Read Counter-Strike (A Mitch Kearns Combat Tracker Novel Book 2) for Free Online Page A

was
waiting.
    “Good morning, sunshine,” he said,
standing up from the leather seat beside her desk.
    “You’re the only thing good about it so
far.” She tossed a thick stack of manila folders on the desk then ran her
fingers through her thick hair, letting out an exhale. “We’ve just lost another
stakeholder, this time a company in the U.S. who said they no longer require
our services if we won’t cover Africa. That’s the second corporation in six
weeks.”
    “You told me before that Africa is where the
dollars are flowing these days for ransoming hostages.”
    “True, but we’ve lost enough of our
personnel there over the years and I just don’t see any need to sacrifice three
of our people to rescue one worker who decided to break company protocols and
play dumb tourist on his day off. I’ve lost enough fine men since my father’s
passing that pretty soon it’s going to be me and Jacob, the guard at the front
door, keeping this place afloat. Oh, and don’t get started on the tug-of-war
with the board of directors on how things should be run.”
    Mitch frowned and walked to the window,
looking at the grounds below where a steady flow of clients were walking out of
the other buildings while Gideon’s doors were still. “Maybe you need to look at
restructuring things to a more manageable size and one that doesn’t cause such
an elevated blood pressure every time you’re here.”
    “Maybe, cowboy, maybe, but you didn’t come
here to advise me.” She opened up her laptop and clicked on a file that pulled
up black-and-white security camera footage from the Heathrow Airport. “So come
look at this,” she said, pointing to the figure of Bob Schueller after he
exited the plane. “Notice this blond-haired woman walking parallel in the
distance to Schueller, occasionally glancing over at him.”
    Mitch squinted at the screen for a moment,
finding it difficult to pull his attention away from his troubled friend. Dev
enhanced the photograph and then compared the woman in it to a picture from a
passport. “These documents were obtained from a colleague who works in international
customs. “This woman, Jessica Yin, shows up on the passenger manifest—she was
seated next to your friend during the flight, in first class.”
    Mitch strained his eyes, taking in the
details of the half-Asian woman’s face and glancing back to the footage from
Heathrow.
    “So, what’s the connection?”
    Dev pulled up another file which showed
four images of Yin taken in different cities around the world. Each time her
hair was a different color and length. “Chau, Yin, or whatever her real name
is, is implicated in over a dozen corporate espionage cases over the past ten
years. All of them are connected, in some way, with bio-tech research and pharmaceuticals.
You tell me if that doesn’t link her to your friend’s disappearance.”
    Mitch was gripping the edge of the desk,
his fingers turning white as his breathing constricted with each glance at the
woman’s image. “Margo, his wife, said that he hadn’t been working on anything
out of the ordinary at the university. He was merely going to London for a
routine conference. It didn’t sound like anything top-secret. I mean, hell, the
DOD wouldn’t have even let him leave the country if it was a security risk.”
    “Well, something caused him to appear on Yin’s
radar or whoever is pulling her strings.”
    “Ah, shit, Bob,” he said, tapping the
picture of his friend. “What did you get tied up with? Maybe you weren’t even
aware of the well you’d dipped into.”
    Then he settled his gaze upon Yin, his
eyelids narrowing. “Now I just need to locate this hellish fiend and pay her a
visit.”
    “Mitch, this is a job for MI6 and your
U.S. agencies. I have some contacts that we can turn this over to.”
    “So Yin can get hung up in an interdiction
battle with all the countries that want their hands on her. No thanks.”
    She started speaking in a monotone