Catherine Coulter - Whiplash

Savich steepled his fingers and lightly tapped his fingertips together. "Would you like to tell me why you poisoned Dana Frobisher and tried to murder Vice President Valenti?"

Hoffman laughed, sat back in his beautiful Moroccan leather chair. "Your reevaluation led you to this? Come now, Agent Savich, I don't have any idea what you're talking about, but what you're implying is ludicrous. Why would I murder a woman I scarcely know over lunch? And Valenti, he's been one of my best friends for years. This is even greater nonsense than your claim about talking to Nikki."

Hoffman slowly rose. "I am more than disappointed in you, Agent Savich, not that you ever afforded me much protection or assistance. You are a disgrace to the FBI. I will be speaking to Director Mueller, and I promise you, sir, you will be reassigned to the Anchorage Field Office, if not kicked out of the Bureau altogether. You are a professional, you are supposed to be thorough, to be sure of your facts before you act. Let me ask you-do you have a shred of proof for your allegations against a United States senator?"

Savich's voice was dark as night. "I may never find absolute proof against you. But I like my odds."

Hoffman said very precisely, "There's no proof to find because I did not commit either of these heinous acts. How can you possibly accuse me after you claimed my dead wife begged you to save me? Nikki knew I was in danger. I was very lucky, Agent Savich, and my being alive, here speaking to you today, has nothing to do with your help. I wonder if I'll be so lucky again?"

"You don't need to sing another verse of your victim's song, Senator. You and I both know the truth. The reason I came here was that I promised Nikki I would try to protect you. I have told you what I know to stop you from harming anyone else. It really would be best if you gave yourself up."

Senator Hoffman sat back down in his chair, his arms behind his head as if he were suddenly enjoying himself. "I thought you were smart, but I now I see that I was wrong." He laughed, a full, deep laugh. "You're whistling in the wind, Agent Savich."

"You said you hardly knew Dana Frobisher, but your wife worked quite closely with her. An old friend of Ms. Frobisher recalls quite a nasty split between them, something to do with allegations of embezzlement, but it was never pursued. Did you consider that Frobisher had committed an offense against your wife?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"It's interesting you invited her to lunch to discuss working with you on some charity when Frobisher hasn't been involved in any charity work in over five years, and you have never before shown any interest."

"How would I know that? All I know is what I wanted to do and I remembered her name. Nothing more than that."

"Senator, I attached GPS monitors to your three remaining cars, as part of my investigation meant to protect you. The Range Rover was in close proximity to Leesburg, Virginia, late last night. Emilio Gasparini of the Foggy Bottom Grill was found dead there this morning."

"I have nothing to say about that. I will not allow you to interrogate me in my own home."

"I imagine Emilio met you there last night expecting to be paid, but you killed him instead. Do you really believe we'll find no evidence of any of your dealings with him? Do you think Emilio didn't confide in anyone at all? A girlfriend? A boyfriend? There will be bank deposits, phone records, credit card receipts. I will trace them, Senator, and I will catch you. Count on it."

Savich rose to face him. "I also realized there was simply no one else who could have rigged the Brabus, Senator-only you or Morey Hughes. I will find the evidence if you did any research on how to sabotage that vehicle, or ordered the parts you needed. It doesn't matter if you deleted it, I will unearth it."

Hoffman shook his head. "Add this to your fantasy mix, Agent Savich. Morey leaves the house more often than you imagine. Anyone could have gotten into the garage and sabotaged the Brabus."

"Do you know what bothers me still? I don't have a handle yet on why you tried to murder Vice President Valenti. I know he and your wife were high school sweethearts, and Aiden and Benson implied that their mother still had strong feelings for him, telling them of adventures she had with Valenti when Aiden and Benson were children. Was it sheer obsessive jealousy, Senator, finally gone mad years after the deed, or something more?"

Hoffman laughed again. "I have been Alex Valenti's friend since before you were born. I have had enough of this conversation. Next time you speak to my wife, Agent, that is if some Being allows her to come back to earth a final time, tell her she went to the wrong person. She went to a buffoon who did nothing at all except try to destroy her husband. Now, get out of my house. I do not wish to see you again."

STONE BRIDGE, CONNECTICUT

Sunday morning

Adler Dieffendorf and Werner Gerlach walked to the conference room table, nodded to Bowie, Savich, and Sherlock, and sat down. Dieffendorf said immediately, "I elected not to have our lawyers here, but I will call them if you become in any way inappropriate. Do you understand?"

Bowie nodded. "We understand."

Dieffendorf said, "Good. As you know, Werner and I have been speaking to your Department of Justice attorneys. About this." He pulled a copy of the Culovort papers out of his briefcase and fanned the pages.

Savich saw his hands were shaking slightly, but his voice remained firmly in control. He closed his eyes a moment, then his shoulders squared again. "This has come as a grave shock to me, this well-crafted plan that my very own CEO Caskie Royal implemented to shut down the supply of Culovort in our Missouri plant. Let me emphasize that this was the act of a rogue employee. Nothing like this would ever be sanctioned by Schiffer Hartwin. The company's leadership is not to blame, and so I have told your federal attorneys. I have already informed the family, and we are in discussions concerning restitution.

"Now I will tell you that I suspected something was amiss, and that is why I sent Helmut Blauvelt here to find out the truth. No, I more than suspected, I'd heard rumors that I could not discount, and so Helmut, less than a week after his appendix surgery, insisted on coming, even insisted on making private travel arrangements so no one would find out. He was a bulldog, and Caskie Royal would not have managed to fool him for very long. Even I did not expect the truth to be this damning or to precipitate such dreadful acts. Helmut Blauvelt was more than a Schiffer Hartwin employee. He was a longtime friend of mine. I simply couldn't believe it when he was so brutally murdered. Then Royal himself was murdered. Still I did not know how damning it all was until I read the actual plan Royal implemented to systematically close down production, making it look like unfortunate occurrences had led to the shutdown. I was trying to find out the truth from him when he ran away. Neither Werner nor I knew what to think. It seemed to us everything had flown out of control.

"If I accept that Royal was a rogue employee, acting on his own, why then was he murdered? I don't understand, I simply don't know anything, except that these papers, these papers are a horror for the company." He shook the Culovort papers, then dropped them on the table. "Someone knew to copy these pages off Royal's computer. What is going on here?"

Bowie said, "Mr. Dieffendorf, did you yourself request Agent Andreas Kesselring of the BND to come here to assist in the investigation of Helmut Blauvelt's murder?"

Dieffendorf frowned at him, shook his head. "No," he said slowly, forcing his brain to refocus, "but when his services were offered by the BND, I gladly accepted. I checked. Kesselring has an excellent reputation. Why do you ask?"