Mistress(68)

I give that some thought.

“So I ask again,” says Eddie. “Why does the US government consider you a threat?”

It’s a good question. The right question. If I were trying to cover up an affair, the first thing I’d want to do is remove the mistress from the equation. They’ve done that. They’ve made everyone believe Diana is dead. So what else could—

Oh. Oh, of course.

By George, I think I’ve got it.

But all things considered, I better keep the thought to myself for now.

“Eddie, I have to run, but listen. I wouldn’t ask—but I need some cash.”

“Cash?” Eddie thinks about that. “I’m…not sure I can help you, Ben.”

“Right, I understand—you can’t assist me in any way. I don’t want you to go to prison. I was just thinking, if you had some pocket money on you, that kind of thing. I’m not suggesting you write me a check or anything.”

Eddie is quiet for a while. “I suppose when I’m taking my keys out to start my car, some money could fall out of my pocket that I wouldn’t notice.”

“That could happen, sure.”

“It wouldn’t be more than a couple hundred bucks.”

“It would be a couple hundred bucks more than I have.”

Eddie gets out of the car. As silly as we both find it, he actually takes the cash out of his money clip and drops it to the cement floor. “Oops,” he says.

I don’t pick it up right away. I’ll wait until he drives out of here. Might as well play along with the charade. He can truthfully say he never handed me money.

But he did hand me an idea. I think I know what the US government is afraid of. And I have an idea how I can confirm it.





Chapter 79



Suddenly finding myself forced to economize, I stay at the cheapest hotel I can find. You know it’s a cheap hotel when the bathroom’s down the hall. When “air-conditioning” consists of waving your hand in front of your face. When you can hear the guy in the next room rolling over in bed. When “room service” means they loan you a flyswatter. When the telephone is in the lobby instead of on the nightstand. When there isn’t a nightstand.

But I’ve seen the sun rise another day. That in itself is a major victory.

With the few remaining minutes on one of my three remaining prepaid phones, I make the call and set up an appointment. They tell me I’ll have to wait until after lunch, so I have some time to kill. I should probably hide in the hotel room, but it’s so crappy that I think I’ll take my chances on the open streets.

Or at least in a coffee shop, where I pull my baseball cap low and nurse a small coffee and pick at a blueberry muffin. I grab a Post that someone left on the next table over and go to the headlines. I’ve missed being a reporter and vastly prefer it to fugitive life. The pay’s better and nobody tries to kill you.

“Shit!” I yell when I see the lead story above the fold: RUSSIAN LEADER ESCAPES ASSASSIN’S BULLET.

I quickly whip through the article. Russian prime minister Yuri Mereyedev narrowly escaped assassination last night when a man opened fire on him while he was speaking at a rally outside Moscow. Russian police captured a man who is believed to have ties to—surprise, surprise—the Georgian secret police. The US State Department is said to be “closely monitoring” the situation.

I throw down the newspaper. Andrei Bogomolov anticipated this very thing. A terrorist attack, he predicted, that would be blamed on the Republic of Georgia. This is close enough. Certainly close enough for provocation’s sake.

Russia is moving closer to an invasion of her southern neighbor. The plan to reconstruct the old Soviet empire is already under way.





Chapter 80



I lock my bike to a parking meter, visit a fast-food bathroom so I can change into some presentable clothes, and enter the building a block away. I show my press credentials at the sign-in and the next thing I know, I’m in a plush waiting room. It reminds me of my visit to Jonathan Liu’s offices. It didn’t turn out so well for Jonathan. Let’s see how this turns out for Edgar Griffin.

“Mr. Griffin will see you,” says an elderly woman who doesn’t think much of my appearance. Apparently one of the principals at the law firm of Griffin and Weaver isn’t accustomed to people of my ilk crawling in.

“Yes, Senator, I agree.” Edgar Griffin is speaking into a headset while waving me into his lavishly appointed office. This is corporate chic at its chicest, if that’s a word. It probably isn’t. Anyway, this office is the size of a tennis court. It has a wall full of fancy books, another wall full of diplomas and framed photographs of Mr. Griffin, Esquire, interacting with important people, and a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking K Street. The decor is walnut and brass. Money and power. And helping people with money and power get more money and more power.