Nexus: Ziva Payvan Book 2 Read Free Page B

ventured.             
    Zona snorted. “Anyone with a brain stem would have been wearing gloves. We checked though and came up with several sets that match Tachi, his family, and the agents who discovered the body. There are a couple of partials we’re still trying to match, but chances are we won’t find anything of use.”
    Kade was crushed, both by the stares of his associates and by his own emotions. Not only was it his fault that the intruder had gained access to the palace in the first place, but this person had also managed to kill the Royal Officer and escape without leaving any evidence of their presence. Kade couldn’t help but have a secret respect for their skill, though he didn’t dare admit any such thing to Zona.
    “I’m sorry,” was all he could say.
    Zona sighed yet again and pocketed the gloves he’d been wearing. He extended a hand and helped Kade stand up. “Come on, kid. You could use some medical attention.”
    The hallway tilted for a moment as Kade searched for his footing. He was re-adjusting the cloth on his nose, which had nearly stopped bleeding, when he heard someone shout from the direction of Tachi’s private quarters.
    “Special Agent Zona! You’d better come see this!”
    The agents around him took off at a dead run, leaving Kade to stumble along behind them on tired legs. He entered Tachi’s room to find them gathered around a technician who was kneeling beside a trash receptacle built into the wall.
    “The only reason I found it was because I saw the gloves,” he was saying, indicating a pair of black gloves on the floor. “It was buried under some other garbage.”
    The item he referred to was a black stealth suit he had draped across his arms as if he were advertising it in a market. It was still damp from the rain and rumpled from being stuffed into the small compactor. There was no doubt in Kade’s mind that it had belonged to his assailant.
    “The cut is what I find most interesting,” the technician said, holding the suit up so everyone could get a better look. The other forensics techs swarmed him, taking photos and gathering data.
    “The killer is a woman,” Zona observed after studying the clothing for a moment.
    “Or a very oddly-shaped man,” one of the other young investigators quipped. He bowed his head and stepped away after receiving scolding looks from the rest of the agents.
    “Now the question is how she escaped the building without anyone seeing,” Zona said, stroking his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “Unless…”
    “Sir!” another technician exclaimed, waving a compact fingerprint scanner through the air. “We have a hit on one of the partials!”
    He handed it to Zona, who studied it intently with a look of disappointment on his face. He held the device up for everyone to see, displaying the HSP spec ops insignia and redacted profile on the screen. Whether he was finishing his last thought or announcing it for the others to hear, he cleared his throat and continued, “… she’s one of us.”

-6-
    HSP Headquarters
    Noro, Haphez
     
    The Royal Guard, in all of its illusive grandeur, was determined to keep any details of Tachi’s assassination to itself. It was a separate division of HSP after all, with its own procedures, responsibilities, and chain of command, but the agents had always been very open to receiving assistance from the rest of the parent agency. This secrecy was unusual and was thus becoming the topic of argument among the agency’s higher-ups; the last thing anyone had heard was that a crucial piece of evidence had been discovered, but what it was and what it pointed to remained a mystery.
    Ziva sat at one of the computer terminals in her team’s bullpen, watching it as if information would magically appear the longer and harder she stared. It wasn’t that the Royal Guard had blocked access to its findings – Zinni would have taken care of that long ago – but they had never even entered any data