His smile froze for a moment before it splintered and fell away. “You’re joking.”

“Why? You don’t think I’m qualified?”

“It’s not that—”

“You don’t think I’ve earned it?”

“No, of course you have—”

“Then what’s the problem, Mark?”

He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “GC’s a job for a fifty-five-year-old man. Not a thirty-year-old woman.”

“Well. That is a problem,” I said. I bit out the next words. “Now you fix it.”

He stared at me.

“All I’m asking for is a job, Mark. Meanwhile, I’m giving you control of the whole fucking company.”

He chewed his lip.

“Five-year contract. At, let’s say, half the salary Barrett’s been pulling. And I’ll throw in a release of the company from all liability for what it did to me. That’s worth a few million dollars to the shareholders.”

He gave a tentative nod. “What happens after five years?”

“After five years, you’ll be begging me to stay. At twice the salary.”

“Christ.” He barked a laugh. “The balls on you.”

“But not undeserved,” I said. “After all, I outmaneuvered the great Mark Ivins.”

His smile faded.

“Let me print out the employment contract I drafted, and we’ll hash out the terms.” I put the glass down on the counter. “And then I’ll tell you everything you need to know about CDMI management and their involvement in human trafficking.” I crossed the room to my desk. “Oh, and Mark?” I added as I sat down at the computer. “If you ever think about double-crossing me on this?”

He sputtered a protest.

“I recorded Nelson Ledbetter admitting that you conspired with him to set up Ned Bartman. And that you’re paying him off with a plum position at Genco. I don’t think you’d want that to get out.”

He froze, and I sent him a smile over my shoulder as I pushed print.

Chapter 33

This is ridiculous,” Melanie complained as Barrett helped her into the limo at the airport. “You barely spent a minute with me the whole time we were in Paris, and now you’re not even coming home with me?”

“Sorry. Have to go straight to the office.”

The porter was still loading her bags in the back as she settled into her seat in a huff. All her bags were full and well over the airline weight limits. The excess-baggage penalties were nothing, though, compared to the cost of the goods inside. Barrett leaned in for a kiss, and she turned her face away so that his lips grazed her ear. She batted him away, and he stepped back and closed her door.

The company limo pulled up behind, and he got in and powered up his phone. He’d been offline for eight hours, but given the speed at which events were moving, it could have been a year. The single minute he’d looked upon Madame felt like a year, too, in his memory of that horror. That was how elastic time was these days.

He called Tony Low first and got an intercept message that the call could not be completed. That could be attributed to local congestion in KL, but it could also mean that Tony had ditched his phone, which he did from time to time. Jack Culligan should know, so Barrett called him next. He got his voicemail. His next call was to Phil Duvall. He’d tried to reach him a few times from Paris, but each time Duvall’s assistant reported that he was in conference and couldn’t be disturbed. Now she reported that he was out of town.