for if she comes back to the embassy over the next couple of days, but there’s no active search for her. Again, standard procedure. They’re assuming she went off to party or sightsee, maybe lost her passport. They’re waiting to see if she contacts them.”
The same basic runaround Maylin had been getting. So far, her story was turning out to be accurate.
“What was she doing over there?”
“Our person of interest is some sort of uber smart person. A PhD in gene therapy and genetic recombination. She wasn’t just attending a scientific research conference, she was a guest speaker. Not the sort who’d go on a drunken binge and miss her flight home. Profile isn’t a match.” Lizzy’s face remained neutral. Her arms were crossed and she tapped a finger on her bicep the way she did when she was chewing on inconsistencies. “Both women are bilingual too. They speak Mandarin, so it’s not like An-mei Cheng couldn’t ask for directions to get to the authorities or the embassy.”