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Jeremy says, “How in hell are we going to find out what we need to know about that railway?”
I point to the phone. “You’re going to call London—that’s how.”
Chapter88
TOM CORNWALLhears Amy talking to someone on the other end of the call—a male Brit?—and there’s a hard knock on the side of his open door.
His boss, Dylan Roper.
“Tom?” he asks, face red, eyes angry, his usually fine seersucker suit looking like he’s slept in it for two nights straight.
“Hey, Dylan,” Tom says. “I’m on a call here.”
Dylan takes two steps into his office. “I can tell. I’ve been hearing it for the past couple of minutes.”
“You’re eavesdropping?”
“Listening,” Dylan says. “Looks like you got something big going on there. What is it?”
“Can’t tell you,” Tom says.
Dylan says, “The hell you can’t.”
He picks up his phone, says, “Amy, look, I gotta go.”
Tom quickly disconnects the call, wishing he had said something more sweet and loving to Amy before doing so. “I don’t have a story for you, Dylan.”
His boss comes further into his office, and Tom can almost smell the fear and desperation coming off him. Dylan says, “You’re bullshitting me, and I won’t stand for it. I heard enough: a Saudi national in Manhattan…his real estate interests…something to do with a local railroad.”
Tom keeps his gaze steady toward his angry boss. “Nothing newsworthy there, Dylan.”
Dylan uses both hands to lean over Tom’s cluttered desk. “That’s even more bullshit. I heard your last message. You were saying goodbye to your wife, Amy. Am I right?”
Tom keeps quiet.
Damn.
Dylan nods. “I thought so. What’s going on, Tom? You’re doing a favor for your wife, an intelligence officer—either CIA or some other agency, I really don’t give a shit. But you’re passing along something you’ve learned to your wife. That means you’re passing on something to the government.”
“Dylan, I was doing a favor for Amy, yes, but I—”
His boss is having none of it. “Stop it, and stop it right now. You listen to me, Tom Cornwall. I have first dibs on whatever it is you’ve just found out. Whatever you did for your wife, you did it here, in my office, using my equipment, my furniture—hell, even my electricity. That means your work product took place here. And you took that work product and gave it to the government. To hell with that. I have first dibs, Tom. Tell me: what the hell is going on?”
Lots of responses tumble through his mind, but all Tom can think of is what he had earlier said to his wife:
Nobody else will know.
Dylan stands up with a start, and his manner changes. “Tom…please. I just had a brutal meeting with our investors. They’re going to shut us down in a month unless we get a turnaround. You’ve got something going on. I know it, you know it. You write me that story today—take even two days. If it’s something that gets the investors’ attention, it can save me.”
Tom finds it hard to look at the desperate man in front of him. “I’m sorry, Dylan, I can’t say a word.”
Dylan says, “You…all right. I know I’m a pain in the ass. A snob. A prick.” He waves his right hand toward Tom’s open office door. “But how about the rest of Criterion News? Your coworkers? The people out there who depend on this place for their livelihood, to support themselves, elderly parents, their kids? You know the state of journalism. Do you think it’s going to be easy for your friends out there to find a job next month?”
Quietly and with heaviness in his words, Tom says, “No, it won’t be easy.”
Dylan nods. “Then don’t do it for me. Do it for them.”
Tom shakes his head. “Dylan…I can’t. I just can’t.”
