Hard News

me right out
.
    “… You know what they got me for? I have to laugh now. They couldn’t arrest me for stealing and they couldn’t arrest me for burglary. They arrested me for arson. For burning a plant that wasn’t more’n a weed. You believe that?”
    The tapes went on and on and on, endlessly.
    The format of the
Current Events
stories made Rune’s job tough. Piper Sutton insisted that she herself be on camera for a good portion of each segment. Most of the story would be the interviews Rune was now editing. But every three minutes or so there would be a cut back to Sutton, who would continue with the story, reading off a TelePrompTer. Then, back to more tapes—the crime scene, atmosphere footage, interviews. The Bennett Frost revelation. Coordinating everything—the voice-over and the dialogue on the tape segments, and Piper Sutton’s script—was overwhelming.
    (“And,” Lee Maisel had warned her, “if you put a mixed metaphor or string of sibilants into her mouth, not even God can help you.”)
    But so what if it was tough? Rune was ecstatic. Here she was—three in the morning, Courtney (and a stuffed bear) dozing near her feet—editing tape into what was going to be a sensational news story on the number-one-rated prime-time newsmagazine on network television. Best of all, the story would get seen by ten million people, who unless they made a snack or john run immediately after the Fade Out would also see her name.
    And, she considered for a moment, the best part of all: She’d be responsible for getting an innocent man released from prison—a man whose muscles got nervous when he couldn’t move.
    Prometheus, about to be unbound.

    chapter 20    
     
    THE CONFERENCE ROOM.
    The legendary conference room on the fortieth floor of the Network’s skyscraper.
    It was here that the executives and senior newsmen planned the special coverage for Martin Luther King’s assassination and Bobby Kennedy’s and Nixon’s resignation and the taking of the hostages in Iran and the
Challenger
explosion. It didn’t look very impressive—yellow-painted walls, a chipped and stained oval table and ten swivel chairs whose upholstery had faded to baby-blue from the parent company cerulean. But the shabbiness didn’t detract from the fact that history had been chronicled—and sometimes even made—in this room.
    Rune paused outside the teak door. Bradford Simpson, who hadn’t been invited to the meeting, handed her the files he’d helped carry from her desk. “Break a leg,” he said and gave her a kiss on the cheek—one that lasted a bit longer than your standard good-luck buss, she thought. He disappeared back to the lowly newsroom.
    Rune looked inside. Lee Maisel and Piper Sutton sat at the table. Behind them was a map of the world with red stickers showing where the Network had permanent bureaus. No more than a couple inches of space separated any of the red dots, except in the oceans and at the North and South Poles.
    This was a room Rune never thought she’d be in. When she’d applied at the Network for a job as assistant cameraman they’d told her there was no chance to move into news, producing stories herself; those slots were all reserved for newsmen with experience or star journalism school students.
    But here she was, a line producer working for Lee Maisel, and holding in her nervous hands a draft script, one she’d actually written for Piper Sutton.
    Rune fought down the assault of anxiety.
    She shifted the huge stacks of notes and tapes from one arm to the other. Her heart was beating wildly and her palms left sweaty stains on the black cassettes she held. Sutton noticed her and nodded her in. “Come on,” she said abruptly. “What’re you waiting for?”
    Maisel gave Rune a fast distracted glance.
    “Let’s get on with it,” Sutton said. “Let’s see the script. Come on.”
    Rune distributed the sheets and they both read in silence, except for the tapping of Piper Sutton’s gold Cross pen, impatient, on the table. Stone-faced, they skimmed the sixteen pages. First Sutton, then Maisel, slid the sheets into the center of the table.
    “All right,” Sutton said. “Why is it so important that you do this story?”
    This was right out of left field. Rune hadn’t expected a question like that. She swallowed, looked at Maisel but he didn’t offer anything. She thought for a moment and began to speak. She
knew
better than she could
say
(words, goddamn words again). As she