Jack stormed into Lian’s office. She was on the phone. “You had no right to block my entrance to that facility.”

Lian spoke into the phone: “I’ll call you back.” She slammed the receiver down and stood. “How dare you come into my office with that attitude. You’re the one that took evasive action today and lost my security escort.”

Jack saw that several people in the area were staring at them, including Paul and Bai across the suite. Jack stepped farther into her office and closed the door.

“I never asked for a security escort. In fact, I said I didn’t want one.”

“I suspended my people for failing to keep track of you. I’m tempted to fire them.”

“It’s not their fault. I take responsibility for what happened today.”

“Why would you take responsibility? Oh, yes, because somehow you managed to throw off two highly trained security personnel. How did you manage that?”

“What are you implying?”

“It takes training to defeat training.” She stepped closer, examining his face. “Yes, Jack Ryan, I think you have training.”

Jack thought of a quick lie. “Of course I have training. My father taught me how to shake a tail when he taught me how to drive when I was a teenager. It was a game we used to play.” He flashed a boyish smile.

“You’re a lot of trouble, that’s what you are.” She crossed back over behind her desk and fell into her chair. “Tell me why you were so eager to go it alone today.”

“It’s a violation of international auditing protocols to allow a client to observe an investigation.” Even Jack was surprised how good he was getting at lying on the fly.

“I have never heard of such a rule. But then again, we’ve never allowed any outsiders like you to come so far inside our organization.”

“My job is to make sure that Marin Aerospace and Dalfan Technologies reach a fair and equitable agreement on stock valuation, and part of that valuation is dependent upon your profitability as a company and the accuracy of its financial records.”

“Have you found a problem?”

“That’s what I was trying to determine.”

“Where did you go?”

“You know where I was.”

Lian frowned. “No, I don’t. You lost my tail, remember?”

“You had me blocked from entering.”

“I did no such thing.”

“You didn’t tell the guards to not let me in?”

“Again, if I didn’t know where you were, how would I do that?”

“They called you.”

“No one called me about you.” She frowned. “What were you looking for?”

“Just checking up on a loose end. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Nothing—and yet you had to ditch my security team to look for it. I want to know where you were.”