Scott lunged forward, but the man behind him was ready for it and wrapped his arm around Scott's neck and dug his pis-tol into Scott's ear. "Easy there, tiger," he whispered.
Jones smiled. "I understand you've already met Capitán Delgado."
"Let her go," Scott shouted at the fat Mexican cop.
Delgado smiled. Then, laying on his accent even thicker, sounding almost like a cartoon caricature of a Mexican, like Speedy Gonzales, he said, "No, señor, I don't think I will let her go." He untangled his fingers from Victoria's blond hair, then stroked it. "In fact, your wife is very pretty, so I think I'll hold on to her for a little while."
Jones cleared his throat to get everyone's attention. "As I said, this is not a negotiation, and I am in a bit of a hurry. So, Agent Greene, I want you to give me the flash drive right now, or you will live just long enough to see a bullet go through your wife's head, then your son's, then your daugh-ter's."
Captain Delgado pressed his pistol harder into Victoria's neck. She winced at the pain and cried out, "Scott."
"It's hanging around my neck," Scott said.
Jones looked at him for a moment, then nodded at the man behind Scott. The man released the chokehold and backed his pistol out of Scott's ear. Jones also glanced at Captain Delgado, who rather reluctantly let go of Victoria.
Scott felt the pistol dig into his spine. He pulled the flash drive from around his neck and tossed it to Jones, who caught it by the lanyard. He held the drive up at eye level. "All this trouble," he said, "for what's on this piece of plas-tic." He looked at Scott. "What's it weigh do you think, an ounce, maybe less? And what did it cost the Chinese to manufacture it in one of their child labor factories, fifty cents? But how many people have died for it?"
"You should know," Scott said. "You killed most of them. Or had it done. I doubt you have the balls to actually do it yourself."
Jones smiled and lowered the flash drive. "Agent Greene, unless I am terribly mistaken about you, and I don't think I am, you are much too smart to have seriously be-lieved you were going to get out of this alive."
"No, I didn't," Scott said. "That's why I saved a copy and attached it to two emails." He glanced at his watch. "In fifty-two minutes, those emails will go out, one to The Washington Post, the other to The New York Times. Unless we all walk out of here." It was a lie, but a lie told with con-viction was hard to distinguish from the truth. He just hoped he was telling this one with enough conviction.
"You see," Jones said, still smiling, "I knew I was right about you. And I admire your determination and resource-fulness. But you don't fully understand the dynamics of the situation you're in. And that's my fault. So let me explain. First, I have no way of knowing how many copies of this video you or anyone else has made." Jones dangled the flash drive for emphasis. "Second, I don't even know if this is the only copy that Deputy Attorney General Oscar Ramirez had. Third, and most important, I have absolutely no doubt that one day, probably one day soon, this video will show up on YouTube or Facebook or Twitter, and then it will be all over the cable news networks."
Scott raised his hands in an all-encompassing gesture. "Then why all this?"
Jones dangled the flash drive again to emphasize his point. "Because I've never seen it. I just want to know what all the fuss is about."
Not knowing what to say to that, Scott just stared at Jones.
"And," Jones said, "because I needed you."
"Me?" Scott said. "Why?"
"I can manage the video coming out. Reporters who think they're on to a big story are the easiest people in the world to control. But what I can't manage is you on TV or in front of a Congressional committee."
Now Scott understood. "Because I'm the provenance."
"Exactly," Jones said. "The proof that the video is ex-actly what it appears to be, an illegal pact, an unholy alliance, if you will, between the most powerful country on the planet and the world's richest drug cartel. But without you, it's just a leaked undercover video, showing a sincere, but ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to convince the leader of the Sinaloa cartel that he was dealing with a rogue element of the U.S. government in order to trick him into delivering tons of cocaine into the hands of American law enforcement."
"How did you find out the video even existed?" Scott asked. Jones liked to hear himself talk, so Scott wanted to keep him talking. If nothing else, it would buy him a few more seconds to think of something to do.
Jones shoved the flash drive into the pocket of his suit coat. Then he gestured toward Benny with his pistol. "It was your friend, Officer Alvarez, who tipped us off."
Scott turned to Benny. She stared back at him, her eyes wide with confusion. "I swear I didn't tell them anything."
"Don't judge her too harshly," Jones said. "She's telling the truth, as far as she knows it."
Looking back at Jones, Scott said, "What do you mean?"
"I don't know if you are aware of this, but she has a...fiduciary relationship with Humberto Larios and Los Zetas."
"She told me," Scott said, feeling suddenly protective of Benny.
"Good," Jones said. "That makes it easier to explain. So you see, when Officer Alvarez called Señor Larios and told him about the video, we..." He nodded to the G.I. Joe stand-ing beside him. "Really it was my associate here and his technical team, but in the royal sense it was we, were moni-toring Señor Larios' telephones on behalf of our client, Señor Gutierrez, and so we informed our client about the existence of the video and who had it."
"Mike Cassidy," Scott said.
Jones nodded. "Yes."
A long moment of silence hung in the air. Jones looked smug, seemingly pleased with himself for being magnani-mous enough to fill in some of the missing pieces for the condemned.
Then a new voice cut the silence. "I wondered how that fat fuck found out about the video." And Humberto Larios stepped in through a small side door to Scott's right. Larios wore jeans and a tan guayabera shirt and carried an M-16 ri-fle.