Saving Mr. Player

7. I Don't Like To Waste Time...

Amy sighed in exhaustion, walking inside the same office building, where the same amount of hustle was still prevailing, but this time she noticed the high level of security surrounding the place. She noticed the rows of military added into and outside the building. She groaned in exhaustion and looked at Arturo, who was following behind her.

“She is the briefing room; the general is keeping her busy.” Arturo informed her.

“You keep her a little busier.” Amy puffed her eyes out, asking for more time.

Arturo nodded his head, “You have an hour more.”

Amy nodded in determination, making her way into the wide corridor. She passed down the white floored symmetrical corridors and entered the same monitoring room which she left earlier.

Lance was sitting on the laptop at the exact same place where he was earlier, when she left.

“What have you got for me?” she asked, turning towards the double sided glass, where Aurora was still cuffed to the table, but now her head was submerged between her arms, lying on the table.

“The assassin is Ben Grime, a British assassin hired by outsources. He is a free-lancer…” Lance began and Amy gave him a skeptical look.

“His family is located in north islands of Philippines, interpole had been informed and they have caught their transporters, so by now they probably know the address of his family.”

Amy fisted in excitement, picking up the hot mug of coffee present of the panel table in front of her and taking a sip. She had too much to process and work on so she needed to reserve her energy.

“Did you find any link between Ben and Gerald Roman?” She asked, hoping to have something.

“I traced all the possible surveillance between DeLide and Intercontinental. He was spotted by a camera in Calle de Alcala, talking on a phone so I asked my team…” he paused and immediately looked at Amy.

She c****d her eyebrows, questioning how come Lance already had set his team up and also given them a task, while she was on the beginning stages of the investigation and she knew she had a long road ahead of her before catching Carmen.

“Sorry I took the liberty of setting up a team, it was too much work.” He defended and continued; while Amy knew he had a setup of men, for this day. “So anyways, I asked them to trace phone numbers that were present at that moment on Alcala and guess what? He was using a burner’s phone but I still got a hold of this one particular number because I matched the ID and it turns out he was talking to Jess Dean; Gerald’s wingman who also gambled for Gerald in the DeLida gambling game.”

Amy fisted in excitement, knowing she hit a major jackpot.

“Of course, we couldn’t trace their conversation…” Lance shrugged, “…but we can pull Jess for investigation.”

“Did you check Jess’s background? Did he have any previous contact with Ben (the assassin)?”

“No!” Lance’s tone was enough to disappoint Amy.

Amy sighed, looking back at the exhausted woman inside the interrogation room, understanding her state.

“What about Aurora? Did you run a check on her?” She asked, something too unimportant but somehow, she wanted to find a key; she wanted to find something that could organize the scattered pieces of her plan inside her brain.

“No, I thought it wasn’t important.”

“Just do it!” she ordered walking out of the room but paused, keeping the door open and turned to give Lance a skeptical look, “one more thing… also run a check on Alessandro Ricci, find out as much as you can about him.”

She walked out and was immediately accompanied by Antonio and Richard.

“Where is he?” she asked them, who were still in the same attire and looked just as restless and tired as her but didn’t lose determination.

“The 8th room...” Richard informed, he held a fiery tone, obviously angered at the man who killed his partner.

“Is he ready to talk?” Amy asked, pausing in front of the metal door, that had a small tainted glass window at the normal skull height. She looked through the glass and saw Ben chained to the table, head down to his feet, seated on the metal chair. He sat back relaxed and perplexed, holding a smug expression on his face.

“The bastard didn’t say a word.” Antonio spoke, before looking at Richard, who had holding his hips on both side and puffing in pure anger.

She nodded her head and went inside the room. She walked in furiously, confident dripping her tone and fierceness embracing her like warmth in fire, yet her gaze cold as ice.

She extended her arm on the table and leaned ahead, “Ben Grime!”

She called him by his biological name, earning a surprised reaction from him. Suddenly his smug expression was lost. Amy smirked, knowing that she was already winning this.

“So, Ben or sniper or whatever you should know, I don’t like wasting time. So, you either tell me who hired you to kill…” she took her time to build the tension inside Ben’s heart, knowing that he would think in too deep and lose his confidence, “… to kill Alessandro Ricci.”

Again, it took Ben by surprise and she continued.

“I know, Paul got killed by accident, you shot from the top of DeLide and was aiming for Ricci but unfortunately Davic got killed. Now tell me who hired you to do that?”

Ben set back for a moment, his breath growing heavy by every second, he couldn’t come to think but suddenly he relaxed back, again holding a smirk down his ugly lips.

“I want to make my call! I want to use my right to attorney.”

Amy moved her jaw sideways, slightly smirking.

“Funny, you know this arrest isn’t documented.” She paused and finally grabbed the chair nearby and sat on it, “Just like your children in the north island of Philippines.”

The color on Ben’s face drained hearing that. He suddenly felt an utter chill taking over his entire body, feeling restless he began trembling. The chain holding his arms and legs together felt like drenching him, so he began screaming.

“You b***h!” he screamed on top of his lungs, finally losing his cool. Amy smirked hard, knowing she finally hit a nerve.

“As we speak, the Asian interpole is knocking at their door…” Amy continued speaking despite his loud struggles and Richard and Antonio looked at it slightly feeling in power, through the double-sided mirror in the monitoring room. Amy relaxed back on her chair, keeping her feet up on the table.

“They probably are telling your wife and children how their assassin father is arrested by the Spanish intelligence and is being interrogated and as he has refused to speak any further, so unfortunately the interpole would then have to interrogate your family, now what do you have, two daughters and a son?” Amy pouted innocently playing coy, while being in complete power.

Ben felt out of breath and helpless, his body quivering thinking how the police may hurt his family.

“Please don’t hurt my family…” he pleased with tears becoming visible in his eyes.

Amy pounded her palm on the desk, creating a loud frightening thud, “Then f*****g speak.”

Ben caught his breath, “Promise me you won’t hurt my family.”

“Speak!” she stood affirm.

Feeling helpless Ben sighed and spoke up;

“I was in Philippines with my family when I got a call for a job, a week ago. They sent me transport and everything and the prime target was Alessandro Ricci and gave me complete excess to DeLide but asked me to hold until I get the call. Which was until the final moment of the game, when they saw The Royal Madrid winning and called me again telling me to kill Alessandro but Paul got shot instead and then; a few hours later I got a call from a different number, they threatened me to kill my family if I didn’t finish the job, so I went to the hotel in hopes of killing Alessandro.”

“And that snipper on the roof?” Amy insisted.

“I didn’t know about him…”

She nodded her head, walking out of the room. Richard and Antonio joined her as she roamed nervously in the corridor, trying to pin all the pieces of information in her head. She slumped on the plain wooden bench, held up against the wall opposite to the door she exited.

“Did you interrogate the snipper, yet?” She asked Antonio, who nodded.

“Yeah, He is another outsource freelancer. He says he was told about some drug bust that he had to kill some people and also we checked his background, ID and contacts it leads to Jess Dean.”

Restlessly, she held her head in her hands, resting her elbows on her knees.

The corridor crunched with approaching feet, and she looked sideways and groaned watching Arturo approach her and Fred trailing him.

“What is going on?” he whispered yelled at her, “How long would it take, Minister Suarez herself is here and is getting constant calls from the Prime Minister… I need answers Amy!”

The pressure over her mind increased by several folds, and suddenly the ability for her brain to work anymore seemed to cease.

The door at the further corner of the room opened up and Lance stuck his head out, looking both ways and finally finding Amy sitting on the further corner. He yelled towards her, gaining everyone’s attention.

“Amy! You have to see this.”

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