Star Time (69 page)

The women noticed Derek making his way back to the table.

Marian quietly asked, "Why would someone who looks like him stay with someone who looks like me?"

"Maybe because he loves you."

"Ha!"

"We've identified key precincts in each state and placed polltakers there to interview voters as soon they leave the polls. We're able to project those samples into accurate voter counts. Now we even factor in possible bias by, say, whites who claim they voted for a black but didn't."

With a few minutes to go before the broadcast commenced at nine, Sam Mathias was providing the nearly two hundred guests squeezed into the open side of the large studio serving as the election-coverage center a behind-the-scenes look at the network's election research methodology. That and a handful of FBS stars were the attraction to draw the press, advertisers, bankers, and some of the company's directors. Also present were members of the affiliate board. They had met earlier in the day, but were staying on for this party Greg hoped would generate favorable news stories and goodwill for the new prime-time lineup and the continuing rehabilitation of Chris's reputation.

An ex-college lineman nearing fifty and tending to paunch, Sam Mathias had been in charge of Special Projects at FBS since before Greg's appointment as CEO and had held down most of the other top news jobs at FBS. Anytime FBS News undertook coverage of an event outside the normal time slot for the nightly news or a news hour like
Confidentially Speaking
, Special Projects and Sam were in charge.

"But why do you ruin the fun for everyone?" asked Gail Dawson, the actress starring in
A Funny Marriage
. "I get into a comfortable
nightgown, make some popcorn, settle down in front of the TV for a suspenseful night, and you guys have already told us who won."

"Well, for one thing, in presidential election years, we hold off until after the polls have closed in the continental U.S. For another—"

Chris was just walking by to take her place at the newly constructed anchor desk, a semi-circle in light gray trimmed in red and blue. She wore a bright red suit, hoping that the arresting color would help to grab and hold viewers zapping their way around the dial. A gadfly reporter who covered broadcasting for a large metropolitan newspaper used the coincidence to corner her. He had his notepad out.

"How do you feel reporting on election results that concern your estranged husband?"

"I'll try to do a professional job, but leave analysis of his race to someone else."

"But you've got to be conflicted. Your affair with Mr.
Lyall
here may be the reason he loses."

Chris's anger flared. "If anybody was responsible for the bad publicity that rubbed off on Ken, it was the secretary of Defense. Have you asked how
he
feels?"

"But people trust you to come into their homes every night and tell them the
truth,
don't they have a right to know about your private behavior, especially if you're a candidate's wife?"

"Are
you
having an affair?" Chris shot back.

"What kind of a—"

"You're a newsperson for a major newspaper. Don't the people have a right to know about you?"

The reporter struggled to formulate an answer. She had stewed for weeks for a chance to turn the tables on a hypocritical questioner.

She feigned puzzlement. "Are we supposed to take your silence to mean you're concealing an illicit love affair?" she pressed him. "How will that affect your performance?"

"Which performance?"
Marian quipped.

Everyone laughed. Marian had defused the awkward moment. Whatever the outcome of the directors meeting, Greg assured himself, he would never regret having chosen her to head Programming.

As nine o'clock loomed, the guests were asked to go upstairs where they would watch election coverage from a large conference room.  Marian looked around for Derek and caught sight of him chatting with
Hedy
Anderson at the desk from which
Hedy
would be reporting on gubernatorial races. Marian quickly joined them.

"The group is moving upstairs," Marian informed Derek in a whisper.

Derek coolly turned back to
Hedy
to finish what he was saying. Chris was absolutely right about her! Marian grumbled inwardly. The woman's a barracuda. But look at Derek. He no longer even knows I'm alive. Why go on tearing my heart out and humiliating myself running after him? Better just to recognize reality and try to start my life over again without him.

Head down, hiding the tears about to burst from her, Marian rushed after the others who were leaving.

The night shift at FBS was usually a slow time for Security—mostly news staffs and technicians going in and out of the Lobby. Tonight, election
night,
would be a little busier than usual. Mac McNamara was still tutoring a new man, Bobby Williams, on the details of the job. Bobby was a young black man, thin and open-faced, who had taken the job while attending college during the day. Neither was prepared for the surge of demonstrators who rushed into the building and filled the lobby, surrounding them, waving signs, and yelling slogans. The chaos was so great that no two groups were yelling the same slogan. Two hundred protestors would be the next day's estimate. 

Jonathan
Dearey
, who had risen to astonishing prominence in the fundamentalist movement and had organized the demonstration, used the diversion to bypass security with his followers and move right to the elevators. He pressed the button for the fourth floor and the newsroom from which FBS's election broadcast would be emanating.

As they waited for an elevator, their heads bowed and
Dearey
intoned, "We come in
Your
name, oh, Lord. We are here to make America's sinners hear
Your
word. Please bless our effort. Amen."

"Amen," the others echoed.

Greg emerged from the elevator on the seventh floor and fell into step beside Abel Hastings to join the others at the Election party. Only a few years older than Greg, of medium height with wavy black hair and eyebrows, Abel headed a Fortune 500 company.  Barnett had recruited him and several other newcomers to the board in recent years in an effort to boost the value of FBS's stock on Wall Street. On its Finance Committee, Abel had spent hours that day examining
Ev's
offer with the company's investment bankers.

"Carver's offered a good price. If you don't see too far into the future," Abel said in his characteristic quick bursts. "An outside threat like that. It might convince the board to put aside discussing your contract for the time being."

"But not to exercise the option giving me another four years."

Abel shrugged with what Greg took to be resignation. "No one belittles the job you did. But a couple of directors feel the other networks had more weak new shows than usual.
And more aging ones trying to hold on for an extra year.
Your personal life is the issue.
And Barnett's resentment."

The men entered the large room where the party was being held and soon separated, with Abel moving off to get a drink. Greg stopped to check one of the TV screens placed around the room. Marian appeared to be staring at the set.

"How's Ken doing in the latest returns?" he asked.

Marian had been lost in her grief. She tried to piece together the question and
answer
it. "The same, I think.
Neck and neck.
Nobody willing to forecast a winner."

Greg took a closer look at her.
"You all right?"

"I'm fine."

She was peering across the room. He followed her gaze to Derek and Gail Dawson, who were drinking wine together in a corner. Having just broken up with her latest boyfriend, Gail had come east alone for the party and to do publicity for
A Funny Marriage.
Gail Dawson, Marian knew, was not the type to sleep alone for long.

Marian excused
herself
from Greg and tried as casually as she could to stroll by the couple.

"Hi. How's it going?" she asked Derek, adding in what she hoped would sound to Gail like a proprietary tone, "Derek, I'm sorry I can't spend more time with you, but the ad people are here. The party shouldn't go on too long."

"You don't object to my talking to Gail, do you?" His tone was cruel in its directness.

"No, of course not," she said. "I hope you're enjoying yourself.
You, too, Gail."

Derek did not bother to reply.

Harry
Cherkowski
returned to the Security Control Center from the bathroom and poured himself a fresh cup of coffee. No problem taking a break; very little actually happened. As he dropped back into his chair, he glanced at the surveillance monitors arrayed on the wall before him and lunged for the phone. No sense even trying to contact McNamara with that crowd around him; the man probably couldn't hear the ring. And what the hell could he ask, "You got demonstrators waving signs up there?"

Instead he grabbed the phone and hit the buttons for 911.

"Republicans are making a strong early showing throughout the country," Chris observed to the camera. "If the pattern continues, they could gain additional numbers in Congress, dividing it even more deeply between Republican conservatives in control of the House and a Democratic majority in the Senate."

Chris shifted to her left and directed her next comments at the second camera. A man and a woman sat together at one end of the desk. "With me is Todd Rudolph"—Chris's gaze shifted to the man—"who's been keeping track of the House races for us, and Anne Nelson, who's been covering the Senate. Todd, do we have any indications yet on what the future split between the parties will be in the House?"

As Rudolph began his answer, half-a-dozen strangers pulling bats from beneath their coats charged through the newsroom doors. 

The lights, the colorful set, and the technicians moving purposefully around him disoriented Jonathan. One wall contained the names of national candidates in all fifty states with numbers beside them. Christine
Paskins's
face gazed at him from banks of television screens.

He located the woman herself at a wide, semi-circular desk in the center of the room. Two cameras pointed at her. Overhead lights illuminated her.

Like a false priestess, Jonathan thought, a daughter of Baal, deluding a vast populace with graven images. Yet, through God's redemption he would soon make this place the spring from which all of God's people could finally have their sins washed away.

He stepped in front of the desk, blocking the camera's view of Chris and began to speak. Behind him, P.J. raised his bat to exact Chris's silence.

"Put the camera on me and no one will get hurt!" Jonathan's deep voice boomed. "The Lord has something to tell America."

"Oh, Jesus!" the cameraman exclaimed into his headset. "What the hell should I do?"

In the control room Hugo spoke into a mike to the closed line. "For now, do as he says. Don't let anything happen to her."

Greg and several other people quickly called 911. The police were already on their way, the callers were assured.

"I have a message for America," the round-faced, balding man in front of Chris was saying. His eyes shone with a brilliant light. "I am the prophet Jonathan, God's spokesman on earth. He has commanded me to tell America that this is your last chance to halt God's punishment on the Sodomites, the God-defying homosexuals among you, and on the fornicators and the whores, chief among them Christine
Paskins
."

Several squad cars came to a screeching halt outside the FBS Building. A dozen police officers ran toward the revolving doors. They fought their way through the chanting crowd to the elevators.  

"I'm Greg
Lyall
," Greg shouted toward
Dearey
as he burst into the newsroom.

Two of the Warriors barred his way.

"I run the network," he continued. "If you keep your word not to injure anyone, I'll let you speak. If you don't, my people have orders to kill the signal from this studio and cut you off."

"Mr.
Lyall
,"
Dearey
replied, "I know who you are. You are a liar. You lied to your wife and committed adultery. You cannot be trusted."

"I swear that you will be heard."

"To what exactly do you swear?
To fornication.
To adultery.
To deceit."

"I control what goes out over the airwaves. You'll
have
to trust me."