“It will stop,” he said quietly. “I’ll get Masenak. I’ll find a way to bring him down whether or not I have your help. I’ve already started. I believe I’ll be able to bribe my way into finding the location of his camp.”

“But probably not soon enough,” she said through set teeth. “Not for those girls. Some of them are mere children.” She started to reach into her jacket. “Don’t shoot me. I’m only reaching for my phone.” She rapidly pulled up a photo and held it out to show them. It was a class photo with rows of dozens of young schoolgirls in plaid skirts and white blouses with matching knee socks. “Look at them. They don’t deserve this. You don’t know what they’re going through.”

“No, but I can imagine.” He added speculatively, “But I believe you do know. This is very personal for you.” He tilted his head. “And I admit I’m intrigued by the possibility of using your sources. You managed to get into my study, disable my alarms, and now I find out you know about my meeting with your director. I doubt if you’d have been sent by him to contact me even if he’d had a change of heart about accepting my generous ‘donation.’ Which means I’m back to rogue agent again. Just what were you after when you broke in tonight?”

She hesitated. He wasn’t going to like this. But it would be worse if she lied when she’d told him she wasn’t going to. “Why do you think I’m here? I knew you weren’t going to give up even though the director shut you out and tied your hands. You came back here, positioned yourself near Masenak’s army in the Szarnar Jungle, and started to work on getting what you wanted from Masenak on your own. For you, that would almost certainly mean bribing Masenak’s men. That’s what you’ve been working on since you flew here from Washington.” She paused. Oh, well, go for it. “I planted a bug in the computer on your desk when I broke in here a few days ago. I wanted to retrieve and monitor any messages you’d received from anyone you were paying to give you information about Masenak.”

Vogel was swearing softly. “This is the second time? She’s dangerous, Korgan. She tells a good story, but it could all be bullshit. We should make sure her superiors know what she’s been up to and let them deal with it.”

“But then they’d find out what I’ve been up to.” He was smiling with amusement. “I’d really prefer that they don’t until I’m ready to use them at some point.” His smile faded. “You managed to hack my computer in spite of all the firewalls I set up? That’s disturbing.”