“I told you, it was too dangerous. She’s a superb agent, but it could have turned out to be a suicide mission. I wasn’t about to risk my neck,” he said curtly. “If she’d been able to find a way to get the Company to go after Masenak, I might have agreed. But I always told her she couldn’t count on me unless she could prove a project would be a success. She shouldn’t have even asked me.” He added, “It’s interesting she moved on to you. What are you going to get out of this?”

“I don’t think I’ll answer that question. And if I decide to go forward with the project, I’ll ask your old friend Alisa not to confide in you, either. We have a different work philosophy. If I commit to a project, I don’t demand absolute proof that it will succeed, only that every single effort will be made. That allows for a change of course that might lead to a different but equally successful outcome. Thank you for answering my questions, Zabron. It’s been illuminating.”

“I agree.” Zabron chuckled. “But remember when I said I knew the moment when Alisa had me? For me it was the time when she actually started to speak to me, and I could gauge what she could become. But I think you’ve already gone past that point. Good luck, Korgan. I hope you get what you want from her.” He cut the connection.

“What do you think?” Vogel asked Korgan from across the room. “No one could say that he wasn’t brutally frank about her.”

“He also said that she probably has the sources she promised. It could cut down the time I have to wait to go after Masenak. That’s important. The longer he’s in that damn jungle, the more likely I might lose him.” He added, “And he said she’d keep her word.”

“If you could get her to swear to do it.”

“People swear and make promises to me all the time to get what they want,” he said wearily. “I’d just have to make sure she’ll be forced to do it.”

Vogel was studying him. “He annoyed the hell out of you, didn’t he?”

“Perhaps.”

“Yet you’re already talking as if it’s a done deal,” he said sourly. “Don’t tell me. You have a hunch.”