Page 153 of Fury In Death

“Jacob,” he said, “what is it now?”

Eve watched Banner stiffen, saw the rage consume his face. And then, as the recording played, she saw what she wanted most.

His fear.

“It’s fake!” He shouted it. “Doctored.”

“Pause it, Peabody. Our EDD accessed this recording from two sources. The computer in the penthouse owned by Banner-Wyst and the clone ’link found on the scene of Mr. Wyst’s murder. He hadn’t had time to destroy it, if that was his intention. I don’t think it was. This was insurance. He was running. But if we took him down before he got away, he’d have taken your client down with him.”

She opened a file, slid over a printout. “Full text of the recording where your client admits, without remorse, to hiring Cruz for the purpose of rigging the explosion, for the motive of killing Steven Redman in a way that would make the target one of many and remove Banner-Wyst from any suspicion. Everyone else in the building, including Redman’s pregnant wife and two-year-old son? Collateral damage.”

“For what reason?” Lomax demanded, but he read the text.

“Basically? World domination.”

Eve pushed to her feet. “He was going to stop you. Oh, sorry, talking to you. He was going to stop your client and his conspirators, his company. I have another recording, my official record of my altercation and conversation with Redman, where he lays it all out.”

“We’ll have the recordings thrown out.”

“No,” Reo said, “you won’t. You can and will have them authenticated. The first is evidence acquired on a crime scene, a scene where the lieutenant and detective had warrants for search, seizure. For the arrest of Jacob Wyst. The second, from the lieutenant’s own lapel recorder, mandatory record of executing warrants, investigating a crime scene.

“You’ve read enough to ascertain your client admitted to hiring Cruz, to conspiring to kill hundreds of innocent people to protect himself, his company and further his ambitions.”

“And there’s more,” Peabody put in. She opened a file. Crime scene photos spilled out. Chu, Dent, Cruz, Wyst. She said, “Oops. Wrong file.”

“Nasty, isn’t it?” Eve commented as Ripski pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. “We’re saving your client from a similar fate. He thinks—it’s in the recording,” she added as she circled the table. “He’s too rich, too important, has too many important people in his pocket to pay any price for any crime. People like senators, congresspeople, judges—right up to the Supreme Court.”

She leaned down between Lomax and Banner. “Oh yeah, we found them. They’re not in his pocket anymore.”

Peabody smiled. “The FBI’s having a really busy day.”

“Blackmail, payoffs, kickbacks, bribery, fraudulent accounts using fake ID. Your client’s records, seized through duly executed warrants.”

“We’ve got the goods, counselors.” Reo tapped a file. “All the lieutenant listed, plus intimidation tactics, kidnapping as a method to pressure compliance. I could go on, but we’d be here all morning.”

“And that’s before we work our way around the globe, where your client’s humanitarian efforts”—Peabody used scare quotes—“come with a really ugly cost.”

“Your client’s a monster.” Eve circled the table again. “One who will destroy, has destroyed anything that gets in the way of his unquenchable thirst for wealth, power, control. We got in the lab, Banner, the restricted one. The one where your company’s brewing up bioweapons.”

Lomax lifted a hand. “We need to—”

She rolled right over him. “We found out about Rainmaker, and what you intended to do with it. We found more. And by the way, counselor? I hope you got a really big, fat retainer, because all his accounts have been frozen.”

“I won’t tolerate this! You’re nothing, nothing but a cog in the wheel. I built the wheel. I am the goddamn wheel, and I can crush you like the nothing you are.”

“Mr. Banner.”

He shut up his lead counsel with a look.

“Right. You could handle me—or you intended to have Senator Hawley find the way to ruin me, discredit me—the annoying gnat. And Roarke, the Irish upstart. Where’s Senator Hawley now, Reo?”

“Currently being questioned by the FBI.”

“Yeah. I don’t think he’s going to work that for you. The people you’ve bribed, extorted, exploited, none of them are going to work that or anything else for you. You’ve got nothing left. No money, no power, no reputation built on blood and bullshit. And no freedom.

“You thought you were above the law. You’re not. Your lawyers have heard and seen enough in this room to know you’re going to pay, under the law.”

Banner stared at her, and the hate in his eyes was a living thing.