Chapter 24Five hundred miles south of Washington, DC, another journalist called Tim Nielsen was puzzling over a pair of juicy stories, wondering which one to follow up first.
Nielsen had given up full-time reporting nearly ten years ago. It’s a young man’s game, he had told his wife Lauren. I don’t have the hunger anymore. Although she protested that she couldn’t cope with him being at home all the time, in reality she was relieved. He had been a legend in his younger days. At the Washington Post he had been responsible for more scoops than Bernstein and Woodward combined, and his coverage of the Watergate hearings had been voted ‘Best Journalism of the Decade’ by the Association of News Writers. But it was desperately wearing work, and she had worried for his health. He had lost weight,
