“Because he asked to see it.” Marcus was scratching his head. He was a bureaucrat; he was just trying to keep everyone happy, that was how he defined his job. “Bowman stopped by yesterday afternoon and said he was getting complaints about something you were working on. He said the French ambassador was all bent out of shape, and that you had blown him off when he mentioned it to you, and that he was worried. He’s afraid we’re being used. So I told him I’d show him a copy of your piece when it came in.”

“I wish you hadn’t done that. This is more complicated than you realize.” I stopped and reflected on whether I wanted to go any further through that door, and decided I didn’t. “Anyway, it’s done. What about the piece? What do you think?”

“It worries me a little, too, to be honest. I think Bowman’s right. People are going to wonder whether we’re carrying water for the CIA.”

“Did he say that?”

“Yes, and he may be right. I mean, who are these ‘U.S. officials’ you’re quoting in the piece. Are they from the agency?”

“Between us, the answer is yes. The CIA did help me on the piece. My assignment was to investigate what the French were doing in China to win the contract, and the agency was obviously the place to go. But the story has real reporting in it. I interviewed the French guy who paid the money, and I interviewed the Chinese guys who received it. That’s a lot more reporting than appeared in Bowman’s piece about the five-million-dollar bribe. That was a pipe job, all the way.”

“Easy, boy. Don’t start a fight with Arthur Bowman, because you’ll lose. He’s the publisher’s best friend, and he has been around the track more times than both of us put together. So I listen to what he says. Now, I want to go over your piece again and see if I can come up with some ideas for how to strengthen it. Give me a few days to think about it, okay?”

Marcus had an icy, managerial smile on his face. I didn’t say anything. I knew what was happening. My piece had become “controversial.” Someone powerful at the Mirror had expressed opposition to running it, so Marcus was playing it safe. He was putting it in the deep freeze for a little while. When some time had passed—when it was older, staler, weaker—he might consider running it. I had seen it happen to other “controversial” stories—a project about the decay of urban school systems by our education reporter, for example—that Marcus had put in the deep freeze until they were safe, or dead.

Bob Marcus wasn’t my problem. He was simply playing his role as a news bureaucrat. My problem was Arthur Bowman.