Shaw said, “Countries are all of a sudden spending hundreds of billions on weapons. And that money’s going somewhere.”
Frank scowled at him. “What, you’re saying defense contractors are behind this? I really doubt Northrop Grumman, Ares Corp, or Lockheed are involved in this crap. They have boards of directors and shareholders and all that. There’s no way they could keep that secret. And from what I can tell, they’re all making plenty of bucks anyway.”
“And really, Shaw, British Aerospace is doing quite nicely without resorting to inspiring possible Armageddon,” Royce added.
“Maybe it’s not about money,” said Shaw.
“What else do big companies care about?” Frank countered.
Shaw sat back and closed his eyes.
“Shaw? Shaw, you better damn well answer me if you’ve got an idea about this.”
But despite Frank’s blistering broadsides as they drove along, Shaw did not break his silence.
At the hospital Katie was taken into surgery. Her broken bone was put back in her arm and reset and her forearm was placed in a cast. She stayed in the hospital overnight with Shaw sleeping next to her bed. When they got back to the hotel the next day she went with Shaw to his room. Katie sat on the bed with a pillow propped under her injured arm while Shaw made an impromptu snack for them from the contents of the minibar. Katie rubbed her cast. She was on pain meds but her arm still throbbed, and her entire body ached from her wild ride in the car down that slope.
As she munched on some organic chips and drank a diet soda Katie said, “Okay, Frank’s not here. Do you know why Pender would be pitting Russia and China against each other if not to make some fat defense contractors even richer?”
Shaw sat down in a chair and chewed on some nuts. “Think about what’s really been happening.”
She scowled at him. “Death, destruction, war? The plague? Or did I miss something?”
“Anna said something to me when she first started looking into the Red Menace.”
“What was it?”
“She said it reminded her of something. Of attempts to create a new world order, or at least an old new world order, if that makes sense. The Russians wipe out a big part of the Taliban with one strike and tell the other Arab countries to back off or risk annihilation. Now the Middle East is going to hell and nobody cares because everyone’s focused on Russia and China going toe to toe. And now the major countries are rearming for what looks to be a long-term standoff.” He looked up at her. “Déjà vu.”
“So you’re saying whoever’s behind this wants us to go back to what, the cold war?”
“By all accounts Russia and China scared the crap out of each other. They won’t attack again. Just go into a long rearmament phase, along with all the other major powers; a mutual standoff. And now that Russia used cruise missiles against Afghanistan and got away with it, you think other countries might not try that tactic against some of the other unruly nations, Muslim or otherwise?”
“You mean big boys exerting their muscle again? Like Russia and the U.S. used to do?”
“Something like that. Maybe somebody’s tired of terrorists running the world’s agenda. They want the old ways back.”
“Yeah, great, the old ways that entailed the constant threat of nuclear annihilation.”
“But the cold war also sparked the greatest military buildup in history. And aside from the Israel-Palestine equation nobody really gave a damn about what was happening in the Middle East for the most part back then except for oil. There were no murky moral questions about right and wrong or religious differences. It was simply a case of clearly defined good versus evil. People didn’t have to think about it, it was what it was. Maybe some prefer that, even with the Armageddon possibility. Hell, maybe a lot of people do.”
Katie finished her last potato chip. “You know, that asshole Pender never paid me my twenty million dollars.”
“So?”
“So I said if he didn’t I’d tell the world the truth.”
Realization spread over Shaw’s face. “Katie, you know that’ll make you a target.”
“I’m already a target.”
“Then it’ll make you a bigger one.”
With difficulty she scooted to the edge of the bed and put her feet on the floor. “Shaw, I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to find the truth and I’m not stopping now. And them coming after me is probably the only way we’re ever going to get to the truth.” She reached across and touched his arm. “Besides, I’ve got you to protect me.”
Shaw gripped her hand. “Okay, if we do this, we have to do it my way. There’ll be a lot of risk but you have to trust me.”
“I do. I actually always have.”
CHAPTER 93
AT ZERO HOURS UNIVERSAL TIME, Katie James appeared on a video released on the same Web site as Konstantin had been. It was not a coincidence.
The footage had been shot by Shaw in her hotel room.
Katie had returned to her natural blonde hair, though it was still spiky. She spoke clearly and firmly using no notes. “My name is Katie James and everything I wrote in my earlier story was wrong. I told my newspaper not to publish it but they did anyway without telling me. But I can tell you the truth now. The Chinese are not behind the Red Menace. And the Russians did not commit the London Massacre. My source, Aron Lesnik, lied.” She held up her injured arm. “I was almost killed by the people really responsible for all this.” She paused. “And who are they? A man named Richard Pender was one person behind it. He ran Pender amp; Associates, based in Virginia. He is or was a perception manager. He’s dead now, killed by whoever employed him to create the truth out of lies and make the world believe it. Konstantin was a lie. The tens of thousands of people we thought had been slaughtered by the Russian government was a lie. The ‘Tablet of Tragedies’ was a lie.
“This was all done for one reason: to bring Russia and China to the brink of war. Why? So that the world would rearm. Who would want that? Who would possibly benefit? Well, over a dozen governments, including Russia, China, the U.S., England, France, and Japan have recently placed orders for trillions of dollars in weapons with a number of defense contractors because of the events put in motion by the Red Menace. Someone is trying to create a new cold war where we all live in fear of annihilation. But that’s not going to happen because we won’t let it. So whoever is behind all this, here’s a little message from me.” She paused, “The real truth will come out. And trust me, you won’t like it when it does.”
Along with Katie’s statements on the video, leaks were made to all major news sources about Pender’s involvement and subsequent murder with details designed to make her fellow journalists do all they could to find out the truth. A list of defense contactors benefiting from the new rearmament fervor was posted on the Internet. Details of how it was discovered that Lesnik was lying and his murder were released to two dozen major blogger sites. To say these facts spread like a California wildfire would have been a bit of an understatement.
The global reaction was swift. It was said that skies around the world were filled with smoke from the burning of “Remember Konstantin” T-shirts. The Scribe newspaper scrambled to put a positive spin on what had been done with Katie’s story, found they really couldn’t and Kevin Gallagher, Katie’s editor, was sacked. The FBI started throwing thousands of assets at Richard Pender’s murder. And in London the same was done with the massacre and Aron Lesnik’s death.
All major defense contractors issued statements claiming they’d had no involvement in the Red Menace campaign. Much like the treatment of the Russians, few believed their denials.