Read Chemical Burn for Free Online Page B

initiated the project and never told SolCon what you were doing.” She looked nauseous. “You haven’t touched your omelet,” I said with a cheery smile. “Are you okay?”
    “I’ve lost my appetite,” she grumbled, staring down at the plate in front of her. She looked up into my face, searching for something—anything—that would get her out of the conversation, but I could tell she came up short. “How could you possibly know all of this?” She finally asked incredulously. “About the project.”
    My face finally turned serious. “Like I said, I have a lot of tools.” I smiled brightly again and took another bite of my omelet. “But don’t worry. I think we’re on the same side … well … sort of. You have nothing to worry about from me. Now eat up.”
    “I’m not sure I understand,” she said quietly. Clearly defeated, she picked up the fork and took a small bite. I let her pick at her omelet for a few more minutes while I finished mine, chasing it with the sweetened orange juice.
    “You know,” I started, “I took a pretty thorough look into your background as well.”
    “Did you?” she said, her disappointment only lightly veiled.
    “Yeah. Born Natalia Ludmila Voinovich in Tbilisi, Georgia, schooled at the University of Warsaw with a Bachelors and Masters in finance, both cum laude, and on to the Bank of Switzerland for three years. Then you had a two-year stint at Proviron as a Product Manager, four years at Fidea as a Senior Product Manager and now VP at SolCon. That’s an impressive career.”
    “Thank you.”
    “You know,” I continued, “it’s interesting.…”
    “What is?” she asked, clearly not wanting to hear the answer.
    “Every phone number listed in your resume … I was able to dig that up, too, by the way … they all seem to go to the same central office in Lyon, France. I think INTERPOL is based out of there, isn’t it?” I asked suggestively.
    “That is interesting,” she said in a flat tone. She looked ill.
    “Isn’t it? It’s a funny thing, too,” I continued mercilessly.
    “What?” She didn’t look like she could take much more.
    “There’s no mention of combat training,” I said in an overly confused tone. Then I looked her square in the eyes and was very serious. “You handled that Kalashnikov last night like the Spetsnaz … those are Russian special forces, but I’m pretty sure you already knew that.” She gave me a blank stare. The seconds ticked by.
    “What size are you?” I asked out of left field, a smile lighting up my face.
    “I beg your pardon?” She blinked in confusion. I could see her mind racing, trying to figure out what my game was.
    “What size are you?” I repeated. “Say, for example, in a swimsuit.”
    “What has that got to do anything?” she replied in a classic are-you-a-pervert tone.
    “We have to attend a brunch,” I said as if it was the most reasonable answer in the world.
    Baffled and frustrated, she blurted, “We just ate!”
    “You hardly ate anything.” I pointed to her plate.
    “You ruined my appetite!”
    “Not my fault. Besides, we’re not eating brunch, we’re watching it.”
    Her face went blank in utter confusion, and she blinked her eyes a few times. “We’re watching brunch?” She was clearly getting tired of feeling confused.
    “Well, watching someone else eat it.”
    “We’re watching someone else eat brunch,” she repeated, all hope for reason abandoned.
    “Some ones , actually.”
    “Who?” She gave me an if-you-don’t-tell-me-right-now-I’m-going-to-shoot-you-with-my-Glock look.
    “Does the name Gino DiMarco mean anything to you?”
    “Of course it does. Everyone knows about Gino DiMarco.”
    “How about … Pyotr Nikolov?” and I got the accent right. “Does everyone know about him?”
    Natalia’s eyes got wide, and I might as well have coughed up a rat and spat it on the counter top. “No,” she said quietly with a trace of fear.
    “Well, it seems as if