“Impossible,” the answer said.
Then I’ll just write my new story.
“No one will believe you,” came the reply.
I can be very persuasive. And I have some facts that will back me up and blow your plan out of the water.
“What facts?”
I’ll tell you in person.
“I’m not doing that. This could be a setup.”
Shaw and Katie glanced at each other. Of course it was a setup.
A phone call, then.
The answer didn’t come immediately. “What do you want to talk about?”
Money, Katie typed, adding no fewer than three exclamation points. Money for my silence.
“We can do that over e-mail.”
I want to hear you sweat. Katie smiled at this intentionally mixed metaphor.
A long minute went by as they anxiously stared at the screen. “When?”
Katie clapped her hands together. Tonight. Midnight U.S. East Coast time. She typed in a cell phone number that was untraceable. Shaw had given it to her.
“He’ll suspect that we’ll try to trace the call when he’s on the phone,” she said.
“He’ll use a sterilized cell phone, believing that even if we trace the signal and burn a target between the cell towers, it’s still a big place.”
“Well, isn’t it?” Katie said.
“The world isn’t nearly as large as people think it is. In fact, it’s pretty small. If we can track his signal, that’ll give us about a city-block footprint to target. Once we get that, Frank can send in people fast. With his connections, he has assets pretty much everywhere that he can call on.”
“That’s still a big space to search, Shaw.”
“It is, but it’s better than nothing. And we might just get lucky.”
Pender sat back in his office after having finished his digital conversation with Katie James. That’s who it had to be of course, the damn reporter.
The initials at the end of the e-mail, K and J. The threat to retract her story.
He should have immediately phoned Nicolas Creel, but he couldn’t. He’d obviously blundered on setting up the sham blogger site, because the damn woman had seen right through it. He could not let Creel know about that. He had never personally seen what Creel had done to underlings who’d failed him, but he’d heard enough rumors. He would handle this himself. It was only a phone call and he would take all necessary precautions against it being traced. There was no way they would be able to find him.
If it was merely money she wanted, that was doable. James would no doubt be reasonable in her request. If it took millions, he’d just take it out of his bonus. It wasn’t like he needed both the yacht and the private plane. But what if she kept coming back for more money?
Pender took a deep breath as his nerves began to bunch up and down his spine. This had never happened to him before. He was only used to being behind the scenes, never in the trenches. But he would get through this. He was the master of this game. In the end he would win.
And best of all, Nicolas Creel would never have to know.
He prayed to God that the man would never find out.
CHAPTER 81
NEXT TO THE TABLE where Katie would be sitting when she made the call, Shaw had set up a large clock with an LED readout down to the seconds. He held a video camera pointed at Katie and the clock; he also had on a headset.