“Had anyone here met you before?” Shaw asked quickly.
“We, my partners and I, prefer to keep a low profile. But we received regular reports.”
I’m sure you did, Shaw said to himself.
“Have you found any evidence that will lead to the people who did this?” Feng asked anxiously.
Royce shook his head. “No fingerprints, no shell casings, no trace at all, I’m afraid.” He did not mention the video feed.
“That is most discouraging.”
“But we did find one thing of interest, Mr. Feng,” Royce said. “Would you care to see? It’s a real eye-opener.”
CHAPTER 55
ARON LESNIK WOLFED DOWN HIS SANDWICH and drank his coffee in large slurps. Part of Katie was disgusted by his eating habits, and part of her was sympathetic. He must be terrified, she thought. Terrified, probably broke, and obviously hungry.
Lesnik wiped his mouth and let out a small sigh. He caught her staring at him and his features turned embarrassed. “Thank you for food.”
“You’re welcome. Do you mind if I use this?” She pulled out a mini-recorder.
“No. I tell you, but I don’t want people to hear me.” He looked around nervously. “I am scared.”
She put the recorder away. “Okay, I’ll just write it down.”
He relaxed and sat back.
“Now tell me everything you saw and heard,” she said.
Lesnik’s story only took a very few minutes. He’d been interviewing with an older man named Bill Harris on the second floor.
“Why weren’t you killed then?” Katie asked sharply.
“I go to the bathroom down the hall from his office,” Lesnik explained. When he was coming back he heard shots and screams. He ducked into an empty room, saw the copier machine, and climbed in. He heard more screams and shots. He listened to people walking nearby. He thought they would find him. He told Katie he was convinced he was going to die. He had to interrupt the story several times to drink some water and calm down. Katie’s pen flew across the page as she recorded everything he said.
“Then what happened?”
“I think, I hope, they all gone now, the men with guns I mean. But I hear something.”
“What did you hear?”
“I hear two men talking. They come into room where I am hiding! They speak in Russian. I know Russian. I can speak it, yes.”
“What did they say?”
“They say they have list of names and every name is dead.”
“So they knew who worked in the building?”
“I think they do, yes.”
“What else?”
“They talk about someone else coming in building. But they don’t have his name. And they don’t think he is dead.”
Katie immediately got it. “They were talking about you!”
Lesnik nodded. “I think this too. I think they search building again and this time they find me. I am trapped. I know I am going to die now.” The tears slid down his face.
She poured him some more coffee. “So why didn’t they find you?”
“One man say to other that they must leave now. A window has been broke in office. A woman has screamed out window. They must go in case police show up.”
“So then they left?”
“Yes, but as they go they keep talking. One man, he say Gorshkov will be pleased when he hears from them that mission went good.”
Katie nearly dug a hole in the paper with her pen. “Gorshkov? Russian president Gorshkov?”
Lesnik nodded. “I hear his name and it frighten me much. Everybody know that like Putin, Gorshkov is ex-KGB. He spits at democracy. Everyone in Poland know this.”
“Why would Gorshkov target a think tank in London?” Katie said in a confused tone.
“I do not know.”
“How did you get away?”
“I wait for men to leave. I hear door close and wait some more, to be sure. Then I go out back door. That is way I come in.”
“Why not the front?”
“The man I talk to, Mr. Harris, he say come in that way. He say it is easier for me when I tell him where I coming from.” His face clouded over. “And I no go out front door because… because there is two bodies there. One old man, one young woman, shot in face.” He pointed at his right eye. “Shot there. I can no go by them. I go out back door. And then I run. I run all the way to where I staying.”
“And you haven’t told anyone else about this?”
Lesnik shook his head. “If I tell, then people come kill me. I just go there for job. I no want to die.”
“Okay, okay,” Katie said, laying a calming hand on his slender shoulder. “This was a big first step.”
“You write story now? You no use my name?” he added anxiously.
“I promised that I wouldn’t. But where can I reach you if I have any more questions?”
“I stay at hostel by river.” He wrote down the address for Katie on a piece of napkin. “It is all I have money for.”
Katie again ran her gaze over his old, patched clothing and emaciated body. She reached in her pocket and handed him some pounds. “It’s not much, but I’ll try to get you some more.”
“Dziekuje. That is ‘thank you’ in Polish.”
“You’re welcome.”
Lesnik rose from the table.
“Do you have a phone where I can reach you at?”
He smiled wearily. “I have no phone. I be at hostel. Powodzenia!”
“That’s ‘good luck’ in Polish, right?”
His face brightened for a moment. “How did you know?”
“Just a guess.”
As he walked off Katie slumped back against her chair. “Now what the hell do I do?” Part of her couldn’t believe that any of this was true. A Polish guy speaking passable English walks up to her on the street. Her! And starts to tell her the story that everyone in the world is dying to hear. A story she had just been assigned to work on. No one was that lucky, certainly not her.
And yet, taking the facts as she knew them into account? His story was plausible. He had details of the inside of the building, details Katie would have to verify. He seemed legitimately scared, and if he was telling the truth he should be scared. And why would he lie to her? Because he was a nut looking for fifteen minutes of fame? But this guy didn’t want his name used. He didn’t want fame. What if he was telling the truth?
Katie jumped up and dashed back to The Phoenix Group building. There was one man who could help her verify the man’s story. And that was Shaw. She did not relish this encounter, but all her journalistic instincts were on fire, propelling her forward to that most elusive of quarries: the truth.
CHAPTER 56
THE ITEMS WERE NEATLY LAID OUT on the table. Next to them was a computer terminal. Royce had just been showing some things on the screen to Shaw and Feng. Feng sat in a chair with a stunned look on his face while Shaw slowly perused some of the written materials.
“So you’re saying you weren’t aware of any of this?” Royce said, the disbelief in his voice ricocheting around the room like a stray slug.
Feng wagged his head. “That is correct,” he said firmly. “I knew nothing.”
“Mr. Feng, let me make this clear to you. There are paper records all over this building which show quite clearly that The Phoenix Group was part of the propaganda campaign against Russia. And they have the fingerprints of your employees all over them. The computer hard drives here also have thousands of files on them chronicling everything from the creation of the so-called ‘Tablet of Tragedies’ to the details of this Konstantin fellow to composite ads that were circulated in connection with said propaganda campaign. There are over thirty thousand names of Russians on your hard drives, the same names and backgrounds that were slung across the Internet along with claims that they were all victims of the Russian Red Menace.”
“I have no idea how any of that got here,” stammered Feng. “None!”