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

After he hung up, he turned to back to the lawyer and The Accountant. “The ledgers will be here in fifteen minutes. You’re going to a safe house now. Once the ledgers check out, we’ll pick up your wives and children and bring them to you. Then we get down to business.”

John sighed with relief. None of the agents that came in to take the lawyer and The Accountant away showed signs of possession. He could only assume that Santiago was still possessing El Gordito as he sat in one of the holding cells.

Chapman left the interview room and went to a nearby section of the precinct which had been taken over by fellow agents. He sat at a desk to make some calls, John assumed, to FBI headquarters regarding preparation of the immunity, witness protection, and relocation documents.

John followed him. After a while, the agent was interrupted between calls by a young male agent who brought in the two ledgers John had seen The Accountant using at his desk at DNA. The agent also passed on a message from the sergeant in charge of the holding cells. Apparently, El Gordito was becoming a nuisance, repeatedly shouting demands to see his lawyer, Raul Gomez.

“We have a duty to inform him that his counsel has disqualified himself from representing him,” one of Chapman’s colleagues at a nearby desk suggested.

“Let him sit and rot for a while longer. Gomez hasn’t technically disqualified himself yet—we’re still waiting on the paperwork for him to sign and he has to accept it first. Let me know if he asks for a replacement lawyer. I doubt he will; he still believes in the absolute loyalty of his men.” Chapman flicked through the ledgers. He ordered the contents be scanned and divided up between his team at the precinct and a team of waiting analysts at the FBI’s New York offices. “I want to know everything that’s in these ledgers before I get El Gordito back in that interview room.”

The next hour and a half were spent with Chapman barking orders and taking calls as the two agents worked frantically, receiving and reporting upon analyzed data on their laptop screens. Occasionally, more agents would appear with documents, causing John to fear each time that Santiago’s spirit may have left El Gordito’s body and possessed one of them to find out what was happening.

“OK, bring Vargas back into the main interview room,” Chapman said. “Gomez and The Accountant have signed a framework agreement. The two people in the world who can hurt him the most just turned on him.”

Chapman waited for El Gordito to be brought back, and until he was seated in front of the one-way glass. The sight of his eyes, still burning with the fire of possession, filled John with a small sense of relief at first––Santiago’s spirit must have stayed in El Gordito, no doubt so he could face his reckoning by the Voids in The Game. But then fear engulfed John as he considered the prospect of Santiago’s spirit emerging. He recalled Jennifer’s description of the look on the spirit’s face. Pure evil, she had called it.

Chapman returned to Interview Room 1 to be greeted by angry questions from El Gordito as to the whereabouts of his lawyer. After sitting down, he broke the news to the drug lord straightaway. “Your accountant and, wait for it...your lawyer have both caved and cut a deal to turn state’s evidence against you.”

John could see that the fire in El Gordito’s eyes was now blazing.

“You’re going to be taken now to Rikers, and this time, obviously, your lawyer won’t be defending you at the arraignment.”

El Gordito just stared at him with unbridled hatred. “Nobody testifies against me,” he hissed.

There was a knock at the door. An agent entered carrying two large ledgers. “In case you were thinking we’re bluffing . . .” Chapman said, as he took receipt of the two books.

John could tell right away that El Gordito recognized them. His eyes were now burning pure white. Santiago must be seething with anger as, surely, the spirit could see his host’s drug manufacturing empire about to crash down, and with it, his chances to succeed in The Game and stay on Earth.

Chapman pressed on, completely oblivious to the maelstrom of anger building inside the man opposite. “This has proved very interesting reading, Mr. Vargas. In this ledger, we have the details of the ownership structures of your companies and their accounts: the nightclubs you are famous for, the fulfillment center, and a number of companies supplying various household goods. I’m pretty sure we’ll find that they all use the services of the fulfillment center and include the retailer of the washing machines. But we don’t need to go through those companies to prove that the drugs we found in the truck crash originated from you. This second ledger gave us all we needed to know.” Chapman paused. “By the way, what are you doing with a medical research center? Finding new ways to torture your competitors?” Chapman allowed himself a chuckle.

El Gordito said nothing, but John’s heart raced at the sight of the fire raging in his eyes. The kingpin’s head and body were now starting to emanate a faint orange glow.

Chapman went on, his words surely penetrating not only El Gordito, but also Santiago’s spirit, like daggers, John thought.

“The second ledger details the cash flow of your drug manufacturing operation, the huge profits you make, and the vast network of ‘smurfs’ you require to wash all that cash through your intricate network of agents with false identities, who make small cash deposits, below the ten grand threshold level, into various banks in order to prevent alarms going off.” He paused and a smile played at the edges of his mouth. “Your production costs include top-end pharmaceutical grade analysis and research equipment, pill presses, ovens, and commercial brewing equipment. The raw materials don’t contain any well-known drug-making ingredients. Strange, because we had the pills tested