The bureau was buzzing that morning, the way it always does when we’ve broken a big story. Bob Marcus called a 10:30 meeting in his blue-and-green office to discuss follow-up coverage. As the hour approached, Bowman strode up the Corridor of the Gods, accepting congratulations from other members of the bureau as if he had just hit a home run. I had been invited to the meeting, too. As a projects reporter, I was an available resource. I chose a seat as far from Bowman as I could. Interestingly, he didn’t look at me once during the meeting.

Marcus’s philosophy in covering a big story was to overwhelm it with a massive assault. Within minutes he had ordered up a barrage of second-day coverage: a story from our correspondent in Beijing about the Chinese reaction; a story from our business staff in New York about American Telephone’s reaction; a CIA reaction story; a congressional reaction story, plus sidebars, plus graphics, plus a lede-all by Bowman, summarizing all the other pieces. As Marcus was barking out assignments, Susan Geekas ran into his office. She had just returned from the White House. “They’re frantic!” she said. “They want the China contract so bad, and they’re afraid this will kill it. They don’t know what to do.” Marcus added a White House reaction story to the budget.

“You see anything here for you, Eric?” Marcus asked. I was the only person at the meeting who didn’t yet have an assignment.

“Nothing for tomorrow’s paper,” I said. “But I wonder what the French are up to. They want the China contract as bad as the White House does, but we haven’t written anything about their tactics. I’d like to go after that.”

“Okay,” said Marcus. He seemed underwhelmed. “It doesn’t have much to do with the main story, but if you want to take a look, fine. Maybe Arthur has some suggestions.”

Bowman had been busy making notes on a legal pad. He looked up over the top of his reading glasses. “Glad to help,” he said.

I wandered over to Dirk’s desk. He was fuming. He hadn’t been invited to Marcus’s big meeting, which he took as yet another sign of his diminished status in the bureau. Unlike everyone else, he was unimpressed by Bowman’s big scoop. “The guy is a phony, Eric!” he muttered. “That story is a setup. And you—you devious bastard—you knew it was coming! That’s why you were quizzing me about the China contract the other night.”

That was the useful thing about Dirk: he mistrusted everyone, even if his suspicions sometimes led him in entirely the wrong direction.