The Whole Truth

She eyed him from over the rim of her cup. “How many gunshot wounds do you have? You can show me, I won’t tell.”

“A good plastic surgeon could take care of that scar.”

“I know. They wanted to when I got back to the States.”

“So why didn’t they?”

“I didn’t want them to.”

“Why not?”

“Because I wanted to keep the scar. That explanation cover it for you?”

Her face softened and she said in a calmer tone, “Look, you have every right to be pissed off at me. If you were messing in my life – not that I have one right now, but if you were – I wouldn’t be happy about it. For what it’s worth, I was just trying to help. You picked a great lady and it’s easy to see how much she loves you.”

Shaw drank his coffee but said nothing.

Katie continued. “And no more meddling from me. I swear. I hope things work out for you both.”

He finished his coffee and rose, looking very uncomfortable. “A

“It’s coming in awfully late, but I want to thank you for saving my life back there. I mean really thank you.”

“How’d you find out about A

“Hey I am an award-wi

Shaw looked a little surprised by this praise, but didn’t say anything.

He happened to look at her desk parked next to the hotel room door. Piles of papers, news clippings, and writings were scattered over it. On the laptop screen was a headline detailing the recent events with Russia.

“Your next Pulitzer?” he asked.

“A girl has to keep trying. And do it far better than the boys just to stay equal.”

“You sound like A

Shaw hesitated and then slowly pulled something from his pocket and passed it to her. It was a card with no name on it, just a phone number.

“I don’t give that out to many people.”

“I’m sure you don’t.”

“But if you went to see A

“You’ll be the first one I call.”

“Take care of yourself. I doubt we’ll be seeing each other again.”

“I thought that the last time and look where we are. Having a nice cup of coffee together.”

A second later he was gone.

CHAPTER 37

AFTER SHAW LEFT FOR PARIS the Russians publicly a

The world markets were hardly pleased. The price of crude hit $130 a barrel within hours of the a

OPEC, so long in the driver’s seat on the world’s economic stage, scrambled to try and at least make up some of the difference but they couldn’t come close. And rather than making the Arab world more untold riches with the price of oil so high, it was actually costing them billions because, unlike Russia, desert countries imported just about everything they needed. So while crude had skyrocketed forty percent, the cost of derivative products had doubled. Because of the price increase and Russia’s stockpile of cash and foreign investments and its proportionately low level of imports and per capita consumption, it was believed that Moscow could keep this position up for quite some time.

If that wasn’t enough for the world to absorb in a week’s time, the Russians had more up their sleeve. Their minister for foreign affairs a

And when the Russians made up their minds, they acted.

One day later five large cruise missiles fired from a Russian submarine hit a Taliban training compound that the Russian minister later said was instrumental in this drug trafficking. In seconds one thousand Taliban fighters were obliterated and their caches of weapons and equipment destroyed. The Russians warned every Arab country in the Middle East that if there was any retaliation by them against Russian interests they could expect the same treatment multiplied a hundredfold.

The Afghan president released an official statement denouncing this “unwarranted intrusion into a sovereign nation’s borders.” But in diplomatic circles this was seen as only perfunctory considering that the Taliban was doing its best to overthrow the Afghan government and had attempted to assassinate the current president twice. The Afghan leader therefore was probably doing cartwheels down his presidential corridor at the same time he was telling off Moscow.

Tehran fired off an angry response saying they were appalled by what they termed the Russians’ barbaric behavior, and then hastily turned to the UN for help.

The United States also immediately filed a protest against Russia with the United Nations and began withdrawing its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon a

One major newspaper succinctly if melodramatically stated it in a four-inch headline: “THE COLD WAR IS BACK.”

Privately, military and administration officials in the United States were rejoicing that with one stroke the Russians had wiped out a large measure of the Taliban’s terrorist capability. One four-star general complaining to his aide said, “If only we could do that shit and get away with it.”

When the first major American pullouts from Iraq began, Shiite and Su