The Enemy Inside (18 page)

“And you know who she is?”

“I know she worked for a law firm here in Washington.”

“I believe you also know that she figures prominently in a major news story that your publication is currently working on.”

“Where did you hear that?” he asks.

“I don’t have time to play around,” I tell him.

“We may be on the trail of a hot story, but then we work on a lot of big stories,” he says.

“This one, I’m told, is a capper.”

“So?”

“So you don’t think it’s strange that Serna, who was being probed and poked in the journalistic sense by one of your reporters, ends up dead, killed in an automobile accident three thousand miles away on the other side of the country? In the middle of nowhere? And the car she collides with is being driven by that same reporter?”

He looks at me, turns his nose up, and glances up at the ceiling. You can tell from his expression that the thought has crossed his mind. “How much did Alex tell you?”

“Enough to know that this is no coincidence.”

“My first thought,” he says, “was perhaps that he was following her a little too closely. Then I saw the news reports that said he was drunk. Mind you, I never knew Alex to drink. And certainly not on the job,” he says. “You need to know that the
Gravesite
had absolutely no knowledge as to any history of prior alcohol or drug abuse on Alex’s part. If that’s what this is about, I’m going to have to end the conversation now. Because I’m going to want to bring in my lawyers.”

“What?”

“If Serna’s heirs are pushing Alex and looking for deep pockets behind him,” he says, “they’re barking up the wrong tree here.”

“What? You think I’m here looking for cover in a tort case? Some whacked-out theory of agency? That the
Gravesite
might be liable for monetary damages if Alex was on the job when he killed her?”

“You tell me,” he says.

“Furthest thing from my mind,” I tell him. Though I hadn’t thought about it until now, this could be another headache down the road. “That’s not what this is about. Alex wasn’t drinking at the time of the accident. At least he wasn’t drunk. The police report shows only a small amount of alcohol in his system. No more than one drink.”

“If that’s true, how did the accident happen? What does Alex say?”

“He was unconscious. He doesn’t remember anything.”

“You mean he has amnesia?”

“No. Not in any ordinary sense,” I tell him.

“What then?”

“We believe he was drugged. Driven out to the site by someone else and used to stage the accident.”

He gives me a look like I’m a man from Mars, smiles, and says, “Are you serious?”

I nod. “Very much.”

“You’re telling me Serna was murdered?”

“Looks like it. What’s more, we believe that two other people besides Serna have now been killed because one of them was unlucky enough to have been used to set up the accident. She knew too much, and for this reason we believe she was killed.”

“You
are
serious!” he says. The expression on his face is not so much one of shock as that of a prospector who’s found gold.

“I need to know what’s going on. What it is that you’re investigating, and how Serna fits into the picture.”

“Holy . . . I always suspected they were hard-core,” he says, “but I never envisioned this.”

“Who?”

“What kind of evidence do you have?” He grabs a pencil and starts fishing on his desk for a fresh piece of paper. “Tell me,” he says. “Can you give me the names of these two other people? The ones who were killed? You do have evidence?” Our meeting is suddenly turning into my interview.

“We’re unable to prove the presence of drugs in Alex’s system. We think they used what are called roofies . . .”

He stops his scribbling long enough to look up and say, “You mean the date rape drug.”

“That’s the one.”

He writes it down.

“It works its way out of your system very quickly and leaves you with no memory of what happened during the time you were under. None of this is for publication,” I tell him.

“Of course. Of course,” he says. “Have you told anybody else about this?” Graves wants an exclusive.

“Not yet. But I may be forced to tell a jury, and to do it sooner than I would like, given the sparse evidence we have. That’s why I’m here talking to you.”

“Ah, I see,” he says. “So you don’t have any hard evidence.” He puts the pencil down.

“Circumstantial only. I may not be able to prove any of this unless I can show a compelling reason why someone else might have wanted to kill Serna.”

“I’m not sure I can help you,” says Graves.

“You said these people are hard-core. Who are you talking about?”

He shakes his head. “There’s nothing I can tell you,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“I know you’re working on a hot story. Alex told me so.”

“What exactly did he tell you? He didn’t give you any documents, did he, anything in writing?”

“No. But I know that Serna was involved. I know it has to do with offshore banking and private numbered accounts. I know it all started a few years ago with the campaign by the Treasury and the IRS to identify American taxpayers who were believed to be evading US taxes by hiding money in undisclosed foreign accounts. I know that some funny things started happening when Uncle Sam got too close to powerful people believed to hold some of these accounts. Perhaps some politicians?” I wrinkle an eyebrow and look at him, a human question mark.

“Alex has been talking out of school,” he says.

“Alex is in trouble,” I tell him.

“Still, you really don’t know anything,” says Graves.

“So enlighten me.”

He tilts his head, looks at me, a pained expression. “I wish I could.” Hands back in his hair. “I wish I could. I really do. But I can’t.”

“If I can’t tell a judge and a jury what’s going on here, Alex is very likely to end up in prison. A long stretch,” I tell him. “You do understand that?”

“I’m sorry. I wish I could help. But the story is no longer mine.”

“What do you mean? Alex told me you knew everything.”

“Well, he was exaggerating,” says Graves. “There are still things we don’t know and some important details we haven’t been able to confirm.”

“But you can tell me what you do know.”

“Can’t do that either,” he says.

“If you force the issue, I can drag you in front of a judge, subpoena your records and notes. You know as well as I do the court will compel you to turn them over. There is no shield law that’s going to protect you in a case like this. A man’s liberty is at stake. The court will balance the equities and I got news. You’re going to come up short.”

“I understand and you’re probably right. But you still won’t get anything,” he says.

“The judge could put you in jail,” I tell him. “Contempt for refusing to comply with a court order.”

“Hell, you’d probably be doing me a favor,” says Graves. “All that publicity would serve to increase the value of the
Gravesite
. Besides, there are forces at work here you don’t understand.”

“Enlighten me,” I tell him.

“I don’t know how much I should tell you,” says Graves. “Maybe we should just let everything fall where it may.”

“Aw, come on, be a pal to your employee,” I tell him. “A hint or two might keep Alex out of the slammer.”

“I doubt it,” he says. “Problem is, I don’t own the story any longer, the stuff involving Serna.”

“What do you mean?”

Graves takes a deep breath. “Alex doesn’t know about this. Nor do any of the people out there.” He gestures with a nod toward the outer office. “If they knew they’d all be looking for other jobs. You see, I own the
Gravesite
. I started it twenty years ago. I tried to root it in the old traditions—Drew Pearson, Jack Anderson. You know. But between you, me, and that wall over there, the entire operation is heavily in debt. It’s the problem with e-journalism, the problem with changing technology, with many of the businesses operating on the net. It’s the question of how you monetize your product. How to get people to pay for it.”

“That’s interesting. I sympathize. But what’s that got to do with Serna and why the world caved in on her?”

“Everything,” he says. “Do you know who Arthur Haze is?”

“Who doesn’t?” Haze is in his eighties, a billionaire media mogul with a chain of newspapers, radio and cable channels that span a good chunk of the globe. Most people want to be rich and famous. Haze, from a young age, wanted to be famous for being rich. And he succeeded.

“In the last four years, I’ve entertained two offers to buy the
Gravesite
outright. Both of them from Haze. I turned both of them down. It wasn’t the money,” he says. “I don’t want to sell. The
Gravesite
isn’t for sale to anyone and especially to someone like Haze. He would turn it into a tiny cog in a massive media machine. It would get lost.

“But then a year ago I ran into difficulties. I could no longer meet overhead. I cut some jobs. Didn’t want to, but I had no choice. All I was doing was buying a little time. I thought about moving out of the high rent district. But even with that, the writing was on the wall. I could make payroll for maybe a few more months and that was it. I needed capital. I needed a loan, a big one.

“I went to the banks. They turned me down flat. The financial value of the
Gravesite
is in its future, which, like everything else on the web, is highly speculative. They weren’t willing to take the chance. There was only one place I could go—Haze,” he says.

“He had mountains of cash. When I first approached him, he thought about it and said no. All he had to do was sit back and wait until I went under. Then he could pick up the
Gravesite
for pennies on the dollar. I had to find something that would force him to change his mind. And I did. It was the story that involves Serna,” says Graves.

“It was the biggest story we’ve ever had. I reduced everything we knew, all the evidence we had, our research files, the entire story, to writing and copyrighted it. I talked to my lawyers and, only after they were satisfied, I shared one copy of the materials with Haze.

“He’s an old newspaper hand. It was where he cut his teeth when he was a kid. He knew a hot story when he saw one. He realized that with the copyrighted materials and the fact that the story was so big, that if we succeeded in getting to publication we could sell it all over the world. And everybody would be buying because if they didn’t, they would be locked out of some of the details on the biggest story since Watergate—bigger!” he says. “The revenue stream would be sufficient to carry us for years. Haze might not get another chance to buy the
Gravesite,
and he wanted it, wanted it badly.”

“So Haze bought the copyright,” I say.

Graves nods. “So now you understand why I can’t talk. Even if I wanted to. We have the exclusive rights on first publication, so the
Gravesite
gets attribution everywhere the story appears. But eighty percent of the revenue goes to Haze. The money he paid will keep our doors open for at least two more years. If we can publish in that time, and I think we can, the money from the story and the global publicity will carry us over the hump.”

“In the meantime, Alex goes to prison,” I tell him.

“If I talk. If I told you anything specific as to the story, Haze would sue me seven ways from Sunday. He’d get the
Gravesite
and everything it possesses, including the story,” says Graves. “I just can’t help you. I’m sorry.”

“What about Rubin Betz?” I ask.

Graves’s little eyes grow wider with the mention of the name.

“What can you tell me about him?”

“What did Alex tell you?”

“He said that you referred to Betz as the Holy Grail. The key to your story.”

“What exactly did he tell you? Did he use those words?”

I smile and play along. “He said that Betz held the key.”

With this he gives me a quizzical glance.

“Come on, at least give me a clue.”

“Then you don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“Never mind,” he says.

“Alex called Betz the whistleblower. Said he was in a federal prison. Maximum security to keep him quiet. He told me that Betz knew things about powerful people. That he claimed to have the goods on some prominent politicians with undeclared numbered accounts offshore. That Betz and Serna were, in a word, ‘acquainted.’ And that the government was doing everything in its power to keep him there, to shut him up.”

“I’ve never talked to the man. Nor has anyone from the
Gravesite,
” says Graves. “What we know about Betz is pretty much in the public domain. Everything except his ancient history with Serna. You can look it up,” he says. “Stories on the Internet. Stuff in the newspapers. Most of it unconfirmed. Now if you could get to Betz, talk to him and find some way to confirm what he knows, being that you’re a lawyer, you might be able to find out what we can’t. In that case, we might be able to work out a deal. Sharing information,” he says.

“You think the stuff on Betz is true?”

“What I think doesn’t matter,” says Graves. “All that counts is what we can confirm.”

“And what about Switzerland? Alex says the two of you took a couple of trips there looking for some information? And that you went to meet someone, alone.”

“No comment,” he says. “I can’t talk about that.”

“Give me a break,” I tell him. “Can’t you at least give me something? I assume you don’t want Alex to go to prison?”

“I don’t,” he says. “He’s a good reporter. Dogged. I like him. I like him a lot.” Graves looks like a man who’s trapped. Worried and perhaps feeling like a heel at this moment, at least I hope so, anything would help. “Let me think,” he says. He wheels around in his swivel chair, turns his back to me for a moment, and looks out the window, the wall of glass behind him toward the buildings across the street.

When he turns back, the fingers of both hands are steepled under his chin as if he is deep in thought. “I don’t know a lot about the law or copyright,” he says. “But I assume that if you were to discover what I know on your own, from other sources independent from any information we have here at the
Gravesite,
without any assistance from me or my staff, that Haze would have no claim against the
Gravesite
.”