North America Gunman Detective

Chapter 1304 - 710: Selling Out Teammates (Part 2)

They were not satisfied with these results. After confirming that the three people were ready to be discharged from the hospital, they immediately arranged for everyone to return to Salt Lake City with the suspects and collected evidence. Fortunately, the distance between the two places was not far, and although it was quite a hassle, they successfully got these three unlucky guys seated in the FBI interrogation room.

"Officer Yang?" Jimmy and Hope were about to head to the interrogation room when an agent passing by suddenly called out. Jimmy turned his head and glanced, "Are you calling me?"

"It's really you, Officer. I graduated from Quantico two years ago and was assigned to Salt Lake City." The agent shook hands with Jimmy.

Jimmy awkwardly shook his hand and ended the conversation after a couple of casual words, continuing on his way to the interrogation room.

Seeing Hope looking a bit puzzled, Jimmy explained while walking, "A few years ago, I was transferred to Quantico as a firearms instructor for one term. I also did some case explanations, and a few cases I handled were included in the academy's curriculum."

Hope stopped in his tracks, staring at Jimmy's back. Is the gap between people really so big? Jimmy seemed to be only about 30 years old. How did he manage to achieve this?

Jimmy made a sound, "Hmm?" and turned to look at Hope. Hope shook his head, continuing forward, deciding to handle the interrogation first.

Hammer was the primary target for Jimmy and his team. The three of them split into three small groups for separate interrogations. Jimmy's team took on Hammer; this target was impossible to allocate to anyone else.

The routine questioning ended quickly, primarily just confirming identities, asking about basic information like his residence — these questions were not difficult but necessary, with another being to confirm the other party's identity. After that, it became more complicated. Hammer didn't have a frequent incarceration record in the FBI database, but it was obvious he was quite familiar with the interrogation process, insisting on having a lawyer present before answering questions. Moreover, he hadn't appointed a lawyer and required the government to provide a free one.

Currently, they were in the Salt Lake City office's interrogation room, which made some matters quite cumbersome. Dealing with an old hand familiar with the process forced Jimmy and the team to pause the interrogation and notify the office to help find a lawyer.

Stalling for time wasn't very meaningful; there isn't much a lawyer can do while present. When Jimmy and the team resumed the interrogation, they directly placed the evidence they had in front of Hammer. Although it was mainly verbal content, the FBI's evidence was already sufficient to be handed over to the Federal Prosecutor.

The witness was Mark from Washington, D.C., the physical evidence was the rescued girls, the small cabin in Kalin City, Missouri, where Hammer's fingerprints were detected, and the clothing of the girl from Washington, which was in the pile in the corner with bloodstains on them. Even though some time had passed, comparisons could still be made. They were at fault for not promptly dealing with past leftovers; otherwise, securing direct evidence against Hammer would indeed be challenging.

The lawyer assigned to Hammer, after hearing the evidence presented by Jimmy and his team, also gave up. He asked Jimmy and the team to leave and, after closing the monitoring, talked with Hammer for a long time. In the end, it was still up to the lawyer to negotiate with Jimmy's team, hoping to reach an outcome that was satisfactory for everyone.

Jimmy shook his head: "With organized crime, human trafficking, kidnapping, illegal detention, child abuse, rape, sexual rights violations of minors, assaulting federal agents — these charges add up to at least a hundred years in prison. It's not that simple to negotiate a deal."

Jimmy stood up, adjusted his suit, and said to the lawyer, "You'd better talk to him again. A deal needs both parties to be satisfied. The current situation is that he hasn't understood the consequences he's facing. Just firing a shot at me in the bar, that's at least a ten-year sentence. Attacking a federal agent, especially after I identified myself, do you think the federal prosecutor would abandon such a clear-cut case?"

Jimmy patted Hope, and the two turned to leave the meeting room. The lawyer sighed, had no choice but to return to the interrogation room to talk with Hammer again. Those charges Jimmy described are concrete; and these are already confirmed. There might be other charges not yet verified, and to achieve a significant sentence reduction, Hammer would need to give a lot in return.

Jimmy and Hope left the meeting room, heading to their temporary workspace. "Hope, you handle the negotiations later. I need him to provide new leads and criminals, to uproot everyone tied to this line."

Hope: "Not much chance of that. The more he confesses, the more charges pile up; I shouldn't expect too many rewards."

Jimmy: "Try to get some advantages out of it. If you can't reach a deal, I'll keep the pressure on."

Hope: "Got it."

The classic good cop, bad cop. Jimmy's toughness was witnessed by Hammer and his team firsthand. Threats coming from someone like him were genuinely menacing, much more so than from average FBI agents. In the past, all such disagreeable negotiations had to be handled by Jimmy himself. Now, with Hope, a senior agent from headquarters, he could be more at ease.

Aside from his normal investigation duties, Hope needed to supplement detailed reports at each stage. These reports wouldn't serve as the final reports but could be used as the foundation. At the time, parts of these reports could be extracted and polished to form the final report.