Astride a Pink Horse by Robert Greer

Author:Robert Greer [Greer, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Thriller
ISBN: 9781583943847
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Published: 2012-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

The FBI agent who stopped by Freddy Dames’s office unannounced a little after nine forty-five a.m. sounded far more homespun than the half-dozen or so spit-and-polish agents Freddy had run across during his journalistic career. To top it off, the man looked foppish and out of FBI character, dressed as he was in a Panama hat, black-and-white wingtip British walkers, and a barely wrinkled seersucker suit.

After announcing who he was in a slow West Texas drawl, removing his hat, handing Freddy his business card, and shaking Freddy’s hand, Thaddeus Richter, a twenty-two-year veteran of the FBI, took a seat across from Freddy in one of the room’s three eight-thousand-dollar overstuffed, imported Italian leather chairs and went straight to work. “I’ve been following your stories on the internet, Mr. Dames. You’re quite the persistent reporter. Three groundbreaking stories in the space of two days. Made me want to drop by and see if you wouldn’t mind sharing any information about the Thurmond Giles murder that you haven’t yet sent into cyberspace. And while you’re at it, perhaps you can tell me more about Sergeant Giles’s link to the possible sale of American nuclear secrets—which you’ve so intriguingly hinted at in your stories. To tell you the truth, sir, our agency hasn’t been able to establish such a connection.”

“That’s probably because there’s not a straightforward link,” Freddy said, watching Richter slip a trifolded sheet of paper out of a suit-coat pocket, unfold the paper, and lay it on the coffee table in front of him.

“But it says right here in a story you posted this morning that ‘Thurmond Giles was a man with virtually unlimited access to our nation’s most sophisticated nuclear weaponry, a man with the skill and authority to have worked for twenty years on the air force’s arsenal of nuclear-missile warheads. He was a man who knew not only what made America’s Minuteman missiles tick and where they were located but who moved them around the High Plains West with impunity until his sexual misconduct caused him to be shipped off to an American Siberia. It’s entirely possible that Giles, long smarting from a series of perceived slights, career-ending reprimands, reductions in rank, and transfer of duties, may have decided that his nuclear knowledge was worth selling. That decision may have gotten him killed.’ Have I quoted you correctly, Mr. Dames?”

“To the letter,” Freddy said, smiling. “But my story clearly states that Giles may have decided to sell what he knew and that it may have gotten him killed, not that it actually did.”

“There’s a fine line between fiction and fact, Mr. Dames.”

“I’m simply reporting what I’ve been able to gather, Agent Richter. And in case you missed it, the heading above my story clearly labels it as an opinion piece.”

“I know news business jargon very well, Mr. Dames, but it seems to me that you just might be editorializing your way toward a wrong conclusion, maybe even a lawsuit.”

“Maybe, maybe not, but either way it’s my business and my reputation that are on the line.

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