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Verity grinned. “That would be impossible,Henry.”
16
VERITY
Decker gave the four of us access to track Godwin’s movement during the six-hour flight. It would continue once we were on the ground in Dubai.
For the last three hours, it appeared he hadn’t left his suite in one of the city’s nicest hotels. According to Decker’s sources, he wasn’t just in a suite; he’d booked the penthouse.
Somewhat miraculously, Decker had also managed to get me access to view the assets of BJB’s largest accounts. While all of them were registered under shell corps, five listed Jacob Novak as an administrator—including the two belonging to AMPS. The three others were owned by FDI-Italia-ndr.
I was baffled that Godwin hadn’t chosen different aliases for each group of assets he administered. Did he really think a single alias would protect him? On the other hand, he could very well have more we hadn’t yet discovered and, thus, many accounts in total. I thought about Meier’s reaction when Macht had asked for Godwin’s name. He’d smoothed his hair, but his eyes remained steady.
We believed AMPS to be one of the largest traffickers in the world, but three of the other accounts Godwin oversaw, allowned by FDI-Italia-ndr, were worth a hundred times as much and had been in existence years longer than the ones we’d found in Mauritius.
“What are you thinking about?” Zeppelin leaned in and asked. He didn’t need to, given we, along with Macht and Reaper, had the entire plane to ourselves. He also didn’t need to sit beside me for the flight’s duration, but I was glad he had.
“Meier’s response when you asked who instructed him to retrieve the bag from the ski area and put in a safe-deposit box. He hesitated, but I don’t think it was because he was stalling. Instead, my theory is Godwin has additional aliases.”
“I agree.”
“Which means he could be making deposits on behalf of many of the large asset holders. Hypothetically, many of them could be traffickers—or worse.” The idea had me so angry I could hardly think and sad to the point of tears at the same time.
“Cross-referencing them with the administrators listed could give us new leads.”
God, that we were onto something sickened me. When I joined the coalition, I knew our work would never be done. Once we took down AMPS, another heinous organization would rise in its place. Sometimes, it seemed that the number of vile, disgusting people in the world far outnumbered those who were good and decent, honest and hardworking, who cared for their fellow man and worked to fight against those who threatened the innocent. Like Zeppelin.
He could’ve chosen another assignment, remained in private intelligence even though it was, in his words, boring. Instead, he decided to lead one of the five UN task forces whose sole purpose was to put an end to human trafficking.
I hadn’t realized my hand was gripping the armrest until he took it in his and brought it to his lips. “Such eternal verities as honor, love, and patriotism…” he murmured, caressing my palmwith his thumb. “You are all that is good and true, honest, caring, and selfless.”
“I was thinking the same about you,” I confessed. “I cannot imagine living in a world without you and the others in the coalition.”
He squeezed my hand. “There’s something I need to say to you.” He let go and cupped my cheek. “You may think I’m crazy. Crazier than you already thought, but I mean this from the bottom of my heart. I cannot imagine living in a world without you, Alena.” He leaned in and kissed me. “I’m beginning to think Z possesses magical powers.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Who, other than him, could’ve predicted we wouldn’t rip each other’s eyes out in the first twenty-four hours?”
I nodded.
Zeppelin closed his eyes, shook his head, and grinned.
“What?”
“Magnet.”
I cocked my head. “What about him?”
“He knew.”
“I’m not following. Knew what?”
“Shortly after Nemesis announced the op, I asked him what in the bloody hell I was going to do. He said, ‘Figure out a way to keep your hands off her.’ While, on the surface, that may sound like a typical juvenile, misogynistic-arsehole thing to say, he didn’t mean it that way.”
I had to cover my mouth from laughing out loud.
“I know what you’re thinking.”