Shea said, "I'll be there by noon. Your witness to come at 2:00. He gets full protection." Stone said full cooperation agreement if his information is accurate. Shea said based on what you've described it will be a pause.
Mr. Walker don't let them take anything. If they show up before I arrive you call me immediately and you do not consent to any search. Know my rights. Stone said "I know you do," Shea said I'm saying it anyway. He hung up.
Stone looked at Anna, who had a bag over one shoulder and the documentation folders under her arm, he said. And Anna, she stopped at the door, he said. She looked at him steadily, she said, and walked out. Jen arrived at the bar at 11:20. He did not come with three officers this time with five and a man in a suit who introduced himself as assistant county council and who handed Stone a document document before Stone had a chance to say a word.
Stone took the document. Read it. It was a warrant to seize business records related to an ongoing investigation into alleged illegal activities at the Last Ride Tavern. Read it twice. Then he looked at Harrington was wearing the expression of a man who believed he had just played a winning hand.
Something almost relaxed about him. The particular ease of a man who had spent three years making problems go away and had become confident in his ability to do it again. You will need access to your office, Harrington said. You'll need to wait, Stone said. Harrington's relaxed expression tightened.
Is being reviewed by my attorney, Stone said. He held up his phone. On the screen was a call in progress. She's on the line right now and she would like to speak with the county council. He handed the phone to the man in the suit and the suit took it with visible discomfort and walked away from the group had called the attorney, a woman named Patricia Slade who practiced in Billings and who owed him a favor that he had never previously collected at 6:00 that morning before Reeves called because the previous evening he decided that he should probably have legal representation standing by regardless.
Trisha had answered at 6 a.m. Without complaint, which told him everything he needed to know about the kind of professional she was. Then looked at Stone. " You're stalling," he said. " I'm exercising my legal rights," Stone said. I find when I do that, people accuse me of stalling.
How that works. Harrington stepped closer. He dropped his voice so the other officers couldn't hear it clearly. " You think what you're doing is going to protect you?" He said, "Tell you something about small towns, old man.
The people you've been talking to, Rosie, Gerald Park, Dutch Hendricks, they all live here. They all have businesses here. They have families here. When this falls apart, and it will fall apart, they are going to remember that you were the one who put them in the middle of something dangerous." When looked at him for a long moment. "
You just threatened witnesses," Stone said, off in front of your own officers. I'm going to need you to remember that you did that. Jin's face went through something complicated. Have no idea. He started agent Shea Stone said the name the way you dropped something heavy on a table without drama watching the impact.
Harrington stopped. Name clearly registered. Something shifted behind his eyes. You say Harrington said FBI Stone saidings field office public corruption division be here in approximately. Stone glanced at his watch give or take.
The silence that followed was the loudest thing Stone had heard since Tommy Briggs had said then were coming on the phone 6 days ago. Then stared at him and for the first time in everything that had passed between them, Stone saw it. The thing he had known was under there, under all the smiling menace and the casual cruelty and the practiced authority. All of it. Fear.
Real cold physical fear. The county council came back and handed Stone his phone without making eye contact with Harrington. When the warrant has procedural issues, he said carefully. We'll need to revisit the filing. Harrington turned to him.
There are procedural issues with the warrant. The county council said again. Voice carried the specific tone of a man who had just been in informed of information on that phone call that had changed his assessment of which side of this situation he wanted to be on. We step back and consult before proceeding. I'm not stepping back, Harrington said.
Cole, the county council's voice was low. FBI is involved. " Step back." The two men stared at each other. Then Harrington turned and looked at Stone one more time.
Whatever was in his face in that moment was layered anger, fear, then disbelief, and underneath it all the dawning comprehension of a man who had operated for 3 years in a landscape he controlled completely and was now standing in a landscape that had changed while he wasn't paying attention. He walked out. His officers followed. The county council followed last and he paused at the door and looked back at Stone with an expression that was not quite an apology, but was in the general direction of one. Stone said nothing.
He waited until the last cruiser left the parking lot. One. Then he sat down on a bar stool and stayed there for a full minute, breathing steadily, letting the adrenaline that he had kept carefully contained for the last hour move through his system and out the other side. His hands were steady. They had always been steady when it counted.
But she would have again. He thought about Eleanor of said, watching him stare down a corrupt deputy in an empty bar at 11:30 in the morning with an FBI agent 40 minutes away and 650 motorcycles 2 days out. Would have said, "Don't get cocky, William. You haven't won yet." Ting on.
She would have been right. He picked up his phone and called Anna. He said when she answered, they left. When Shay's 40 minutes out, Reeves at 2:00, "Get back here when you can, but keep the documentation at your place until she clears it." " Okay," Anna said. "
I'm good," he said. Stone, he said again. " Really?" A pause. " I'm on my way," she said.