Ratio(63)
The man stirred. “Seong-min,” he said.
“What’s that?” asked Carter.
“My name. Seong-min.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” said Harper.
“Where’s Jun-yeong?”
“Your friend? I’m sorry, he didn’t make it. Neither did the driver of the pickup you hit.” She paused. “You killed a man in the process of committing a federal offense. That’s a murder charge under federal law, a capital offense. You know what that means?”
The man called Seong-min nodded.
“Good. Just so you know the stakes here.” She looked him up and down. “Your passport says you’re from South Korea.”
He nodded.
“Now, we both know that’s not true,” Harper said. “Why don’t you level with me here? Nobody from South Korea has reason to threaten a US President.”
“You can’t prove anything,” Seong-min said. “You don’t have the right to keep me here.”
“I don’t need to prove anything. We’ve got you on a terrorism and murder charge. Practically speaking, you don’t have any rights at all.”
Seong-min screwed up his face.
“Guess you’re in a lot of pain right now?” Harper said. “Maybe we can do something about that. But first, I need to know what you have planned. The President is already diverted, so he’s not showing up. Innocent people don’t have to suffer.”
He didn’t say anything.
Harper decided to try another approach. “Look, whoever’s pulling your strings had no intention of you getting out of this in once piece. We had a tip that you were at Seattle Center, right down to a description of your vehicle and appearance. Nobody we questioned at the scene remembers seeing you, and nobody’s come forward. Doesn’t that strike you as a little odd?”
Still no reply.
“The way I see it, somebody set you up. If I’m right, the person or people who hired you never wanted you to succeed. Why else would they tell you to plant decoys and then call in the tip? They must have known the President would be immediately evacuated. It makes no sense.” She sighed. “Unless, of course, the plan was never to attack the President in the first place.”
Seong-min groaned again. His eyes were watering.
“It’s all coming together now, isn’t it?” Harper said. “You never even met the person giving the orders, did you?”
The tears began to flow freely. Seong-min bit his lip.
“You probably felt a little uneasy about the whole thing right from the start, am I right? I get it, I really do. We all want to follow orders, do the right thing. But you knew deep down this wasn’t right. Something didn’t add up. And now you’ve been left hanging out to dry. Somebody used you, got what they wanted, then threw you to the wolves.”
Seong-min gave up, letting a wail escape from his lips. He seemed to reign himself in quickly, but the tears never stopped.
“Tell me,” Harper said. “You ever speak to anyone about what you were planning?”
He didn’t reply.
Carter piped up. “We’ve got your cell phone. We’ve got your partner’s cell phone. We run the numbers, we’ll find out where the calls have been coming from. Want to bet they’ve got nothing to do with your government?”
Harper suppressed a smile. She knew he was bluffing. Even with modern technology and help from the NSA, snooping like that still wasn’t a possibility. Still, she had to hand it to him. He was damn convincing.
“Just one little cell phone,” Carter continued, “and we’ll track down everything about you. You want to save us the trouble and maybe save yourself a trip to Guantanamo?” He seemed to notice Seong-min react. “I can see you’ve heard of it. Why not cooperate? Maybe we’ll even get you a civilian trial. They’ll let you have a jury. Give you a fair shot.” He paused. “If not, we’ll get your phone records and do this ourselves. Let the military courts deal with you.”
Harper was impressed. This guy knew how to hustle. Not for the first time in her career, she was glad there were no lawyers in the room.
“So, what’s it gonna be?” Carter said. “You want to deal with me, or the US military? Safe to say, I’m probably going to be gentler on you.”
“I can have the Attorney General sign the papers this afternoon,” Harper said. “We’ll have you in a civilian facility with access to a lawyer. If something else happens that you could have stopped, we’ll make sure they throw you in the darkest, deepest hole we’ve got.” That time, Harper knew, she wasn’t bluffing.