focus on her lead article. She’d been editor for two years now and still loved the job, but the pressure was constant. If they didn’t get the paper out on time, eighty homeless vendors would have nothing to sell, and that’s when people started choosing between things like breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
So when Brent Forster, one of the college interns, interrupted her train of thought for the umpteenth time that day, it was everything Colleen could do not to bite his head off and eat it whole.
“Hey, Coll? You want to take a look at this? It’s real interesting. Coll?”
“Unless something’s on fire, just deal with it,” she snapped at College Boy.
“Then let’s say something’s on fire,” he said.
She had to swivel only halfway around to take a look over his shoulder — one of the very few advantages of working in a teeny-tiny office.
An e-mail was up on his screen. The sender was a [email protected] , and the subject line was “Foxes in the Henhouse.”
“I don’t have time for spam, Brent. Not now, not ever. What is this?”
The young intern rolled his chair out of her way. “Just read it, Coll.”
Chapter 41
to the people of dc —
theres foxes in the henhouse. they come at night when no ones looking and take what dont belong to them. then they get fat on what they took while too many others go hungry and get sick and sometimes even die.
theres only one way to deal with foxes. you dont negoshiate and you dont try to understand them. you wait until they come around where your hiding and then you put a bullet in their brain. studies show that dead foxes are 100 percent less likely to rip you off, ha-ha.
vinton pilkey dlouhy downey are all just a start. theres plenty more foxes where they came from. they are in our government, our media, our schools, churches, armed services, on wall street, you name it. and their ruining this country. can anyone really say their not?
to all the foxes out there, hear this. we are coming for you. wewill hunt you down and kill you before you can do any more damage than you already done. change your ways now or pay the price.
god bless the united states of america!
signed, a patriot
Colleen pushed back fast from the computer. “‘A patriot’? Is this for real?”
“Funny you should ask,” College Boy said, and pulled up a second e-mail. “Well, not funny, really, but — check it out.”
p.s. to the true press — you can tell the dc police this is no joke. we have left a fingerprint on the lion statue in the law enforsement memorial, near d street. it will match what they found before.
Colleen swiveled back around to her own desk.
“Do you want me to call the police?” College Boy asked.
“No, I’ll do it. You call the printers. Tell them we’re going to be a day or two late, and I’m going to want to run twenty thousand copies this time, plus another thousand of last week’s issue to tide us over.”
“Twenty thousand?”
“That’s right. And if any of the vendors ask, tell them it’ll be worth the wait,” she said. For the first time that day, Colleen was smiling. “They’re all going to be eating a little better this week.”
Chapter 42
AS SOON AS we got word on the
True Press
e-mails, I called in an old contact at the Bureau’s Cyber Unit, Anjali Patel. She and I had worked together before on the DCAK case, and I knew she could hold her own under pressure.
A short while later, Anjali and I showed up at the paper’s office, a single donated room at a church on E Street.
“You can’t stop us from printing this!”
That was the first thing Colleen Brophy said when we introduced ourselves. Ms. Brophy, the paper’s editor, just kept hammering away on her keyboard while we stood there, with three other staff members jammed into the tiny space between us.
“Who was the first person to open those e-mails?” I asked the room.
“That’d be me.” A scruffy college-aged kid raised his hand.His T-shirt said
So when Brent Forster, one of the college interns, interrupted her train of thought for the umpteenth time that day, it was everything Colleen could do not to bite his head off and eat it whole.
“Hey, Coll? You want to take a look at this? It’s real interesting. Coll?”
“Unless something’s on fire, just deal with it,” she snapped at College Boy.
“Then let’s say something’s on fire,” he said.
She had to swivel only halfway around to take a look over his shoulder — one of the very few advantages of working in a teeny-tiny office.
An e-mail was up on his screen. The sender was a [email protected] , and the subject line was “Foxes in the Henhouse.”
“I don’t have time for spam, Brent. Not now, not ever. What is this?”
The young intern rolled his chair out of her way. “Just read it, Coll.”
Chapter 41
to the people of dc —
theres foxes in the henhouse. they come at night when no ones looking and take what dont belong to them. then they get fat on what they took while too many others go hungry and get sick and sometimes even die.
theres only one way to deal with foxes. you dont negoshiate and you dont try to understand them. you wait until they come around where your hiding and then you put a bullet in their brain. studies show that dead foxes are 100 percent less likely to rip you off, ha-ha.
vinton pilkey dlouhy downey are all just a start. theres plenty more foxes where they came from. they are in our government, our media, our schools, churches, armed services, on wall street, you name it. and their ruining this country. can anyone really say their not?
to all the foxes out there, hear this. we are coming for you. wewill hunt you down and kill you before you can do any more damage than you already done. change your ways now or pay the price.
god bless the united states of america!
signed, a patriot
Colleen pushed back fast from the computer. “‘A patriot’? Is this for real?”
“Funny you should ask,” College Boy said, and pulled up a second e-mail. “Well, not funny, really, but — check it out.”
p.s. to the true press — you can tell the dc police this is no joke. we have left a fingerprint on the lion statue in the law enforsement memorial, near d street. it will match what they found before.
Colleen swiveled back around to her own desk.
“Do you want me to call the police?” College Boy asked.
“No, I’ll do it. You call the printers. Tell them we’re going to be a day or two late, and I’m going to want to run twenty thousand copies this time, plus another thousand of last week’s issue to tide us over.”
“Twenty thousand?”
“That’s right. And if any of the vendors ask, tell them it’ll be worth the wait,” she said. For the first time that day, Colleen was smiling. “They’re all going to be eating a little better this week.”
Chapter 42
AS SOON AS we got word on the
True Press
e-mails, I called in an old contact at the Bureau’s Cyber Unit, Anjali Patel. She and I had worked together before on the DCAK case, and I knew she could hold her own under pressure.
A short while later, Anjali and I showed up at the paper’s office, a single donated room at a church on E Street.
“You can’t stop us from printing this!”
That was the first thing Colleen Brophy said when we introduced ourselves. Ms. Brophy, the paper’s editor, just kept hammering away on her keyboard while we stood there, with three other staff members jammed into the tiny space between us.
“Who was the first person to open those e-mails?” I asked the room.
“That’d be me.” A scruffy college-aged kid raised his hand.His T-shirt said
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