Catherine King pushed right through the closed door to the office of the executive editor of the Washington Post. She got away with doing this sort of thing because she’d known the man since the late seventies when he had been her professor. The two had worked together at the Post since soon after, they’d become close friends, and they had developed an informal rapport that stunned some of the younger reporters.

But the other five men and women who came in behind Catherine all felt a sense of panic and dread when she ordered them to follow her in with assurances that all would be forgiven once she told the executive editor what had just occurred. While Catherine took a seat, her four-person investigative team, as well as metro reporter Andy Shoal, all lined up against the wall, most looking at their shoes or at books on a bookshelf, because no one wanted to make eye contact with the man behind the desk.

No one else in the room knew the subject of this impromptu confab except Catherine herself, but her excitement put everyone on notice that something big was about to be revealed.

Ten minutes later everyone, including the executive editor, knew what they had to do. The dramatic but simple narrative the paper had advanced in the past few days—that a psycho with a gun was terrorizing intelligence officials—had suddenly transformed into a multilayered story of international intrigue and government cover-up. No one knew what was true, but these were journalists; so the knowledge that they had to find the answers quickly meant everyone crammed into the office felt like a sprinter in the starting blocks, ready for the gun to go off.

And the executive editor pulled the trigger.

“All right. Catherine is on the first flight to Tel Aviv. Tonight. This story is moving too fast to wait around till this shooter turns up dead and no one gives a damn anymore.”

Eager nods from everyone save for King, who did not like the thought of the death of the man she’d just met an hour earlier being discussed as if it were a fait accompli.

The executive editor continued, “The rest of you get to work on all our contacts in Israel. Hell, talk to anyone you know who has contacts over there in intel circles. We have a date where a man entered a hospital with a gunshot wound to his stomach. Could be a civilian or a military hospital. Talk to other Mossad people and find out the protocol for treating a Mossad man injured on the job.”

Catherine added, “He said the shooting took place in Hamburg, Germany, so maybe we extend the range by a few days in case he was hospitalized there first. And check hospitals in Hamburg.”