The Whole Truth (A. Shaw 1)

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.

Defense departments in every major country were ordered by their civilian leaders to suspend all contracts for new weaponry. Meanwhile, the Russian and Chinese governments ordered a stand-down in their near-war, and President Gorshkov and his counterpart in China agreed to meet at a neutral site to discuss their two countries’ future relations.

Yet the world wanted more. Much more. They wanted to know who had lied to them. They wanted the person or persons really behind it all. And they wanted them yesterday.

CHAPTER 94

NICOLAS CREEL SAT ALL ALONE in his sumptuous conference room on the Shiloh. He’d heard from his executive teams at Ares. And the news was all bad. The contracts were all being suspended, every last one of them. There went several trillion dollars straight to oblivion. The idiot woman had guaranteed that the world would remain stranded in a hellish quagmire, where the weak and maniacal ruled the powerful and civilized. And she was anointed as a savior? Was he, Nicolas Creel, the only one who could see the truth? Under his vision the world would be a far safer place; now all that was ruined. And she had cost him his PM maestro. Pender could be replaced, but Creel knew he would never find anyone as good.

Because of Katie James, a legion of investigators would be delving into every detail of the origin of the Red Menace. And despite Creel’s great pains to keep his involvement unknown, someone might get lucky enough to follow the trail to his doorstep. He would never go to prison, of course. The rich and powerful almost never did, despite whatever crimes they might have committed. His lawyers were too accomplished, his purse too deep, his reputation too good. He had built elaborate safeguards into the plan as part of his exit strategy in the case of a disaster. And his men had destroyed every single scrap of evidence at Pender’s office. There was no direct proof anywhere. His fingerprints were on nothing. Pender was dead. No one else knew of his involvement except for a very few who had just as much to lose as he did.

No, it was not fear of prosecution that was crushing him now. It was the taste of a terrible injustice done to him. Instead of his triumph, instead of the world being put back into its natural balance, the earth was resonating with one name: Katie James. James had saved the world, people were saying. James had righted a great wrong. The woman was a true hero.

Yet the only thing James really had done was screw him, Creel concluded, and emasculate the part of the world that really counted. And for that she would have to pay. He was not a man who held grudges. At least not for very long. He was far too impatient when it came to that. The offending person must be dealt with quickly. Revenge was not best eaten cold. It was a dish that needed to be served with hatred still blazing hot.

He picked up his phone. He might not be getting his beloved cold war back. But there would be more casualties. Starting with one in particular.

He said into the phone, “I don’t care if you have to take out an entire city with a dirty bomb. Either you bring me the lady within forty-eight hours, or our arrangement is ended permanently. And so are you.”

Nicolas Creel left his beloved Shiloh and boarded a launch headed to shore. He spent the next several hours visiting with Italian officials regarding the construction of the new orphanage. After that he prayed in the chapel, the mother superior by his side. That evening he had dinner at a local restaurant and shared a bottle of Chianti with the mayor and his wife, trying to forget at least for a few hours the co

mplete disintegration of his vision for the world.

Before returning to his yacht, Creel visited the construction site. He stood looking down into a pit that had been excavated a few days before. Very soon they would pour the foundation here. Hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of concrete would flow into this hole. The place would stand for a century, providing a worthy roof for many orphans.

But the foundation would not be poured until Creel gave the order. And he wasn’t going to do it just yet. He had something very special he wanted to bless this place with. A gift that would lie here for all eternity.

He rode the launch back to the Shiloh.

And counted down the minutes until Katie James’s death.

It wouldn’t make everything all right, of course. For now, though, it would have to be enough.

CHAPTER 95

FRANK AND ROYCE BURST INTO THE ROOM where Katie was being kept under the watchful eye of two FBI vets. Frank said, “We just got another credible bomb threat. They must’ve found out where she was. There’s an SUV waiting in front.”

They hustled down the stairs. Royce pushed Katie into the SUV and then called out to Frank. “This is the third damn time. We better bloody well get her out of the country, Frank.”

“I’m on it.”

“Where do you want me to take her this time?”

“Location four. I’ll meet you there in twenty minutes.”

Royce nodded, shook his head wearily, and climbed into the seat next to Katie.