Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 146417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Charlotte watched her walk away with a smile on her face. “I have no idea what I would do without that child.”
“Where is Kim?” He wanted to get straight to the point.
Charlotte turned serious. “You should come in.”
He walked into Big Tag’s office. It was bigger than Beck’s apartment and had a glorious view of Dallas. Taggart was standing over his chair, which was occupied by Greg Hutchins. Hutch was the head of cyber investigations and security. He was in his early thirties, but then he’d been one of the youngest CIA employees in history. Recruited by Tennessee Smith for his hacking skills, Hutch had been Big Tag’s man for over a decade.
“Beck, I’m sorry to interrupt you,” Tag said. “You have to know I wouldn’t unless it was important.”
“Where is she?” Only one thing mattered.
“It’s complicated.” Taggart had his hands on his hips.
Hutch looked up from his laptop. “Nah. It’s not really. She’s in Malta. Did you know there was a country called Malta? I didn’t. It’s apparently some weird island in the Mediterranean. It’s super tiny.”
Tag frowned down at Hutch. “What about let me handle this did you not understand?”
Hutch shrugged. “He wasn’t going to listen to a lecture, boss. He’s been looking for Solo for seven years. I spend way more time with him than you do. Now that he knows we actually have a location, he’ll chill.”
“Or he’ll take off after her, and the situation is complex,” Tag insisted.
Malta. She was in Malta. “He’s right. I wouldn’t have stopped until you gave me a location, but I’m not going to immediately run off after her. Unless she’s in some kind of danger.”
“We’ve got some feelers out,” Charlotte explained. “Chelsea is on it.”
“How did you find her?” His heart was racing. Kim was in Europe and she was alive. “What do you know about her?”
“Very little.” Tag came around his desk. “This intel is literally an hour old. I called as soon as we got the report.”
“You know I’ve been tracking Solo’s history for years now. By history, I really mean her family’s business and social connections,” Hutch explained. “It’s this big weird puzzle because the Solomons have family across the globe. Did you realize Solo’s connected to three different heads of state?”
“She didn’t talk about her family much.” It had been a point of contention with her. “I know she trusted a couple of cousins, but she wasn’t close to any of them.”
“From what I’ve been able to gather, she traveled a lot as a kid. She spent a whole lot of time in boarding schools,” Hutch continued.
“Yes. Her parents didn’t pay a lot of attention to her.”
“After I realized that studying her super-classified time at the Agency wasn’t yielding anything, I thought I would go deeper. I looked at her childhood. Sometimes when things are rough we go back to basics. She spent a few years at a boarding school in Austria,” Hutch said. “She had very few visitors, but according to the records I acquired…”
“He hacked,” Tag interjected with an eye roll.
“You say tomato,” Hutch replied.
“Interpol says violation of international law,” Tag shot back.
“Who visited her?” He didn’t care what Hutch had done or how he’d done it. If Hutch got his smart ass taken to jail, Beck would break him out.
Hutch turned his way and seemed to get serious. “According to the records, a man named Francis Bruno came to visit her six times over the course of the four semesters she spent there. He visited on both of her birthdays.”
He thought he might have heard the name. “Was he Italian?”
“Yes,” Hutch replied. “He’s got an Italian passport, but his official residence is in Malta.”
“She mentioned an uncle in Rome.” She’d so seldom wanted to talk about her family. “He was a physician of some kind.”
“Francis Bruno is technically a cousin, but he’s old enough that I could see where she might call him uncle in familial situations. He was a surgeon.” Charlotte leaned against the desk, looking down at her notes. “When he was in his fifties, he developed a tremor in his hands after a car accident. He was the passenger. His wife was driving and she didn’t survive. He came from a very wealthy family himself, but his wife had an even greater fortune and they did not have children. He couldn’t work as a surgeon anymore, so he dedicated himself to charitable work. A few years later, he joined the Order of the Knights of Malta.”
Hutch sat back. “It’s not as cool as the thrillers make it out to be. They used to be warrior priests, but now it’s pretty much a bunch of doctors and medical professionals who do charity work around the globe. But this dude, he’s the knight. Like the head dude.”
“What Hutch is trying to say is Francis Bruno took the same vows a priest would,” Tag explained. “He lives in the one place the knights still own property in Malta. It’s called Fort Saint Angelo. The actual fort is a tourist attraction, but at the top is a residence.”