Smoked (The Invincibles 5)

“Not a mentor, just the man who hired her,” said Doc.

“Do you have intelligence to back that up?”

Doc nodded.

“Then, I’m in.”

The way Interpol worked, the role of any member of the executive committee, including the president, four vice presidents, and eight delegates, were all unpaid. Each office holder retained their full-time post within their national authority.

Of the three listed in Cope’s brief, only Kim Ha-joon from South Korea held a paid position and worked for Interpol full-time.

Two on the outside, one on the inside, all three with close ties to every intelligence organization in the world—some closer than others. Antonov would have a better working relationship with China than Kim would, and so on.

* * *

The next morning, I boarded a plane that would take me back from where I came. Cope was currently in DC, but we made arrangements to meet at the CIA headquarters.

“Good to see you, Smoke,” he said when I met him on the fifth floor of the building now named for the forty-first President of the United States, George H.W. Bush.

“I thought you retired,” I said.

“Thought you did too.”

“In the words of that actor in the worst sequel ever made, ‘they keep pulling me back in.’”

He led me into a conference room and closed the door behind us. “I guess it’s a good sign that I don’t have an office here anymore.”

After reviewing most of what was in the initial brief and answering the questions I had, Cope and I discussed my cover, which really wasn’t much of one. I was headed to France under my own identity, taking on a job for his mole at Interpol—a woman currently working in Secretary-General Kim’s office.

20

Siren

After three days, I was bored out of my feckin’ mind and I was driving Hughes mad.

“It takes time, Siren,” he said. “I understand you were used to being able to see a doctor in the States at a moment’s notice, but this is Ireland.”

“It shouldn’t take a fortnight to see a physician.”

“Contrary to what you may believe, IMI has no control over the public health-care system. Find something to do, Siren. Read a book, go for walks in the park. Just leave me alone!”

“He didn’t need to hang up on me,” I muttered to my mobile.

It wasn’t so much my own company I was getting sick of. It was more that I spent every waking moment thinking about Smoke. When I slept, he appeared in my dreams. Twenty-four hours a day with nothing but the Smoke channel playing in my brain, and I had to get out of the house.

I made the trek from Dublin down to Waterford, the place where I was born, just to see if being there stirred any memories of my mother.

I spent the afternoon visiting the cemetery where she was buried and sitting in my car in front of the house I grew up in. I was dismayed when neither brought back a single recollection.

The file Mansfield gave me had something in it about where my mother had spent most of her life working. The shop was located nearby the Waterford Clock Tower that sat on the banks of the River Suir.

After taking a break for a cup of tea, I decided to stay the night. There were several hotels in this part of the city, and given how reasonably priced they were, I went with the swankiest.

While I shouldn’t bother, I sent Hughes a text, informing him of my whereabouts. In Waterford for a few days.

Good, he answered a few seconds later. While you’re there, see if you can find the Irish Crown Jewels.

I knew Rory was making a joke, but in doing so, I was reminded of the story of their disappearance. I searched it up on my mobile and read the account of the jewels that had gone missing in 1907 and had yet to be recovered.