Hostage (8 page)

“The luncheon started on time?” asked Matthew.

Elliot nodded. “Exactly. Johnny and all his bigwig buddies are upstairs chowing down.”

“Excellent,” said Matthew. “Are we all ready?”

“One sec,” said Tina.

She quickly kicked off her high-heeled shoes, flinging them into the back of the van, then reached into her large purse for a pair of white running shoes. She put those on, then chucked her bag into the vehicle as well.

Matthew saw how pale Tina was and asked, “You gonna be okay?”

“Absolutely,” she said, although her voice was noticeably weak. “I won’t turn back.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

“Right, right, right,” mumbled Elliot.

They got things under way, with Matthew pushing the laundry cart to the rear of the van, then lifting it onto the loading dock. Elliot grabbed it, but swung it wide and right into Tina.

“Oh, sorry, gorgeous! I forgot to scan! It’s the eyes!” he pleaded.

Matthew jumped out of the van and helped Elliot while Tina hurried ahead and opened the service door. Passing through that, they entered a long corridor, a bleak concrete-block hall that proceeded into the heart of the building. Tina again rushed ahead, disappearing around the first corner. A few seconds later she reappeared.

“Still nothing,” she reported.

“Very great,” said Matthew.

No security, at least not down here. No one noting any comings and goings. Yes, very great indeed, thought Matthew. It was just as they had thought, just as Tina had observed this morning. No Secret Service in sight. And so they continued rolling the laundry cart full of weapons and masks down the hall, around the corner, and right to the large service elevator.

The luncheon was scheduled to end at one. Of course it could go longer, which would pose problems. The execs who’d paid through the nose for lunch with Johnny Clariton could demand a few more words, pose a few more questions, beg for a buddy-buddy photograph. But Clariton was famous for his punctuality. A tight ship, that was what he ran, he always claimed, and that was how the United States should be run. Efficient. Effective. No more two-hundred-dollar toilet plungers. As for himself, he had a hired timekeeper on staff, someone who kept him going from place to place, from speech to book-signing to congressional hearing. Just in case, though, Matthew had decided to give themselves a little extra time. Things wouldn’t, well, explode until 1:10.

Elliot tapped the call button, and when the elevator doors eased back he said brightly, “Going up?”

“In flames,” said Tina, trying to manage a joke.

“Of course, that’ll be second floor. Step to the rear.”

They rolled the cart into the large elevator, but when the car started rising upward all three of them fell silent. They were really going to do it, thought Matthew. Incredible. Fucking in credible. And, given that he didn’t expect to survive the next few days, he was surprised he wasn’t more nervous.

Dismayed that his headache was growing worse—he’d gone off his suppressant therapy last month—he rubbed his forehead. Then he glanced over, saw the beads of perspiration forming on Tina’s brow, saw her makeup blistering.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Just tired.” She dabbed at her brow with the back of her right hand. “I’ve been running a temperature for three weeks now and I’m just a little warm. But don’t worry, I’ll make it.”

“Of course you will.” Thinking back to sweeter times, he said, “Remember when we met out on that shoot in the Badlands?”

She nodded, tried to smile. “Yeah. Wasn’t that for a Banana Republic ad?”

“I think so. And, you know, you were so beautiful, standing out there in chinos on the edge of the world. I thought you were the prettiest thing I’d ever seen.”

“You should talk. God, we had some fun, didn’t we?” Tina tried to laugh, but instead her eyes started to mist up.

“Nervous?”

She nodded. “A little. But then I think of Chris and I know I’m doing the right thing.”

“Absolutely.”

“Man,” volunteered Elliot, his sad eyes fixed on the floor, “when Chris kicked the bucket I just sat down and cried and cried. That’s when I realized for the first time that, man, this really is a big, bad, ugly world. Let me tell you, I sobbed for days.”

“Yeah, and I cried for days when Curt finally died,” said Matthew, glancing at the others, wondering if they even knew how hard it had been for him. “If there was a God, Curt would have made it at least until today. If only he could be here—he’d be one proud son of a bitch.”

Elliot shrugged. “Yeah, but you gotta go when you gotta go. I mean, loose lips sink ships, and he could’ve sunk us, you know.”

“Well, he didn’t,” snapped Tina.

The elevator chimed and the doors opened, bringing them back to their mission. Matthew poked his head out, saw that the service lobby was empty. He signaled Elliot, who pulled out the STOP button on the elevator, thereby freezing the lift on this floor. He then helped Elliot roll the laundry cart into the small lobby. Now all they had to do was wait for the roll of applause that would signal the conclusion of the roundtable luncheon. Then, of course, Mr. Johnny Clariton would step into the adjoining room for his interview with Channel 10’s own Todd Mills. And things would really explode.

One of the first
things Todd learned in the biz was that if you didn’t know how to dress you didn’t belong on television. Aside from Stella, his agent, who’d advised him to always dress conservatively—“Okay, doll, so shoot me, a little dash of Ralph Lauren won’t kill anyone”—no one in television had ever told him what to wear. He knew, though, that if the clothes were wrong he’d lose viewers and eventually his job, and while he was sure that the dark-blue suit looked good, he was hit with a rare twinge of insecurity.

“So just tell me, do I look okay?” he asked Bradley, the photographer, as they cut immediately left at the restaurant’s entrance and entered the room where the interview would take place.

“Hey, man, you look great. Don’t sweat it.” The tall black man looked him up and down. “My wife says I have impeccable taste, and you look impeccable.”

“Thanks.”

Todd put down his briefcase and surveyed the room, a small space off the main dining area at Jerome’s. Used primarily as a private dining room for corporate lunch meetings or, from time to time, as a refuge for fan-beset rock stars, it had a high ceiling with an elaborate wrought-iron chandelier, terra cotta-colored walls, and a beige carpet. There were three or four tables pushed to one side, a dozen chairs, no windows, and heavy, draping tan curtains lining one wall. Checking it all over, Todd thought that the curtains might prove a good backdrop.

“What do you think, we set up a couple of chairs over here by the curtains?” asked Todd. “There were a couple of plants out by the entrance; maybe we could put those in the background.”

“Sure.”

“And the camera right about here,” he continued, stepping more into the middle of the room.

Usually Todd liked to get to a place only about ten minutes early, for it really didn’t take more than a good seven minutes to set up, but today he’d given them extra time. Not only did he not want to be rushed and he did want to make sure things were set up perfectly, Todd wondered if there wouldn’t be a way to listen in on the luncheon, at least the end of it. Or perhaps Bradley could dash into the hall and tape the guests as they filtered out. Thinking of that, Todd wondered if he should try to corner a couple of them and get a few words. That could serve as the background to the start of the interview. Or was it better to leave all that alone and just set up and stay in here, focused on what was really important?

Bradley unzipped the large equipment bag and started pulling out endless cords, a tripod, a handful of proBeta tapes, and finally a professional Beta camera, the very latest, loaded with computerized gadgetry. Then he started digging for something, opening and closing various pockets of the bag.

“Don’t tell me you forgot one of the batteries,” said Todd.

Everything had a battery, from the camera to the lights to the cords, and more than once Todd had had a story ruined by equipment failure. All you had to do was forget one little battery that went in the mike cords and that was it, interview shot.

“Found it,” Bradley smiled, lifting out a pack of gum. “Just be cool, Todd. I checked all the batteries, brought backups for them all.”

Oh, brother, thought Todd. He had to get a grip and be calm; no, he had to be confident and arrogant. Oh, shit. You’re going to mess this one up royally, he told himself, if you don’t relax. But what was it? Why was he so worried? Suddenly he knew. Although he was sure Johnny Clariton wanted to talk about anything but gays and AIDS, Todd was going to do his damnedest to make sure those issues were addressed. Yet, Todd realized, he himself had never talked about these things on air.

Always another bridge to cross, wasn’t there?

“Bradley,” said Todd, “I want to make sure this interview doesn’t look impromptu, so let’s make sure Clariton is lit really well.”

“Backlit?”

“Yeah. Why don’t you set up the light umbrella? And let’s double-mike this one, okay?”

“Wireless or Lav?”

“Lav.”

Right, he thought. He’d bring Clariton in, seat him, and then clip a Lav mike to each of their lapels. Todd wanted the interview double-miked like that to make sure Todd’s questions were well heard. A lot of times the questions were more important than the answers; too often you could simply ignore a person’s answer, because that could just be bullshit. A politician’s answer in particular. What you wanted to get was the look, the reaction to a question, which more often than not provided a glimpse at what the person really thought.

Bradley opened up the light kit, and then the two of them made careful business of getting everything set up. When the lights were adjusted, the camera positioned, Todd took a deep breath. Yes, he could do it.

Several minutes later Todd heard a prolonged roll of applause from behind the curtained wall. Time for the main event.

“Bradley,” said Todd, clipping on his mike and sitting down, “let’s do a quick test.”

“What?”

“I want to see some footage just to make sure.”

“Todd,” said Bradley, clearly exasperated, “everything’s perfect.”

“Come on, just do it.”

Rolling his eyes, Bradley turned on the camera, checked the focus, and let it roll.

This was too perfect,
thought Cindy Wilson, barely able to contain her excitement as she tape-recorded Congressman Clariton’s words.

“Let’s face it,” Clariton calmly said, leaning against the podium at the far side of the restaurant as if he were leaning against the fireplace in his own home, “the biggest threat to the American economy is the national deficit. It’s just too damn big. Simply, the government has its hands in too many pies. We’re spending far more than we’re taking in. And it’s got to stop. It’s just not good financial practice, as all of you business people here today fully know. When you spend more money than you have you eventually go bankrupt. It’s that simple: The American economy is on the road to bankruptcy.”

Hidden in a wait station stocked with cutlery, napkins, and bus trays, Cindy held the small tape recorder up to the speaker in the ceiling. This wasn’t as good, of course, as plugging directly into a soundboard. And it certainly wasn’t as good as getting this on tape, for nothing mattered more on television than image, image, image. But this was pretty good, just getting his voice. Actually, this very well might be the lead story tonight, and Cindy peered out at the man who now spoke so evenly, so casually, that it seemed he could explain nuclear fusion in a mere sentence or two. He was making that much sense. He was taking the complexities of big government and putting it in terms that people like Cindy could understand. No wonder he’s so popular, she thought. WTCN was going to love this.

“We could raise taxes, I suppose.” Clariton shrugged. “Raise ’em enough to cover what we’re spending. But do you want your money going to pay for a two-hundred-dollar toilet bowl plunger or a hundred-dollar hammer? I sure as hell don’t. No, we need to take hold of big government and, in fact, get rid of it before it gets rid of us. I mean, let’s face it, the United States government is well on its way to becoming just as big, just as unwieldy, just as bureaucratic as the government of the former Soviet Union. And we know what happened to them, don’t we? Good Lord, isn’t that place a mess.”

Cindy swept the small tape recorder around to get the audience reaction, a mixture of groans and laughter. When she and the photographer had tried to enter Jerome’s like proper folk, the guy in the tux had promptly given them the boot, particularly when she’d flashed the hundred bucks. On her own, Cindy had then slipped past the host’s desk and into a side dining room. She just assumed that the room, with its tall ceiling and wrought-iron chandelier and long wall of curtains, had to somehow connect to the main dining room. And she was right. After a quick search she located a door at the far end of the curtains, inched it open, and found herself right in this wait station, which at least afforded her the opportunity no other reporter had, the chance to observe the entire luncheon and record everything Johnny Clariton said.