Strangled Silence (12 page)

The others nodded.

'Not exactly a revelation,'
commented.
'There was nothing in it to excite any interest.'

'It's the principle of the matter,'
-
replied. 'He's taken a first step towards
making waves. And if he's unhappy with the article,
as our surveillance suggests, then he could take
more drastic measures. He's had contact with the
journalist' – he checked his notes – 'Amina Mir,
since the article was published – twice that we
know of. And then this photo was taken yesterday.'

The others looked at the picture he had sent to
their desktops. It was the young journalist, standing
on the street talking to a tall youth about her age.
They all recognized him.

'Sandwith,'
breathed. 'He just keeps
popping up, doesn't he?'

'This could work in our favour,'
spoke up. 'If Sandwith takes up
McMorris's story, it will get an airing, but it will
fall automatically into the realm of the conspiracy
theorists and UFO freaks and, as such, will lose all
serious credibility.'

'I don't like it,'
said, shaking his head.
'And I especially don't like Sandwith. He's a crackpot,
but he's not
enough
of a crackpot. If he keeps
making connections, sooner or later he's going to
make one that threatens to expose us. I'm sure he's
connected to all these hackers who've been
probing the military databases recently. They've
only been pulling out chaff so far, but . . . I think
we should do something about him.'

'There've been too many direct actions lately,'
-
responded. 'We risk creating
patterns that people can spot. Sandwith is a useful
distraction as he is. If something happened to him,
it would focus the attention of all of his cronies on
his avenues of investigation – including McMorris's
story. Better that we leave them guessing.'

'And McMorris?'

'He's shown himself to be a cautious one, and
he's had a warning.'
-
shrugged. 'I say we leave him be, but keep the
surveillance on him and the reporter in case one of
them does something rash.'

The others nodded their agreement.

'What are you doing about Shang?'
asked. 'He's been missing for
nearly a week now. I thought your people were
supposed to be efficient.'

'We have several leads,'
-
retorted frostily. 'The man's a former operative and
it seems he hasn't forgotten his tradecraft. We'll find
him.'