“But nothing you’ve told me is a reason not to write the story. An eyewitness says some Russians in Gorshkov’s pay did it. I’ll say nothing about the Red Menace stuff or the Chinese connection because I told you I wouldn’t. But the fact that the Russians hit that building came from my source and is a story the world needs to know.”

“Come on, who can’t read between those lines! And if the Chinese think that the Russians took out one of their offices? They might retaliate against Moscow.”

“But even you said the Red Menace stuff was bull crap. It was planted. The Chinese weren’t behind it.”

Shaw shook his hands in exasperation. “Exactly, Katie. Don’t you get it? The Russians wouldn’t have planted that stuff, especially if they knew of the Chinese connection. What would have been the point? They wouldn’t go out of their way to pick a fight with China by framing them. The two countries are too evenly matched militarily. If they were going to pull a stunt like that they would’ve chosen a country a lot easier to blow out of the water. Hell, start with the A’s and nail Albania. That war would be over in twenty-four hours. But China? They have three soldiers for every Russian grunt. And they have nukes too.”

Katie looked confused. “So what exactly are you saying?”

“That the Russians didn’t do it. And The Phoenix Group isn’t behind the Red Menace and neither are the Chinese.”

“Okay, then who is behind it all?” she said doubtfully.

“There’s a third party involved. A third party that is playing a game I don’t completely understand, but that I know is somehow designed to pit Russia and China against each other.”

“So you’re saying my source is lying about the Russian involvement?”

“If he said he overheard people speaking in Russian who said they worked for Gorshkov, then, yeah, I think he might be lying, because I don’t believe the killers were working for Russia. Or else, and it’s a real stretch, they somehow knew he was in the building and let him live so he could tell what he’d heard, or what they wanted him to hear.”

She snapped her fingers. “He did say he overheard the Russians, or according to you, the fake Russians talking about someone else being in the building. If they were watching the back of the office they would’ve seen him go in. But they didn’t do another search because a window was broken and a woman was screaming out of the office and they were afraid the police would show up.”

Shaw’s expression grew clouded. Katie said, “Did that happen?”

He nodded slowly. “The woman was Anna. She broke her office window, tried to get out that way, but was killed before she could.”

“How do you know that?”

“The street camera recorded it.”

“My God, you saw it happen?” She put a hand over his. “Shaw, I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you won’t write the story.”

“I can’t do that. The world deserves to hear it.”

“Really? Even if it’s all lies? Or maybe Katie James believes she deserves to get back on top, any way she can? Even if it means the end of the world as we know it?”

Katie’s face flushed and she drew away from him. “That is not why I’m doing this!”

“Then tell me why you are doing it.”

“I’m a journalist. I have a story. A story of the decade! I can’t just sit on it because you have a bunch of pet theories, or because you say the world might end.”

“And what if I’m right? Are you prepared to deal with it?”

“Yes,” she said, but her voice shook slightly.

“Then we have nothing else to talk about.” He rose and held the door open.

“Shaw, please don’t do this.”

“We have nothing else to talk about,” he said more firmly.

She slowly walked past him and he slammed the door shut behind her.

NICOLAS CREEL’S TRIPS to China and Russia had been successful. No firm deals had been announced, but he had laid the groundwork for that to almost certainly happen and soon. When the “real” truth of The Phoenix Group came out – and Creel expected Katie James to publish it anytime now – the dynamic between China and Russia would quickly change from regional competitors to that of absolute enemies. And the trillions of dollars would begin flowing his way.

Yet with that triumph just behind him, he still had a problem.

He once more sat on the top deck of the magnificent Shiloh, one of the world’s greatest super-yachts, while his ditzy wife lay sprawled naked on a plush chaise longue on the foredeck. Creel had finally gotten fed up and demanded that she put something on. She flatly refused, claiming that even a string bikini would unbalance her tan.

She’d told him in a pouty voice, “My body is perfect. No tan lines. No lines, Nicky! You can’t make me.”

How could one respond to such stark logic, to such earnest narcissistic proclamations? Creel had almost laughed, as he would’ve when a child had done something silly. No, this marriage was clearly not going to last. His ship phone rang. It was the captain. Mrs. Creel had finally fallen asleep.

“Then put a damn blanket over her, neck to toes,” Creel instructed and hung up.

The woman he’d met in L.A. when he’d been given the philanthropic award was an art curator at the Met in New York. With multiple degrees from Yale, she was stunningly intelligent, world-traveled, attractive, nicely built, and he seriously doubted she would have been the least concerned about tan lines across her ass. He’d had a wonderfully fascinating evening with the woman that had involved no physical contact at all. He’d have his attorneys draw up the divorce papers when he returned home.

But that looming domestic change was not the problem Creel was troubled by.

He stared down at the photo of the man with Katie James. James had left Shaw’s hotel in tears, Creel had been told. Was the man going to screw this up? He wanted revenge. He was highly skilled. Yes, a potential problem. Shaw’s days were probably numbered. But then what was one more?

Creel gazed out onto the calmness of the Mediterranean where a hot sun slowly burned its way downward to the lazy shimmer of sea. Despite selling the best military hardware on earth, he was a peaceful man. He had never struck anyone in anger. He had, it was true, ordered the deaths of people, but it was never done with malice.

Yet from the first club wielded in anger to an A-bomb that wiped out six figures’ worth of people in a few ticks of the clock, physical conflict was an essential part of humanity. Creel knew this, just as he knew that war had many positive attributes. Most significantly, it made people forget the frivolous and bond together for the greater good.

He certainly felt guilt for what he’d done. In fact he’d already pledged ten million dollars to a fund set up for the families of the victims of the London Massacre. It was the least he could do, he believed. And while across the Atlantic in England people were trying to make sense of what seemed senseless, he had gotten down on his knees in his $175 million aircraft, and asked his god, who surely couldn’t be that much farther above him, to forgive him. And when Creel rose off that wool-carpeted floor and got back into his luxurious bed and turned off his ten-thousand-dollar designer lamp, he was reasonably certain his god had accommodated him.

While Pender was busy manufacturing something and selling it to everyone as the truth, Creel clearly knew what “real” truth was.

The world is a much safer place when the powerful actually use their power and much less safe when they don’t.

The United States could wipe out the problem in the Middle East in days. Certainly there would be innocents who would die. But what was the difference between millions killed in ten minutes or ten years? They’d still be dead and you would have avoided a decade of misery and uncertainty. And Creel would gladly provide every weapon needed to extinguish the savages. It really was all about us versus them. And only the strong survived.