Chapter 358: Taking blame

"Who helped you to enter the Intelligence?" Valarie repeated her question and when she did not receive any answer from the man, she gave Ryder one look. Taking it as his cue, Ryder pulled Frederick's hand behind him and twisted it, and a sharp howl erupted in the cell. Ryder did not hesitate to twist it further making it more painful and Frederick yelled at the top of his voice, asking him to stop. Ryder did not have to be told twice. He stopped his actions immediately but he held Frederick's hand in his.

"Valarie, you are abusing your position. You cannot do this to me." The man threatened, his eyes turning vile and deadly. 

"Oh, I can. I can threaten you and do a lot more." Valarie looked at her fingernails and blew at them as though she was trying to clean the dust before she went back to staring at Frederick. "You can try me if you want. But it will not be pleasant for you."

"Valarie.."

"Enough." This time Valarie had lost all her patience and she yelled at Frederick, her gaze intimidating. Witnessing her this way made Frederick to lose his mind. He was rendered speechless seeing her domineering attitude. "I want you to answer me. Don't try to stall for time as nobody will come for your help. It's best that you confess everything soon. I don't mind if you are being stubborn as I have my ways to make you speak. That will only make you lose your limbs. Your choice."

With that, Valarie sat down on her chair and took a sip from the bottle of water beside her chair. 'This man is more stubborn than I thought him to be. I will have to deal with him carefully.'

"Let's start again. Who helped you to get inside?" Frederick knew that he could not evade the question any longer. So, he answered her. Anyway, the man he was going to talk about was dead already. So, there was no use in him not revealing it. "David Peters."

His answer surprised all three people. But they could make out the situation more or less. "I see. Birds of the same feather flock together. So, David Peters was working with you even before you joined the Intelligence. How intriguing!!"

Frederick did not comment a thing as his hand was still in Ryder's hold and he did not want to end up losing one of his limbs. 

"Next question. Although I want to know who else is working with you, I know you will not answer me without creating more drama and dragging my time. So, I will keep this question aside for now. If David Peters was the one to help you smuggle the virus inside the country, who helped you to smuggle the poison? Sarin is banned by international law and there is no way you could have passed the customs officer. Who helped you this time?"

Hearing her question, Frederick started to chuckle which slowly turned into laughter. He was laughing like a maniac now. But neither Valarie nor Preston and Ryder were affected by it. They waited until the man stopped laughing and Valarie raised an eyebrow seeing the man's confident smile return on his smile.

Now that, everything was out in the open, Frederick decided to go all in. He had nothing to lose anyway. He was already caught and nothing he said or did could stop him from getting punished. Also, the President himself was involved in dealing with his matter. So, nobody could save him, not even Jared.

"You will not get an answer from me for this. You can break my limbs if you or even kill me. But I will not tell you. Anyway, what use it is for you to know about a dead man?" Frederick sassed and placed his hands under his chin.

"Dead? If I am not wrong, you said that he was dead." Valarie repeated his words to confirm it once again and received a nod in return. "It is not possible to fool all the customs officers given that there will be a lot of checking when you import something. So, the man who helped you must have been in a powerful position."

Valarie tried to deduce who it might have been while maintaining eye contact with Frederick. "Preston, can you tell me all the powerful people who died recently? Especially after the virus issue."

Preston thought for a while, wondering what Valarie was trying to do. Nevertheless, he still followed her orders and started to name all the people he could remember who had passed away in the last few months. However, none of them seemed to match with the identity Valarie had in mind. 

"And there was General Simon Moore." As soon as Preston took his name, something snapped in Valarie's mind.

"Wait." She stopped him immediately. "General Simon Moore." She dragged his name slowly and observed the changes in Frederick. The man had clearly reacted when Preston had taken his name, although it was very subtle. "Don't you think that the man died mysteriously and under usual circumstances?"

Valarie's question stunned Ryder and Preston and they stared at her in horror. They knew that she was only deducing it right now and they had not yet found any clues regarding his death. If what she said was the truth, then it was possible that Frederick was the one who killed him. 

Moreover, what was even more troubling was that the Chief of the Army was involved in such a shady dealing. How shameful!!! They had never expected the case to turn out this way and could not help but wonder what more they would be finding out by the end of the day.

"So, it was Simon Moore who helped you in this. That's a new twist we have in the story. But what I cannot comprehend is why did you kill the man? Wouldn't it be more helpful if he was alive?"

"Why do you think I killed him?" Frederick knew that everything that he had buried was coming out one by one and he could not allow anybody else in his gang to get caught. So, he prepared to face everything head-on and take all the blame himself.

"I am not too sure. So, I am asking you."

"He was becoming a nuisance in my plans. So, I had to remove him from my path. His love for the country was taking over his mind and he threatened me. So, I ended his life."

"Hmm." Valarie nodded at him. However, seeing him give away the answers easily made her doubt him. She had a hunch that he was trying to do something. But she could not decipher what his intentions were. "So, you were the one responsible for the virus attack which got foiled because of us. And then, you decided to use poison to achieve your goals. Am I right?"

"Yes. I did not know when your team had found out about the virus. If I did, then I would have stopped you from taking the case." Frederick answered honestly. He had no idea when his juniors had found out about the case. Otherwise, he would have suppressed the matter long ago.

"Do you imply that you used these two techniques so that many people would get affected and you could then remove organs from them?"

"Yes."

"I see. In that case, shall I assume that you were the one who killed my father too?"