HOMELAND: Falling Down (Part 1 of the HOMELAND Series) (2 page)

BOOK: HOMELAND: Falling Down (Part 1 of the HOMELAND Series)
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Eduardo smiled. “All professions have their lingos. That reminds me, did you get the B-roll for our V.O. during the outro?”

“Yes, I did, smartass.”

Eduardo watched through bullet-proof windows as the troops stow their gear on the other vehicles.

He hadn’t mentioned the humanitarian aid mission the Army was conducting a stone’s throw from his last broadcast. That wasn’t the story the network wanted to tell. They wanted stories about soldiers making orphans, not saving lives. And Eduardo sure as hell wasn’t going to buck them this close to getting out of here. He worked too long for this opportunity to risk pissing it away now.

He told Sam, “You should come with me. I can find a place for you in New York.”

“No thanks. Why do you want to go to back there, anyway?” The camera man was stretched out on a wall-mounted gurney, his hat pulled over his eyes.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“You think life at the network is going to be any better than this place?”

“It couldn’t be any worse. A comfortable bed and good food would be a nice change from army cots and MREs. We’re both getting a little old to be dodging bullets.”

Sam said, “My father once told me that you’re not truly over the hill until a comfortable pair of shoes excites you more than a great set of tits.”

Eduardo laughed. “Sounds like a smart guy.”

“He had his moments.”

“I still think you should come with me.”

“Nah. I’ll stay here. At least these people have the decency to look you in the eye when they stick a knife in you.” The camera man yawned and fell asleep instantly, a skill quickly acquired in a war zone where rest was a scarce commodity.

Eduardo stayed awake, watching war-torn faces pass in front of his window for what he hoped to be the last time.

It was a short trip to Camp Kerry. Located outside Damascus, it was the American military’s sprawling logistical hub in Syria. An oasis of bunkers, tents, armored trucks, sweaty G.I.s, diesel fuel, and gravel in a desert of pain and misery. Eduardo had seen many like it in more than a decade of combat journalism.

He disembarked the MRAP, drenched in perspiration. In spite of its advanced technology, the vehicle had all the comfort of an armor-plated convection oven. Crushed stone crunched under his boots as he pulled a pair of sunglasses from his pack to thwart the desert sun. He walked to the rectangular aluminum shipping container he called home. Its exterior was covered with stacks upon stacks of sand bags to protect against rocket and mortar attacks — little solace in the event of a direct hit on the sheet metal roof. Another occupational hazard. Eduardo was more thankful for the housing unit’s wall-mounted AC unit after spending all day in the sweltering wasteland outside the wire. He took a cool water from the minifridge and poured it over his head.

He sighed.
I’m getting too old for this shit.

The heat never got to him like this before. Eduardo reclined on his bunk. He didn’t have the energy to shower. He turned on his MP3 player, inserted the ear buds, and drifted off to sleep.

It was almost dusk when he awoke. A shower and a meal of roast beef at the mess hall helped him feel better. The day’s last light disappeared below the dusty horizon as he finished the last of his ice cream dessert. He made his way back to his quarters by the light of the Saracen moon. Once there, he retrieved his trusty backpack from the foot of his bunk and pulled out his satellite phone. He figured it to be around lunch time in New York, so he dialed a familiar number.

“This is Angie.” It was Angie Harington, his news director.

“It’s me, Eddie.”

“Yes?”

“Not exactly a warm hello.”

“I’m busy, Eddie. What do you want?”

“I’m flying back to the States tomorrow. Just wanted to touch base before taking off.”

“Okay. I’ll see you when you get here.”

“Hey, are you still upset about…”

“Bye, Eddie.”

The line went dead.

Some things never change.

Eduardo tossed the phone onto his bed with a smile.

She’ll come around.

*****

Final Approach to New York City

Thursday, October 29
th

09:00 AM

Eduardo awoke in the first class section of a Boeing 767. He spotted the Statue of Liberty rising from the harbor mist and it occurred to him for the first time that this was a one-way flight. He was back to stay. He was home.

Home
. Eduardo considered the word, realizing it no longer held any meaning—at least not to him. He had no family, no address, and no real friends. Always moving. Never getting attached. He’d travelled like a feather on the wind for a long time. Longer than he intended when he took that first assignment in Afghanistan. He thought about that a lot over the last year or so. Maybe it was time to learn what home was again. He liked the sound of that.

After touchdown at JFK Airport, he retrieved his backpack from the overhead. It went everywhere he did.

He stopped at the airport Starbucks for his first real coffee in over a year. He was shocked to see the price of a latte was four times what he remembered.

They always screw you at the airport.

He bought one anyway, too tired to protest the gouging of captive travelers.

The television on the wall was tuned into a cable news network.

A pretty face caught his eye.

Eduardo looked at the video screen to see the now familiar footage of the assassination attempt on Martha Jefferson during her recent rally.

A grim faced studio anchor returned to the screen. “The congresswoman’s camp reports that she is devastated by the loss of innocent lives, but is in good health and determined to get back on the campaign trail in spite of the government’s continued refusal to grant her Secret Service protection.”

He went on to say a few words about how divisive and radicalized the election had become then switched to the less cheerful subject of the economy. The phrase ‘Economic Armageddon’ splashed across the screen below his foreboding expression.

Eduardo returned to his coffee. Sensationalism was the name of the news game. It was all about market share. The bigger the disaster, the bigger the share. News editors were under the gun to find new and imaginative ways to make mountains out of mole hills, scaring the hell out of people on a daily basis just to keep them watching.

He bought a newspaper, wondering how long newsprint would still exist. He didn’t own a digital reader. He considered himself a progressive guy, but was still a traditionalist when it came to the feel of a crisp paper in his hands and ink on his fingers.

The headline read, ‘America Defaults!’ It was old news. The announcement that the government would not meet its debt requirements happened weeks ago, prompting China and several other countries to stop buying U.S. treasury bonds. World markets dropped by ten percent, but rallied and regained most of their losses as usual. China ‘encouraged’ America to honor her obligations by threatening to take possession of real assets as payment if America stiffed them on the bonds they already owned, but everybody knew they weren’t going to do anything. He read on about pending hyperinflation, government shut downs, death, destruction…blah, blah, blah. Exaggeration. Hyperbole.

Narrative license.

An article on the third page caught his eye. The Fairness Now movement was erupting in cities across the country. The New York chapter had taken over Zuccotti Park near Wall Street and the Stock Exchange. Estimates put the number of protestors there in the hundreds and growing daily. The city was extremely concerned about the sanitation challenges this posed. He decided to go check it out when he got the chance, staying upwind if at all possible.

He went out into the brisk New York autumn air to catch a cab to network headquarters in Midtown. Traffic choked to a stop as the taxi reached the middle of the Queensboro Bridge. This was one part of civilization he didn’t miss.

He spotted a well-groomed man in an expensive suit staggering toward him from the Manhattan side. He watched as the man stopped a few yards away and looked over the rail at the East River.

“Looks like somebody had one too many lunch martinis,” Eduardo said to the driver.

The businessman put a leg over the rail.

“Shit!” Eduardo threw the door open and jumped out of car.

“Hey, asshole! You pay first!” the cabby yelled in a thick Indian accent.

The man’s other leg was across now.

“Here!” He tossed the driver a hundred. “Keep the change!”

“Not enough!” the driver said and pointed to the meter.

It indicated another sixty-five dollars due.

“Fine.” Eduardo threw another c-note at him before grabbing his trusty backpack and sprinting to the side of the bridge. “Don’t do it!”

The man looked blankly at him. “It’s gone.”

“What’s gone?”

“It’s all gone.”

The man leaned forward, letting go of the railing.

“No!” Eduardo watched him plunge into the icy current. He scanned the swift swells for signs of life. There were none. He was gone.

Eduardo looked back to the traffic still halted along the bridge. The great smoking chain of cars stretched as far as he could see. No one seemed to notice that there was only one person where two had stood a moment ago. The motorists all sat in insulated idling cocoons, separated physically and emotionally from the world outside. It seemed life had become as cheap here as it was in Syria.

He set out on foot, wishing memories could be cast into the river as easily as a man’s life.

Midtown wasn’t as he remembered it. The normally bustling streets were eerily still. This wasn’t the lively New York Eduardo knew and loved.

A group of thugs eyed him from across the street. He’d seen the look before. Cold, merciless, predatory. They watched him closely, deciding whether or not he was worth the effort. He knew better than to turn back or run.

Luckily, Eduardo looked more like an unshaven ragamuffin than a news anchor. He stopped and opened his backpack, wishing it contained a pistol. He pulled out a tattered New York Jets ball cap and an old Middle Eastern kufiyah scarf, hoping to show that he carried nothing of value. Both went everywhere he did. A dust cloud engulfed him as he shook them out and put them on.

It worked well enough. He carefully made his way to Sixth Avenue and entered network headquarters. It took a minute to convince security that he worked there, but was finally allowed to pass.

He found Angie hard at work in her office. She simultaneously talked on the phone, typed on her laptop, and barked orders to staffers as they scurried in and out.

He stood in the door a long while before Angie happened to look up at him.

“It’s about time you got here,” she said.

“Traffic.” He smiled. “Busy day I see.”

She gave him a look, not sure if he was yanking her chain. “You haven’t heard?”

“Let me guess. Big foot is real and he’s running for President.”

“Not the time, Eddie. A computer glitch hit the financial infrastructure this morning. Billions of dollars have disappeared.”

“Whose money was it?”

“Personal checking accounts. State retirement funds. Even Wall Street was hit. The money just evaporated. Gone. Deleted.”

“Deleted by whom?”

“Nobody knows. And if they do, they’re not saying.”

“So that’s what he was talking about.”

“Who?”

“Just somebody I met on the bridge.”

“The panic is limited to the government and financial sectors for now. When John and Jane Q. Public realize they’ve been cleaned out with nothing left but the cash in their wallets, it will be chaos.”

“C’mon, Angie. Don’t drink your own Kool-Aid. It’s never as bad as it seems. It’s just our job to make it look that way. Like you said, this is probably just a computer bug. Even if it’s not, all private accounts are insured by the FED and the government can cover the banks. Smarter people than us are working on this.”

A staffer poked his head in the office and said, “The President just halted all stock trading and shut down the banks until they can figure out what happened.”

Eduardo smiled. “See? It’s all going to be fine. Between this and the election next week, our ratings will be through the roof. Then the crisis will pass and we’ll be back to reporting celebrity gossip by Thanksgiving. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky and have a late hurricane to keep things interesting.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Of course I am. And, by the way,” He pointed to the window. “What the hell is going on out there? I was almost mugged on the way in. I know that didn’t have anything to do with a computer glitch.”

“It’s the economy. Unemployment hit twenty percent. Prices on everything from gas to groceries have tripled in the last six months. The news about the default made it even worse.”

“Sounds awful.” Eduardo flashed his signature grin. “Now let’s talk about me.”

“Your first broadcast from the anchor’s desk will be election night.”

“Ah, yes. My coming out party.”

“That’s only four days from now. Lots to do and little time.”

“I’ll be ready. Just make sure all the behind-the-scenes stuff is squared away.”

Angie plopped a hefty binder onto the desk in front of him. “Damn right you’ll be ready. You’re going to learn this from front to back.”

He poked at the file’s sizable mass. “What is it?”

“It’s a breakdown of the electoral map. It covers all candidates, parties, and demographics broken down to the county level in every state…including D.C., Guam, and Puerto Rico.”

“Anybody ever tell you you’re a real pain in the ass?”

“You did, if I remember correctly, on several occasions.”

“It wasn’t all bad.”

“It wasn’t all good, either.”

He leafed through the binder. “You seriously expect me to know all this?”

“You want the big chair, you get the big book.” She opened the binder to a photo of the woman Eduardo saw on airport television. “Learn everything there is to know about her.”

BOOK: HOMELAND: Falling Down (Part 1 of the HOMELAND Series)
3.87Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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