That’s my life, thought Katie. I’ve got a dozen bendy-buses blocking every possible direction I could take.
She saw him before he saw her. Even with the wounded arm, he moved effortlessly, seeming to glide above the pavement like a heron over water, just waiting to strike. She rose and motioned to him.
She ordered some food; he only had coffee and a biscuit.
“Did you talk to the police?” he asked.
“Briefly. I only told them what I saw. I didn’t mention that I was there interviewing him. Not a can of worms I wanted to open. As far as they knew I was just a passerby.”
“They’ll know you lied to them when the story comes out. Which is when, by the way? I’m sure you’ve already written it.”
“I have. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”
He sat back and looked expectant. “So talk.”
“I don’t want to start a World War III.”
Shaw took a sip of his coffee while Katie picked at her salad. Neither said anything for about a minute.
“What do you want to hear from me?” he said. “That you shouldn’t publish the story? I already told you that.”
“Do you really think the truth coming out will do more harm than good?”
“Yeah, I do. But let’s take a step back. We don’t know if what your story says is true.”
She bristled a bit. “How do you know? You haven’t read my story.”
“You didn’t let me,” he shot back. Then his tone softened. “Look, Katie, I’m sorry about what happened with Lesnik. I have no idea if he’s involved with the bad guys or not.”
“Someone gunning him down on the street probably shows he wasn’t involved with them. He knew the truth and so they tracked him down and killed him.”
“That theory has a few holes in it. How did they track him down? Why kill him? Because he might talk about the Russians? But it looked like they wanted him to.”
“We seem to be having the same discussion as last time.”
“Yeah, we do.” He sat back and looked everywhere except at her.
“Why did you come bursting into that hostel?”
“Let’s just say I was having a bad day.”
She gazed at him curiously.
He caught her look. “I went to see Anna’s body at the morgue.”
“Why would you do that?” she said incredulously.
“I don’t know. I felt like I had to. Then I went to her apartment and it didn’t get any better there.”
“All the memories.”
“And running into her parents, and having her father attack me.”
“Good God!”
“But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst part was him blaming me for what happened to Anna.”
Katie sat back, looking stunned. “Why would he do that?”
“If you see it from his perspective, it sort of makes sense. He finds out I run around the world and duke it out with men who have guns. And on top of that he’s told I’m basically a criminal. Then Anna gets shot. My fault.”
Another few seconds of silence passed. “Look, I’m going to hold off on the story. For now. Until I know more.”
“I think that’s a very wise move, Katie.” He paused. “And I appreciate it.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“My plan hasn’t changed. I’m going to find Anna’s killer.”
CHAPTER 64
NICOLAS CREEL WAS GROWING IMPATIENT. He would have thought that the Scribe would have published the story by now. Lesnik was dead; he had told James all. She had the story of the century. The very thing she needed to take her back to the top. So what was the problem?
He had his people place certain tactful phone calls to various sources, including the Scribe. Creel was actually a passive investor in the newspaper and he’d been the one who’d discreetly behind the scenes orchestrated the assignment for her. There seemed to be some tension there, he had learned. She had submitted the story. But they were holding on to it for some reason. Well, he would put a stop to that.
He phoned Pender and explained the situation to his “truth manager,” as Creel liked to refer to him.
“I don’t want to be seen trying to influence the paper, so shake this story loose from them, Dick, any way you can.”
“Never fear, Mr. Creel. I have the perfect way to get it done.”
Pender hung up the phone. There was one surefire way to make a newspaper sitting on a story publish it. And that was make them think they were about to be scooped. In the age of the Internet, it was the easiest thing in the world to do.
By that evening, Pender had planted in several different but highly visible places on the Internet entries implying that a drastic turn of events regarding the London Massacre was about to be revealed.
“Startling new revelations,” one fake blog entry proclaimed. “Insider’s account to be revealed.”
Another said that “global consequences are resting on the murders in England and what really happened there and why,” and that it was connected to another recent murder in London. And that the story would be revealed in full any minute and the truth would be astonishing.
Pender had had these statements placed on sites that he knew most newspapers, including the Scribe, trolled hour by hour for material.
He sat back and waited for them to pull the trigger.
It didn’t take long.
Kevin Gallagher was made aware of the claims on the Web barely an hour after they’d been posted. Like other papers he had staffers posted there to snatch up items of interest. Well, what his people were dropping on his desk were not only matters of interest, they were slowly eating away at Gallagher’s stomach lining. When the higher-ups at the paper discovered that they were about to be beaten to the punch on the biggest story any of them could remember, Gallagher was told in crystal-clear terms that if the Scribe was scooped on this story, it would be the last thing that he ever did as an employee of the paper. And if Katie James wouldn’t agree to release the story, Gallagher had better damn well find a way to do it.
With thoughts of his career and a Pulitzer for the paper going down the tubes, Gallagher did what he felt he had to. And then he called Katie.
“We have to run the story, Katie,” he said. “We’re about to get scooped.”
“That’s impossible. No one else knows.”
“I’m looking at four different Web sources that say otherwise.”
“Kevin, we’re not publishing.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not right.” And I gave Shaw my word.
“I’m sorry, Katie.”
“What do you mean you’re sorry?” she said sharply, her heart starting to pound.
“I didn’t call asking for your permission.”
“Kevin!”
“It’ll be in the morning edition.”
“I am going to kill you!” she screamed into the phone.
“They were going to fire me. I’ll take death over that. Sorry again, Katie, but I’m sure it’ll turn out all right.”
He clicked off and Katie sat there staring at the wall of her London flat. God, did she need a drink.
Then she stopped thinking about booze. Shaw!
She called him, part of her hoping he wouldn’t answer, but he did.
“I have some bad news,” she began lamely.
When she’d finished, he said nothing. She said, “Shaw? Are you there?”
Then the line went dead. She did not take this as a good sign.
The next day the world learned that, according to an inside source, the killers behind the London Massacre were Russians sent there allegedly by Russian president Gorshkov. Their motive was as yet unknown. To say that this hit the earth like a molten-lava tsunami would have been the grossest of understatements.