Stuart Woods - Mounting Fears

“What about freedom of the press and all that?” Holly asked.

“Fuck freedom of the press. You can shoot the guy, if you think you can get away with it. Now get moving.”

Holly went back to her office, thinking she had never seen Lance so exercised about anything. Normally he was the coolest operator she knew.

Before she followed his orders she had some prep work to do. She began by going to the website of the National Inquisitor and finding the address of their offices and the name of their editor, Willard Gaynes, then she called Jeannie in Tech Services.

“Jeannie.”

“Hi, Jeannie. It’s Holly Barker. I need some quick work.”

“Tell me.”

“I want a general sort of court order from a federal judge requiring the National Inquisitor to divulge any and all information I request and to produce any documents and photographs I ask for, and a separate search warrant, signed by the same judge, allowing me to tear apart their offices if they don’t give me what I want. Make the order unequivocal and eyes-only secret, with jail as an alternative and national security as a reason.”

“How soon?”

“Yesterday.”

“Gotcha. I’ll get back to you.”

Holly went back to her computer and began doing searches on the backgrounds of both Willard Gaynes and Edward “Ned” Partain. She found interesting stuff and began reading it. Then she called Owen Masters in Panama City.

“Masters.”

“Owen, I’m Holly Barker. I work for Lance Cabot.”

“I know who you are.”

“Please call your police contact and ask him to see that his department doesn’t call Ned Partain’s editor until exactly noon today. I want to break the news to him personally.”

“Anything else?”

“No.”

Masters hung up without further ado.

Fifteen minutes later there was a knock on Holly’s door.

“Come in.”

A woman of about fifty walked in and handed Holly two envelopes. “Here you go,” she said. “The court order has a reasonable facsimile of the signature of Judge Ezra Wolfe of the First District Court, and so does the search warrant.”

Holly read the court order and smiled. “Nice work,” she said. “Beautiful job on the letterhead, too.”

“The letterhead is authentic,” Jeannie replied. “We lifted a ream of it from the Federal Printing Office last year. And I made a call to the judge’s clerk, who is on the payroll, so if anybody checks either the order or the warrant, he’ll provide backup.”

“Perfect,” Holly said. “Thank you, Jeannie. I owe you one.”

“It’s what we do,” Jeannie said, and with a wave, left Holly’s office.

Ateleven forty-five, Holly walked into the editorial offices of the National Inquisitor and spoke to a woman at the reception desk. “My name is Branson. I want to see Willard Gaynes now.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

Holly reached into her purse and removed an envelope. “Give him this,” she said. “He’ll see me.” The envelope contained a business card identifying Holly as Assistant Director Hope Branson of the FBI.

“Just a minute,” the woman said. She left the reception room and was back in less than a minute. “He’ll see you,” she said. “Through the door, down the hall to the corner office.”

Holly followed the directions, opened Gaynes’s closed door, walked in, flashed an FBI ID and sat down.

“So, what can we do for the FBI today?” Gaynes asked. He was a short, heavily jowled man with oily dyed-black hair.

“You have a reporter named Edward ‘Ned’ Partain?”

“Yes,” Gaynes replied. “He’s out of town on a story.”

“I know,” Holly replied. “In Panama. He’s dead.”

Gaynes’s eyes widened. “Wait a minute,” he said. He looked at the card Holly had sent him, then picked up the phone and dialed the number on the card, which connected him not to the FBI switchboard but to a facsimile at Langley. “Do you have an agent named Hope Branson?” he asked. “All right, Assistant Director Branson. Please connect me with her office.” He waited, then listened. “Never mind,” he said, and hung up the phone.

“Now,” he said to Holly, “what the hell are you talking about?”

“The body of Ned Partain was found aboard a tanker bound from the Panama Canal to Galveston, Texas, yesterday. He appeared to have fallen from some place along the canal onto the deck of the ship.”

“Was this a homicide?” he asked.

“Possibly. The autopsy is being conducted as we speak.”

The phone on Gaynes’s desk rang. “Excuse me,” he said, and picked it up. He was on the phone for less than a minute. “That was the Panama City police. Apparently, what you told me is true.”

“Tell me why Partain was in Panama,” Holly said.

“We don’t tell the FBI that sort of thing.”

Holly handed him the court order. She waited while he read it, then said, “Tell me what I want to know, or you’ll be in the federal detention center in twenty minutes.”

“I’ve never seen a document like this,” Gaynes said. “Hold on.” He called the number on the letterhead, asked for the judge’s clerk and questioned him, then hung up and turned back to Holly. “What do you want to know?”

“We don’t like it when American journalists die in foreign countries,” Holly said. “Tell me everything about Partain’s assignment.”

“Ned was in Panama to interview a man who is believed to be Teddy Fay.”

Holly snorted. “Teddy Fay is dead,” she said, “confirmed and reconfirmed.”

“Maybe,” Gaynes said.

Holly held up the e-mailed print of Teddy’s photograph. “Is this the man you thought was Teddy Fay?”

Gaynes looked surprised. “Yes.”

“This man is a CIA officer on assignment in South America. Where did you get the photograph?”

“From a woman named Darlene Cole, who works for a law firm in town. She knew Fay years ago.”

“Which law firm?”

“Barton and Falls,” Gaynes said.

“Give me all the copies you have of the photo and the negative.”

“I don’t have the negative,” Gaynes said. “Ms. Cole was cagey about that.”

“How many copies do you have?”

“Look, you’re out of line here.”

Holly handed him the search warrant. “I can have a team of agents here in half an hour to tear apart your offices, but of course, you’ll be in detention by then.”

Gaynes went to a safe in a corner of his office, punched a number into the keypad, and opened it.

Holly watched him and memorized the combination. It might come in handy one of these days.

Gaynes took out an envelope, examined the contents, and handed it to Holly.

She found half a dozen copies of the photo and tucked them into her purse. “Give me the card I gave you,” Holly said, “and the court order and search warrant.”

Gaynes surrendered the documents.

“You are under a federal court injunction not to speak of this to anyone,” Holly said. “I was never here, do you understand?”

Gaynes nodded. “I understand.”

“If you talk about this to anyone on your staff or off, bad things will happen,” she said.

“All right, all right,” he said, raising both hands. “Will you let me know more about Ned Partain?”

“The Panama City police will deal with you on that,” Holly said. “Good day.” She rose and walked out of the office, satisfied with her day’s work.

As she passed the reception desk, a skinny, slightly disheveled young man wearing a backpack was talking with the receptionist. “But I have to see Gaynes right now,” he said. “Ned Partain is out of town, and this is too important to wait.”