In fiction, Interpol was portrayed as U.N.C.L.E., sending in agents who had complete jurisdiction over local police in tracking down international criminals. But in reality, Interpol did no direct investigation or prosecution. It was an organization created to promote cooperation and communication between policing units from different countries.
When he’d come across information indicating his quarry had fled to Paris, and since he spoke no French, Mark had contacted Interpol, hoping they had an agent on hand who could coordinate his efforts with those of the local gendarmerie. He’d indicated he would be comfortable working with an agent who spoke English or Hebrew. They had sent him one who spoke both.
For two hours, he and Sonya sat and discussed what little information was in the file, and he passed along the questions he wanted her to pose to her contact inside the Paris police. It was only after the sun set and his stomach growled impatiently that he realized how much time had passed.
Looking at her across that bistro table in that tiny flat in Paris, he said the four words that would take him on a journey that would end in him losing his heart…and the last chance he had at living a normal life.
“Have dinner with me…”
“I see you rang up your source on the sat phone a bit ago. What did you discover?”
Grafton’s highbrow English accent pulled Angel from his reverie. Or should he say Spider’s highbrow English accent.
Oh yes. Angel knew exactly who he was dealing with.
To his cronies in the House of Lords, Asad was the well-respected Lord Grafton. But to those who lived in the mud and the muck, he was the almighty Spider. A weapons dealer. A human trafficker. A procurer of blood diamonds and financial supporter of piracy. A collector of assets. A destroyer of lives. The asshole of an asshole’s asshole.
But he’s finally met his match, Angel thought, hiding a secret smile.
“He has agreed to meet with me,” he told Grafton, momentarily dismayed by the sound of his own voice after having spent so much time as his former self inside his head. Of all the metamorphoses he had gone through in the name of protecting Western civilization, the stuff done to his vocal cords was the most jarring. He sounded like a lifelong smoker when, in fact, he’d never taken a single puff. “But I have to go to him. He refuses to come to me,” he added.
Grafton frowned. “Go to him where?”
“Moldova. He claims he is scared to leave. Too many of his comrades have been seized by the authorities when they’ve tried to cross borders.”
“Thanks in large part to you, no doubt.”
Angel lifted a brow and shrugged, schooling his features into extreme unconcern because number one, he wasn’t concerned. And number two, he knew his apathy would piss Grafton off. In the two weeks he’d been at the manor, he’d learned Lord Grafton—a man used to people falling all over themselves to do or say whatever he wanted—hated nothing worse.
“Oh, come now, Majid,” Grafton scoffed, even though Angel could see his nostrils flare with frustration. “Surely you realize I know more about you than I revealed the night we met?”
“Everyone calls me Angel.”
Grafton waved him off. Since their first meeting in the library, Grafton had refused to call him anything but Majid. As for Angel? Well, he refused to answer to anything but Angel. Just one of the many pissing contests they were currently engaged in.
“Given the task I’ve set for you,” Grafton continued, “you must have come ’round to the notion that I’ve loads of information on what you’ve been on about since your escape from Iran.”
“Have you?”
“Shall I prove it?”
“You do love to hear yourself talk.”
A muscle ticked in Grafton’s jaw, but then he took a deep breath and smiled. It was an oily smile. The smile of a man who thought he had something that would scare Angel to the depths of his soul.
“Under yet another false identity”—Grafton gestured expansively—“you’ve been using your expertise in black-market fissile materials and your contacts within spy networks to help Western governments keep a group of thieves from selling their ill-gotten nuclear cache to unsavory buyers. And meanwhile, you’ve been getting closer and closer to finding out exactly who those thieves are and where they’re hiding.”
Once again, Angel had to work to contain a secret smile.
Facts were the hallmark of any decent false identity. It was much more difficult to create history than it was to tweak it. Plus, the most compelling and believable lies were always constructed almost entirely of the truth.
So, yes, everything Grafton knew about him was true.
What Grafton didn’t know was that after leaving Iran, the Mossad had asked the United States government to hide Angel. The U.S. president at the time had decided the best place to keep Angel and his new face safe and out of the hands of the Iranians was to ferret him away inside the exalted ranks of Black Knights Inc., a covert government defense firm.
It was through the Black Knights—or, more precisely, it was with the full support of Boss, the head of BKI—that Angel had been afforded the freedom to do all the things Grafton had charged him with doing.
“So?” He made sure his face remained impassive. “Do you want me to set up the meeting with my source or not?”
