After a brief moment of panic, Alexander Denning regained his composure, even sporting the typical businessman's smile. "Okay, who are you?"
Frank and Marvin exchanged a glance before slowly speaking. "So you don't remember us? But we do remember you. In 1992, it was you who sent us to Guatemala to help clean up the mess.
Now the question is, who was that low-ranking officer you had Gabriel Singer take away on a plane? Was he worth the trouble to kill and silence him all these years later?"
"Hahaha, so that's how it is. You little bastards have no idea what kind of trouble you've gotten yourself into." The old man actually laughed out loud, and it was unclear whether he was genuinely calm or just pretending.
"First of all, I know you wouldn't dare touch a hair on my head."
"Pa!" Without waiting for him to finish his words, he looked at the stunned Marvin with a stern face and slapped him on the other side of the face.
The blow was quite powerful. While it didn't knock Denning unconscious, it did cause him to see stars, and it took him a long time to recover.
Seeing that his cheek, originally swollen on one side, had regained its symmetry, Marvin nodded in satisfaction and began to put on a large plastic bag.
Watching him unpack tools from his briefcase—a grilling blowtorch, a car repair screwdriver, a vise, and so on—Frank casually asked, "Where did you get all this?"
"Home Depot, where should we start? Balls, tits, or anus?" Marvin showed Frank the tools one by one, grinning like a pervert.
"No!" Denning swallowed.
Frank pressed the gas-filled blowtorch, and a beautiful blue flame roared out. "Balls."
Jack, standing deliberately behind Denning, sighed coldly. "Did you forget to bring masks? This place is going to smell terrible."
"Stop!" The old man was clearly panicking, his initial composure gone. "For God's sake, stop!"
Marvin brought the vise close to the nozzle of the blowtorch, heating it up right in front of him, unmoved. The scorching airstream made Denning's eyes twitch.
"You used to be from the CIA, so you should have received anti-interrogation training, right? Why don't you hold on a little longer and try to figure out if those FBI, ATF, and CIA guys out there who are watching you might notice something's wrong and rush in to save you?"
Jack whispered a sarcastic remark in his ear.
Denning squeezed his legs together, closed his eyes, and yelled, "I took a lieutenant with me. He's the son of Senator James Bracken!"
As expected, Jack smiled, "You're saying that Senator Robert Bracken, who just became the Democratic Party's vice presidential candidate, committed war crimes overseas?"
"Yes, that idiot, high on drugs, led a group of people to massacre an entire village, killing everyone there, from women to children. I had to fly over overnight to help clean up the mess!"
Denning said, nodding frantically. "I was just a nobody back then, I had no right to refuse."
"What about that female reporter from the New York Times? Did she find you?" Frank ignored his self-defense and continued to ask.
"Yes, I don't know how she found me, but she called me twice, so I told little Bracken about it."
Denning said as a matter of course, "What happened after that has nothing to do with me."
Jack had to admit he had a certain amount of admiration for the old man; he was truly adept at playing dumb.
He was clearly the one pulling all the strings, and Cynthia was most likely following his orders. But with the foolishness he displayed, even if Jack told Frank and Marvin the truth, they'd have a hard time believing him.
After much hesitation, he abandoned the idea of finding an excuse to kill Denning.
It wasn't that Jack didn't know what to do next, having strayed from the original plot, but killing the old man now might allow Robert Bracken to escape justice, leaving Beckett's mother's revenge unfulfilled.
Seeing the time was about right, Jack winked at Frank, who nodded knowingly and punched Denning once more.
Marvin opened the door to the secret room and handed Jack a walkie-talkie.
"The CIA just arrived, and I saw an FBI SWAT team. You're almost surrounded," Victoria said calmly, as if discussing the weather.
"I also saw that CIA guy you mentioned. He just drove up."
"Proceed as planned." Jack took the barbecue torch from Frank.
"
Why did Browning Orvis (Alexander Denning) become Frank's target? Where did the tip come from? What's his connection to Frank Moses?"
Cooper, who had hurried to New York from Virginia, asked a series of questions.
"An anonymous tip: your current mission is to get rid of Frank. Be careful not to let the FBI mess around. Also, make sure Browning Orvis is alive. He is very important to us."
Cynthia on the other end of the phone had no intention of explaining. After giving the order, she warned sinisterly, "Don't you think you have too many problems, Cooper? This is not a mistake a good action agent should make."
"Okay." Seeing a team of SWAT team members checking guns by the woods, Cooper slammed on the brakes and stopped. "Then the last question, which one has a higher priority, killing Frank or keeping Browning Orvis alive?"
Cynthia on the other end of the phone seemed to be choked. She paused for a few seconds before gritting her teeth and said, "Priority is to keep Browning Orvis alive."
Hearing the beep of the phone being hung up in the headset, Cooper couldn't help but twitch his mouth, and a sentence Jack said to him last night emerged in his mind.
"Your superior, Cynthia, is nothing but a dog who obeys orders. Our goal is to find all those involved with her and root them out."
"The SWAT team will be deployed in five minutes. The people inside can't escape." An agent in an FBI jacket took the initiative to greet Cooper, who had just gotten out of the car, and stuffed a telescope into his hand.
"Tell them to act immediately and ensure the safety of the hostages in the villa." Cooper picked up the telescope and looked at the villa.
To be honest, Cooper also wanted to know how the people in the villa planned to escape if Jack told him not to intervene.
He himself was an FBI agent, so was he planning to engage in a head-on firefight with the FBI SWAT officers on the scene?
However, just as several SWAT teams were about to deploy and surround the villa from all sides, two crisp gunshots suddenly rang out from the woods, followed by a loud bang, and the extended Lincoln parked at the door of the villa exploded into a pile of flames.
(End of this chapter)