What a waste. “And this Ned guy. Why not just pay him off?” While I don’t ever question Bentley, I’m curious about this. Blackmail is shitty, but it’s not an automatic death sentence. At least, not in my book.
“For the same reason we don’t negotiate with terrorists, son.” Bentley’s tone is sharper. He’s always supported a strong stance on that. “Guys like that, who jump on the chance to make money off of horrible things they’re not supposed to know about anyways—they can’t be trusted, even after you pay them off. He’d probably pocket the money and then turn around and bury me by sending a copy of the video in. Or he’d come back for more. The guy had all kinds of unsavory connections. We can’t risk that shit. I’m not having my entire life brought down by some fucking tattoo artist looking to cash in.” He sighs. “So now you know why you’re here. I need you to find that recording.”
“I would definitely have handled this differently.” Namely, I would have had the video in hand before I pulled the trigger. But I also wouldn’t have pulled the trigger without Bentley’s say-so. “Who are these guys you sent in?”
“They’re two guys who worked closely with Royce in Afghanistan. I didn’t want to get anyone else outside this issue involved, and I figured they have a vested interest. One of them, though, is a bit of a loose cannon. Effective as hell at his job overseas, but . . .” He shakes his head, his lips pursed with regret. “I should have waited for you.”
I’m surprised he made that kind of mistake. Bentley’s the kind of guy who has three defense plans spinning before a problem has a chance to rear its ugly head. It’s his job to always have control of whatever situation he finds himself in. It’s how he’s made his fortune. It’s why the CIA taps his shoulder when it needs a problem solved “under the radar.”
He heaves a sigh. “If this video gets into the hands of the media, they’ll blow apart what we’re doing over there. It will cause irreparable damage to Alliance as a whole. And we’ve made so much good progress. So I think you can see why I need you here. It’s delicate. And it needs to be handled swiftly.”
I nod. Everyone talks, eventually. Everyone except me.
So Bentley needs me to get answers out of a corpse, it would seem. “What exactly am I looking for? A jump drive? A microchip?”
Bentley pops open a cigar box on his desk and pulls out two Bolivars, rolling them between his palms. “VHS tape. This shop owner used an archaic system for his surveillance.”
A fucking dinosaur in the world of recording mediums. “How many copies are there?”
“Just the one now, I believe. We found the video file of the recording on the shop owner Ned Marshall’s phone. Nothing came up on Royce’s phone. I’m guessing he had no clue this was happening.”
One day, I’d love to sit back and watch Bentley’s computer whizzes at work, digging up all this data, seeing what they can find and how fast. But that’s all interesting-to-know information, and I prefer to keep curiosity at bay and work on a need-to-know level. “What’s the official story?” Obviously the cops are going to be crawling all over a double homicide.
“Marshall has been linked to local motorcycle clubs for years, doing all their ink. SFPD assumes it’s either a random robbery or tied to one of this guy’s associations, so they’re sniffing over there. Royce will likely be written off as unfortunate collateral damage.”
“That’s good.” Having to watch my shadow for police always complicates things. “Has anyone searched their houses yet?”