by Jon Talton
“Animal Spirits LLC. That was ‘the group,’ as you call it. Take Olympic private and cash out, before eleven/eleven…” I circle back nonchalantly. “Get rid of the old Olympic assets quietly. Then, when the markets calmed down, take Praetorian public and make a killing.” Talk to me. You’re the brain here. I’m just the stupid columnist.
“They wanted to pump up the stock price on anticipation of a takeover and then front run it,” he says. In other words, illegally sell Olympic stock using information not available to other investors, making a big profit just before the price declined. Declined on, say, the panic following a domestic terrorist attack.
He rocks forward and angrily gesticulates. “There wasn’t a lot of time. The group got nervous. Wanted to make sure their profits were locked in, no matter what. The government is divided, at war with itself, don’t you see? The patriots against the weak ones, the ones who don’t understand the threats we’re facing. We didn’t know if our friends inside would protect us until…” He stops himself, before going on to lecture me. “We were preparing for the future, the real future in a dangerous world.”
“The future where you keep people afraid,” I say, “and private contractors like Praetorian are the growth industries. It won’t work.” I laugh and shake my head. “People are smarter now than they were after September 11th. They’ve seen the abuses. They won’t stand for it….”
“Of course they will!” His voice goes scratchy: tenor and sandpaper. “They’ll demand it.” He gives me a superior look.
I say, “After an event.”
“Exactly.” He stares into the design of the rug, realizing he’s been trapped.
Only the noise of the presses, very distant, intrudes on the big, gaping silence. I let it hang for a while.
“What happens on eleven/eleven, Jim?”
He shakes his head and forces a laugh. “It’s too late.”
“Jim.” I say his name with enough timbre in my voice that he is forced to look me in the eye. “Eleven/eleven. Everything you’ve built. Everything your family has built. Think about that. Look at your mother’s portrait.” He won’t. “Look at it!” I shout, and he does.
“She would be ashamed of you.”
“I hated her.”
“It’s going to happen here, isn’t it? In Seattle. That’s why Troy wanted to be on the other side of the Cascades by November. It’s why you’re shredding files…”
“Yes!” Sterling bellows it with such force that saliva fouls his beard. He wipes it off and stares defiantly.
Then, “A dirty bomb. Just the kind of thing al Qaeda or North Korea would do.”
“Or Praetorian.”
He looks around his office. Glances at the portrait of Maggie Forrest Sterling. “They say the damage to the city will be manageable.”
The coldness in my body even reaches into my mouth and tongue.
He goes on, “It might not be the same everywhere else. There are at least four other cities. I didn’t want to know. I just wanted to make sure my investments were properly hedged. You know, for the aftermath.”
Melinda is crying quietly, her head buried in her arms that still rest on the edge of the desk. “What have you done? What have you done?…”
I lean heavily against the chair, wanting something steady in my life. The only other question I have hardly matters now, but I ask it anyway.
“So you were never really trying to find a buyer for the newspaper, because why would it matter? Not much market for a radioactive building. And all those people you laid off in the newsroom. All those lives ruined. It was just because you’re another greedy, asshole newspaper publisher.”
His expression radiates childish hurt. “I was the only one in the goddamned family trying to save this place! Nobody would buy a newspaper this size with such a big newsroom. We had to make those cuts.” He shakes his head and blows out a long breath. “The Free Press could be published from Bellevue, anywhere in the suburbs outside the blast radius. We have a great brand. But nobody’s buying newspaper companies right now. They have no future.”
“And now neither do you.” I’m fresh out of pity.
Then I sense Amber beside me. A few second later, the Seattle cops walk past, roughly lifting the publisher from the floor and handcuffing him.
He speaks through clenched teeth. “Do you know who I am?”
Mazolli says, “We know.”
Chapter Forty-nine
Wednesday, November 10th
An hour later, two a.m., I sit on the cold bench, staring through the huge glass windows, watching the presses roll. They’re running at a very high speed now, rushing to get the city editions out. I can feel the vibration out on the sidewalk. The bronze newsboy keeps me company, forever in a pose to call out the day’s headlines.
A few yards away, the big trucks are leaving the loading docks, filled with the day’s edition: 301,000 copies. Up the hill, at the front of the building, a dozen law enforcement vehicles are parked and cops come and go. Now I see a bright glare from the same direction. The first television news crew has arrived.
I think of all the newspaper has done for all these years. The Pulitzers. The corruption exposed and wrongs righted. The ordinary people helped. “To the Public Trust,” engraved on the tower. Yet the Seattle Free Press will be most remembered as the place where the pretty, blond teen, caught in a lurid affair, was murdered and entombed by the publisher.
Until more lethal news arrives.
I have never felt so tired in my life.
“I stopped in the press room. I thought you might want to see.” Amber sits next to me, hands me the newspaper. Newsprint has a special fresh, slick feel when it has first come off the presses. Cool, not hot. It feels precious. The Seattle Free Press. November 10th. Not just another day. I scan my story, set the paper in my lap, and let my head drop back. Clouds slowly sail overhead but even the mist of the early evening has stopped. The red neon Free Press sign looks enormous. Amber says, “It’s online and it’s already been picked up by AP, HuffPo, Yahoo, Google—with the Free Press and you getting credit.”
“Shouldn’t you be at work, Agent Burke?”
“All the big shots are here now, so they don’t need me at the moment. And how about calling me Amber, again. I thought you liked the name.”
I admit that I do. “You told me you would have some good news for me. Does it still matter?”
“We’re executing a raid on Olympic International here at the start of business this morning. The raid on Olympic Defense Systems in D.C. will happen in four hours. We want to have as many of their employees on-site as possible, to question. Now we’re getting an arrest warrant for Pete Montgomery, too.” She sighs. “I hope it matters.”
“Is he in town?”
“At the moment. We have him under surveillance. We knew these guys were up to something. We had no idea it would be this. You did good. Maybe you’ll get a medal someday, in secret of course.” She laughs. It’s partly the sound of tension being released, but it’s a nice sound nonetheless.
“You’ve got twenty-four hours to save the world.” I smile at her. “That always works on TV. In real life, I’d start by looking at Olympic’s warehouses down at the port.”
“Thanks. We can’t evacuate a whole city without panic. We don’t even know the location of the other cities with dirty bombs. Maybe we’ll break out the waterboards.”
I shiver.
“I’m sorry. Things are going to get crazy for me pretty soon. We’re going to flood the city with detection gear, so I’m hopeful. We have time. Here, at least. Still, I wish you’d take my Jetta and drive east. You’ll have plenty to write about when it’s all over.”
I don’t answer.
We sit and watch the immense presses perform their nightly miracle. It has been my life for so long that I can’t imagine another. In cyberspace this second, hundreds of billions of dollars are moving around the world, thousands of blogge
rs are expressing their opinions, and secret military orders are being encoded and flashed. But I am here, outside the newspaper building, watching the presses thunder. For this moment, which is all I really have, it is enough.
Amber leans against me. Just that.
She lightly runs her fingers down my cheeks. They feel wet. I look at her and see the tears forming in her eyes. She thinks I’m crying, too. But it’s just the rain. And the thunder.
--30--
Acknowledgements
Like the columnist, I was blessed for many years to have one of the best jobs in American journalism. The late Bob Peterson gave me my first shot, after looking up and asking if I could spell. Certain other journalists especially graced my career, making me a better writer and editor. Among them: Paul McClung, Joe Finley, Steve Sidlo, Linda Monroe, Mike Casey, Diane Solov, Judi Schultz, John Dougherty, Susan Gilbert, Leah Beth Ward, Meghan Glynn, Melissa Allison, Stella Hopkins, Amber Veverka, Frank Barrows and Cheryl Carpenter. I’m also indebted to David R. Foster and Tom Payne for their assistance on this book. Blame me for inconsistencies, deliberate changes in procedure or descriptions, or errors. Finally, my ongoing gratitude goes to Barbara Peters and Rob Rosenwald of the Poisoned Pen Press, especially this time, for their diligence and inspiration to help me make this special deadline.
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