I slapped the table and snapped, “Look at me.”
He jerked his head up.
“Mr. Downey, the CIA is going to walk away from you. They didn’t see the video. But I did. And Ms. Thomas did. And if you don’t convince me otherwise, I’m going to turn you in and we’re going to testify against you.”
He snuffled, used the tissues I handed him to mop his face, then sputtered weakly, “You’re giving me too much credit. I’m just a kid. And I don’t work for the CIA.”
Oh. Now I got it. June Freundorfer had said the FBI was interested in Chan. I guess they were interested in Muller, too.
“Who, then? The FBI?”
Downey nodded and his chest heaved. It was apparent that he was verging on another meltdown. I reached across the table and patted his hands.
“OK, Jeffrey. Tell me what you know. Don’t leave anything out. If I believe you, you can walk out of here today.”
Downey honked into the wad of tissues. He was still agitated and frightened, but he had moved in my direction.
He said, “All I know about the plane was that guy Joe asking the kids if they’d heard anything about a plane from Beijing. They hadn’t. I wasn’t even sent to learn about that. My peeps are all about crushing a Chinese spy ring.”
“What do you mean, ‘spy ring’?”
“I was paid to watch and listen, that’s all. If Chan was a spy, you know more than I do. Same for Muller. Is ‘the Prince of Gorgonzola’ a secret code? I don’t know. I just record what happens, and what happened is that those two got it on.”
“What do you know about Alison Muller?”
“For God’s sake. That’s what you want? I’ve got tape on her. Give me my laptop, I’ll show you what I’ve got.”
CHAPTER 83
DOWNEY HAD VIDEO of Alison Muller. He had video.
The barbed wire restraints around my chest dissolved and my heart did a happy dance, but I wasn’t about to let Jad know it. I asked him if he’d like something to drink while I got his computer, and shaking his head like a wet dog, he said no.
I left Interview 2, closed the door behind me, and asked Conklin, “What did you think?”
“He’s a foot soldier. I think he’s telling the truth.”
Conklin disappeared down the hall, and a long couple of minutes later he returned with Downey’s computer bag. I got two bottles of Voss out of the vending machine and went back into the interview room.
Downey opened his case and took out the laptop. Then he got up heavily from his chair, plugged the cord into a socket, scraped his chair this way and that, settled in, and booted up. It took a lifetime for him to cue up the video.
He said, “If you see something, say something, OK? Because I have followed this bitch a lot and nothing ever happens.”
Downey moved the laptop over to me, saying, “Usually, after I shoot the videos, I forward them same day to my boss. And then I delete them from my hard drive. Destroy them. I still have this one because it’s from the day when I told them my camera failed.”
“Gotcha,” I said, watching the blank screen expectantly.
“Here she is leaving her office at four-thirty,” Downey said. “She drove straight to the Four Seasons.”
I watched Ali Muller leave the office building with the Aptec logo over the door. She was
wearing the Gucci glasses, the swingy black leather coat, and her spike-heeled boots. She was speaking on her phone as she walked to her car in the underground garage.
Once she was in her car, Downey clicked on the icon for the next video in the playlist. When I saw the opening frames, it appeared to me that it had been shot by a dash cam in a car following Muller’s, which was exiting the garage.
Downey said, “Now, here comes one hour and ten minutes of drive time.”
“Go ahead and fast-forward,” I said.