Chapter 50

“In the end, he’s starting to panic...”

There were people observing the situation in the room from a place the others could not see. From the moment William entered, a clear flicker of panic had appeared in Mr. Fox’s eyes. Their plan had succeeded.

Most criminals, when arrested alone, were not all that frightened. They could choose what to confess, avoid the important points, or push certain problems onto someone else, thereby lightening their own guilt.

But when two or more accomplices were caught, an uncontrollable panic would begin spreading through them. They would start wondering whether the others had confessed, what they had confessed to, how they had done it, and whether what had been said matched what they themselves had thought or planned.

Under those circumstances, there were usually two outcomes. The first was complete silence. That type was rare, so rare one might not see one in three to five years. The second was the opposite, they talked and talked, held nothing back, and spilled everything.

The Financial Crimes Investigation Division was only one office among many, but it still belonged to the Federation FBI. They dealt with criminals all day long. They knew how to apply pressure, and they knew how to get what they wanted.

The moment William entered the room, he saw that Mr. Fox wanted to rise, but had not yet done so. The situation was delicate. After giving him a reassuring look, William calmly sat down on the sofa.

That calm display settled Mr. Fox down. Some things he had failed to think of earlier began surfacing in his mind, for example ... William’s insistence that he must never take small change from other people.

Perhaps William had anticipated all of this long ago. Perhaps he had made arrangements already. With that thought, the tension in Mr. Fox’s face began to ease, and his body loosened as well.

In the other room, the expert frowned. He had seen every change in Mr. Fox’s expression. Though he did not understand why William’s appearance had not increased Mr. Fox’s pressure, but instead seemed to relax him, it was clearly not a good sign.

He immediately ordered the field team in the room to continue, not to wait for the lawyer to arrive. At the same time, a suspicion took root in his mind, one he barely believed himself. In this entire case, the man truly in command was not Mr. Fox, the old fox, but that utterly ordinary-looking young man.

Because of that, a sense of impending failure rose in him. They had misjudged the hierarchy from the outset. The setup they had built was aimed at the wrong man. The methods they applied were therefore wrong as well. And if the method was wrong, the result could not possibly be right.