The Evening News (85 page)

Miguel shook his head. He said contemptuously, "No mother for a gutless
chicken! Let the mocoso try to become a man
!”

"He's more of a man than you will ever be
.”

The voice was
Angus's, filled with rage and loathing; he too had moved to the doorway of his cell to face Miguel. Angus groped for the Spanish curse Nicky had taught him a week before
.”
You . . .
Maldito hijo de puta!
“
Angus remembered what it meant: Cursed son of a whore
!
Nicky had repeated
to Angus what his playground Cuban friends had told him: To bring a man's
mother into a Spanish curse was the gravest insult possible
.
Slowly, deliberately, Miguel turned his bead. He looked directly at Angus
with eyes that were glacial, vicious and unforgiving. Then, his face set
,
his expression unchanged, he turned away
.
Gustavo had emerged from Nicky's cell in time to hear the words and
observe Miguel's reaction. Shaking his head, Gustavo said to Angus in his
halting English, "Old man, you make bad mistake. He not forget
.”

As the hours passed, Jessica became increasingly concerned about Nicky's
mental state. She had tried talking to him, attempting to find some way
,
through words, to comfort him, but with no success or even a response
.
Part of the time Nicky lay still, occasionally moaning. Then suddenly his
body would jerk several times and sharp cries escape him, followed by a
bout of trembling. Jessica was sure that severed nerves caused the
movement and accompanying pain. As far as she could tell, most of the
time Nicky's eyes were open but his face was blank
.
Jessica even pleaded for an answer
.”
Just a word, Nicky darling! Just a
word! Please-say something, anything
!”

But there was no response. Jessica
wondered if perhaps she was going mad herself. The inability to reach
out, to touch and hold her son, to try to bring some solace physically
,
was a frustrating denial of what she craved
.
For a while Jessica herself, close to hysteria, tried to empty her head
of thoughts and, lying down, shed silent, bitter tears
.
Then with a mental chidi
ng . . . Take hold! Pull yourself
together! Don't
give in
!
. . . she resumed the attempt to talk with Nicky.
Angus joined in but the result was as unproductive as before
.
Food arrived and was put into their cells. Not surprisingly, Nicky took
no notice, Knowing she should preserve her strength, Jessica tried to eat
but found she had no appetite and pushed the food away. She had no idea
how Angus fared
.
Darkness came. As the night advanced, the guard changed. Vicente came on
duty. Sounds from outside grew fainter and, when only the hum of insects
could be beard, Socorro arrived. She was carrying the water bowl she had
used before, several more gauze pads, a bandage, and a kerosene lamp she
took with her into Nicky's cell. Gently she sat Nicky upright and began
to change the dressing on his hand
.
Nicky seemed easier, less in pain, the jerking of his body more
infrequent
.
After a while Jessica called out softly, "Socorro, please . .
.”

Immediately Socorro swung around. Putting a finger to her lips, she
signaled Jessica to be silent. Uncertain about anything, disoriented by
strain and anguish, Jessica complied
.
When the bandaging was done, Socorro left Nicky's cell but didn't lock
it. Instead, she came to Jessica's and opened the padlock with a key
.
Again, the signal for silence. Then Socorro waved Jessica out from her
cell and pointed to the open door of Nicky's
.
Jessica's heart lifted
.”
You must go back before daylight
,”
Socorro whispered. She nodded in the
direction of Vicente
.”
He will tell you when
.”

About to move toward Nicky, Jessica stopped and turned. Impulsively
,
irrationally, she moved to Socorro and kissed the other woman's cheek
.
Moments later, Jessica was holding Nicky, careful of his bandaged hand
.”
Oh, Mom
!”

he said
.
As best they could, they hugged eac
h
-. other. Soon after, Nicky fell
asleep.
At CBA News the systematic search of classified advertising placed in local newspapers over the past three months was about to be abandoned
.
When the search had begun a little more than two weeks earlier, it seemed
important to locate what had been the kidnappers' United States
headquarters. At the time it was hoped that even if the kidnap victims
were not found, at least some clue might have been left behind as to
where they had been taken
.
However, now that the Sloane family members were known to be in Peru
,
though only Sendero Luminoso knew exactly where, the search for the
earlier base seemed less important
.
Particularly from a TV news point of view, a discovery and pictures of
the scene would still be of interest. But as to its being helpful in any
important way, the likelihood grew less as days went by
.
Still, the effort had not been a failure. Jonathan Mony's search of local
papers had produced the Spanish language weekly Semana, containing
information which led directly to the undertaker Alberto Godoy
.
Questioning of Godoy revealed his sale of caskets to, and positive
identification of, the terrorist Ulises Rodriguez. And later still
,
pressure on Godoy provided clues leading to the American-Amazonas Bank
,
the apparen
t murder of the UN diplomat Jose
Antonio Salaverry and his
mistress, Helga Efferen, plus their connection with Peru
.
Those devel
opments alone, it was generally agreed, had made the
advertising search project worthwhile
.
But would further searching be likely to produce anything more?
Don Kettering, now heading the CBA News special kidnap task force, didn't
think so. Nor did the task force senior p
ro
ducer, Norman Jaeger. Even Teddy Cooper, who originated the search idea and had supervised it closely from the beginning, had trouble finding reasons to continue
.
The matter came up at a task force meeting on Tuesday morning
.
It was now four days since Friday's disclosure of all that was known to CBA
News about the kidnap, its perpetrators and the victims' presence in Peru
,
plus the later news on Friday evening which included the videotape of
Jessica Sloane along with Sendero Luminoso's demands
.
In the meantime there had been the upsetting revelation of Theodore
Elliott's indiscretion, resulting in worldwide knowledge of a CBA decision
intended to be kept confidential until
at the earliest-the following
Thursday. It was notable that no one at CBA News criticized the Baltimore
Star, realizing that the Star's reporter and editors had done what any
other news organization would in such circumstances, probably including
CBA
.
Theodore Elliott had neither explained nor apologized for what had
occurred
.
In Peru, Harry Partridge, Minh Van Canh and the sound man, Ken O'Hara, had
been joined on Saturday by Rita Abrams and the videotape editor, Bob
Watson. Their first combined report was transmitted by satellite from Lima
on Monday and led CBA's National Evening News that night
.
Partridge's editorial theme had been the drastically deteriorating
situation in Peru--economically and in terms of law and order. Sound bites
from the Peruvian radio man, Sergio Hurtado, and Manuel Le6n Seminario
,
owner-editor of Escena, made those points, supplemented by pictures of an
angry mob from the barridas looting a food store and defying police
.
In the words of Hurtado, "This was a democratic land full of promise, but
we are now on the same grievous voyage of self
destruction as Nicaragua, El
Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia and Argentina
.”

And Seminario had posed the unanswerable question: "What is it in us Latin
Americans that makes us chronically incapable ofstable government
?
”

He
continued, "We are such a
sorry contrast to our prudent neighbors in the north. While Canada and the U.S. achieve an enlightened concord on free trade, making their nations sturdy and stable for generations to come, we in the south still polarize and slaughter
.”

In an attempt to balance the report, Rita-at Partridge's suggestion-tried
to arrange a recorded interview with President Castafteda. It was
refused. Instead, a second-line government minister, Eduardo Loayza, was
made available and had taken a placebo line. The problems of Peru were
temporary, he claimed through an interpreter. The country's bankrupt
economy would be turned around. The power of Sendero Luminoso was
diminishing, not growing. And the American prisoners of Sendero would be
found and released soon by Peru's military or police
.
Loayza's remarks were included in Monday's evening news report, but the
man and his message were-as Rita expressed it -"like fly piss in the
wind
.”

Communication between the CBA Lima contingent and CBA New York was
frequent, with Partridge and Rita being filled in on stateside
developments, including the videotape of Jessica, Sendero's demands and
the Elliott snafu. The last left Partridge incredulous and angry that the
clandestine approach he was attempting should have been so crudely
undermined. Nonetheless, he resolved to continue the tactics he had
begun
.
It was probably because the initiative within CBA had passed from New
York to Lima that at Tuesday's task force meeting so much attention was
paid to the relatively minor matter of the classified advertising search
.”
I brought it up
,”
Norm Jaeger told Les Chippingham, who had joined the
meeting late, "because you were worried about the cost, which is still
substantial, though we can stop it
anytime
.”
"Touche
!”

Chippingham acknowledged
.”
But the rest of you were proven
right, so let's make a decision on the merits
.”

What he did not say was
that the National Evening News ratings were now so extraordinarily high
that being over budget had ceased to alarm him. If Margot Lloyd-Mason
made a fuss,
he would simply point to the fact that under no other news president had the broadcast audience been as large
.
Chippingham asked Teddy Cooper, "What's your feeling, Teddy, about
dropping that advertising search
?
”

From across the confe
rence-room table, the young English researcher
grinned
.”
Smashin' idea as it turned out,
e
h
?
”

"Yes. That's why I'm asking you
.”

"Still could be something comin' out-like turning over cards still bopin'
for an ace, then finding one. Not as likely, though. If we drop it, I'll
hafta come up with another brilliant notion
.”

"Which he quite likely will
,”
Norm Jaeger commented-a view one hundred
and eighty degrees removed from his original assessment of the pushy
Teddy Cooper
.
In the end it was decided to terminate the advertising search the
following day
.
Then, three hours later, as if fate had kittenishly decided to intervene
,
a breakthrough in the search occurred-the kind hoped for from the
beginning.