The man cried out in pain and tried to pull away. Quinn pretended to struggle with him for a moment longer before letting go.
Griffin’s momentum knocked him back against the wall. He took a step, ready to run, but froze as his gaze fell on the squad of men now at the bottom of the stairs, each with an M16 rifle aimed at his chest.
Quinn walked over, careful not to get in the line of fire. He smiled. “So, Mr. Griffin. As you can see, when everyone works together, dealing with people like you is just like swatting flies. If you’re ready to talk, we might be willing to let you live a bit longer.”
CHAPTER 36
It was nearly one a.m. by the time Quinn and the others finished taping Griffin’s interview. There would undoubtedly be more interrogations in the future. Details were still missing — some names, dates, where the bodies could be found. But what Griffin gave them painted a picture even darker than they had presumed.
A career not going as expected? A competitor more problematic than desired? A negotiation not going the intended way? That’s where Darvot Consulting came in. Using resources such as the flawed O & O, Morten and Griffin had been able to obtain information clients could use to cripple their adversaries. And where information alone wouldn’t work, Darvot provided a heavier hand. Say there was an intelligent, ambitious diplomat whose star shone a bit brighter than yours, and would always be in your way to the career you wanted. No scandals to bring that person down? No problem. How about a nice, tidy car crash in a foreign country? And here you were now, ten years down the road, the assistant secretary of state, a position everyone knows you would have never attained if Miranda Keyes had lived. A horrible loss? A tragedy? Not to you. Though you could never say it out loud, you had always thought of it as a happy accident.
When everything was ready for the next phase, Quinn looked at the laptop from which Helen Cho had been monitoring the situation. “We’re all set,” he said.
“You’re cleared to make the call,” she told him.
Quinn turned to Dima. Except for his attempted escape after the lights went out, Dima had done well. “No screwups,” Quinn said.
“I won’t,” Dima said.
They had rehearsed what he was supposed to do half a dozen times.
Quinn nodded at Witten, who then escorted Dima into the den, so the others could listen to the call on the laptop in the living room without their presence being picked up over the line.
For a few seconds, they all stood there waiting — Quinn, Nate, Daeng, Misty, Howard, Lanier, Berkeley, Curson, Witten’s team, and, remotely, Helen. When the sound of the ringing phone suddenly blared from the speaker, Misty jumped. Quinn turned the volume down a few clicks, and looked around to make sure everyone could still hear. He received nods all around so he moved to the side.
There were three rings before the line was finally answered.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Morten? This is Central at O & O.”
Morten looked at the clock on his desk. “Do you realize what time it is?”
“Yes, sir, I apologize, but Mr. Griffin asked that I call you.”
Morten paused. “Why would he do that?”
“I’m told by our team on the scene with him that he’s interrogating a suspect at the moment.”
“He’s using one of your teams?” Morten asked.
“Yes, sir. We received a call from him a few hours ago requesting emergency backup. Thankfully, we had a team available and were able to dispatch it right away.”
That actually made some sense, Morten had to admit. If Griffin found himself in need of manpower right away, O & O would have been the quick solution, despite the organization’s recent failures.
“So why are you calling?”
“Mr. Griffin thought that you might want to talk to the suspect. He said to tell you that…” Central paused. “I want to make sure I get this right. He said, ‘Tell Mr. Morten suspect knows all, and insists on talking to him before giving up network.’”
Holy God. The mention of network meant there were more than just a couple other people who knew. He and Griffin needed those names, but Morten was reluctant to involve himself at this level. He dealt with the client end of things. Griffin handled the dirty work. Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time Morten would have to cross the line.
“Mr. Griffin can’t handle this himself?” he asked.
“I don’t have the answer to that, sir. I only got the impression this was time sensitive.”
Indeed it was. Griffin undoubtedly could get the names on his own, but, from the sounds of it, it would take too long. If Morten making an appearance sped up the process, then so be it.
“Where is he?”
Morten looked out the window as his driver turned the car onto the cul-de-sac. Though this was not his first time visiting one of the houses he owned there, it had been a while. They were used more for Griffin’s work.
As expected, the street was quiet, all the houses dark. The one Griffin was using was straight back in the middle. No car was in the driveway, but Morten assumed Griffin and the O & O team had parked in the attached two-car garage to avoid being seen when they transferred the prisoner into the house.
Morten instructed his driver to pull into the driveway.
“I shouldn’t be long,” he told the driver, hoping he was right. He had several phone conferences planned for not long after sunrise, so whatever the prisoner had to say, he’d better say it quickly.
Morten exited the car and walked over to the darkened porch. As he neared, the door opened.
“Mr. Morten.” The man who greeted him was in the dark-suit uniform preferred by O & O.
“Where is he?” Morten said.
“Downstairs, sir. I’ll show you the way.”
Two other O & O men were in the basement, one sitting in front of a computer station set up next to a closed door, the other standing in front of the door itself. The monitor showed a box clearly intended to display a video feed, but at the moment it was black. Below it was a second rectangular box, housing an undulating series of vertical bars.
The man at the computer stood up the moment he saw Morten. “Good morning, sir.”
“What’s going on? Where’s Mr. Griffin?”
“He’s in the interrogation room, sir.” The man nodded toward the closed door, and then turned to the computer. “We’re recording the session. There’s a problem with the video at the moment, but the audio is working.”
“You’ve been listening?” Morten asked, concerned.
“No, sir. Our instructions were to monitor the signal only. See?” He pointed at the rising and falling bars. “It’s strong and clear. If you’d like to listen, I can plug in the headphones.”
“Please.”
The man plugged a set of headphones into the computer, and handed it to Morten. “You control the volume there on the side,” he said.
Morten donned the headphones. He could hear a voice, but it was too low to understand, so he turned up the dial.
“…took the shot through the window and hit him in the head,” a male voice said. The audio wasn’t as clear as Morten would have liked. It was full of digital distortion that he assumed was connected to the visual problem with the camera. “The car went off the side and tumbled all the way down. They were all dead. Morten showed up right after the police got there and identified the bodies.”
Morten tensed. The prisoner was clearly talking about the incident in Turkey. He knew precisely how it had occurred.
This was what Morten had feared. Peter had obviously talked before he was killed, and whomever he told had picked up the investigation.