Alex Jordan peered into Grady’s dull grey eyes, the vacant eyes of a man never cornered in the airless, smothering darkness of an alley in Marseilles or machine-gunned while swimming through the ice of a Baltic river. “What happened to Billy?”  
“We’ve not been formally introduced. I’m Grady.” Instead of his hand, he offered a plastic smile; a device reserved for pubescent shop girls and old women. “I understand that you and the late Mr. Fawlks--”
“No, you don’t.” Alex wasn’t miffed about the lack of handshake; knowing this idiot it would be a clammy, pinkish-white extremity.
“Sorry, don’t what?”
“You don’t understand. You’re going to tell me nothing new. You’re going to tell me blue is the new black. You’re going to tell me everything’s right with the world. Life is getting better, safer for us common folk. What you don’t want to tell me is who killed Billy. Or better still, who sanctioned it?”
“This is intelligence business.” His voice rose. “You’ve no bloody jurisdiction here anymore. I’m obliged to tell you nothing.”
“Good or evil, people are flesh and blood, not numbers.”
“Making allowances for people will get you killed, Jordan.” Grady lowered his voice as he stood and peered out the grimy lead-light window. “There’s no room in this world for bleeding hearts.” Perhaps by a trick of the mid-afternoon sun his features appeared to soften, as if he were smiling. As if that were possible for such an emotionally dead man. “We’re looking into Fawlks’ death.”
“Crap. You don’t need the likes of Billy anymore. He was an embarrassment, past his sell-by date. His death is convenient for you because he never toed the line. You like the young guns with their designer labels, palm tops and mobile phones. He simply didn’t fit your New World of high-tech espionage and softly-softly subterfuge.” He shifted to the edge of his seat. A jab of pain shot across his back from his shoulder. “Billy’s methods were unorthodox but he got results.”
“He was a liability. His death was his own fault.”
Alex’s voice rose. “Who killed him?”
“Fawlks took risks above and beyond--”
“Billy always took risks, both with the ladies and with his job. When he wasn’t on the job, he was at his job. Everyone knows that. He had a knack for escaping perilous liaisons with his skin intact . . . in both areas of his expertise. Billy didn’t make mistakes. So it’s bloody obvious, even for a supercilious prat like you, that he was betrayed, fingered, you choose the word.”
Grady spun around and leaned forward, fists on the desk, his face twisted with contempt. “And you’re the damned expert, are you?”
On any other day Alex would have enjoyed the melodramatic tennis match, but today, Billy was dead. “I was.”
Grady skirted the desk, perched his skinny arse against it and folded his arms. “Was is the correct word. Past tense, old boy. Was makes perfect sense for a man like you. You walked out; we didn’t abandon you.”
“You left me no choice.” Alex shot up and tapped a finger against Grady’s ribs. “Your lot left me holding my balls in Kosovo. My cell was compromised, my contacts dead. Those Serbian monkeys were about to squeeze me into sausage skins.”
Any trace of pink vanished from Grady’s face, leaving it sheet white. “It was unfortunate. We did what we could.”

EXCERPT  from Chapter 1