by Paul Lalonde
In time, the presence of the Women Who Witness became a bigger story than the riots and terrorist attacks that drew them to trouble spots throughout the Middle East. With no political message, they claimed they would follow anyone who brought peace to the region, regardless of religious affiliation or nationality. “We would probably climb into bed with the devil if it would keep our children from dying in this senseless conflict,” one of them had commented, a chilling statement to their detractors but equally uplifting to their supporters.
It was Bronson Pearl who covered the story of the Women Who Witness for WNN. A tragic and hopeful story that seemed to shine like a beacon of light in one of the darker corners of the world.
Pearl noticed early on how a questioning world was beginning to listen closely to the testimonies of the Women Who Witness. Interviewing the average man and woman on the street, they told him that they felt as if they were hearing their own lives resounding in the stories of the Women Who Witness. And they were especially responsive when the women began to question the values of government leaders, the military, even those spiritual heads who seemed to justify destruction with God’s name.
Individuals who had not experienced the losses of the Women Who Witness began aggressively challenging their religious leaders, especially questioning Christians as to why the Creator was honored by the death of His Son. As car bombs and suicide missions, sniper fire and commando raids turned the Holy Land red with blood, these men and women began organizing local demonstrations to stand between violent factions. Often acting against the traditions of their culture, they faced angry family members, risking scorn, arrest, and even floggings as the Middle East continued rapidly spinning out of control. Leaders shifted armies, stockpiled weapons of mass destruction, and called upon allies to support a growing international military presence. Someone eventually had to say “no,” and the Women Who Witness was the one force that best understood what was at stake. Or so the world had come to believe.
Bronson, however, remained skeptical. “Something’s wrong with all this,” he told Helen as they ate by candlelight the night of his arrival. “Remember when we were in Ireland a few years ago, covering the women’s march for peace? They were a mix of Catholics and Protestants, but they were brought together by their religious faith, not just their anguish at the bombings and shootings. They had lost friends and loved ones too. There were widows and mothers who had lost children. Yet there was something different about them. Something . . .”
“Spiritual, Bronson?” Helen suggested.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Like your grandmother. It’s not that the Women Who Witness aren’t sincere. It’s just that they’re like those one-issue politicians in the States. I get the feeling that they would tolerate a Hitler if he promised peace.”
“You’re getting cynical, my love,” Helen warned. “Though I must admit that my grandmother agrees with you. She doesn’t even like that UN consultant you interviewed.”
“Macalousso?” replied Bronson. “At least his connection is understandable. He comes from the business world, and only weapons manufacturers think that wars are good for business. He’s being courted by the European Union to take a high-profile post, and what’s an alliance like that if not about business?”
“So,” pressed Helen, “why are you covering Women Who Witness on the next Bronson Pearl Special?”
“I’m pragmatic too,” he replied. “There are going to be specials on CBS, the BBC, CBC, CNN, and all the rest. I can do a report first—and hopefully better—or I could go back to reading the farm report at 2:00 A.M.”
“You?” she joked. “The man who has won more industry awards than any broadcaster at the network?”
“I do this work because I get to be with you,” Bronson replied sincerely. “Until you decide to retire and take up crocheting, I have to work at WNN or we’d never have time together. Besides,” he concluded, “this is a real story, even if it makes me uncomfortable. If these women can ease the tensions in the Middle East, who am I to say they don’t deserve coverage?”
Chapter 4
HELEN HANNAH’S REPUTATION as one of WNN’s most popular news anchors was not as surprising as the fact that she had settled into a job long enough to be a success. Originally majoring in sciences, her early career plans focused on biomechanical research, but her inquiring mind led her to take additional classes in anthropology, history, and art and eventually her adviser suggested a switch to journalism. “You have the most curious mind I’ve ever encountered,” he told her. “Everything in life excites you, and journalism is the one profession I know where you can get paid for being nosy.”
Helen was embarrassed to tell her grandmother about her career change. Helen knew Edna had wanted her to find a job where she could help others and do good works. She had made a point of introducing her granddaughter to women making careers in ministry as educators, choir directors, missionaries, and ministers. She had often heard Pastor Holmes speak out against the media, criticizing the lack of moral fiber among reporters who would embarrass a government official, but rarely attack an unethical businessman. The self-interest of advertisers and the bias of the network owners interfered with journalistic objectivity.
But to Helen’s surprise, Edna had enthusiastically supported her granddaughter’s new interest. “Of course I’m angered by what I read in the papers and see on television,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with the media. The scrolls used to make the Bible were the media of their day. And Jesus’ disciple Luke was like you. His first interest was science. He was a physician, and he became a writer with two of his books in the New Testament. The good Lord gave us free will, Helen. If you are right before Him, it doesn’t matter how you earn your living.”
Helen wasn’t sure she shared her grandmother’s faith. She knew she loved God, but she was not sure she liked Him. If the story was true, He had let His own Son die, and He had certainly allowed her parents’ deaths. She wasn’t sure what the media and God had in common, but she cared very much that her grandmother approve of her new profession. She just did not tell her of all the hypocrisy in the name of news, because what was more important to her was the growing sense of control that came with the territory. As her success grew, she would decide who to interview and what footage to shoot and broadcast. She shaped the truth by whom she interviewed, the questions she asked, and sometimes the questions she didn’t ask. She was fascinated with the morality of each choice she could make. Editing meant power. Being in production meant power. Being the person on camera, interpreting the news, meant power.
Maybe she could not bring her parents back to life, or restore youth to the old woman who had raised her with such love and devotion. But she could produce something structured to her exact requirements and that made it all worthwhile. She was being “paid to be nosy,” and she realized she could not have asked for a better job.
If there was any problem in her life, it was Bronson. Love meant giving up control, being vulnerable, and that was a pain she had already experienced. She remembered when her parents died and Pastor Holmes had talked about death being another part of life. She had not found his words particularly comforting. Maybe when she was older she’d share such a faith, she told herself, but for now she could feel nothing. As an adult, that feeling lingered, and she was afraid of getting involved with a man only to have him taken away from her as her parents had been.
It was easier to stay focused on work; the dangers the world was facing were unlike any that had ever been recorded. The Los Angeles earthquake had triggered even worse catastrophes: a volcanic eruption in Hawaii, a tidal wave off the coast of Japan, and a looming crisis in key agricultural regions due to unexpected climate changes. WNN reporters were always on the scene, providing twenty-four-hour coverage of the growing terrorist activities that had led the European Union, the United Nations, the U.S. government, and a host of other countries and organizations to begin redeploying their military personne
l. Rapid deployment forces were being heavily reinforced. America had quietly reinstated the draft, and National Guard units were being mobilized for retraining to fight in one or another global hot spot. There were violence and despair as war forced people to evacuate their homes, leave their jobs, and journey to refugee camps. Occasionally, individual acts of heroism and compassion revealing the triumph of the human spirit in these dark days made the evening news, brought live to the world by Helen and her team.
For those whose job it was to analyze world events, the developments in the Middle East were baffling. Astute observers saw multinational troops being drawn into a series of conflicts increasingly focused on the area of Megiddo. Alliances formed months or years earlier—based on oil, food, or weapons—were suddenly called into play. Russian, American, French, German, Chinese, Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian, Iraqi, and Iranian troops were deploying in an ever-tightening knot around Israel. Missiles were being retargeted, nuclear and biological weapons were being quietly placed atop warheads, and conventional troops were being positioned for maximum first-strike capability. Former enemies were acting in consort while former friends found themselves in conflicting alliance, and yet no single issue seemed urgent enough to warrant these increasingly dangerous power plays.
“The world has become an elementary school playground where immature children are playing a dangerous game of chicken,” commented Hogarth Chapman, commentator on WNN’s Evening News. A former official with the U.S. State Department, he had wide experience in global confrontation. A college student during the Suez Canal Crisis, he had witnessed the Berlin Airlift, the Cuban Missile scare, the rising tensions between India and Pakistan, and the rise of the Islamic fundamentalists in Iran.
“The weapons of mass destruction have changed,” Chapman’s commentary continued. “The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki evoked a fear that lasted for two generations, yet their destructive force was not even as great as the firestorm bombing of Dresden in World War II.”
“We ‘refined’ our thermonuclear weapons during the Cold War, making them bigger and more powerful, able to destroy entire cities or to eradicate whole armies in seconds. Although the major powers quickly amassed large atomic arsenals, they also controlled the means of production, preventing other nations from gaining such power. Yet small countries surrounded by enemies, such as Israel and Pakistan, used spies, double agents, bribery, and theft to acquire atomic secrets and equipment. Others, such as Iraq, began developing their own weapons of mass destruction. Anthrax, bubonic plague, and other deadly diseases were obtained from legitimate research labs. Chemical weapons are even more widespread with countries such as Iraq possessing enough to kill every man, woman, and child in the world many times over. Such weapons are simpler, deadlier, and harder to stop than even the largest of thermonuclear bombs.”
Helen Hannah, acting as the narrator for Chapman’s alarming program, went on to explain that the emerging international crisis was one once considered impossible. The manufacture of such weapons was undertaken with the belief that they were too horrible to use.
“The statistics were chilling,” she reported. “The United States alone has missiles targeted to sixteen thousand sites, mostly in the former Soviet Union. This was not our whole nuclear arsenal, just the number of missiles that can be launched simultaneously should war break out.”
“Our deterrent policy involved our enemies knowing we were prepared to destroy them,” added Hogarth Chapman. “But no one ever believed we would attempt such a launch. And even though we downsized at the end of the century, we still have the capacity to destroy the world.”
Helen Hannah explained to the viewers what nuclear destruction would actually mean. “The long-term effect would be devastating,” she asserted. “Radiation would poison water and crops throughout the earth. The necessities we need for life would become the means of our death. The detonations would create atmospheric changes that would reduce growing seasons and alter global temperatures, meaning colder weather and widespread famine. Hotter conditions would melt portions of the polar ice caps, causing oceans and rivers to rise, flooding fertile land essential to farmers. Epidemics of disease, mass starvation, and the collapse of civilization would destroy life as we know it.”
“There is no precedent in world history for what is taking place in the region surrounding Megiddo,” added former State Department envoy Melissa Hargrove, a commentator in WNN’s radio division. “There is no monster bent on conquering the world, no Alexander the Great, no Attila the Hun, no hate-filled madman like Adolf Hitler. Past wars have always involved an enemy against which the good people could rally. This time there is no one against whom the nations of the world can focus. Will the nations of the earth back off, to say ‘Enough’? God help us, but I fear that a war, in which all civilization will be the ultimate loser, has already begun.”
Many people agreed with the dire warnings of the experts and that which seemed so certain would somehow come to pass. Others petitioned their government leaders, pleading for cool heads and reasoned judgment. While others, angered by what they were witnessing, demanded whatever force was necessary to restore order in the Middle East.
But a few, like Edna Williams, read their Bibles and went about their business, praising the Lord for each new development, even while having compassion for those who were suffering. “Let the time of trial be short, oh Lord,” beseeched Edna during her daily devotionals. “I see Your hand in all this suffering, but I can’t help seeing the suffering as well. I accept that those who are in pain and sorrow will be comforted by the love of Your Son, who knows our human hurts. Just let me always remember the words our Lord Jesus spoke, ‘Thy will, not Mine.’”
Chapter 5
I MEANT WHAT I SAID AT THE AIRPORT,” announced Bronson Pearl. He was sitting with Helen in the backseat of the plush limo the network had sent to bring him into the city. His eyes were closed, his left hand holding hers. It was the first time in days he had been able to truly relax. “About marrying you.”
“It wouldn’t do a thing for your ratings,” Helen joked. “You might even lose your status as the most trusted man in broadcasting.”
“You can’t hide behind jokes all your life, Helen,” Bronson chided. “I love you, and as much as you don’t want to deal with the fact, you love me too. I want you for my wife. No matter how much time we spend together, it’s not enough. No matter how devoted we feel to each other, it’s not the same commitment as marriage.”
“Bronson, I . . . ,” Helen stammered.
“And don’t tell me that the world is going to hell,” cautioned Bronson, “that it’s no time to be raising children or that our jobs are so consuming we’d never be happy. I’ve heard all your excuses and I know they’re all evasions. Even your grandmother says so. The only thing wrong with you is that you’re afraid of commitment.”
“No, I’m not,” protested Helen. “I’m just afraid of what commitment might bring.”
“It’s certainly not going to be the little suburban home with the picket fence, a dog, and 2.3 children,” joked Bronson. “We’re not that type. But love without marriage is hollow. It’s a denial of what commitment truly means.” He leaned in closer. “We’re not kids, Helen. We’ve each got twenty years in this business, and we’ve both been through bad relationships. We’ve seen enough human tragedy to know that the good things in life don’t last forever.”
“That’s the problem, Bronson,” sighed Helen. “Everyone I’ve ever loved has let me down. As a little kid, my teachers taught me about the love of Jesus. Then my parents died, and when I tried reaching out to Jesus, all I could feel was emptiness.”
“Your parents were killed in a plane crash,” Bronson replied gently. “They didn’t abandon you. They could neither have predicted what occurred nor prevented it. Everybody experiences pain and loss. And everybody questions God at some time in their lives. But that doesn’t mean you have to be held back by the past. It’s time to get over it.”
Helen sighed. “I can’t get over the feeling I’ve done something so terribly wrong that God’s determined to keep me from being truly happy.”
He paused, reaching out and touching her cheek. “Helen, I’m Bronson Pearl, the most trusted journalist in America. Time magazine said so. I even have theme music. And I’m telling you I love you. I want to marry you and spend my life with you.” He looked deeply in her eyes, never letting go of her hand. “Now,” he asked again, “will you marry me?”
“Don’t ask,” said Helen Hannah as she entered the production department where work was under way on what WNN staffers were calling “The Macalousso Project.” It was a rush-to-air biography of the newly elected president of the European Union, and it was being handled by Helen and Kathy Tamagachi, from the Special Projects Division of the station. Kathy was delighted with the assignment, but Helen was leery of Macalousso and his aims. She tried to tell herself she hadn’t compromised, that the depth made the difference because the truth could finally be revealed. There might be many wars to fight in a career, but this was not one of them, she told herself, and at least she could work with Kathy, whose skills and integrity as a journalist she respected highly. She was considered a top producer and editor at network headquarters, which was why she was assigned to Helen. A true professional, her desk, equipped with multi-line phone, in-line recorders, and two computers, was covered with stacks of file folders. The editing bays, monitors, and related equipment that filled the rest of the room were constantly humming.
As a result the floor had become the sorting area for the footage being edited for the Franco Macalousso documentary. Stacked tapes and film cans had been gathered for weeks from all over the world, and while some editors in the news department wanted to take credit for anticipating the recent changes in world events, the truth was they had all been caught off guard. Franco Macalousso had come seemingly out of nowhere to become the most influential leader in the modern world. It was rumored he had previously contemplated some sort of religious life but abandoned it while in his early twenties. Records showed that he had made a fortune in the communications industry and had subsequently gone to work with the United Nations where his public rise to a position of global influence made him the natural choice for an in-depth broadcast biography.