This was exactly the reason he'd expected. What it really meant was, the Family was scared stiff of Winston Bartlett. They figured he was going to go to court to try to break the Sentinel's lease.
"Let me ask you a question. Whatever happened to journalistic ethics around here? Remember that Statement of Purpose they have everybody sign before they could be hired. 'All the news, without regard'. . . you know. We were both so damned proud to be a part of that. Now you're helping them kill anything that's the slightest bit controversial. Is that what we've come to?"
"Stone, what the New York Sentinel has come to is to try and stay out of legal shit till their lease is renewed." She brushed an imaginary lock of hair from her face, a residual gesture she once used to stall for time when she actually did have long hair. "Just let it go, won't you? To get the signed and notarized documentation we'd need to run that piece— assuming we even could—would cost a fortune in time and resources."
Well, he told himself, there was possibly something to that, from a legal standpoint. But this was not the moment to let sweet reason run riot.
"Okay, look, if you or the Family, or whoever the hell, believe I'm going to go quietly, you'd better get ready for some revisionist thinking. If this piece gets spiked, after all the work I put into it—and dammit, Jane, you know I can document everything I write; that's the way I work—then I bloody well want something back from this gutless rag. Actually, it's something I want from you."
"You're not really in a position to—"
"Hey, don't try to ream me twice in the same morning." He walked around her desk and gazed down at the street. The Sunday‑morning traffic was light. He also noticed that there was a public phone on the corner. Good, he'd be using it in about eight minutes. Then he took a moment to reflect on how nice it was to actually have a window. Of any kind. "You know the saying, the pen is mightier than the sword. I'm about to prove that once and for all, but there's something I need I need a half hour’s face time with one of Bartlett's employees. A certain Dr. Karl Van de Vliet. He runs a company that Bartlett bought out, called the Gerex Corporation. Strictly for fact‑checking. They've got some important clinical trials going on at a clinic in New Jersey that I need to hear about."
She looked at him in sincere disbelief.
"Stone, how on earth am I supposed to—"
"You talk to the Family's lawyers. They've gotta be talking to Bartlett's attorneys by now. Make it happen."