The Whole Truth

CHAPTER 59

“TAKE ME TO SEE THIS GUY,” Shaw said to Katie as they sat in his room at the Savoy. She had just finished telling him about her meeting with the Pole.

“I can’t do that,” Katie replied. “I promised.”

“I don’t care what you promised. He’s a material witness in a murder investigation.”

Katie looked out the window where Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and the pie-shaped London Eye stared back at her with the narrow Thames in the foreground. “You don’t think I know that?”

“Okay, tell me his name then.”

“Yeah, right. How about I show you his picture and give you his mailing address while I’m at it?”

“This isn’t a joke! People have died.”

She whirled around. “Don’t throw that crap in my face. I do the journalism thing for a living, okay? Ever heard the phrase ‘source protection’? Journalists invoke it every day. Some even go to prison in defense of it, which I happened to have done in the past. So save the guilt act for somebody else.”

Shaw looked down and Katie realized she had gone too far. She sat across from him and said quietly, “Look, there’s no one in the whole world who wants to find Anna’s killer more than you do. And I want that too. But I’ve got a job to do. I’ve been assigned to write about this story, and I have to go about it as a professional.”

“You tell me what the guy told you, and you expect me to stop there? Why tell me at all if you won’t take me to see him?”

Katie sat back, kneading her fists into her thighs. “I wish I had a stellar answer for that, but I don’t. I just wanted you to know. I guess I just wanted you to say he’s telling the truth.”

“Do you believe him?”

“The details I told you, the copier, the bodies near the front door, the guy named Bill Harris? Can you verify that since you were in there?”

“The copier on the second floor and the bodies near the front door, yes, that’s all accurate. I’ll check to see if the storage in the copier was big enough to hold him. I didn’t get a complete roster of the dead, so I can’t vouch for this Harris guy, but it’ll be easy enough to check that. You said he entered and left through the back?” Katie nodded. “Then that’s why we didn’t see him on the video footage. It only recorded the street entrance.”

“So he seems legit,” she said hopefully.

“He would also know all of those things if he were in on the murders.”

“I thought of that, but he didn’t seem the type. He’s basically a skinny little Polish kid scared out of his mind.”

“Who just happened to walk up to you on the street in front of the murder scene? Bit of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

“It would be, but he heard me talking to a cop. Pegged me as a journalist. And it’s not so unusual for a survivor to come back to where it happened. Guilt and all.”

“You sound like you’re trying very hard to convince yourself.”

“Trust me, I’m going to check this guy every way there is.”

“So what do you want from me?” Shaw asked.

Katie let out a breath. “You’ve pretty much confirmed for me that he was in there. I think, well, I keep working on the story.”

Shaw rose and stared down at her. “What the hell are you talking about? What story?”

She looked back at him with equal incredulity. “An eyewitness to the London Massacre? Don’t you think that’s newsworthy?”

“Katie, he said the killers were speaking Russian.”

“Yeah, so?”

Shaw looked very troubled as she eyed him suspiciously.

“Is there something you haven’t told me?” she said.

“I’ll only tell you if you promise not to write the story.”

“I can’t do that, Shaw. I can’t. I won’t! This is news.”

“Even if it might start a world war?”

“What world war!” she exclaimed.

“If I tell you, you can never repeat it, to anyone, anywhere, including in print. Those are my terms. Take ’em or leave ’em.”

Katie hesitated for an instant and then nodded. “Deal.”

“They found evidence inside the building that purportedly shows The Phoenix Group was behind the Red Menace campaign.”

Katie sprang out of her chair. “What? You’re sure?”

“Sure the evidence was there? Yes. What it really means, I don’t know yet.”

“And my eyewitness also overheard the killers saying they were there on orders from Gorshkov.”

“Damn it, why didn’t you tell me that?”

“Look who’s talking about holding things back? Like you, I tend to keep things close to the vest. But if The Phoenix Group was involved in putting together the Red Menace campaign, that would explain why the Russians on orders from Gorshkov attacked the place.”

“But it’s not true. The Red Menace stuff was planted.”

“How can you be certain about that? I did see those materials in Anna’s office. Maybe she wasn’t researching it. Maybe she was doing it.”

“And just left the stuff lying around for you to see while the whole world is trying to find out who’s behind it?” he said incredulously.

Now Katie looked unsure of herself. “I guess that doesn’t make sense, but where does the world war thing come in? I must have missed that.”

“Gorshkov has pledged that whoever was behind the smear would open itself up to attack.”

“The Phoenix Group was attacked, not a country.”

Shaw took a deep breath and said, “The Phoenix Group is run by the Chinese, or at least has deep ties to them.”

Katie exclaimed, “The Chinese? You’re sure?”

“Yes. I met with one of the owners. He confirmed it.”

“But do you seriously believe Russia will attack China?”

“Who knows? But the last thing we need to find out is that the answer to that question is yes.”

“But if the Russian government sent their killers in as retribution against The Phoenix Group, and they know about the Chinese connection, then that seems to be an act of war right there. I’m actually surprised Gorshkov hasn’t gotten on the world pipeline and told everyone he did it.”

“He can’t. Most of the people killed were British citizens. Blowing up a bunch of Taliban in the mountains of Afghanistan is one thing. But you don’t waltz into London and wipe out nearly thirty of their people and then start bragging about it. I don’t care if you are Russia. The Brits have nukes too. And their closest ally is America. And not even Gorshkov wants to take on that eight-hundred-pound gorilla. And we don’t know for certain that the Russians are aware of the Chinese connection.”

“But nothing you’ve told me is a reason not to write the story. An eyewitness says some Russians in Gorshkov’s pay did it. I’ll say nothing about the Red Menace stuff or the Chinese connection because I told you I wouldn’t. But the fact that the Russians hit that building came from my source and is a story the world needs to know.”

“Come on, who can’t read between those lines! And if the Chinese think that the Russians took out one of their offices? They might retaliate against Moscow.”

“But even you said the Red Menace stuff was bull crap. It was planted. The Chinese weren’t behind it.”

Shaw shook his hands in exasperation. “Exactly, Katie. Don’t you get it? The Russians wouldn’t have planted that stuff, especially if they knew of the Chinese connection. What would have been the point? They wouldn’t go out of their way to pick a fight with China by framing them. The two countries are too evenly matched militarily. If they were going to pull a stunt like that they would’ve chosen a country a lot easier to blow out of the water. Hell, start with the A’s and nail Albania. That war would be over in twenty-four hours. But China? They have three soldiers for every Russian grunt. And they have nukes too.”

Katie looked confused. “So what exactly are you saying?”

“That the Russians didn’t do it. And The Phoenix Group isn’t behind the Red Menace and neither are the Chinese.”

“Okay, then who is behind it all?” she said doubtfully.

“There’s a third party involved. A third party that is playing a game I don’t completely understand, but that I know is somehow designed to pit Russia and China against each other.”

“So you’re saying my source is lying about the Russian involvement?”

“If he said he overheard people speaking in Russian who said they worked for Gorshkov, then, yeah, I think he might be lying, because I don’t believe the killers were working for Russia. Or else, and it’s a real stretch, they somehow knew he was in the building and let him live so he could tell what he’d heard, or what they wanted him to hear.”

She snapped her fingers. “He did say he overheard the Russians, or according to you, the fake Russians talking about someone else being in the building. If they were watching the back of the office they would’ve seen him go in. But they didn’t do another search because a window was broken and a woman was screaming out of the office and they were afraid the police would show up.”

Shaw’s expression grew clouded. Katie said, “Did that happen?”

He nodded slowly. “The woman was Anna. She broke her office window, tried to get out that way, but was killed before she could.”

“How do you know that?”

“The street camera recorded it.”

“My God, you saw it happen?” She put a hand over his. “Shaw, I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you won’t write the story.”

“I can’t do that. The world deserves to hear it.”

“Really? Even if it’s all lies? Or maybe Katie James believes she deserves to get back on top, any way she can? Even if it means the end of the world as we know it?”

Katie’s face flushed and she drew away from him. “That is not why I’m doing this!”

“Then tell me why you are doing it.”

“I’m a journalist. I have a story. A story of the decade! I can’t just sit on it because you have a bunch of pet theories, or because you say the world might end.”

“And what if I’m right? Are you prepared to deal with it?”

“Yes,” she said, but her voice shook slightly.

“Then we have nothing else to talk about.” He rose and held the door open.

“Shaw, please don’t do this.”

“We have nothing else to talk about,” he said more firmly.

She slowly walked past him and he slammed the door shut behind her.