I’ll be glad once this whole bloody business is over and Majid or Angel or the Prince of Shadows or whatever the sodding shit he wants to call himself is out of my life, Grafton thought, walking back to his desk and taking a seat.
It was late. He should be tired. Most men were tired at this hour. But he got his best work done between 1:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m.—when the world was quiet, and dark deeds could be hidden beneath dark skies.
He realized he’d been silent for too long when Benton’s voice sounded in his ear, the young man’s tone incredulous. “Jesus H, are you afraid of him?”
Grafton ground his teeth. “Of course not. And you’d best mind your tongue, boy. You’ve grown far too cheeky for my tastes.”
“Please.” Benton chuckled. “Don’t pretend you don’t love me. And honestly, if you sacked me, where would you find another keyboard jockey with a one-fifty IQ?”
“Same place I found you. Oxford is lousy with brainy little computer nerds.”
“But none of them are as good as I am. And none of them would be your loyal lapdog.”
“What a load of tosh,” Grafton scoffed. “You’re only loyal because I have proof you hacked the university’s systems to raise your marks and the marks of all your friends.”
“Don’t forget I also lowered the marks of my enemies.”
“A man after my own heart.”
Besides being a dab hand at using the mysteries of the internet to worm his way inside various governments and navigate the dark web to gather Intel Grafton could use as blackmail, Benton was his own special brand of entertainment. The young man had become like a surrogate son to Grafton over the years.
That thought was enough to have him sobering. It was a stark reminder that his real son had been taken from him. Shot in the head in some seedy hotel in Chicago.
Strange, all Grafton’s life he’d sought power for the sake of power, collected assets to his side because with every new acquisition, his influence grew and his reach extended. Sure, there’d been setbacks over the years, people who had tried to turn on him or times when some government from this country or that had managed to take out one of the men or women who’d gotten themselves stuck in his extensive web. But he’d never taken any of it personally. It was business. The way the cookie crumbled. The way the game was played.
Until his son…
Even now, years after his Sharif’s death, Grafton was shocked at how much that loss affected him. Not so much because he held any great affection for his progeny, but more because it rankled that anyone had the audacity to take something from him. And then, those bastards in Chicago had had the gall to actually try to—
“A man after your own heart, eh?” Benton interrupted his thoughts. “That’s as close to an admission of love as I’ll get, I suppose. And since you’re in the mood to admit things, please tell me you don’t really want to end the Prince of Shad…er…Angel after the handoff? I mean, with his connections and expertise, he could be a feather in your cap full of ne’er-do-wells. Or, if you insist he must die, then at least hand him over to the Revolutionary Guard. They’ve a ten million quid bounty on his head.”
Grafton had himself a genuine laugh at that one.
He’d been born of the brief dalliance between a wealthy English lord and an affluent African princess. It was safe to say his inheritance alone was more than the GDPs of most third-world countries.
“You laugh,” Benton said. “But let me remind you, while ten mil is nothing to you, it’s quite a lot to most people. And by most people, I mean your favorite computer hacker with the delightful Yorkshire inflections. I scraped the dark web of the Prince of…bugger it all…Angel’s information before anyone else could set eyes on it, but it would be a piece of cake for me to covertly forward it along to the Iranians. With my bank account information attached, naturally.”
Once again, Grafton found himself fighting a smile. “And what would you do with ten million pounds?”
“What wouldn’t I do with ten million pounds?”
“You’d be surprised how little that actually buys. If you’ve a mind to get yourself a yacht, then I hate to be the one to tell you, but that won’t—”
“No yachts,” Benton cut in. “I get seasick. But I do fancy the Rolls-Royce Sweptail. I mean, have you set eyes on that car? She’s bloody gorgeous.”
“And bloody conspicuous,” Grafton countered.
“Oh, I wouldn’t drive her. I’d park her in my garage and have my daily wank while looking at her.”
Grafton shook his head. “In the parlance of your generation, that’s TMI.”
Benton’s laugh echoed over the phone.
“No,” Grafton continued. “We won’t be handing Angel over to the Revolutionary Guard. We’ll deal with him ourselves. It’s the only way I can be certain the job is done right.”
Chapter 7
