He was near the desk when eight and nine arrived.
The problem came with attachment ten.
It had downloaded to 50 percent then stopped.
Gannon cursed to himself and didn’t move another step.
“Right this way, sir,” the attendant said, repeating it in Portuguese.
“Yes, sorry, one moment.”
The tenth attachment completed downloading. Now that he had them all, he moved quickly to a seat near the desk.
“Sir, you must board.”
“Please, bear with me.”
The attendant at the desk was glaring at him. No one else was waiting at preboarding.
“Sir, you cannot delay this flight.”
He moved the documents quickly en masse onto his hard drive, put them into one folder and e-mailed that folder to Melody Lyon’s home e-mail, labeling the document Confidential from JG in Rio.
“Sir, we have to leave now!”
Once his e-mail was sent, Gannon shut his laptop and boarded.
The flight taxied into position but its departure was delayed for an excruciating hour. Some thirty minutes after the jetliner finally roared from Rio de Janeiro, it leveled off.
The elderly lady in the window seat beside Gannon had fallen asleep.
He turned on his laptop and resumed his work.
He scrutinized every attachment two or three times trying to determine what he had. He saw the unsigned note demanding that files, hardcopy and electronic, be destroyed, and that “no record exists in the firm that makes mention of their existence, including this one which should be destroyed after these instructions are carried out.”
From that point, most of the ten pages seemed to be a catalogue of files, and cross-referenced file numbers. All the pages looked similar. Again, he studied the entries on the first few, trying to make sense of them.
LA #212005 to New York67
LA #907864 to Texas908
LA #376274 to Minnesota9087
LA #181975 to Wyoming847
LN #77-487 to Bristol26
LN #F8-787 to Manchester98
LN #FF-879 to Dublin948
LN #00-977 to GlasgowS93…
And so on, and so on. While he could not decipher them, Gannon was convinced they were significant because a handwritten notation on the last page said “Security breach, have alerted E.D., action required.”
Who was E.D., he wondered, and what type of action was required?
Below the note he saw the separate message posted to the document that was addressed specifically to him from Sarah Kirby’s group.
“To Jack, on behalf of Sarah: We have contacted our friends in London, who have more information and have agreed to help you based upon Sarah’s assurance that you can be trusted. See the contact e-mail below. Your contact’s name is Oliver. Good luck.”
Gannon contemplated the airphone installed in the backrest of the seat before him. He thought most airlines had taken the phones out because passengers complained.
He needed to reach Melody Lyon.
“Excuse me,” he asked the attendant who was making her way by, pushing a beverage cart. “Are these working? Can I make a call?”
“Yes.” She glanced around. “We’re about two-thirds full. If you use one in the empty back rows you’ll have more privacy.”
“Can I just move my stuff to a seat back there?”
“Sure.”
After Gannon settled in at the back, he inserted the WPA credit card into the mechanism, then called Lyon’s cell phone, estimating that it had been over two hours since his last attempt.
It was answered on the third ring.
“Melody, it’s Gannon.”
“Jack, I’ve been trying to call you. I just got back from Miami. George told me what happened, are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Just a little bruised.”
“Where are you?”
“On the plane back to New York, we just left Rio.”
“How the hell did you get taken hostage by a drug gang?”
“It was a misunderstanding. I’m fine as long as we run the story I just filed. It’s critical that the desk doesn’t cut the Blue Brigade stuff.”
“I’ll tell them.”
“Turns out the hostage thing was the price I paid for a strong lead into the bombing. Did you read the material I sent you, the ten attachments of the secret files?”
“I did.”
“This is shaping up to be a major story.”
“Bring me up to speed.”
Gannon related everything he’d learned on Maria Santo, the law firm, Sarah Kirby and the human rights network, and how Marcelo’s incredible photos of Maria and the bombing helped advance the story.
Lyon listened, asked an occasional question, then concluded the call.
“Jack, the first thing you’re going to do when you get to New York is your laundry. Then pack again. I’ll authorize and clear the way. I want you to follow this story to London and wherever else it leads us.”
31
Laramie, Wyoming
Emma sat at the big polished oak table in the conference room at the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation.
Shadows on the wall drawn by the midday light bled through the blinds. As Emma studied them she blinked back tears, trying not to scream.
Nearly two agonizing days had passed since she’d received the mysterious nighttime call, and police were still no closer to telling her who had made it.
For two days Emma had repeated the circumstances of the call to every official she was referred to. She recounted every detail and answered every question while they took notes. But she soon realized that their concern was just pretense.
Because they don’t believe me.
She’d do better to search for answers in the shadows on the wall.
“Emma?”
She shifted her focus to the people around the table, who, at her insistence, had convened this meeting here in Laramie to report back to her on their “investigation” into the call.
She looked into the faces of Aunt Marsha, Uncle Ned, Darnell Horn with the county sheriff’s office, his supervisor, Reed Cobb, Henry Sanders, the coroner, Dan Farraday with the highway patrol; and Dr. Kendrix, the psychiatrist from the hospital.
Jay Hubbard, special agent with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation who was running the meeting, repeated his question.
