No Fortunate Son (Pike Logan, #7)(60)

Seamus considered his words, then said, “Okay. Yes, I can get you the explosives. Are you looking to separate one car or what?”

Ali smiled. “No. The entire thing. I told you it was significant.”

Seamus smelled a bluff. He leaned back and said, “Bullshit. No way can you do that. I don’t even know if you can rig the explosives, but you sure as shit can’t do it in a manner to cause catastrophic failure. I’m not trading for a puff of smoke and thirty minutes on the news. If I’m going to claim the attack, I need thirty days of news.”

Ali pointed at Ismail and said, “He is a structural engineer. Trained in Egypt. He has studied everything available on the target. He says he can do it. If you give us the proper explosives.”

Seamus went from one to the other, then said, “Okay. It’s a trade, then. You get the crown jewels of the United States, and I get your attack. You do understand, though, that if you fail, if you get captured, you’re on your own.”

“Of course. But we won’t fail. I promise you that.”






41




Grant Breedlove stared at his computer, the thoughts coalescing in his head but not reaching his fingertips. His editor had given him a leash, but it was running out, and he still didn’t have a story. Although he knew one was here. A big one.

He’d worked his way through a multitude of emails and had received responses from most but had nothing for a glaring few. Unfortunately, he had no way of knowing if the service members had simply ignored the email. Given military members’ normal hatred of the press, he couldn’t dismiss the possibility that their lack of response meant they were telling him to stuff it. And there was no way he could print a story on an absence of email contact alone.

But there was something here. He had contacts all over DC, in the highest echelons of government, and whenever he probed on this story he got two responses: One, a blank stare as if he were crazy. Or two, like the secretary of Homeland Security, a spooked expression and a complete retreat.

He needed time. A bit of news to get his editor on board, no matter how small. A nugget to continue the hunt.

He felt the presence of someone and turned to find Kincaid Butler staring over his shoulder. He blanked the laptop and said, “What do you want?”

“Nothing. Just checking out what you’re working on. Word on the street is you’re onto a Lewinsky/Watergate type thing.”

Disgusted, Grant said, “Get out of my cubicle. Find your own damn story.”

Kincaid said, “Hey, even Woodward needed a Bernstein. I’m just offering to help.”

“I don’t need the help. And I don’t have a story. If I do, maybe I’ll ask.”

Kincaid repulsed him. A young up-and-comer, he’d achieved the appropriate check marks—degree from Georgetown, internship at the White House, a battlefield press tour in Afghanistan—but he’d never once done anything on his own. Always snatching the last bit of fabric from the coattail ahead of him.

His report on the crisis of Afghan interpreters—men who’d given all to help the US effort and were now abandoned to the Taliban—had garnered worldwide attention, but Grant knew the truth. The person who’d written it had been killed by a suicide bomber in a Kabul restaurant before it was published, and Kincaid, as the “man on the ground,” had snaked it as his own. Ostensibly as a tribute to the fallen reporter.

Having braved hostile fire in Libya for a story, Grant had little time for an * who sat in the rear collating reports and then received the accolades over another’s dead body.

Kincaid said, “Hey, everyone knows you’re working on something. And that Brittle is done with letting you run amok. No time for that in the Internet day. You let me help, and we could cut your leads in half. Get somewhere.”

Grant said, “Get the hell out of here. I have nothing, and if I needed help, it wouldn’t be from some remora.”

Stung, Kincaid wandered away. Grant rubbed his eyes, thinking of what else he could do to drag out the timeline. He stood, pulling his sport coat off the chair. One cubicle over, he heard his friend Dwight say, “Fuck that guy. And screw Brittle too. I’m sick of this instant news shit. You got a story, you follow it.”

Dwight was old-school. A man who believed in the fifth estate, with all the due diligence that entailed. Saddened to see it crushed by bloggers and the Internet, he was Grant’s biggest cheerleader. He wanted the world to return to normal, but that time had passed long ago.

Grant said, “I hear you, man. But this story is about to—”

His phone rang. He looked at his watch, seeing it was nine at night. He snatched it up.

“Grant Breedlove.”

“The reporter?”

Grant heard an accent but couldn’t place it. “Yes.”

“I have the information you’re looking for.”

Irish. Why on earth would an Irishman be calling him?

Feeling circumspect, Grant said, “Okay. What, exactly, do you have? What story do you think I’m working?”

The next words slammed into him like a freight train. The break he’d been waiting for.

“Nicholas Seacrest. Aka Hannister. The vice president’s son. Now missing, although nobody knows it. I know what’s happened to him. And I’ve said enough on your recording devices. Good-bye.”