the car was registered to.’
‘John Williams is quite a common name,’ Hunter said.
‘Too common,’ Taylor agreed. ‘About fifteen hundred in New York City alone.’
‘But you have Mr Shaw in custody, right?’ Hunter asked.
‘That’s correct,’ Taylor confirmed.
Hunter looked at Captain Blake, still a little confused. ‘So, you’ve got Mr Shaw, who is apparently from Tennessee, two unidentified female heads, a vehicle with Montana license plates, which is registered to a Mr Williams from New York City.’ He shrugged at the room. ‘My original question still stands – why are you in LA? And why am I here and not at home packing?’ He checked his watch one more time.
‘Because Mr Shaw isn’t talking,’ Taylor replied, her voice still calm.
Hunter stared hard at her for a couple of seconds.
‘And how does that answer my question?’
‘Agent Taylor’s statement isn’t one hundred percent accurate,’ Kennedy cut in. ‘We’ve had Mr Shaw in our custody for four days. He was transferred to us a day after he was arrested. He’s being held in Quantico. I assigned Agent Taylor and Agent Newman to the case.’
Hunter’s eyes moved to Taylor for just a second.
‘But as Agent Taylor said . . .’ Kennedy moved on. ‘. . . Mr Shaw has been refusing to speak.’
‘So?’ Captain Blake interrupted, a little amused. ‘Since when has that stopped the FBI from still extracting information from anyone?’
Kennedy was unfazed by the spiked remark.
‘During last night’s interrogation session,’ he continued, ‘Mr Shaw finally spoke for the first time.’ He paused and walked over to the large window on the east wall. ‘He said only seven words.’
Hunter waited.
‘He said, “ I will only speak to Robert Hunter .”’
Eight
Hunter didn’t move. He didn’t even flinch. His facial expression remained unchanged. If Kennedy’s words had affected him in any way, he showed no signs of it.
‘I’m sure I’m not the only Robert Hunter in America,’ he finally said.
‘I’m sure you aren’t,’ Kennedy agreed. ‘But we’re also sure that Mr Shaw was talking about you, not someone else.’
‘How come you’re so sure?’
‘Because of his tone of voice,’ Kennedy replied. ‘And his posture, his confidence, his attitude . . . everything about him, really. We’ve analyzed the footage countless times. You know what we do, Robert. You know that I have people who are trained to read the faintest of telltale signs, to recognize the slightest change of voice intonation, to identify body-language signals. This guy was confident. No hesitation. No trepidation. Nothing. He was certain that we would know who he was referring to.’
‘You can watch the recording if you like,’ Taylor offered. ‘I’ve got a copy right here.’ She gestured toward her briefcase.
Hunter remained silent.
‘That’s why we thought that maybe you might recognize the name,’ Kennedy said. ‘But then again, we had our suspicions that Liam Shaw was just a bogus name anyway.’
‘Have you tried Tennessee, where this Mr Liam Shaw is supposedly from?’ Captain Blake asked. ‘There might be a Robert Hunter somewhere over there.’
‘No, we haven’t,’ Taylor replied. ‘No need. As Director Kennedy said, Mr Shaw was too confident. He knew that it would take us no time to find out exactly whom he was referring to.’
Kennedy took over. ‘As soon as I heard the name, I knew that he could only be talking about one person. You, Robert.’
‘Do you have that footage?’ Hunter asked.
‘I do,’ Taylor replied. ‘I also have a photograph of Mr Shaw.’ She retrieved one last picture from her briefcase and handed it to Hunter.
Hunter stared at the photograph for a very long, silent moment. Again, neither his facial expression nor his body language gave anything away. Until he took a deep breath, and his eyes moved up to meet Kennedy’s.
‘You have got to be shitting me.’
Nine
The man who called