Page 89 of License to Kill

“Okay. And if we decide to get our hands dirty? Are you okay with that?”

“Okay with it?” Mellisa snickered. “Oh, Karma. I’m one of the masterminds of this show. I’ve been working on this mess since London. It’s part of the reason I was assigned to your case. I’m a part of the Inquisition, and while I usually don’t get to work in the field, they’re willing to make an exception this time. The Inquisition doesn’t understand why Karma has been targeted by this group so much, and they want us to find out. This goes far beyond an agent getting in the way of a kidnapping. If that was the motivation, you would have been targeted, too, Jake. But you weren’t. They didn’t care if they hit you, but you were never the goal.”

“They wanted Karma, but she’s a smaller target. The rounds that hit me were them missing her.”

“Collateral damage. They would have been happy enough to kill you, but Karma either saw something important or there’s something we’re just missing. My job is to help you three figure that out—and get you through this emotionally intact. Or as emotionally intact as possible. Some wounds only time can heal, and right now, we don’t have the luxury of time.”

I could understand that. “So, where do we begin?”

“We start with digging up old secrets. Who are you, Karma? Who are you really? What did you see? What do you know? We’re going to have to go back to the very beginning, from your birth, to find out what we’re missing. No stone will be left unturned.”

“Then I guess we begin with my birth certificate. My real one. The black market ops have a copy.” I glanced at Jake. “Is it going to bother you when I tell you I’m not actually American?”

“No.” Jake huffed, shook his head, and got out of his seat. “I’ll go make you some hot chocolate. As long as you’re not related to me, I don’t care what your ethnicity is, Karma.”

“There is no chance we’re related. According to my original birth certificate, my name is Karma Dawa, and I was born in a remote region of Tibet.”

Coming to a halt, Jake turned to face me. “Repeat that?”

“According to my original birth certificate, my name is Karma Dawa, and I was born in a remote region of Tibet.”

“Tibet as in the place located deep in the Himalayans, as in the home of Mount Everest, with many people from there following Buddhism? That Tibet?”

“That Tibet.”

“And they named you Karma? As in one of the primary principles of their religion and culture?”

Jake, apparently, knew more about my homeland than I did. “Possibly?”

“Your ability to pun me just increased tenfold, and this disturbs me. What does Dawa mean?”

“Moon, apparently. Or so I was told.”

Jake looked me over. “I see you were aptly named. I like it. Okay. So, you’re Tibetan. You don’t look Tibetan to me, but truth be told, I wouldn’t be able to tell if someone was Tibetan even if my life depended on it. Is being so pale normal for Tibetans?”

“I have no idea, but I don’t think so,” I admitted. “Maybe my parents got rid of me because my skin color is wrong?” I regarded my pale arm with interest. “I am about the same color of the moon some nights.”

“I’m not sure what Karma being Tibetan might have to do with terrorists, but if you think there’s a link, we’ll look into it, Mellisa.”

“It’s less that I think there’s a direct link between her ethnicity and the terrorists, but that her species is more a factor in their desire to kill her than anything else. Not all people give their children up for adoption because they’re unwanted. Some give them up to hide them somewhere safe. What if it’s not that she witnessed anything at all, but like the others in the case, she is the child of someone this group wants to manipulate and control? That’s the only guess I have that makes sense. And it fits their methods of operations. They’ve taken—and killed—many children in their quest to gain power. Or knowledge. What if Karma fits that bill, and her involvement with the Greenwich case exposed her heritage?”

I frowned. “But if I’m Tibetan, what would that have to do with anything? Especially with the US government?”

Mellisa shrugged. “Unless they’re after more than one government. Tibet is a part of China, so perhaps your parents are influential somehow in China? Or Tibet. I don’t know about the socio-political culture of China or Tibet. But we know people in the United States and the UK have been targeted by this group. China is not a far step. China is a global superpower, so it would make sense. So, that is our first step. Why you? And the only way we’re going to find out is if we go digging through your past.”

I’d told Jake I’d wanted closure, and if it meant I had to go back to the days of my birth to accomplish that, I was game. “So, we go digging. I want to bring these assholes down, Mellisa.”

“As do I. And when we do, we’ll leave nothing but the ash of their ambitions in our wake.”