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Necchi lost his train of thought for a moment but recovered quickly. “For all we know, your organization murdered Mr. Rickman because he was trying to expose your illegal activities.”
Rapp leaned back in his chair and when he did, Cipriani fixated on the bulge in the side of his jacket.
“Is this man armed?” he said, alarmed.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Nash said, still trying to remain civil. “It’s just bad tailoring.”
“This meeting is over,” Necchi said, standing. “If you want to speak to us further, you can make a request through the appropriate political channels.”
“Isabella Accorso was handling the files, wasn’t she?” Nash said.
Cipriani had started to stand but at the mention of her name sank back into his seat. “Why do you say that?”
“Because she’s dead.”
“It was a traffic accident.”
Nash shook his head. “Since you’ve taken your shot at speculation, let me have a turn. Someone contacted Accorso and demanded that she give him copies of those files. She was scared, so she did it. Then, when this person got what he wanted, he had her killed. One of the reasons you’re fighting us is because you don’t want to admit that you’ve lost those files. Right now, you’ve got your tech people searching for them in your backups but they’re coming up empty.”
“That’s absurd!” Necchi said. “Isabella and her daughter died in a car accident. We are not as gullible as the American people, Mr. Blake. You can’t come in here and wave an American flag, expecting us to roll over. Using the deaths of these two women to further the CIA’s agenda is outrageous! More than that, it’s disgusting!”
Rapp had given Nash every opportunity to resolve this and he was getting nowhere. These idiots had let the Rickman files fall into the hands of one of America’s enemies, and if he had to listen to another ten seconds of their fake indignation, someone was going to get pistol-whipped.
“Enough!” Rapp said, slamming his palm down on the table. “People are already dead because of your firm, including one of your employees and her daughter. Now you’re going to be good citizens and give us every scrap of information you have on this.”
“Are you . . .” Necchi stammered. “Are you threatening us?”
“What threat?” Nash said, trying to regain control of the meeting. “I didn’t hear a threat.”
“In that case, I apologize for not being clear,” Rapp said, picking up Necchi’s phone and enunciating clearly into it. “If one more of our people is harmed because of this firm’s lack of cooperation, I’m going to pay Mr. Cipriani here a visi
t. After that you can file as many diplomatic protests and lawsuits as you want. It’s not going to do him a whole lot of good.”
The room got very quiet as Necchi searched for some piece of -legalese that would have any meaning at all, and Nash tried to figure out a way to spin Rapp’s words into something benign.
Surprisingly, it was Cipriani who broke the silence. “Our firm certainly wouldn’t want to see harm come to the courageous men and women who protect our countries from terrorism.”
“Marcelo,” Necchi cautioned. “You have a responsibility—”
“And I take those responsibilities very seriously, Dante, but we’re being told that Isabella was murdered because of our involvement with those files. This situation has clearly escalated beyond something our firm can handle and has become a matter for the intelligence community.”
“You’ve made the right decision, Marcelo,” Nash said. “Your cooperation is going to save lives. Now, can I assume that I was right when I said that you’re looking into this?”
“Yes,” Cipriani responded, his eyes flicking briefly toward Rapp. “After Isabella’s death we immediately did an audit of her responsibilities in order to make certain our clients received the uninterrupted service they’ve come to expect from us. The files from one of those clients had been wiped from our system.”
“The backups as well?”
“Yes. I’m told they’re completely unrecoverable.”
“Bull,” Rapp said.
Cipriani’s voice rose a bit in pitch. “I swear that I’m telling you the truth.”
“Of course you are,” Nash said, delivering a subtle kick to Rapp’s leg beneath the table. “But we may have capabilities that you don’t. In fact, we’ve got a very nice young man named Marcus who specializes in resolving these kinds of problems. Can I assume you’d be willing to give him access to your system?”
Cipriani chewed his lip for a moment before answering. “Of course.”
“Thank you, Marcelo. That’s very helpful. Now, is there any other information you can give us?”
