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“I told you, discussing it with people could influence their memories of the events. It’s best not to talk about it.”
“I don’t want to discuss it; I wanted to write about it.”
“You mean for the paper?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “No, bad idea. I know it would probably be great for your job, but if you do that, Mags, you’re going to screw up prosecution. This town is too small for someone in the media to be giving details.”
“Why?”
“Because if and when this goes to trial, it will be harder for them to find twelve people to serve on a jury that hasn’t already formed an opinion of guilt.”
“But they are guilty.”
“I know that, and you know that, but you and I are not the justice system.”
“Not that I need to debate this with you, but what about the freedom of speech and the press?”
“Yes, you have the freedom of speech, but you have to remember that anything that you say about that incident and make public won’t be used in the trial, and the case could get thrown out without all the evidence. The defense only needs a shadow of a doubt to get the charges dropped. Do you want those men out on the street?”
“No.”
“Then I think you’d be better off not saying anything. Why are you asking anyway?”
“Because my boss is an ass.”
Greg’s eyes darkened. “What did he do?”
“He pretty much told me that if I don’t write an article about what happened inside, that he will make sure I stayed writing fluff pieces and romance columns. He said I had until midnight to write my account of what happened, and if I did, he would make sure it was front and center. If I got that space, I’d have my break, Greg, and they’d have to consider me for the news desk.”
“That really means a lot to you?”
“Yes, it does. I love my job, but I want to report real stories, not this crap about how to know a man loves you and is worth dealing with his crap. It’s all bullshit because we all know that men are jerks.”
Greg started laughing. “Not all men, but yeah, most of them.”
I grinned at him. “I know.”
His cellphone vibrated, and he shifted on the bench to pull it out of his pocket. I turned away as he read a message and then chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“Alice, our receptionist. She picked my boss up from the airport and took him home. He was pretty trashed, and she was letting me know that she left him alive.”
“Is there a reason he got drunk on the way home?”
“The politicians that we were working with scrapped a detail that we were supposed to do to save a few bucks, but they are going to regret it.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah, Jake was pretty furious, especially since we came up with the plan to get over a million dollars’ worth of medical supplies safely into an area in Africa, and they have our plans, but don’t want us to run it. They want their civilian employees to do it.”
“But aren’t you a civilian employee? I mean, you’re not in the military.”
“Yeah, technically, I’m considered a civilian contractor, but because we all have higher-level tactical training and military experience in wartime situations, we’re expensive. They wanted to cut costs.”
“So, they stole your plans, and now they are going to use people who aren’t trained as well to do the delivery?”
