Page 65 of Letting Go
Vivian
I’m sure I’ll be fine, and I can always reach out to one of my brothers too. Please be safe. I’ll talk to you soon.
Me
Thanks, Sugar. I will.
Vivian reacts with a heart to my last text message, and I slide the phone back in my pocket. I pick up my go bag and walk toward the elevators as my team members arrive with their own go bags. The drive is easy; we take turns napping, researching any clues, and give each other a hard time. But when we arrive in Kansas City eight hours later—thanks to Kelly’s lead foot driving—no one is joking around.
Chapter thirty-five
Walker
Agent Nikki Patel kept us in the loop as we were en route to Kansas City. Agents had local police pick up Nam Smith in a routine traffic stop without incident and it was quite helpful of him to run a red light while in possession of an unregistered firearm. He’s waiting for us at the FBI’s Kansas City headquarters.
While traveling, Mason dug deeper into the minimal records for Matteo Galletti. We know he is a twenty-nine-year-old male that grew up in Spain until his mother’s death. There is no indication that Matteo’s father had anything to do with his son in any capacity until Matteo’s mother’s death. His father enrolled Matteo in a private military boarding school within a month of his mother’s passing.
Mason found an additional news article that featured Matteo’s sharpshooting skills after winning another regional competition. Matteo stated that his mother started teaching him everything she knew about shooting, including starting to teach him how to fire a gun when he was only four years old. The only record Mason has unearthed so far of Matteo ever being in the United States was seven years ago for a friendly sniper competition in California back when he was an active member of the Italian Army Special Forces Carabinieri. Eight days after his arrival, Matteo returned to Italy with his teammates. But if this is our guy, he’s obviously finding some way to get in and out of the country without official records of his movement.
It’s close to 5:30 a.m. when we arrive at the headquarters in Kansas City, and Nam Smith is in for quite the wake-up call. We make the necessary introductions before Nikki walks us to the interrogation room where they brought Nam after waking him up in his holding cell. I can see why Tara and Nikki keep in touch both personally and professionally, they are both outspoken, straightforward, and seem to be cut from the same cloth. For however long we’re in Kansas City, it feels like Nikki will work well with my team.
“Mason, I want you listening on the other side of the two-way mirror doing your thing and chasing any breadcrumbs he might drop. Harlow, can you also watch the interview with Mason? I want your take on anything that could be helpful, but I don’t want him to know we have a doctor observing him just yet. I’ll have my earpiece in if there’s anything significant. Kelly, I want you in with me. Based on Nikki’s interview with Luna, this guy might respond better to two men. We’ll be able to tell quickly if that’s a good approach but if it isn’t, Tara, I want you ready to swap out with Kelly if we need a nice person to come save him from us.”
“Sounds good, sir. What’s our codeword to initiate the swap?” Tara asks.
“I don’t want him to pick up on anything so let’s go with the word nap,” I tell her. My team nods, familiar with this set up, and everyone moves to their designated spots, along with a few members from Nikki’s team observing the interview with Mason, Harlow, and Tara. I tilt my head left and right toward my shoulders to stretch out my neck a bit, which feels tight from the brief sleep I caught on the way here. I take a deep breath and nod at Kelly. “Let’s do this.”
Nam Smith is a local leader with the Vietnamese Syndicate. He ranks high enough to oversee the Kansas City area metro, but not high enough to run anything outside of the Midwest. He was bornto Vietnamese immigrants, who anglicized their last name from Lâm to Smith when they arrived in the United States. He has an extensive rap sheet filled with every stereotypical mafia charge from money laundering and fraud to a plethora of assault and drug charges. When Luna mentioned his wife, Mason investigated her further and while Nam may be a big deal locally, she comes from a very powerful and dangerous family. Nam’s wife’s uncle is the head of the entire Vietnamese Syndicate throughout North America. Mason also found proof that this is the same Nam Smith that was the disgruntled former business associate of Van Tran, the on-again, off-again boyfriend of our third sniper victim, Kimberly Nguyen.
Walking into the interrogation room, Nam looks exhausted and annoyed. I guess he isn’t fond of the sleeping accommodations in an FBI holding cell. Nam’s shirt is wrinkled, but I suspect was crisply ironed at one point. His dark hair is disheveled, and he has bags under his eyes. I read in his file that he is five-foot-three and weighs one hundred and twenty pounds as of his arrest last night. “Good morning, Nam. My name is Special Agent Henry Walker Bennett, and this is my colleague Special Agent Kelly Shannon. We have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind,” I say as Kelly and I both take a seat across the table from him. Nam doesn’t say anything initially as he assesses us with narrow eyes.
“If you cooperate with us, it will help your case with a judge or jury,” Kelly tells him.
“I have nothing to say to either of you and I’d like to go back to sleep while I wait for my lawyer to bail me out on whatever bullshit charges you guys are trying to pin on me,” Nam sneers at us. I always try to start from a place of respect when I’m interrogating someone, but I don’t think he and I are going to be friends after this. Somehow, I think I’ll survive. “You can’t touch me, fed.”
“Now don’t be all hat and no cattle, Nam,” I tell him.
“I don’t have any cattle, what the hell, dude? Go back to whatever backwoods town you rolled out of; you’re out of your depth, fed.” Nam doesn’t get my Texan expression, but is quickly living up to my assumption that this guy thinks he’s a big deal. I hope I get to be the one to inform him of the reality of things. “I don’t know what you think you have, but it’s obviously not a fucking clue as to who I am.”
“Why don’t we start things off with some show and tell. It was always my favorite part of kindergarten,” I tell him as I open a folder in front of me, lifting it enough away from him so Nam can’t see what I’m reading. “I know it’s early but try to keep up with my train of thought here, Nam. I’ve heard you’re a smart man, but I guess we will see about that,” I say with a shrug.
“Did you just call me dumb? Are you insulting my intelligence, asshole?” Nam cocks his head at me as his nostrils flare. His temper was mentioned throughout his multiple arrest reports and that’s one of my favorite buttons to push with a suspect.
“I only call things like I see them,” I shrug.
“Oh yeah, and what is it that you think you see?” Nam scoffs at me.
“I think I see someone who is going to help me fill in some blanks and give me information that will be very helpful in an ongoing case of mine,” I reply confidently.
“Fuck that. Think again. I’m no snitch, and now I don’t even wanna talk to you. Where’s my fucking lawyer?!” Nam slams his fists down on the table as he yells the last part toward the door as if someone is waiting out there to run and fetch his attorney for him.
“You have every right to ask for an attorney to be present, Nam, and if that’s the route you want to go, that’s your right,” Kelly tells him as Nam nods in agreement.
“Although, I’m not sure if a temper tantrum is necessary. If you would rather not answer our questions, I think we can just geta team over to your house to ask your wife directly,” Kelly turns to me. “Do you think 6:30 a.m. is too early to ring her doorbell? There’s never a good time to find out your husband is cheating on you so maybe we could wait until 7 a.m.”
“Nope, hell no. The fuck you even talking about, man? Leave my wife alone, you can’t go to my house. What the hell, you have no right to go to my house!” Nam’s face is getting redder by the second, and I would bet if given the opportunity, Nam would punch Kelly in the face. Anger can be very helpful in an interrogation though because when someone is operating from a place of anger, they tend to lose their filter, and sometimes even logic.
It’s also a fun part of my job when I get to push a bad guy to lose control and break.
