Страница 42 из 80
Garret walked into the next office, left the light off, and shut the door. He retrieved a piece of paper from his pocket. It was from the Willard, with just a phone number with an international dialing prefix on it. No name. Garret picked up the handset and entered the number. This was the real reason he was still in town. It helped to meet some of these fat cats in person, but he could have traveled to see them or they could have visited him in San Diego. The negotiating always went well after a round of golf and a few cocktails on the boat. He would have definitely gone back to warm su
After a few rings a woman answered, and Garret said, “I need to speak with Joseph.”
“May I ask who is calling?”
“No. Just get him on the phone.”
Garret looked around the office. There were no personal photos. Nothing that could tell him whose office it was. On the wall next to the door was one of those stupid motivational posters. It showed a men’s crew team rowing on a river. In large letters across the top were the words, “Team Work.” Garret shook his head. Any jackass who needed to find motivation, inspiration, or anything else in some mass-produced trite piece of junk wasn’t going to get far in this business.
Joseph Speyer finally came on the line and in a cautious voice said, “Hello?”
“We’ve got a problem,” Garret blurted out.
“Oh…hello, Stu. My assistant told me there was a rude American on the line. Which is fairly redundant, don’t you think? But nonetheless, I should have guessed it was you.”
“Very fu
“Why did you not come to my party? Your boss came.”
“He isn’t my boss.”
“Oh Stu…such a big chip on your shoulder. It must be difficult going through life so angry all the time.”
“Yeah,” Garret laughed gruffly. “But probably not as bad as taking it up the ass, like you do.”
“Stu,” Speyer said with mock surprise. “You are a Democrat. You are supposed to support my people.”
“You might want to drop using my name every other line, and I do support your people. Go ahead, get married. What the fuck do I care? It’s just not my bag…what you guys do between the sheets.”
“Maybe you should try it some time.”
“No thanks.” Garret looked out the window and watched a cab pass by on the street below. “Back to the point. We’ve got a major fucking problem!”
There was a sigh and then Speyer said, “How could we possibly have a problem? Everything turned out exactly as you wanted.”
“Your buddy promised that he was going to button things up on his end.”
“And as far as I know he did.”
“You don’t know shit. The FBI is going to hold a press conference in a few hours.”
“Why?”
“They’ve arrested someone.”
There was a long pause before Speyer responded. “Do you know who?”
“I don’t have a name, but I’ve heard it’s the guy.”
“Impossible. I just spoke with your boss on Saturday. He said the FBI’s investigation was dead in the water. He was being briefed daily.”
“It wasn’t the FBI who found him.”
“Who was it?”
“The CIA.”
“That is wonderful news,” Speyer said with feigned enthusiasm.
“Just fucking great.”
“I will make sure to pass it along to our friend.”
“Yeah…you do that, and on an entirely different matter, tell him I want scorched earth. Do you follow me?”
“I think so.”
“Good.”
“You know this man the CIA grabbed…it’s too bad that it’s probably as far as they’ll get. I’ve seen how these people operate. They rarely know who hired them.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“I will call you back after I speak with our friend.”
“Don’t bother,” Garret said. “Just tell him if he doesn’t handle this problem immediately I have no intention of following through on our end of the bargain.”
“He will not be happy to hear that.”
“I don’t give a fuck what makes him happy or not. He needs to do what he said he would do and he needs to do it today.” Garret slammed the phone back into its cradle and walked out of the office.
27
Ke
Mitch Rapp had somehow managed to get both men on the same page, which was another red flag to Ke
“The videotape,” McMahon said, “from the Starbucks…is not enough evidence to convict this guy. The attorney general is losing his mind over this. You told us he was the guy.”
“He is,” Ke
“Can you back that up?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Shit.” McMahon had his dark blue pinstripe suit jacket open and a hand on each hip. A bulky pistol sat on his right hip and his badge was clipped to his belt above his left front pocket. As a general rule he didn’t carry his passport sized FBI credentials. Some people acted fu
“You’re going to have to do better than that,” the agent continued. “The press conference is in less than three hours, and I need some real evidence. All I’ve got at the moment is a shot-up Greek guy who keeps claiming he was kidnapped and tortured. This could get really embarrassing.”
Ke