“Sir, please.” Her voice was hoarse. “Even for you this crosses a line. Surely you see that.”
With her free hand, she subtly motioned to the bag on the chair. Angel could see the outline of the cylinder inside. In the casual atmosphere of the café, that brown bag filled with death was the visual equivalent of a scream.
Grafton grinned. “Ah, Sonya my dear. Are you trying to appeal to my better nature? Don’t you know I haven’t one of those?”
Sonya withdrew her hand. Fear quivered her chin and paled her complexion.
Angel wasn’t one for ten words when two would do, but he heard himself say, “Giving a nuclear weapon to Al-Qaeda is like pulling the pin on a grenade and shoving it up your own ass. They cannot be trusted. You realize that, right?”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” Grafton scoffed. “They’ll do what they’ve promised. This little exchange is a test for everyone involved. I prove I can get what Al-Qaeda wants, anything Al-Qaeda wants. And Al-Qaeda proves they can be trusted to follow through on what they say they’ll do, which will assure me they are a worthy partner for all further transactions.”
Angel’s skin crawled like the time he’d found himself in a room with the two Iranian scientists working to miniaturize warheads. They’d known him as Majid Abass, and they’d shared the breakthrough they’d had that morning. The thought of raining death and destruction down on the United States and wiping Israel off the face of the map, the thought of killing millions of “infidels” had filled them with glee.
Without a qualm, Angel had destroyed all traces of their breakthrough that evening. After saying his Isha’a prayers at the local mosque—Isha’a was the last of the five obligatory prayers in a Muslim’s day; although he’d always used that time to secretly recite the Jewish Aleinu—he had crept outside the head scientist’s first-floor apartment and carefully sealed shut all the windows and doors with plastic and duct tape. While the two men celebrated over a dinner of ghormeh sabzi and shirazi salad, he’d pumped nitrogen gas into the small flat. Neither of them had known they were slowly suffocating until it was too late.
“You are so far up your own ass,” he told Grafton now, “that I bet you can wave out of your mouth.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Sonya shift uncomfortably in her seat, her biteable chin pinging over her shoulder to catch Grafton’s response.
But Grafton didn’t say a word. Not for a full five-second count. Then, “Careful. Remember what I said yesterday about keeping you alive because I need you? Well…” He waved a hand toward the bag on the chair. “I no longer need you.”
“Then why am I still alive?” Angel recognized the lay of the land. The reasons Grafton had spilled his guts about his son, BKI, and his intentions in Chicago were twofold. First, he wanted to impress upon Angel, the infamous Prince of Shadows, just how powerful and vicious he truly was. Second, he had no fear of Angel using the information against him.
After all, dead men tell no tales. Grafton meant to kill him.
The only question that remained was what did he plan to do with Sonya, now that he’d opened his metaphorical raincoat and exposed himself. The last handful of years spent outrunning the Iranians had inured Angel to the threat of his own imminent death, but when it came to a threat against Sonya? His steady heart skipped a beat.
“I’m beginning to ask myself that same bloody question,” Grafton said. To prove his point, he glanced at Lead No-Neck. The dull-looking bastard pushed away from the wall and didn’t pretend subtleness as he reached inside his jacket for his shoulder holster.
Adrenaline flooded Angel’s system. His muscles quivered in readiness as his eyes pinged from Lead No-Neck to the other two bodyguards, who look bored and unconcerned. “You should be careful,” he warned Grafton. His gravelly voice sounded more like the growl of an angry beast than any noise a man might make.
“Careful of what?”
“Me.”
Angel realized those were the same words he’d spoken to Sonya the day before. The warning in them couldn’t be more different, however.
Grafton’s nostrils flared wide. “Are you bloody threatening me? You realize I have three men who will take off your sodding head the instant I give them the order, yeah?”
“Nothing about you or your no-necked goons scares me,” Angel assured him. He set the radiation monitor atop the table and leaned forward. “Has it ever occurred to you exactly who I am? I single-handedly stopped the Iranians from getting the bomb. I have worked with the world’s most elite counterterrorism and Intelligence agencies for years to stop the spread of black-market fissile materials. I have come up against men far worse than you, and most of them are either dead or wasting away in prison.”
“For fuck’s sake!” Grafton gritted his jaw so hard his words slithered between his clenched teeth like worms.
Angel sat back. He had to remain primed and ready for when the time came. And it was coming.
“You are threatening me!” Grafton raged.
“No. I’m making you a promise.”
Whatever it took, and whether it meant death or a prison cell, he would end Grafton. He knew it as surely as he knew Sonya had a little heart-shaped mole above her right butt cheek.
Grafton’s right temple twitched beneath his wig. He looked ready to call on Lead No-Neck to make his move, but the waiter appeared through the door at the rear of the café with a flourish. He had a slightly exuberant look on his face. Ambling toward the table, he leaned close to Grafton’s hooded head, pulling nervously on his beard.
Despite his low whisper, Angel could make out the Michelin Man’s heavily accented words. “The second gentleman is here.”
“Send him in.” Grafton waved an impatient hand, motioning for Lead No-Neck to resume his place alongside his coworkers. Then Grafton turned and curled his upper lip back to bare his teeth at Angel. Most men would shit their pants if the notorious Spider pinned a look of such hatred and vengeance on them. Angel didn’t suffer so much as a gastrointestinal gurgle. He simply lifted a brow and satisfied himself with knowing how it would all end.
The waiter did everything but bow and click his heels before scurrying—if you could call a waddle a scurry—back through the connecting door.
