Zack (In the Company of Snipers Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

False bravado took a hard toll. Nothing stayed down anymore. Life without LiLi was killing her in more ways than one.
    Straightening, she wiped her mouth and shut the door, hoping no passerby had seen. Why had she worried? She was part of the invisible segment of society, the ones who literally worked their guts out, suffered in silence, and didn’t make enough money to garner political clout, much less police support. Her bitterness pushed tears to the surface, but she shoved them back. There would be time to cry later.
    Four weeks. LiLi had been missing four weeks, and Mei hated the world of law enforcement with her heart and soul. Maybe everyone else, too. Detectives Bastion and Crowder had only patronized her. When she’d called their supervisor hoping for a show of real concern, she’d been told he’d return her call. She was still waiting.
    Her predicament seemed unreal. Was everyone against her? Was everyone in on the abduction of her child? It seemed like it.
    After that disappointment, she’d contacted the mayor’s office. He was busy campaigning. Her senator talked with her, or at least that’s who she thought she had talked to. Again, he’d said all the right things. He’d get in touch with the detectives. What were their names? Thanks for calling. I’m glad to help. Then–nothing.
    Now, hoping against hope, she scanned the report she’d stolen. Linked to the FBI’s database of missing and exploited children, it listed line after line of endangered children, from runaways to kidnapped, the status of all open investigations, and any known suspects. The difference in this report and the more generic one on the FBI’s public website was the accompanying list of known suspects, actual addresses, and phone numbers.
    Please be here.
    She gritted her teeth, knowing there was no way her scam would’ve been successsful by going directly into the FBI. She might pretend to be one of them, but to really infiltrate the Bureau? She wasn’t that kind of brave. Stupid, maybe. Determined, yes. But truly courageous? Never.
    She couldn’t read the list fast enough. Please. Let me find her!
    Line after line declined the name she sought. LiLi Xing. Six years old. Straight black hair in a blunt cut just below her ears. Blue plaid uniform. White blouse. Abducted off the sidewalk in front of her apartment building after school one day. Broad daylight. Missing. No suspects. Prettiest little girl in Saint Charles Borromeo’s first grade. Prettiest little girl anywhere.
    The sob Mei didn’t want to own crept up her throat, along with the bitter taste of bile. Once again, she had put everything at risk, and once again, she’d come up with–nothing!
    Striking the steering wheel with her fist, she cried, “Why isn’t your name here? Why won’t anyone help me?”
    The awful truth stared back at her. It was as if her daughter had never existed, like no missing person’s report had ever been filed, and no one was looking for her.
    Because they weren’t.
    What do I do now?
    Mei glanced at her police scanner, the wisest investment she’d ever made. She now knew police jargon for too many frightening things like actual bodily harm, dead body, sex offender, and dead on scene. And then there were police codes for child neglect, assault with intent to murder, deceased person, and a hundred other realities she’d never needed to know. Until now.
    Fortunately, it had proved its worth the very first night she owned it when she’d followed a police call to the Pennsylvania Avenue Bridge over the Anacostia River. Watching through her high-powered binoculars, another smart purchase, she’d watched an officer use a long pole with a barbed hook to pull a body to shore, a very small body. Her hysteria nearly got the better of her, but the corpse was too small. It was someone else’s poor baby. A toddler. Limp. Lifeless. So small.
    She’d cried watching, but then she got the idea of impersonating an FBI agent. They could get into