Page 75 of Dark Soul

Thorne’s eyebrow raised almost comically. For once, he seemed at a loss for words.

“Impossible,” he finally said. “He’s dead. He’s been dead—“

“Yeah,” Griffin said. “We know. But it was him, Thorne. Alive, and well, and working for the Iranians.”

“Lemercier is …” Even Thorne seemed out of words. “Does he have the plans?”

“The two men met last night, but the exchange didn’t happen,” Ash said. “We’ve got a bug in place in Kvyat’s office, and we’re waiting to hear.”

“Do you need help? I’m in France at the moment, but I could be there the day after tomorrow.”

“If you’re in Lyon, maybe you could ask your friends at Interpol about Lemercier,” Rogue said calmly. “Figure out how he’s managed to stay under the radar for so long.”

“My friends at Interpol?” Thorne sputtered.

Rogue rolled his eyes.

“Come on, Thorne. I thought we were all a team.”

Ash threw Rogue an irritated glance. “We’re good for now, Thorne,” he said. “We’ll keep you updated.”

Thorne nodded. His dark eyes zeroed in on Dark, but he didn’t say anything else, and moments later disconnected the call.

Dark leaned back in his chair. Tears prickled at the back of his eyes.

Ash hadn’t said anything about Alexia.

None of them had.

“What …” He tried again. “Why …”

“If you believe Alexia’s innocent, that’s enough for us,” Ash explained patiently.

It wasn’t just him. They were all nodding. And he realized they’d talked about it. Maybe when he’d gone in to speak to Alexia, or when he’d driven her back to the telecabine.

The pressure behind his eyes intensified, but the acid in his stomach had stopped churning.

“We’re going to stop them,” he said.

Ash nodded. “We’ll make sure those plans never get into Lemercier’s hands.”

Griffin stood up. There was a nervous energy around him—there had been, ever since the facial recognition software had identified Lemercier.

“We need to talk about Lemercier. You need to know who he is. He had the world’s top government agencies chasing him at one point.”

“Thorne knew him as well,” Dark said.

Griffin nodded. “Everybody was after him. And we wouldn’t have stopped, not ever … except we thought he’d died.”

“Tell us what you know about him,” Slate asked. His mouth was a tight line on his face, and Dark realized the man wasn’t used to seeing his brother’s distress.

None of them were. Whatever Griffin has seen in his role as an intelligence analyst had shaped him in some way, given him that look of utter coldness and invulnerability.

And yet, something about Vincent Lemercier scares him.

Griffin’s voice became nearly robotic. “I can’t tell you the details. And the details don’t matter. Lemercier is a French national who first came to our attention years ago, during a human trafficking investigation.”

Jesus.