The Artifact (12 page)

* * * * * *

“There’s no action at all,” Boer told him. “Queries, speculation, hypotheses, but no offers to sell

anything like ancient purloined treasures.”

“Bloody hell! Point us all in the opposite direction while she follows the scented trail unencumbered by competitive news organizations and the rest of us. Brilliant!”

“Could be an ossuary after all, the skeleton of some 300 BCE Babylonian, Egyptian ruler or notable, died on a trip across the desert, his writings, secret directions to a real treasure, The Ark of the Covenant tucked into the folds of his rotting robes.”

“Since the Bedouins have disappeared and the army thieves have gone to cover, the only one who has more info than they do is the female reporter.”

“Snatch and torture ain’t my style, Man.”

“Nothing so crude,” Brit replied. “However, there must be some evidence in her home. A list of archeologists we can compensate to divulge details, research papers, notes, an outline of a plan of some sort, e-mails on her computer.”

on her residence, layout, access, egress, alarms, problems.”

“This is not a major operation. Yank is there, local accent, local knowledge, good as any of us at a job like this. I’ll ring him up.”

“Let me know if he wants backup.”

Andrea flipped through the hangars at the back of her walk-in closet. She stopped to examine a bright red outfit, smiling as she held it up against her body in the full-length mirror, then brought it out to her office. Rand and T.P. had agreed that she would join Frank for his regular three PM Studio ‘A’ newscast to preview her comprehensive report on the artifact story to date, and announce the reward details and amount, thereby preempting competitive coverage and ensuring a maximum audience for the evening news.

“Bring the artifact up to date,” T.P. said. “Shoot me copy for the six o’clock ASAP. I’ll try to get a reward number from Rand before you go on.”

“Now you’re smokin’.”

“Frank bookends your Preacher interview in a special timeslot we’ll promo for Sunday night.”

That would give her more prominence than excerpts of her Georgia interview within or after some regular weeknight news broadcast. “Deal,” she told him.

She laid the red suit on the couch and began transcribing her notes taken in the general’s

office into on-air copy, with allusions to the subsequent progress she and Sammy had made since. She had almost finished when she heard three quick raps on the outer door and a voice telling her, “Twenty minutes, Andy.”

“Get your stuff, Shel, and start me here,” she called back. “You can finish up on the set.”

Andrea knew that a television audience appraised a newswoman sitting at a studio desk

differently than a female reporter toughing it out in a bombed out town in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The latter could look windblown, disheveled and sunburned, an ostensibly hard-working foreign correspondent working a dangerous war zone to bring them the news. In the studio, viewers wanted to watch an attractive, fashionable, talking head--more glamorous and personable than even her male counterparts.

She had pulled her sweater off and was seated at the computer in her bra, head cocked to the side, squinting through the smoke curling up from the cigarette dangling from her lips, when Sheldon returned with his make-up kit to apply his cosmetic magic. He too, averted his head to keep the smoke from his eyes. Andrea ignored him, her fingers dancing on the keyboard as she continued polishing her copy.

When they were both satisfied with her appearance, Andrea faxed her script to T.P. and the producer, then stepped out of her jeans. Sheldon helped her squirm into a beige slip, the red suit and her old loafers. They selected a thin, gold necklace and bracelets to match the buttons on her jacket before they started down the hallway toward Studio ‘C.’

“How’s your leg?” Sheldon asked, glancing down at her limp.

“About the same,” she lied. “Tripped and fell on my tush last night after the shoot at Bragg

that bruised my ego more than the leg.”

muted paisley tie. They exchanged greetings, Morrissey appraising her outfit with evident concern,

then abruptly left the set.

“Three minutes, Frank,” the producer called after him.

A sound assistant ran a wire under Andrea’s jacket and she inserted the earplug as the tech clipped a tiny mike to her lapel. Sheldon touched up her mascara, then gave her hair a few caresses with a curling brush.

Andrea picked up the phone at her elbow and pressed the key for T.P.’s extension, combing her fingers through the gray streak in her hair. “What’s the number?” she asked, when he answered, then listened to his response on the other end of the line.

“If he’s stalling me to let Bozo give it later,” she said, “that’ll be the stupidest career move he ever makes.” She hung up as Frank sat down again tightening the knot on a fire engine-red necktie.

developments, questions and suspicions she and Sam had generated on the artifact cover-up. Frank

frowned, but accepted it, instructing the copy boy to run it through the prompter again. Sheldon hovered behind her, applying spray to her errant locks, patting them in place with his palm and brush. “Sit on that hand, will you, Andy?”

Silence enveloped the studio as the producer reached the count of one, and floor monitors showed the two reporters seated together behind the anchor desk with the large blue and white NNC logo behind them.

“Good afternoon,” Frank said to the camera. “This is Frank Morrissey and....”

“Andrea Madigan...” she added.

The camera cut in tight on Frank, who picked up his lines: “...with an exclusive follow-up on the alleged Arab antiquities theft reported last week in an NNC newscast for the first time anywhere. During that announcement, you may recall, a surprise appearance before our camera was made by General Clyde G. Callaghan, commandant of the 82
^nd
Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina...” A still shot of Andrea and the General from her newscast that evening replaced the logo behind them. “...who denied that any artifacts had been stolen by American soldiers under his command during the April ’03 search for Saddam Hussein in northern Iraq.”

Camera two came in tight on Andrea as she said:
“
The day after my interview with General Callaghan, however, our NNC research team discovered that every U.S. Army computer facility that might contain unclassified Iraq War information has been shut down. Despite the Army’s renewed obstruction to public access--this reporter has determined which infantry platoon of approximately 70 soldiers was dropped into the area of the Syrian Desert where the presumed theft took place. We are currently pursuing critical new information that should help to identify which squad of Airborne troopers may have firsthand knowledge of the alleged theft of the Arabian treasures. The task before NNC now is to identify the soldiers who could have perpetrated that theft, confirm their involvement and report our findings to the American people.

“Recent interviews with members of then Colonel Callaghan’s 82
^nd
Airborne Third Battalion Bravo Company have led us to two specific areas of inquiry that look extremely promising, resulting in the monetary reward I will offer on behalf of NNC-TV at the end of this

broadcast.”

The red light on camera three went out and reappeared on camera one, to which Andrea turned. “In addition to finding the artifact and soldier thieves, we are determined to learn why the military is denying their existence. Are they doing so through naive ignorance or complicit disinformation?”

The video cut to a close-up of Frank, reading local and national news items from the prompter as Andrea picked up the telephone beside her, surreptitiously brushing her left toe against

his right shoe to ensure his awareness of her off-frame phone call.

She paused, frustrated, her mind racing. With the handset pressed against her ear she whispered in feigned astonishment: “Five?”

“I don’t know if I’ll have an answer by then.

Then she moved her shoulder to block Frank’s view of the phone and broke the connection. “Say that again,” she demanded of the dial tone, pretending to listen.

“Five hundred thousand dollars,” she said into the dead telephone, at which Frank Morrissey flubbed his reading. ”You’re getting the hang of this, Rand.”

Andrea smiled and replaced the handset in its cradle as Frank came to the end of his copy. “...a trip that the President hopes will begin to establish a closer relationship with those South American nations.”

Frank turned to his right, his expression anticipatory. “Andrea?”

Andy summarized the contents of the MI artifact investigation, then segued into the last

report she would ever make on NNC-TV.

“I have just this moment received an unprecedented on-the-air phone call from NNC management authorizing a reward of five hundred thousand dollars for information leading to the stolen artifact and/or personal interviews with the American soldiers involved in the discovery and theft of ancient treasures from the Syrian Desert during the early days of the Iraq War.”

Andrea could sense Frank stiffen beside her as the red light on the telephone at her elbow began flashing. She yanked the cord of her earpiece before the producer could verbally communicate his frantic gestures ten feet in front of the anchor desk, and continued addressing the live camera before they could shut her off. “I repeat this last second NNC offer on which we will expand in future broadcasts: National News Corporation has just authorized payment of a half million-dollar reward for information leading to our personal interviews with any American soldier involved in the theft of the artifact in question or the treasure itself.”

She gave the phone number of their established hotline from memory and turned the

broadcast over to Frank, who to his professional credit continued his newscast, ignored the

reward and signed them off.

In the narrow, windowed booth on the rear ceiling the producer transferred his on-air program responsibility to a counterpart in another studio. On the floor below, the crew stood still and quiet, refraining from their usually effusive post-program chatter. Andrea pushed herself up from her chair, shedding her wire tethers as Frank extricated himself from his own. Rand Duncan flipped a switch on the console in the glass VIP booth, turning the volume on the studio audio speakers to max, and they crackled to life.

“Witness all here present,” he announced in obvious anger, “that Andrea Madigan had

absolutely no authorization whatsoever from NNC management to offer a public reward of any kind, much less the incomprehensible magnitude of five hundred thousand dollars.” The studio lights had been dimmed and Duncan could be seen standing behind the angled glass panes. He looked down at T.P. Viola still seated in a chair beside him. “Am I correct, T.P?”

“Yes, Rand.”

“Get this on tape,” Duncan said as he turned to stare icicles down at Andrea, who had remained standing immobile since he began speaking.

“Andrea Madigan, your employment here at National News Corporation is hereby severed with cause, effective this time and date. Security guards will escort you from the premises immediately. You will remove nothing from this office except the possessions you have with you now. Our attorneys will contact yours.”

Andrea had been gazing up at the client booth throughout Duncan’s monologue, after which she thrust her right fist in the air, middle finger extended, grabbed her cane and limped off the set.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Georgetown, DC

October 2004

A northeast wind drove the chill rain against the windshields of vehicles crawling along Virginia Avenue, their wipers swatting fat droplets as pedestrians with upturned collars, newspapers or briefcases overhead scurried along sidewalks toward shelter.