suburban-Buffalo detective? They fired him for protecting sources on that story, right, Jack?”
“Yes.”
“Turns out, Jack was dead on the money on Styebeck,” Brad said. “Anita, I help him not because he helped save my charity, but because he gets to the truth and never ever gives up his sources. He’s honorable.”
Anita stared at her husband. As she ate her salad, she weighed her words carefully before she turned to Gannon.
“What are you going to say in your story, based on what I told you?”
“I’ll say investigators returned a key witness to the scene of four murders and walked her through the tragedy in an effort to find the fugitive killers, something like that.”
“And to whom will you attribute the information?”
“Sources.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes, for that part, then we’ll have some background and updates, like with the search upstate.”
“We’re hearing there’s nothing to that,” Brad said. “Something about the veracity of the information, or some confusion.”
“We have people up there reporting. And we’ll add other aspects to the story.”
“Are you good with that, Anita?” Brad asked.
“Tell me what happened in Buffalo on the cop case,” she asked Gannon.
“No one believed my reporting, including some senior police officials who pressured the paper until I was fired.”
“And?”
“I was not wrong.”
Anita nodded thoughtfully.
“You can use what I told you, Jack.”
“Thank you.”
“No names, got that?”
“I got it.”
Back at his desk in the WPA’s headquarters, Gannon typed quickly, assembling the wire service’s main story on the search for the killers in the interstate armored car heist.
“I like your stuff, lead with it. It’s exclusive news,” Lisker had acknowledged. “Everybody and his dog will have the story on the ‘futile search’ upstate.”
It took less than forty-five minutes for him to write the full piece. He sent it to Hal Ford on the desk, Ford gave it a quick edit before putting it out to all WPA subscribers.
Gannon went to the window and massaged the back of his neck.
He was beat.
The sun had set and the horizon had dissolved into a swath of pinks and blues. He looked at the Empire State Building rising from Manhattan’s twinkling lights and reflected on Anita and Brad, who seemed to be suited to married life.
Gannon glanced at the empty desks of people who’d already gone home to their families in New Jersey, Westchester or Long Island. He glanced at the framed photos of their kids, wives and husbands, beaming through the chaos of stylebooks, notes, newspapers and assorted messes.
In the end, family is what mattered.
Gannon had his sister and niece in Arizona, but beyond them he had no one.
Nobody waiting for him.
Nothing to rush home to but an empty apartment.
Empty.
That’s how he felt.
He thought of Katrina for a second.
Then he turned to the skyline and somewhere in the night he saw a face he’d seen earlier that day.
The witness.
What had she endured? What was her story? Who was she? Where was she from? What was her situation? Married? Single? Involved?
In the moment their eyes met at the service center something had connected between them.
A longing?
A deep sense of loneliness?
He was too tired to think straight; crazy to believe that he’d somehow made a spiritual, cosmic bond with the witness.
All right.
But he needed to find her, that much made sense.
Four funerals were coming and he was determined to take the reader into the heart of this story—the whole story.
“Jack!” a news assistant called out. “Call for you.”
He took it on his landline at his desk.
“Gannon.”
“Mr. Gannon, this is Jerry Falco, in Yonkers.”
“Mr. Falco, yes, sorry.”
“I may have what you need. Are you still interested?”
Gannon checked the time.
“Yes. I’m very interested.”
VIA passenger train number 45 edged the windswept shore of Lake Ontario, swaying gently through the picture-postcard towns and farm fields east of Toronto.
Ivan Felk had an economy-class window seat. Few people were aboard. The aisle seat next to his was empty. So were the seats near him. Yet in the soothing rhythm of the train’s
The previous night, he’d sent a message to the untraceable account of the insurgents holding his men. In it, Felk had claimed responsibility for the deadly heist outside New York City and sent news reports, all to confirm his team’s actions to secure the ransom by the deadline.
The insurgents responded with a new video.
Felk viewed the images on his laptop: the camera panned over the aftermath of his team’s failed military mission in the region’s frontier city; then to the desecration of the dead; then to the torment of the hostages. The footage then cut to a man before a plain black backdrop, his face concealed in a black scarf with only his eyes showing.
Felk locked onto them.
The insurgent gave readings from the glorious text, his voice traveling through Felk’s earphones. Then he switched to English.
“Heed this message from the New Guardians of the National Revolutionary Movement. We acknowledge your work to collect the fine. We must see your continued atonement for crimes committed by the invading infidels. We
