The Whole Truth

CHAPTER 63

KATIE CALLED KEVIN GALLAGHER and filled him in on what had happened. When he finally stopped hyperventilating, he only had one question: “When can you deliver the story?”

“It’s already written. I can e-mail it to you right now. You can fact-check the crap out of it and then run it.”

“Your contact is dead?”

“Yes. The police are investigating.”

“Did they talk to you?”

“I only gave them the barest essentials and didn’t reveal anything he’d told me. This is front page, right, Kevin?”

“Front page! Front page! Four-inch headline, Katie. Just like we do when war’s declared. Send the story right now and I’ll call you after I read it.”

She put down the phone, hesitated for a moment, hit the send key, and the e-mail sailed to the man. Just like when war’s declared. She thought about Shaw’s words. What if a world war happened? She felt a tingle shoot down her spine.

Gallagher called back twenty minutes later; she could sense his drool from across the ocean.

“We’ll run this in the morning edition,” he promised. “We still have time.” He added worriedly, “No chance we’ll get scooped?”

“Lesnik won’t be talking to anybody else, if that’s what you mean. But look, Kevin, I can’t absolutely prove that my contact was actually in the building that day. It’s all circumstantial. I have no corroborating source. That’s not how I usually do things.”

“There’s no way in hell he’d have those details if he hadn’t been in there, Katie. The London police haven’t released any of that information, and believe me we’ve tried to get it. And the fact that someone killed him? I think that’s proof enough. I’ve led off stories with less, just like every other newspaper. I mean look at the Duke lacrosse team and Richard Jewell fiascoes.”

“Operative word being fiasco, Kevin.” Katie suddenly wasn’t that certain anymore.

“Don’t worry. Here’s to your third Pulitzer, Katie. Go have a drink on me.”

Katie flinched. “I actually have a little problem in that regard. I thought you would’ve heard.”

“I did, but so what? Get wasted. A story like this deserves it.”

Whether it was this callous remark or something embedded deeply in Katie’s soul, there was a definite pop in her brain.

“Wait a minute, Kevin!”

“What?”

“You can’t print the story, not yet.”

“Are you kidding?”

“You wait until I call back and give you the go-ahead. I have to check out something first.”

“Katie! My instincts are telling me-”

“Shut up and listen,” she screamed into the phone. “You don’t have instincts. It was my ass running all over the world getting shot at while people like you sat behind your nice safe desk, okay? You don’t give a shit about anything other than selling newspapers. You will hold that story until I tell you otherwise. And if you screw me, I will personally come to your house and rip your face off. And now I’m going to hang up and go have that drink you so graciously suggested, you bastard!”

She threw down the phone in disgust, took a deep breath, and tried to stop shaking. A few minutes later she was in the hotel bar steeling herself with a whiskey soda for what she was about to do. And then she had a second one. A third would have followed, but she somehow wrenched herself off the barstool after watching a guy next to her pass out in his own drool.

She walked outside, passing the Charles Dickens House. It was one of the many residences that the author had occupied in London but the only one now used as a museum. She wondered if even Dickens’s prodigious imagination could have contemplated the absolute nightmare she found herself in. Probably she would have had to look to Kafka to do it justice.

She reached a small park, sat down on a bench, took out her cell phone, and called him.

He answered on the second ring. “Yeah?”

“Can we talk?”

“I thought you made your position perfectly clear already.”

“I want to see you.”

“Why?”

“Please, Shaw. It’s important.”

The café was near King’s Cross Station. She sat outside and waited for him, watching the “bendy-buses,” as Londoners had dubbed them. They had taken the place of the double-deckers and were basically two buses joined together by a flex joint. They were not liked very much by Londoners because they often clogged the city’s narrow intersections when making a turn.

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.”