“Because Arthur told me. When he realized I knew he had taken money from them, he was almost relieved. These people were leaning on him to do more and more for them. He hated it. That’s why he wanted me to come to China. He thought I would provide some protection. He wanted out. He was so tough in China, I began to understand why you all loved him so much. But they got him. The people he had been working for killed him.”

“What are you talking about? You said Arthur’s death was an accident. A truck ran over him. You wrote it in the paper. We published the story.”

“I wanted to protect Arthur’s reputation, and the paper, and myself, but that story wasn’t true. A truck did run over him. But the Chinese government sent the truck, and somebody told them to do it.”

“Who, God damn it?”

“Those pictures?” I pointed to the pictures atop Weiss’s desk of me and my various CIA friends. “The people who sent you the pictures were the ones who killed Arthur.”

“I have no idea who sent them. They were anonymous.”

“So I’m telling you. The man who sent them is named Michel Bézy. He’s a former French intelligence officer. Arthur had a contract with him for more than ten years. He paid Arthur a lot of money, and Bézy thought he owned him. When Arthur tried to fight back, Bézy got him.”

“Come on! You’re making this up.”

“The hell I am!” I wanted to blurt out the rest. To tell Weiss that Bézy had his hands around the throat of the Mirror itself—that he had a $500 million investment in corrupting everything Weiss had built. But I held my tongue. I felt I owed it to Philip Sellinger to tell him first. Sellinger had formed the alliance with Bézy, and it was Sellinger who had to decide what to do.

“Prove it!” said Weiss. “Prove to me that you’re not making it up.”

“I will, if you’d just listen to me. I know Bézy had the Chinese kill Arthur because Bézy told me so himself. Monday night in Montreal. And I know he sent you the pictures because he showed them to me before he sent them, to try to scare me. I called you that night and left you the message on your voice mail, for God’s sake. How would I know the photos were coming unless I was with the guy? Didn’t you hear the fear in my voice? Bézy wanted to kill me, too. His guys were beating on the phone booth, trying to get me to hang up.”