“Do you know someone named Shaw?”
Anna stiffened. “Why do you ask?”
“He’s a big man, dark hair, blue eyes?”
A lump formed in Anna’s throat. Please, God, don’t let it be… This is all too much. “Yes, I know him,” she managed to say.
“Then I think we need to meet.”
“Is he all right?” Anna gasped.
“He was when I left him. But that’s not to say he’ll stay all right.”
“What do you mean? Who are you?”
“My name is Katie James. And I believe Shaw is in serious trouble.”
CHAPTER 32
THE TWO WOMEN SAT opposite each other at a café on Victoria Street. It was a cold, dank afternoon of intermittent rain; the kind of day that Londoners knew all too well.
Katie James swirled her spoon in her coffee while Anna Fischer stared out the window where a flock of umbrellas paraded past. A single tear slid down her face. Katie pretended not to notice.
“You told me what happened in Edinburgh with Shaw, but you never really explained how you found me,” Anna said.
“Several years ago you delivered a paper at The Hague about the balance of preserving civil liberties with the fight against terrorism. I covered it for my newspaper. I was doing a stint in the Middle East at the time and the subject matter was certainly relevant to that part of the world. Then I found a sales receipt that Shaw had. He’d purchased a copy of your book. I recalled that you discussed it at your lecture. It was a brilliant discussion.”
“Yes, well, too bad no one was listening.”
“I’m sure many people were, Ms. Fischer.”
Anna looked up from the remains of a barely eaten lunch. “Please, it’s Anna. We should be on first-name basis considering what you’ve just told me about the man I’m engaged to,” she added in a resigned tone.
“And you had no idea?”
“Of course I had some idea. And I had my suspicions.”
“But you never pushed him on it?”
“I did. After he asked me to marry him,” she added, her voice choking. When she started to snuffle, several other patrons looked around to stare at her.
“Would you like to go to someplace more private?” Katie suggested in a low voice.
Anna wiped her eyes and rose. “My office. It’s close by.”
A few minutes later the women sat in Anna’s book-lined office at The Phoenix Group. A secretary brought them in hot tea and then retreated. Katie gazed around the room with interest.
“So what is it that you do here?” she asked, obviously trying to break the ice a bit.
“Here, we think,” Anna replied. “We think about vitally important global issues that most people have neither the time, expertise, nor desire to dwell on. Then we write our white papers, publish our books in hundred-copy runs, and make our speeches to half-filled rooms and the rest of the world goes merrily along ignoring us completely.”
“Is it really that bad?”
“Yes.” Anna took a sip of tea. “You said Shaw had been wounded?” Her face twitched even as she tried to appear casual.
“He didn’t seem to even care. Bullet didn’t go in, he said, or something close to that. But they were shooting at him. His own people, the good guys.”
“Or so he told you they were the good guys,” Anna said sharply.