By the sharp flicker of annoyance - and the way he doesn't actually answer the question about misunderstandings - she's very definitely found a button to push. Even if he is trying to keep things relatively civil for the time being. Which might rather be a futile attempt, but he means to at least try to do so, if only for the sake of making sure that Ashley has a decent grounding in the basics of how things seem to be set up.

"It's unlikely to be the Cabal. Although it could be a very similar organization."

Or at least one that's willing to kidnap people in order to take a better look at how they might react to various pressures, which isn't much more comforting in the long run.

"And we do have evidence of them having been here, if that's what you were after."