The Last Journalist (An Alex Vane Media Thriller Book 5) Read online

  Shannon pulled some Starbucks napkins out of the inside pocket of her jacket and used them to dry the tips of her hair. She stuffed the wet, balled-up napkins in her handbag. I gave her a look.

  "What?" she asked. "You didn't give me time to dry my hair all the way."

  "Never mind that. The notebook. Can I see it?"

  Shannon pulled Burnside's lined notebook from her bag. The same one he'd had at dinner. It was the size of a classic reporter's notebook, four by eight inches, but instead of being held together by a thin wire on the top, it was bound on the side and had a dark green leather cover. His name was engraved into the leather.

  Shannon saw me noticing the customization. "It'd be nice to be at a level where you get custom notebooks."

  "Anyone can order this kind of thing online now. Costs maybe forty bucks."

  "Still, forty bucks. For a notebook?"

  She handed it to me carefully, slowly, like it was fragile. It reminded me the notebook had just survived a seventeen-story fall. Its owner hadn't.

  I flipped through it once without reading carefully, looking for underlined statements, big bold writing, anything that stood out. Burnside's handwriting took me back to Columbia, where every morning as I came in for class he had a famous journalism quote written on the whiteboard. For extra credit, students could write a 750-word essay about the quote, tying it to a subject currently in the headlines. If we got the piece published during the semester, he'd bump us up a full letter grade.

  I copied every quote into my notebook and memorized them, always telling myself I'd write the essays. I never did. Now, sitting next to Shannon on my way to the most anticipated interview of my life, working on what could turn out to be the biggest story of my life, Burnside's whiteboard quotes flooded my mind.

  "A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself."

  — Arthur Miller

  "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

  — Voltaire

  "Writing well means never having to say, 'I guess you had to be there.'"

  — Jef Mallett

  "News is what someone wants suppressed. Everything else is advertising."

  — Katharine Graham

  "With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms."

  — Hunter S. Thompson

  Maybe it was my interaction with Cleo that got me reflecting on my career, or maybe it was that working with Shannon made me feel old. She reminded me of myself twenty years ago, back when I was a court reporter in New York City. Before the internet took off, before The Barker, before social media. Before everything changed and half the world was left looking in the rearview mirror asking, What the hell just happened?

  Shannon slapped my leg. "What’s going on with you? Alex, hellllooooooo?"

  "Sorry," I said, coming to. "I was thinking about Burnside's class. One of his favorite quotes was from Katherine Graham, Washington Post."

  "I know who Katherine Graham is. Meryl Streep played her in the movie. We're almost there, though, and we need to talk about the notebook. My read is that Burnside was writing a book exposing himself as an unwitting CIA asset."

  "Show me."

  She flipped the notebook to a page marked with a sticky note. "Look here."

  The page was part of a section of research into Burnside's reporting on Iran-Contra, which he'd covered diligently back in the eighties. His handwriting was impeccable, but the content of the notes wasn't as clear as I would have liked. The top of the page read: Sources for IC Reporting: DW, Hair Face, Cutty, RPF.

  Shannon flipped the page. "Burnside's Iran-Contra investigation took the blame away from the CIA and pointed it at Reagan and the military, right?"

  "I'm no expert," I said, "but that's my understanding. A lot of people think Oliver North took the public fall for what was a CIA operation all along. What about those sources? I can't believe he even wrote down their names."

  "Well, initials and nicknames. Google the name 'Gregory Dillon.'"

  I asked Siri to show me images of Gregory Dillon. A page full of images popped up—Dillon was a round-faced man, bald, with thick white sideburns that led down his face into a full, unkempt beard. "Hairface?" I asked.

  Shannon tapped the picture. "Exactly. He was the assistant director of the CIA from 1972 to 1981. When he left the agency, he became a recluse. My guess is he's 'Hair Face' and that he fed Burnside some of his Iran-Contra stories."

  "Possibly, but the connection isn't exactly rock solid. Is he still alive?"

  "Died six years ago. I couldn't find anything on Cutty or DW, but I might have found RPF."

  I wracked my brain, but neither Cutty nor DW meant anything to me. “So RPF are initials, right?"

  "That's what I figured at first," Shannon said, "but now I don't think so. There was a Richard P. Forrester at the CIA in the 1970s, but he was fairly low level. I doubt he would have had anything good enough to leak to Burnside. Plus, he had MS throughout the 1980s and died in 1987. Burnside was still reporting the story then. This is gonna sound stupid, but…"

  She trailed off and, for the first time, I saw her insecurity. "What?"

  "You knew Burnside. Is it possible he'd be so lame as to just reverse the initials? Like a secret code to himself—an incredibly lame secret code?"

  I saw it immediately. "If RPF is reversed to FPR, it could be Franklin Pendergast Rogers."

  Rogers had been the Director of Crime and Narcotics Center for the CIA for ten years before being pushed out the door quietly in 1990. Since then, he'd battled the CIA publicly, criticizing the institution in a way no other former agents did. But he always stopped short of confirming the worst rumors about the agency's past conduct. At least on the record.

  "Rogers is who I thought of," Shannon said. "Is it possible he'd make notes to himself like that? I mean, is it possible he'd be paranoid enough about someone finding his notebook, or stealing it, that he wouldn't use real names, but not paranoid enough to hide the names more effectively?"

  The car took a sharp left turn onto a wide, tree-lined block. The storm had picked up again and battered the car with tiny pieces of hail. I closed my eyes and thought for a moment, listening to the slightly different sounds the hail made when it hit the window and the roof. A dull fleck. A sharper ping. The quotes still ran through my mind. It was odd how seeing his handwriting had surfaced the quotes I hadn't thought about in years. Surfaced the person I'd been when I read them.

  Another quote popped into mind, this one from Burnside himself.

  Trust no one except your editor. And trust him totally.

  He'd written this on the board to launch his section on how newsrooms actually function, specifically around the issue of anonymous sources.

  "It's definitely possible," I said to Shannon, "maybe he—you work alone so you probably don't do this—but in big newsrooms, sources are held tight from almost everyone. Someone like Burnside would have shared his best sources with only one or two people, his editor among them. It's quite possible he used code even with the editor, a shorthand around the office in case someone overheard. I did that once. I told my editor a source's real name, but we agreed to use a nickname around the office. Maybe Burnside had these shorthands and they just became the default names in his mind over time, so he wrote them down that way."

  The car stopped at a light. "Next block," the driver said.

  I got out my phone to leave a rating and a tip.

  "That makes sense," Shannon said. "When combined with the other stuff we found, it leads me to a conclusion. Holden Burnside was writing a book exposing himself as a CIA asset. He was going to burn all his sources and piece together details that proved his own stories, while true, were fed to him indirectly by the CIA in order to manipulate political and business situations. The CIA used Burnside as their mouthpiece t
o control much of the world."

  "That would fit perfectly with the Payton Rhodes story and the Detroit Estates thing." I pondered this, slowly allowing the significance to sink in. If any of it was true…

  I couldn't finish the thought, but Shannon finished it for me. "If this is true, Alex, it's gonna make every other story I've published look like a 600-word fluff piece on a ribbon-cutting ceremony."

  A couple years back, assassins chased me across Nevada on behalf of Dewey Gunstott, a guy they'd never heard of. They simply followed orders from someone who followed orders. And it turned out Dewey Gunstott had never even heard of me. Orders were given on his behalf, without his knowledge. To learn that my mentor was a CIA asset, without ever taking a single order from the CIA, made me think of an old friend. I didn’t know where Quinn Rivers was, but I knew that if she were in the car with us then, she'd say that corrupt systems turn us into their slaves without admitting that's what they're doing. As usual, she'd be crazy, but not necessarily wrong.

  I turned to Shannon. "You know what I said before, about the Katherine Graham quote?"

  "Yeah, what about it?"

  "The quote was, 'News is what someone wants suppressed. Everything else is advertising.' My whole life, I thought Burnside lived that quote. To me, he practiced the highest form of journalism—exposing information powerful groups of people wanted suppressed. What if it turned out he simply ran advertising for even more powerful people?"

  Chapter 10

  Gunstott didn't live like one of the richest men in media. When I'd visited him in his office a couple years earlier, I'd been surprised by its modesty. It was a small office with an old couch and a threadbare carpet. He'd poured himself a tiny glass of brown liquor and rationed it the way Shannon had rationed her mocha.

  Myron Gunstott had given me a different address than the one Sanchez had given me, but I'd assumed it was simply one of Gunstott's other homes. His house—what we thought was his house—was modest for a billionaire. A McMansion-style house, it was all shiny and new but constructed of low-quality materials. The pseudo-grandeur of someone living beyond his means.

  A young woman met us at the front door before we had a chance to ring the bell. She greeted us without introducing herself. Clearly she'd been expecting us.

  The foyer comprised two stories, complete with a cheesy chandelier and inoffensive hotel-style art on the walls. "This can't be his house," Shannon whispered too loudly as we followed the woman up the stairs to the second floor.

  "It's my house." A man said from the top of the stairs. In his sixties, Dewey Gunstott's son had his father's height, maybe six foot three, with a blotchy red face that was saggy and disproportionately chubby for his thin body. When we reached the top of the stairs, he extended a hand. "Myron Gunstott."

  We shook, then he turned to Shannon. She said, "I'm sorry I said that about your house. It's lovely. I was only surprised that—"

  "Please, no need to apologize." He led us down a hallway and stopped outside a room with a blue door. The air was stale and had a sour odor, like a bunch of medicines blended together. "I can see how you'd have been surprised if you thought this was father's home. He believed his children should make their own way in the world. He paid for college, but that was it. And I haven't made as much money as him." He sighed. "When the last days come, though, being around family is all that matters. His twelve-bedroom house doesn't do him any good now, does it?"

  Then it struck me. Dewey Gunstott had come to live with his son because he was about to die.

  "When he passes, what will happen to his money?" Shannon asked.

  I shot her a look, unable to believe she'd asked the question. His father was dying on the other side of the blue door.

  Myron smiled sadly. "Give most of it away, probably. I have no use for it."

  "Why'd you call us back?" I asked. "To be honest, we didn't expect to get to see Mr. Gunstott."

  "Every evening before dinner—the only meal he'll touch these days—I read him the list of people who called that day. It's mostly people wanting to wish him farewell, though they don't say that. Some people who want things from him, some journalists like you. He hasn't seen anyone since the stroke."

  "So, why us?" Shannon asked.

  "He requested Mr. Vane and, well, you probably know the rest."

  "Then why Alex?"

  He looked from Shannon to me, smiling sadly. "I have absolutely no idea. He never shared his inner thoughts with his kids." Myron opened the door and stepped aside for us to walk in.

  He wasn't joining us, which came as a shock.

  To the side of a hospital bed in the corner of the room, two wooden chairs had been set up, the kind you'd expect around a dining room table. Shannon led the way and we sat. Pale gray light filtered through a lace curtain onto the bed, where Gunstott lay, eyes closed, under a white blanket. His breath was shallow.

  My phone vibrated and I silenced it through my pants pocket without taking my eyes off Gunstott. Though he wasn't directly responsible for my torture, I still associated him with that horror. I'd been tortured for days because I brushed up against the edge of something he left off his official résumé, and now, staring down at a ninety-two-year-old man who was clearly close to death, I was afraid of him.

  Luckily, Shannon had no such trouble. "Mr. Gunstott. My name is Shannon Brass. This is Alex Vane."

  His eyes opened slightly. Long enough for Gunstott to look at Shannon, then me. I expected him to recognize me, but his face remained blank as his eyes closed again. He said nothing.

  "Your son said you'd requested to meet with us."

  "I did no such thing." His voice was weak and gravelly, like he'd taken sandpaper to a whisper.

  "Mr. Gunstott," Shannon continued. "We know Holden Burnside was supposed to meet with you. Does that name jog your memory? We mentioned it when we left the messages for you. We mentioned that we wished to speak with you about him."

  "HB?"

  Shannon looked at me, then at Gunstott. "HB? Holden Burnside. Yes. Is that why you asked to see us?"

  I leaned back, admiring Shannon's work. She and I were quite different, but we shared one trait common among journalists—an ability to push for information without being too offputting.

  "Yes." Gunstott opened his eyes briefly. "HB."

  There was something there, but Gunstott wouldn't volunteer it. Even if he'd wanted to, I wasn't sure he had the strength to communicate beyond a few words.

  Reaching into her pocket, Shannon pulled out her phone. From the pocket of her leather jacket, she pulled a small microphone, about four inches long, and plugged it into the headphone jack. "Mr. Gunstott, I'm going to record this conversation. Is that alright with you?"

  He nodded almost imperceptibly.

  Shannon held the microphone within three inches of his lips. "Mr. Gunstott. I'm recording this conversation. Is that alright with you? Please say yes or no."

  "Yes." His voice was even fainter than before, but the sound registered on the recording app on Shannon's iPhone screen. A little wave blip indicated he was speaking loud enough to be recorded. Shannon saw it, too, her eyes darting back and forth between Gunstott and the screen.

  "Mr. Gunstott, had you planned to meet with Holden Burnside while he was in Seattle?"

  "Yes." Another blip of sound waves, this one a little higher.

  "And Mr. Gunstott, were you Mr. Burnside's source for the 1988 story he wrote about Payton Rhodes?"

  He opened his eyes, and I was sure I saw a flash of anger, or at least a more aggressive person than the half-dead man in front of us. He closed them with a long sigh. "Yes."

  Shannon looked at me, uncertainty in her eyes for the first time, like she hadn't expected him to be so forthcoming, and now she didn't know what to do.

  I knew the feeling. What most people don't know about journalists is that they very rarely lie. It's our sources who lie. They also spin, obfuscate, and tell partial truths. Usually, they're trying to use us to get their
version of a story into the news, a version that benefits them. Journalists know this, of course, and fight a constant battle to get the truth, to use the sources as much as they use us. When we're lucky, a source will "flip the switch." It means hitting a point at which they decide to abandon pretense and tell the truth. The whole truth.

  Shannon and I knew that, for whatever reason, that switch had flipped within Dewey Gunstott.

  And she was freaking out. She waved a hand in my direction, like she wanted me to ask the next question. When I'd written the story of my ordeal, I'd tried several times to get Dewey Gunstott on the record, but he'd declined. What was he gonna say? That he was a CIA asset and his relationship with the agency helped create one of the most successful business careers in American history in exchange for skewing the news toward the interests of the CIA? I was tempted to ask him about that, but my sense was he didn't remember me or my story, so I stayed on the Burnside track. "Mr. Gunstott, did Holden Burnside—"

  He cut me off with a single raised finger. "I will tell you,"—he swallowed hard—"everything."

  "Thank you," Shannon said, eyes on the phone to make sure it registered our words.

  He began somewhere I never expected. "You two are so young. You still think things are black and white. Right and wrong. They are not. Holden Burnside was a great reporter. He was also a great man." He spoke with effort, closing his eyes after every sentence and seeming to pull the strength to continue from somewhere deep within. "He was a great American. Was I his source on the Payton Rhodes story? I was one of his sources. And I created the rest of his sources. I fed people and they fed him. People have the newspaper business backwards these days. What they don't see is that most of what gets printed in the newspaper is true, but they don't know why it ends up there in the first place. They don't see who controls that information. In the case of Payton Rhodes, it was me. I wrecked his career, and I was right to do so. His affair was real. I didn't make him sleep with some waitress at a Greek diner. But without me, no one would've known about it. I didn't want Payton Rhodes to become president. So I made sure he didn't. It's really that simple."