The Whole Truth (31 page)
“No. That relationship is now over.”
Miss Hottie was still in the South of France and would be receiving the divorce papers just about now, Creel silently calculated. And the odds were better than even that she would be completely naked when that event occurred. He wondered briefly how she would be able to manage on the $5 million a year “stipend” the prenup provided for the next decade. Well, at least her predilection to nakedness should save the lady some money on clothes. And then Miss Hottie disappeared from his mind completely.
“I see.”
Pender noticed the architectural sketches on the table. “Building another grand palace somewhere?”
“No, an orphanage in Italy.”
“Your range of interests never ceases to amaze me, Mr. Creel.”
“Glad to hear it,” the billionaire said coldly.
“James’s one story has already surpassed everything we did,” Pender added. “I have never seen media activity like this before. Never.”
“Wait until we finish the story for her.”
“Let me see, that includes Chinese ownership of The Phoenix Group,” Pender said, glancing at his papers. “And files showing that Phoenix was behind the Red Menace campaign were found in the building, but the police have covered it up to prevent an international crisis.” The man recited these items as though he were reading off a grocery list. He looked up and smiled. “That, may I say, is a true showstopper. You’ve never risen to greater heights, and I don’t bestow that compliment lightly considering what you’ve accomplished in the past.”
“The situation would require no less, Dick,” Creel said sharply. “How soon can you let it fly?”
“Give the word and it’s all over the Internet. Five minutes after that, every major news outlet will have it in their greedy little claws.”
“You sure they won’t sit on it? Try to verify things?”
Pender laughed. “Verify? In this day and age? Who cares about verifying anything? It’s all about speed. Who gets there first defines the truth. You know that as well as any man living.”
“Then do it. Now.”
Pender typed on his BlackBerry one word.
Launch
. He said the word out loud as he typed it. “I thought the term appropriate for someone in the defense industry,” he said.
“Inspired,” Creel said dully.
The two men worked for several more hours and then Pender packed his bag.
“What’s next?” he asked the billionaire.
“Another boots on the ground,” Creel answered. “Have a nice ride back to D.C. Oh, and Dick, when we sign the official deals with China and Russia I believe a substantial bonus will be in order for you.”
Pender couldn’t hide his pleasure. “Just doing my job.”
“Oh, does that mean you
don’t
want the bonus?”
Both men laughed, Pender a little nervously.
“Thank you, Mr. Creel.”
After Pender left, another door to the conference room opened. Caesar sat down across from his master.
“Of course you still know where James is,” Creel said. It wasn’t a question.
The other man nodded. “Hiding out in London, but we kept her on a tight leash after we took care of Lesnik.”
“Aron Lesnik. I never trust people who do things for altruistic reasons. You never know when they might want to do the right thing again and end up screwing you.”
“He was pissed about his old man getting killed by the Soviets, that was for sure. So do you want us to kill this guy Shaw?”
“No. At least not yet. If I were a betting man, and occasionally I am, I would say the time will come when the answer to that question will be yes.”
“How about James?”
“She’s performed her part and I see no reason to keep her around for a return engagement. She did reveal the Russian piece in her story so the solution is fairly obvious.” He eyed Caesar suggestively.
“Not polonium-210,” Caesar protested. “That shit is dangerous to handle and it’ll take me a while to get some.”
“It would be stupid to make it that obvious.” Creel sat forward and peered directly into Caesar’s eyes. “But once upon a time there was a Bulgarian dissident named Georgi Markov, who ironically enough was killed in London with an
umbrella
. I trust you’re familiar with the tale?”
Caesar grinned wickedly. “I am.”
“Then do it.”
Creel waved his hand and Caesar vanished as quickly as he’d appeared.
S
HAW WATCHED SILENTLY
as Royce’s men continued to scour the interior of the massacre site for clues that just wouldn’t come. The MI5 agent had gone outside to meet with someone, leaving Shaw to wonder if things could get any worse. Royce had been furious about the story Katie James had written but he could hardly blame Shaw for that, because he’d told the man nothing about his involvement with James and the late Aron Lesnik.
Lesnik had been pulled from the Thames with the slug that ended his life still parked in the back of his brain. He wouldn’t be giving any answer sessions.
Frank walked down the hallway and joined him. “You never told me where you took off to after we left Anna’s apartment.”
“That’s right, I never did.”
“Have anything to do with Katie James or her
exclusive
?”
“I don’t hang out with the woman, Frank.”
“Right. So how the hell did she get that story with the Polish guy? And who killed him?”
“No clue,” Shaw said dully as Frank scowled at him.
A forensic tech Shaw had never seen before passed by him at the same time that he heard the front door downstairs slam shut. The tech said, “You mind? I need to use the facilities.”
Shaw looked over his shoulder and realized he was standing in front of the bathroom door. He moved aside and the man went to open the door, or at least tried to.
Feet were stomping up the stairs. Shaw could hear Royce yelling. The agent was clearly upset about something, and from what Shaw could make out, that something was him.
The tech jiggled the handle of the bathroom door as a uniformed sergeant who’d been on duty here from the first day passed by.
The sergeant said, “You must be new here. You’ll have to use the loo in the basement, lad, that one’s busted.”
Shaw could hear Royce clearly now.
“Shaw? Damn it, Shaw!”
The MI5 agent appeared at the top of the stairs, breathless and red-faced. He charged right at Shaw waving a piece of paper.
“What the hell do you know about this?” he demanded.
Shaw read the paper. It was a printout from an online news service. The story was short but to the point. The Chinese government owned or had ties to The Phoenix Group. And it was also revealed that evidence found inside the building allegedly proved that The Phoenix Group was behind the Red Menace campaign, which implied, of course, that the Chinese had been behind it. That, according to the news service’s unnamed source, was why Gorshkov’s men had attacked the place. It was a simple connect-the-dots explanation that would play very well all over the world.
“This is all over the Net,” Royce yelled, pointing a finger at Shaw. “And now all over the bloody world.”
Frank had read the story over Shaw’s shoulder. “So why is that
his
problem?”
“I’m not the source,” Shaw said calmly. “I haven’t told anyone about anything that’s gone on in here.”
Royce’s features clearly showed he didn’t believe that answer. “Not even your friend, James? Another scoop for her maybe?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Shaw said heatedly.
“Are you denying that you know the lady?”
Shaw hesitated.
“I already know the answer to that question, so don’t lie to me, damn it.”
“How did you know?” Shaw said impassively, even as he glanced curiously at the uniformed police sergeant.
“I’m a bloody intelligence agent, that’s what I do.”
“I haven’t seen her lately. And I have no idea where she—” Shaw froze as the tech walked past him and down the stairs.
Frank faced off with Royce. “If you’ve got a problem with leaks, Royce, why don’t you discuss it with your people?” he said. “Because there is no way in hell that Shaw is the source for that story.”
“I can’t believe any of my lads would have anything to do with it,” Royce said indignantly.
While Frank and Royce were arguing Shaw grabbed the sleeve of the sergeant who’d issued the warning about the bathroom.
In a low voice he asked, “How long has that toilet been broken?”
The sergeant gave a weary smile. “Ever since we got here, sir. Right inconvenient. Locked up it was. Pipe broke, or so’s I could see when I finally got the door open. It’s an old building after all. And not like those poor folks ever had a chance to get it fixed. So I locked it back up. Now the gents got to go to the basement to take a pee ’cause the only other loo is for the ladies on the first floor. Though some of the lads have been using that one too. Guess it don’t matter now, does it?”
“Exactly where is the first floor ladies’ room located?”
“End of the hall, furthest from the stairs, near the rear of the building.”
Shaw walked down the hall and saw the nameplate set into the wood of the door: William Harris. He looked at the room where the copier was. It was equidistant between Harris’s office and the locked bathroom.
Royce came thundering down the hall with Frank scurrying after him. “Shaw?” Royce said. “I want the bloody truth!”
Shaw looked down the stairs, the mental images racing across his brain. Even if Lesnik had misspoken and had used the basement bathroom or even the ladies’ room on the first floor instead of the locked-up one on the second it couldn’t have happened the way he said it had. Katie said he’d told her that he’d heard shots when
leaving
the bathroom. The assault team was already on the first floor covering both ends by then. Coming back from the basement and especially the first floor he’d have run right into them. He’d be dead. He’d never hid in the copier. He had probably never been in the building.
And it all came down to where you took a leak. Or
didn’t
take a leak.
He sprinted down the steps, leaving Royce to scream after him, but he never heard the curses raining down on him. He called the number Katie had left him.
“Come on, answer, answer the damn phone.” It rang three, four, five times. Shaw was sure it was going to go to voice mail.
Sonofabitch!
“Hello?”
A rush of relief hit him when he heard her real voice. “Lesnik was lying,” he said.
“What?”
“On the day of the killings the toilet on the second floor was busted and the door was locked shut. He’d have to have used the one in the basement or the first floor near the rear entrance. He would’ve run right into the killers. He’d be dead. He was lying about the whole thing. You were set up, Katie.”
There was only silence on the other end. He wondered if she’d hung up on him.
“You’re sure?” she said shakily.
“They briefed him well otherwise. But for the slip about the john, which they obviously forgot to check and assumed it was working, and a bit of luck, I’d never have known.”
“My story. It was a lie?” she gasped in disbelief.
“Where are you?”
“I can’t believe this. I can’t. I told that idiot Gallagher I didn’t have corroboration.”
“Katie, where are you?”
“Why?”
“Because now that you’ve written the story you’re dispensable.”
“I’m safe.”
“No, you’re not safe! They probably know exactly where you are. Now tell me.”
She gave him the address.
“Do not open the door to anybody. And be ready to run.”
He sprinted into the middle of the street, stopping a taxi dead, ripped open the door, hauled the surprised passenger out, jumped in, and told the stunned driver exactly where to go. The diminutive cabbie took one look at Shaw’s massive size and glowering expression and the taxi roared off.
O
NLY TWENTY MINUTES HAD PASSED
since Shaw’s call when the buzzer on the entrance to Katie’s building went off. She ran to the door of her flat and spoke into the call box.
“Shaw?”
“Yep.”
She hit the button to release the door and then froze.
Had
that been Shaw’s voice? In her excitement she’d just assumed . . .
From down below she heard measured footfalls coming up. That didn’t sound like . . .
She bolted the door, grabbed her hastily packed bag, and looked frantically around for another way out. There was only one. The window overlooking the back alley.
She threw it open and peered out. It was a two-story drop. In the movies there would’ve been a convenient fire escape or mounds of soft garbage down below, but in real life there never were. And she had no time to knot sheets into a rope. What there was on the alley level was a guy, a big guy wearing jeans and a rugby sweater and reading a newspaper in the fading light while sitting in a beat-up lawn chair.
“A hundred quid if you catch me,” she called out.
“Pardon me?” he said, gazing up at her quizzically.
She climbed onto the windowsill, her bag slung over her back. “I’m going to jump and you’re going to catch me. Understood?”
The man dropped his newspaper and stood up looking around, perhaps to see if this was some sort of prank.
“You say you’re going to jump?”
“Do not drop me!”
“Oh, dear Lord,” was all he could manage.
There was someone right outside of Katie’s door now. She heard something pushing against the wood. For an excruciatingly long moment all she saw was Anna Fischer, positioned just as Katie was, and the bullets ripping through her body. If only she’d jumped an instant sooner.
“Here I come,” she called down to the man, who was hopping around, his thick arms flying in all directions, trying to best gauge her trajectory. “Do not miss!” she added firmly.
She leapt and a couple seconds later she and the man tumbled down in a tangle of arms and legs. Katie got to her feet, all body parts seemingly intact, and except for a bruised arm and cut shin she was fine. She shoved five twenty-pound notes into his hand, gave him a kiss, and ran for it.