CHAPTER 36
SHAW COULD SENSE the eye burning into him from the peephole. He would have laid down a bet that she wasn’t going to let him in. He would have lost.
Katie got right down to business. “Look, I can tell you’re upset but did you see Anna?” Her voice was anxious, her features worried.
She sat down on the small sofa and curled her legs under her. She had on a hotel bathrobe and slippers covered her feet. Her hair was wet and straight. Shaw could still sense the steam coming from the bathroom. Her shampoo’s aroma drifted into his nostrils. Yet he barely noticed. He was so angry he could barely keep from shaking.
“Can I ask you a question?” he said.
“Go ahead.”
He exploded. “What the hell do you think you’re doing getting involved in my life?”
“I was just trying to help.”
“I don’t need your help, lady.”
She sat back and crossed her arms. “Really? So you’re totally oblivious to the fact that you have this amazing woman head over heels in love with you but trying to figure out whether you’re her knight in shining armor or a psychopath?” Her tone was far more aggressive now.
“You have no business, no right butting into this.”
“I told Anna to talk to you before she made up her mind. I told her I thought you were a good guy. Well, are you or aren’t you?”
“Right now I’m having a hard time making up my mind.”
“Why?”
“Because part of me wants to strangle you.”
“Okay. I can understand that. Would you like some coffee instead?”
For the first time he noticed the room service table with her breakfast on it.
“No.”
“Well, I’m sure you won’t mind if I help myself.”
She poured out a cup of coffee and took a bite of bagel. “Well?”
“Well what?” he shot back.
“Did you talk to Anna?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And it’s none of your damn business.”
“So that’s the only reason you came here? To read me the riot act?”
He moved so fast her eyes could barely follow. The room service table smashed against the wall with a loud crash.
Unperturbed, Katie finished her coffee and put her cup down. “Are you finished with the histrionics?”
“Stay out of my life.”
He turned to leave.
“I actually have one question for you. And it doesn’t involve Anna,” she quickly added.
He stopped at the door and glowered at her.
“What did you mean when you said you’d been to hell and it was just as bad as everyone thought it was?”
“Like I told you before, you wouldn’t understand the answer.”
In response, Katie slid her robe partially down, exposing a blistery red gash on her upper right arm.
“Try me.”
Shaw eyed the old wound on her shoulder. “Gunshot?”
“I figured you were the sort of man who could tell. Fired by one ticked-off Syrian. Good thing he was such a lousy shot. He said later he was aiming at my head.”
She picked up an unbroken coffee cup and the carafe that miraculously hadn’t burst open and poured him a cup of coffee. As she handed it to him she said, “Whenever Clint Eastwood got shot in the arm in a movie they’d just pour some whiskey on it, wrap a little sling around it, and he’d get on his trusty horse and ride off. They never bothered to dwell on what happens when the bullet enters your arm and keeps going, shattering an artery here, ripping up muscle and tendon there, or nicking my left ventricle on its pinball ride through Katie’s organs. I was in rehab for three months after they finally weaned me off the ventilator. They had to cut a nice little hole in my back to get the slug out. It was flat as a pancake.”
Shaw sat down. The sight of the wound seemed to have wilted his anger. “Soft head. Designed to tumble through your body, trashing everything in its path. And it tends to stay in you, which means a surgeon has to cut you open in another place, while you’re just about dead, to get the sucker out.”
She eyed him from over the rim of her cup. “How many gunshot wounds do you have? You can show me, I won’t tell.”
“A good plastic surgeon could take care of that scar.”
“I know. They wanted to when I got back to the States.”
“So why didn’t they?”
“I didn’t want them to.”
“Why not?”
“Because I wanted to keep the scar. That explanation cover it for you?”
Her face softened and she said in a calmer tone, “Look, you have every right to be pissed off at me. If you were messing in my life – not that I have one right now, but if you were – I wouldn’t be happy about it. For what it’s worth, I was just trying to help. You picked a great lady and it’s easy to see how much she loves you.”
Shaw drank his coffee but said nothing.
Katie continued. “And no more meddling from me. I swear. I hope things work out for you both.”
He finished his coffee and rose, looking very uncomfortable. “Anna and I are fine. I told her… I told her things I should have told her a long time ago.” He took a few steps toward the door before glancing back. “I’m glad to see you got out of Edinburgh okay.”
“It’s coming in awfully late, but I want to thank you for saving my life back there. I mean really thank you.”
“How’d you find out about Anna?”
“Hey I am an award-winning investigative reporter. Your hotel room. You left her name engraved on the blotter. And I found a book receipt in your jacket pocket. I’d actually heard an Anna Fischer speak a few years ago and was very impressed. Figured it was worth a couple of phone calls to see if it was the same one. From what I’d seen of you it would take an exceptional woman to keep your interest.”
Shaw looked a little surprised by this praise, but didn’t say anything.
He happened to look at her desk parked next to the hotel room door. Piles of papers, news clippings, and writings were scattered over it. On the laptop screen was a headline detailing the recent events with Russia.
“Your next Pulitzer?” he asked.
“A girl has to keep trying. And do it far better than the boys just to stay equal.”
“You sound like Anna.”
Shaw hesitated and then slowly pulled something from his pocket and passed it to her. It was a card with no name on it, just a phone number.
“I don’t give that out to many people.”
“I’m sure you don’t.”
“But if you went to see Anna there’s a chance the man I work for might come creeping around. If he does.”
“You’ll be the first one I call.”
“Take care of yourself. I doubt we’ll be seeing each other again.”
“I thought that the last time and look where we are. Having a nice cup of coffee together.”
A second later he was gone.
CHAPTER 37
AFTER SHAW LEFT FOR PARIS the Russians publicly announced that if they were so terrible the world would not, of course, condescend to use all their filthy oil, so they cut their exports in half. As the number two exporter of crude behind only Saudi Arabia, and the possessor of the globe’s largest proven natural gas reserves, this was not an empty gesture. Russia exported more oil than the next three countries – Norway, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates – combined. Global production had barely kept pace with demand when all export cylinders were firing. With the Russian black gold not totally available there was no way to make up the shortfall.
The world markets were hardly pleased. The price of crude hit $130 a barrel within hours of the announcement and stock markets around the globe suffered enormous, unprecedented losses even with automatic trading stops in place. Gas at the pump and airline ticket prices soared. And since many things people used every day were made with petroleum products, the cost of everything from
toys to trucks shot up too.
OPEC, so long in the driver’s seat on the world’s economic stage, scrambled to try and at least make up some of the difference but they couldn’t come close. And rather than making the Arab world more untold riches with the price of oil so high, it was actually costing them billions because, unlike Russia, desert countries imported just about everything they needed. So while crude had skyrocketed forty percent, the cost of derivative products had doubled. Because of the price increase and Russia’s stockpile of cash and foreign investments and its proportionately low level of imports and per capita consumption, it was believed that Moscow could keep this position up for quite some time.
If that wasn’t enough for the world to absorb in a week’s time, the Russians had more up their sleeve. Their minister for foreign affairs announced that a Taliban-occupied sector of Afghanistan had been caught red-handed using Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to smuggle drugs into Russia, which promoted criminal activity and corrupted innocent Russian youth. Everyone knew that this was true, of course, but the Russians had never done much about it before. The Russians would not follow diplomatic channels in dealing with this serious problem, the minister stated. Afghanistan had allowed this activity for years and Moscow was tired of it.
And when the Russians made up their minds, they acted.
One day later five large cruise missiles fired from a Russian submarine hit a Taliban training compound that the Russian minister later said was instrumental in this drug trafficking. In seconds one thousand Taliban fighters were obliterated and their caches of weapons and equipment destroyed. The Russians warned every Arab country in the Middle East that if there was any retaliation by them against Russian interests they could expect the same treatment multiplied a hundredfold.
The Afghan president released an official statement denouncing this “unwarranted intrusion into a sovereign nation’s borders.” But in diplomatic circles this was seen as only perfunctory considering that the Taliban was doing its best to overthrow the Afghan government and had attempted to assassinate the current president twice. The Afghan leader therefore was probably doing cartwheels down his presidential corridor at the same time he was telling off Moscow.
Tehran fired off an angry response saying they were appalled by what they termed the Russians’ barbaric behavior, and then hastily turned to the UN for help.
The United States also immediately filed a protest against Russia with the United Nations and began withdrawing its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon announced that this was not connected to the attacks on the Taliban, but merely in keeping with previously stated administration policy. Insiders knew, along with probably most Americans, that this consolidation of troop strength had everything to do with the looming Russian threat. The Middle East was no longer that important. Generals from every NATO nation pulled out their old attack-and-defend plans against Soviet aggression.
One major newspaper succinctly if melodramatically stated it in a four-inch headline: “THE COLD WAR IS BACK.”
Privately, military and administration officials in the United States were rejoicing that with one stroke the Russians had wiped out a large measure of the Taliban’s terrorist capability. One four-star general complaining to his aide said, “If only we could do that shit and get away with it.”
When the first major American pullouts from Iraq began, Shiite and Sunni tribal and militia elements commenced probing attacks on each other in preparation for what many believed would be the long-feared all-out civil war. That story was relegated to the interior pages of most major newspapers, and was not the top story on any mainstream television news program. Iraq, as a newsworthy subject, was now very much second-tier. Islamic-based terrorism was listed in recent polls as the eleventh most important subject for citizens across the globe, falling right after too much sex and violence on TV.
Russia was the number one target of concern, and the reason was abundantly clear. Terrorists had little bombs; Russia possessed tons of real nukes and had apparently lost its collective mind.
The search for the forces behind Konstantin and all the rest took on a much greater urgency now. The world probably figured if they could at least get the Russians one target to crush, they might leave the rest of them alone.
Yet what if the force behind the Red Menace was the United States, many wondered with dread. The Russians had said it would be considered an act of war. Was this really the beginning of the end? Could the Americans have made such a colossal miscalculation? People across every nation on earth braced for the next crisis to happen.
They would not have long to wait.
CHAPTER 38
THE FINAL ELEMENTS OF THE MISSION in France had taken an inordinately long time to complete. Typically Shaw would get to town a day or two before the big event, receive his briefing, and hit his marks. Whether he lived or died was really the only unanswered question. This time had been different.
Frank had even flown in with a team to go over everything in meticulous detail. At the final prep meeting before D-day, he’d hammered the essentials home to Shaw again and again while they sat in a little cottage twenty miles outside of Paris.
He warned, “These guys are good, Shaw, really good. They don’t trust anybody, and anybody they don’t trust, they kill.”
“Thanks for the pep talk, Frank, I really appreciate it.” Shaw sat across from him, rubbing his hands slowly together and not meeting his colleague’s eye.
Frank observed this and suddenly slammed his fist down on the table. “Are you freaking nervous!”
Shaw looked up at him. “What the hell do you think?”
“I think I need the old Shaw, the man who never sweats. If these guys even smell your stink, they’ll put a slug right here faster than you can say, ‘Oh, shit!’” He pointed to the center of his forehead. “And then chop your body up while they chitchat about the weather and women.”
“I’ll be fine, Frank.”
“It’s the lady, right? You’re getting married now and you finally got something to lose.” Frank sat back and shook his head, a patronizing look spreading across his face. “Well, keep this in mind, lover boy, you screw up tomorrow, there’s no wedding, just four funerals. One for each part after the scumballs quarter you up.”
“How long have I been doing this? And I’ve walked away from every one.”
“There’s a first and last time for everybody. Just don’t make it happen on this one, I’m not done with you yet.”
Shaw reached over and gripped the man’s arm. “Tell me why you really went to see Anna.”
“I told you. I was being fair. And you should’ve been the one to tell her, not me. She had a right to know what she was getting into.”
“She’s not a little girl, Frank.”
“Did you tell her you weren’t retiring? That any second your ass could be grass?”
“What the hell do you care?”
Frank looked uncomfortable and shrugged. “She seems like a nice lady. You ever stop to think about what you getting killed might do to her? Or if one of the wackos we deal with on a daily basis gets wind of her?”
“I would never let anything happen to Anna.”
“But you’re not in control of that, are you? You’re not an accountant, Shaw. And in our line of work, you make a mistake, you get dead real fast. And maybe she does too.” He paused. “So with all that you don’t think she had a right to know?”
Shaw didn’t say anything, because more than a little bit of him was arriving at the conclusion that Frank, the hated Frank, might be right.
Frank rose, grabbed his overcoat, and headed to the door. “Good luck, Shaw. And if I don’t see you again, well, I’ll have to find somebody else, won’t I?”
“You’ll never find anybody as good as me.”
Frank considered this as he slipped on a battered hat. “You’re probably right about that. But I’ll settle for almost as good. And if they do end up killing you, right before the bullet hits you
in the brain, just ask yourself one question: was the lady really worth it?”
Frank slammed the door behind him, leaving Shaw alone with only his thoughts.
“Yes,” Shaw said to the empty room. “She is.”