Earthbound : A gripping crime thriller full of twists and supernatural suspense by Fynn Perry (popular romance novels TXT) 📗

John suddenly felt a spark of hope. He couldn’t resist checking that The Accountant was indeed being held at the precinct and cutting a deal. Would they really be holding him next door?

John followed Chapman out of the room and watched him enter Interview Room 2. He didn’t follow him in, preferring to look through the one-way window of the adjacent observation room, in case any of the occupants were possessed.

Entering the observation room, John saw it was occupied by a pair of Feds typing away at their laptop computers. Through the one-way glass he saw the puffy faces and bulky frames of The Accountant and El Gordito’s lawyer, Raul Gomez, sitting opposite Chapman, who’d now moved through into this second interview room. The Accountant sat in a well-tailored suit, one of his hands cuffed to a steel bar set into the table. Gomez was sitting in an even nicer suit and was making notes in a leather-bound jotter using a fat black pen with gold fittings. John could hear the conversation in the interview over the speakers.

“My client is willing to turn state’s evidence against Miguel Vargas in return for immunity and witness protection, including relocation,” Gomez said.

“He has to do some jail time. Minimum security.” Seeing their frowning faces, Chapman added, “He’ll be well looked-after; it’ll be like an extended holiday.”

“We said no jail time!” Gomez protested.

Chapman smiled. “Your client is in no position to make demands, Counselor. With or without his cooperation it’s over for him and the rest of Vargas’s men. We have enough to go on with the seized drugs. Montreal police are already on their way to arrest the buyers of the washing machines. We won’t stop ripping apart all of El Gordito’s businesses and company structures until we find out exactly where the drugs on that truck came from. When we do, I bet we’ll find a lot more besides, and we’ll nail everyone involved, including your client here, with everything we can. If your client doesn’t like a minimum-security prison, he sure as hell isn’t going to like a Supermax, because that’s where he’s heading.”

Gomez reciprocated Chapman’s sarcastic smile as he placed his hand on The Accountant’s forearm, as if to communicate to him that he had the situation under control. “Without my client’s help, it will take you months of tedious investigation to unravel Señor Vargas’s company structures and, without my client’s testimony, you will never get him on any murders. I know that is what you really want, Special Agent Chapman. You are ambitious, I can see that. So, let’s stop playing games. You know my client can’t be in any jail. Vargas will have him killed more easily in prison than out here. He’ll pay off a guard, a prisoner—he’ll get to him.” Gomez stared for a long couple of seconds at Chapman. “No jail time. Full immunity, witness protection, and relocation. And while you’re at it...I want the same package.”

Chapman chewed on that for a moment, and John felt a rush of renewed hope pass through him. If El Gordito’s own lawyer was turning against him, then Santiago’s host was done for and Santiago’s spirit was surely soon going to be out of The Game! All John had to do was to wait and see it happen.

“You’ll give evidence against Miguel Vargas?”

“I will.”

“You’ll be disbarred. You’ll be breaching attorney-client privilege.”

“You think El Gordito trusts anyone? If he’s sent down, even without me talking, he’ll have me killed to guarantee my silence. With what I can give you, you can get a death penalty in a federal court, and only the President himself could commute that. I’ll take being disbarred over being shot. A dead man can’t harm me.”

That’s where you’re wrong, thought John.

“Immunity and witness protection for us both—me and The Accountant here—or there’s no deal,” Gomez finished.

“What exactly do I get in return?”

“You get everything. The full accounts detailing every operation: shipments and storage, names and locations, details of payoffs to officials, kidnappings, names of his lieutenants and hitmen. His drivers and pilots of fast boats and planes, his engineers who manage encrypted communications, and his own private army of so-called security guards for his buildings and transport. You will have it all. Make the call.”

“What call?” Chapman asked, surprised.

“To your supervisor, of course. I’m guessing this is above your pay grade,” Gomez said snidely.

Chapman stepped out to make the call, as Gomez knew he would. The lawyer patted The Accountant on the back of the hand. “All good, Pablo,” he said, smiling. “At last we rid ourselves of that pig!”

The door opened after a few minutes.

“Agreed,” said Chapman. And, just like that, El Gordito’s lawyer and The Accountant both got immunity for all their sins.

“Give me something now,” Chapman demanded.

“Not until I have it all in writing, details and everything,” answered Gomez.

“Give me something now, or the deal is off,” threatened Chapman.

The Accountant looked at the lawyer, who nodded. “My desk in my office has two secret compartments. Your men won’t have found them. Before you wreck that fine antique, the way to open them is to press two buttons. Each button is disguised as a carved and gilded wooden rose. One is on the right-hand corner, the other in the middle of the of the desk under a drawer. Press them together and a compartment at the bottom of each of the two pedestals will spring out.”

“What’s in there?”

“Ledgers with the accounts of everything. The real accounts. Hard copies only, no electronic copies, nothing on any computer.”

“Explains a lot,” Chapman muttered, picking up his mobile phone. He made the call to one of his men currently leading a search at DNA and relayed the instructions that Gomez had just given. “Call me back immediately, the moment you have them,” he insisted.

The three men sat in silence for around five minutes before Chapman’s phone rang and he answered it.