"Three years ago, someone approached Carl. He was in financial trouble—not catastrophic, but serious enough that he made a bad decision. He took money from people he shouldn't have. When I found out, I tried to extract him from it. The people he was involved with made it clear that extracting him was not an option." He paused. "They had documentation. Things that would have destroyed Carl's family, my sister's marriage, my sister's children. They said if I cooperated—provided access, provided schedule information when they needed it—Carl's debt would be cleared and the documentation would disappear." He looked up. "They lied about the bomb," he said. "I don't expect that to matter legally, but it is the truth."
The room was very quiet.
Adrian thought about the 2019 kidnapping threat: Marcus in the vehicle, steady and quick, putting himself in the path of danger without hesitation. He thought about the dozens of conversations in this room, the decisions made together, the trust extended and received over more than a decade. He thought about what it cost a person to carry three years of this.
"How long have they been coercing you?" he asked.
"The first request came thirty-seven months ago."
"And you told no one."
"I couldn't." Marcus said it simply, without self-pity. "The documentation they had... it would have destroyed people who had nothing to do with any of this. I made a calculation. I kept making it."
Adrian stood up. He walked to the window. Below, the city moved with its usual indifference.
"Thomas is going to come in," he said, without turning around. "And we're going to do this properly. You understand what that means?"
"I understand," Marcus said.
"I need you to give them everything: every contact, every request, every piece of information you passed. Everything."
"I intend to."
Adrian turned back around. He looked at Marcus for a long moment: not with warmth, not with cold, but with the particular expression of someone who has arrived at a truth they did not want and is choosing deliberately to hold it steady.
"I don't forgive this," he said. "But I believe you about the bomb."
Marcus nodded once. Then he picked up his company-issued phone, set it on the desk, and placed his credentials badge beside it. He stood up, straightened his jacket, and waited.
Thomas entered the room four minutes later. He did not look surprised to find Marcus sitting there quietly, badge on the desk. He had spent twelve years working alongside this man, and he had spent the last several days building the case against him; both of those things were true at once, and Thomas Garrett did not resolve contradictions by pretending they didn't exist.