The Morgan Files. Leo J. Maloney

“I’m five seven.”

      “Oh, I get it, you’re a giant,” he said. “What’re you reading?”

      “Just the news,” she said, hoping to avoid conversation.

      “What’s so interesting in there anyway?” he asked, pulling out his earbuds and fiddling with his phone. “I don’t really follow that stuff.” He put the phone and earphones into the pouch in his hoodie.

      “Something about Ramadani’s visit,” she said.

      “I’ve heard that name before.” He frowned.

      “The president of Iran,” she said. “Navid Ramadani? Ring a bell?”

      “Ah,” he said, nodding. “I remember seeing that on the news. I mostly read Pitchfork.” He laughed. “How about giving me the highlights?”

      “Well, he’s here for a state visit,” she said. “To discuss nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and conflict in the Middle East. Hold on,” she said, and searched for a picture on her tablet. She picked the first hit on the search, a portrait that showed his serious and vaguely handsome face head-on, with its well-defined jawline, thick eyebrows, and neatly trimmed beard. “Here,” she said, handing it to him.

      Clark took it in his hands. “Looks young,” he said.

      “He is, for a President,” said Alex.

      “He’s one of the bad guys, right?” He handed her back the tablet.

      Alex grimaced. “He’s actually hoping to put all that stuff behind us,” she said. “Everyone knows that he’s coming to the US to make a kind of peace offering.”

      “Everyone knows?” He grinned.

      “Well, everyone who reads about this kind of thing. He’s all about bringing the US and Iran closer together, putting the bad blood behind us. ”

      “So he’s pretty different from the last one, right?”

      “Yes. But not everyone in Iran is happy about it,” she said. “Especially the Ayatollah.”

      Clark raised an eyebrow. “Now, I know I’ve heard that word before. I’m getting some vague association with the seventies.”

      “The Supreme Leader of Iran,” she explained helpfully. “The first one came to power after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. This new guy, Nasr, who rose to power after the death of the old Ayatollah just last year. He’s—let’s say, critical of the US and the West in general, and would sooner see us as opponents.”

      “Kind of an asshole, then?” he said with a puckish smile.

      “Kind of an asshole,” Alex conceded. “And he really doesn’t see eye-to-eye with Ramadani.”

      “That’s the current President, right?”

      “Right,” said Alex.

      “And he’s a good guy?”

      “It’s not about good and bad guys, Clark. Everything in foreign policy is a mix of interests and agendas. Just like every other politician, he has complex ideas and interests and is under various pressures that often conflict with each other, and he’s doing his best to negotiate between them. At the moment, it looks like his stance and policies align well enough with our own interests as a country that we might come to call him an ally.”

      Clark frowned, trying to sort this out. “But is this Ramadani guy a good guy or not?”

      It was hopeless. “Let’s say he’s a pretty good guy.”

      “All right. See? That’s all you needed to say. Nice and simple.”

      Alex slumped in frustration. “So you’re meeting up with your dad in New York?” she asked, changing the subject.

      “Yeah,” he said. “Mom didn’t invite him to Thanksgiving, so he really wanted me to spend the day with him today.”

      “Well, that should be fun,” she said, not knowing quite what to say.

      “You’re meeting your dad, too, right?” he asked. “But your parents aren’t divorced, are they?”

      “Oh, no, my parents are super in love,” she said, and cringed at her own words. Clark’s parents’ divorce was always an awkward subject, and Alex never quite knew how to talk about it. He never seemed bothered by it, but she couldn’t imagine not having both her mother and father under the same roof. “Anyway,” she added, trying to forget her comment, “he had an early Thanksgiving dinner with us, and then went to the city. Business.”

      “I wish we didn’t have all this dad stuff to deal with,” he said. “Maybe then we could’ve spent the day together instead.”

      Alex pretended to be watching the scenery. “I guess.”

      “Hey, isn’t your dad a classic car dealer?” Clark asked.

      “Yeah, he is,” she said, affecting innocence. She was getting practiced at keeping up the lie about her father’s double life. “Why do you ask?”

      “What kind of business does a classic car broker have on Thanksgiving anyway?”

      Alex grinned in her mind at the secret she shared with her father. “Beats me.”

      6:55 a.m.

      Dan Morgan walked on a patterned carpet past ornate furniture and knocked on the door to room 2722 of the Waldorf. He saw the pinpoint of light in the peephole disappear, then the deadbolt being undone. The door opened and was left ajar. Morgan took the cue to push it open and saw the back of a black silk nightgown and a long shock of blond hair. The acrid smell of smoke hit his nostrils as the figure turned around and leaned against a heavy carved wooden table, posing seductively and taking a long drag from her cigarette with full, ruby-red lips.

      “I don’t think they allow smoking in here,” he said as he let himself into the foyer of the suite and scanned the room for potential threats. His trained eyes could assess a situation in seconds. Over the years, he, like many other covert operatives, had developed a sixth sense for danger. Nothing struck him as a potential threat, except the cream-skinned, hazel-eyed beauty in front of him.

      Adele Sauvage, she called herself.

      “But it’s so early,” she said, pouting, in a light French accent. “Can’t I have just one? Please?”

      Her bathrobe was just loose enough to show a hint of a white lacy bra underneath. Her makeup was gently smudged, but Morgan could tell it had been freshly applied. Her feet arched up in black stiletto heels. Her hair was messy—not like the hair a woman who had really just woken up, but lightly tousled, as women do to give the faintest hint that they have just been having sex. The whole setup was too casual not to have been meticulously arranged. Most men wouldn’t notice, but for a woman like Adele, sex was a deadly weapon. In Morgan’s line of work, it paid to know all about deadly weapons.

      “Smoke, or don’t,” he said, closing the door behind him. “I don’t care. We have business to do here.”

      “Oh, but business is so boring.”

      “Do you need time to make yourself decent?”

      “Oh, I’m never decent,” she said with a girlish giggle, sitting down on an overstuffed loveseat. “Why don’t we do something fun? Let’s have a drink.”

      “I don’t drink. And it’s seven in the morning.”

      “You’re no fun,” she pouted. “I think I like your friend Peter better.”

      “Peter Conley is an idiot for a skirt,” said Morgan. “But I have trouble believing even he would fall for this whole routine.” He wondered if anyone did as he caught sight of himself in the mirror. With short-cropped dark brown hair and strong, masculine features, he was tall and had a powerful body. And yet, he didn’t flatter himself