“Alright, come on. Let’s get you set.”

++++

After navigating through security and situating Tessa on a bench in the lobby, I took the elevator to the fourth floor, where we processed and interviewed offenders.

The joint task force tracking Blake consisted of half a dozen different alphabet soup law enforcement agencies including ICE, the DEA, and the NYPD, but we were lead on this, so the interview would take place here rather than at one of the NYPD precincts.

DeYoung was waiting for me.

“Does Greer know that Mannie agreed to talk?” I asked as he briskly led me down the hall toward the interview room where Mannie was being held.

“I contacted him. He’s working from home today. But I’m sure if we need him to come in, he’ll make the trip.”

“And Mannie said he’ll only speak to me?”

“Yes. What are you going to say to him?”

“Whatever I need to in order to convince him to give us Blake.”

“Before you offer him any deals, run them by me so I can have our lawyers approve them.”

“Right.”

He put his hand on my shoulder. “No, I’m serious, Pat.”

“I hear you.” But I also knew that I couldn’t let legal wrangling get in the way of us bringing in a guy on our Ten Most Wanted list.

“I’ll have another agent join you in the interview room,” DeYoung offered, removing his hand.

“No.” I shook my head. “Mannie said he only wants to speak with me, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then I go in alone so we don’t short-circuit getting the info we need. I’ll be fine.”

“It’s standard operating procedure in a situation like this to have a secondary—”

“This is not a standard suspect.”

DeYoung sighed. “Alright.” He glanced at his watch. “He calls his lawyer in an hour. Let’s see what you can find out before then.”

++++

I passed through the observation room where DeYoung and one of the Bureau’s lawyers would be watching from the other side of the two-way mirror.

A computer tech I didn’t know was seated at a console managing the video feed, and as I walked past, I could see Mannie through the glass, waiting in the adjacent room, seated behind a formidable steel table, with each wrist separately manacled and chained to a metal loop on the top of it, all of which made sense to me. If he was strong enough to wrench a car door off a chassis, I imagined he was also strong enough to escape from a pair of standard handcuffs.

Despite what you might hear, even with a restrained suspect, you don’t typically take a gun into an interview room. The chance that he could get free and acquire your weapon in an enclosed area such as that is deemed too great, but in this case, DeYoung said, “Don’t go in there unarmed.”