‘That won’t happen unless I want it to. You think I only ever get seen by chance in this town?’ The corner of her mouth dropped in an involuntary show of superiority, and Conkley decided he really didn’t much like Marcella Cready.
But it was too late for that now. Needs must. He’d thrown the bait out, and it had been snapped up. All he had to wait for was to see if the bait was acceptable.
‘Um … what about …?’ He wanted to say payment, but he couldn’t bring himself to utter the word. It seemed too … seedy.
Cready did it for him. ‘I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars in cash on confirmation that I’m happy to run with it, and a further fifteen on publication. I’ll also require you to sign a contract confirming our agreement and the dates of all our meetings and exchanges, and an agreement to not divulge any information elsewhere.’
‘What? Why?’ The idea of his signature on a piece of paper alarmed him. What he wanted to do was talk the talk and fade quietly into the sunset and obscurity, not be on record for ever as some kind of paid betrayer.
‘Because if I run with this, it will be my exclusive. I never share — you should know that by now. And when the lid comes off this — and believe me, if what you’ve outlined is true, Benson will not take the exposure lying down — I don’t want any disagreements in court about who said what and when. Understood?’
He nodded. The interview was over. He stood up, feeling as if he was being dismissed from the principal’s office, and was ushered out by the security guard, who smiled and wished him a nice day.
Marcella Cready watched Conkley go with mixed feelings. She had wanted to ignore him, to show her contempt for him and others in his position. A little man, like so many attached like grubby little pilot fish to the real power brokers in and around government, he was easy to despise. She wasn’t even surprised by what he had outlined to her. Having never commanded real position, he had found himself drawn into a situation where he could exercise some kind of imagined power through the information he was able to sell, no doubt flattered by those who probably despised him just as much as she did.
But dismissing him simply as a weak little man with imagined fears would have been criminally negligent of her. She had realized that the moment he began talking; the moment he had mentioned Senator Howard J. Benson.
Benson was one of the big beasts of the Washington community; a charming, impressive, smooth operator with almost unlimited connections, he had ceased being a senator when he realized he could command greater power and influence in Washington by serving in other capacities. Capacities where she suspected — no, knew — he had crossed the line on more than one occasion, either by hiding facts that would prove unpalatable to the American public, or by accepting ‘fees’ that would in any other area of the administration have been regarded as bribery. Yet she had never managed to pin anything on him with the kind of absolute accuracy that was needed to bring him down. She had tried more than once, and come close. But Benson had friends, and those friends never spoke, mostly, she suspected, because he had something on them.
And he knew it. He knew it and revelled in his untouchability. She could tell by the way he barely bothered to conceal a smirk whenever they met on the various junkets and power meetings where the press was invited, and the comments he made within her hearing, as if challenging her to try again.
She had certainly tried, but nothing concrete had emerged and she had been forced to drop it, safe in the knowledge that one day somebody would talk and she would have her moment.
Now this. This was different. Conkley, for all his faults, had brought something real to the table. Something she could fasten on. Notes, dates, events. And recordings. It meant all the friends in the world wouldn’t help Benson once the facts began to dribble out. Because one thing about friends like these was, they could quickly become enemies if the right pressure was applied and they saw the dangers to themselves of being associated with a man on the brink of disaster.
She gathered her things together and nodded to Sean, the security guard. He walked towards the back of the bar and opened the outside door for her, checking the street carefully before allowing her through. Leaving via the back entrance wasn’t Cready’s usual style, but in this town it paid to be unpredictable.
THIRTY-NINE
I stopped in a small town fifty miles west of Pavlohrad to get some supplies. It had been slow going, with several brief diversions off the road when I spotted military trucks or potential roadblocks. Travis wasn’t looking great and I figured he was dehydrated and in need of something to eat. I also needed to call Callahan.
I’d seen signs of more military activity building behind us, to the east, with helicopters skidding about on the horizon and fighter jets trailing smoke across the skies. Trucks, too, had whipped past us the other way, carrying troops and supplies. Whatever was happening over towards Donetsk wasn’t good and getting worse.
As we entered the suburbs I saw a roadside café with a couple of trucks and a handful of cars and, further along, a used-car lot. Mostly four-wheel drives, they ran the range of rough-country farming work-horses, with heavy-duty tyres and the kind of battered appearance that made them blend into the background.
I pulled up outside the café and told Travis to stay where he was and keep his head down. I could pass as a worker ant, but Travis looked too smart and groomed, as unwell as he was, to be anything other than someone with connections and money. He was also talking louder than he needed, even in the car, which I figured was a sign of fever from his injuries and the stress of the situation. An American voice out here would immediately stand out and be remembered.
The interior of the café was rough and ready, but busy enough so that nobody looked up when I walked in. Most of the customers and staff had one eye on the rolling news on a large screen behind the counter. It showed the countryside outside Donetsk, the sky blackened by palls of smoke rising from burned-out vehicles and makeshift barricades, and groups of soldiers and militia with a rag-tag of weapons standing around watching the skies for signs of incoming helicopters or fighters. The atmosphere in the room was subdued, and I guessed for most of them it was tough watching their country being slowly torn apart and not being able to do a thing about it.
I bought some bread, meat and fruit and three litre bottles of water, and took them back to the car. Travis barely noticed, so I left him to it and took a walk along the road to the used car lot.
The owner was sitting alone in a small hut, eyes fixed morosely on a tiny television screen. He had a bald head, bushy eyebrows and few teeth, and barely nodded when I signalled that I wanted to check out the models on display. Most were beyond their prime, and looked ready for the scrap yard. But a dark green Land Cruiser looked as if it had some mileage left in it and I asked the owner if he wanted to do a deal.
He shrugged; the sign of a man who’d thought he was going to make a sale too many times before now only to be disappointed when it didn’t happen.
I told him to wait and went and got the Isuzu. When he saw it, he looked a little more interested and tore himself away from his television and came outside for a look. When I popped the hood and revealed the gleaming engine underneath, he looked suspicious.
‘Why?’ he said. ‘It’s a good car. Is it stolen?’
‘Too noisy,’ I replied, as if I didn’t know you could repair broken mufflers. ‘And my wife says it’s too fast, that I’ll upset the neighbours and kill myself and our unborn children.’
He shrugged, plainly not caring if the story was true or not. I stepped back while he did a tour of the car, kicking the tyres and checking the underneath, and hoped he didn’t want to check the inside before agreeing a deal. I’d need to get the guns out unseen first otherwise he’d go back in his hut and slam the door.