Prophet

by Frank Peretti

  “Mm-hm. Well, you need to know that we have since uncovered some additional information, and in the interest of fairness I’d really like to discuss it with you before we go any further. Would you be agreeable to that, sir?”

  “What information?”

  Ben consulted his notes. “Well, first of all, we’ve been able to establish that you knew about the abortion all along and that the warfarin story was essentially a cover-up that you had full knowledge of and approved.” Ben waited for a reaction. There was none. “Uh . . . would that be accurate?”

  The governor seemed remarkably calm—cold but calm. “What else?”

  “We’ve been able to establish that Shannon DuPliese, Hillary’s best friend, was a witness and party to the abortion, and that you and your office put financial and psychological pressure on her to remain silent about it.”

  That got a direct curse from the governor, and then he demanded in an angry tone, “What else?”

  “I understand this could be difficult for you, sir.” Ben was trying to maintain as nice a manner as he could, but there seemed to be no way to avoid the governor’s wrath. He rubbed his brow nervously and continued. What else could he do? “We’ve also been able to establish which abortion clinic was responsible, and we’ve discovered that only a month after Hillary’s death at least one other girl died in the same clinic.”

  Now there was a deathly silence. Hoo boy, thought Ben, that had to hurt. “Uh . . . were you aware of that, sir?”

  Then the governor cursed slowly, employing whole phrases. “What kind of a cheap, supermarket tabloid stunt is this? You think for one minute people are going to believe that crap?”

  “Uh, well, as I said, this is a rather tedious story, and that’s why I’m calling to discuss it with you, to get your comment—you know, get your side of it.”

  “What does Loren Harris have to say about this?”

  “I haven’t discussed it with him yet. This is pretty fresh material, it just came across my desk, and I’m trying to get some things nailed down first. I thought I’d get your reaction and perhaps set up an interview so you can respond. Would you be interested, Mr. Governor?”

  “Is John Barrett behind this?”

  Well . . . why hide it? “Yes, sir, this is a story he’s been working on, he and one other reporter.”

  Now the governor cussed out John Barrett. “I should have known . . . that little pretty-boy TV star and his kooky, bigoted father. It must run in the family!”

  Ben scribbled that quote down. “Uh . . . should I consider that a quote? A response?”

  Slater exploded. “Lay off the objective reporter routine, Oliver! You don’t think I know what you’re doing? You don’t think I know what Barrett’s up to?”

  “Perhaps you’d like to discuss this with John Barrett and review the material he’s gathered?”

  “I’m talking to Loren Harris about this! This has gone far enough!”

  “Well, perhaps you’d like to hear some more details—”

  Click.

  Ben hung up, went over his notes, thought for a moment, and then went out into the newsroom.

  He found John sitting at his desk, editing the script for the Five O’clock.

  “John.”

  John looked up and immediately knew there was trouble.

  “What’s happening?”

  Ben bent close and talked quietly. “I just talked to the governor.”

  John could see the answer in Ben’s face but asked anyway. “How’d it go?”

  “I’m on my way to the restroom to wash my ear out. But tell me, do you have copies of all that stuff you gave me?”

  “Yeah, we copied everything.”

  “The tapes too?”

  “Yeah.”

  Ben nodded with satisfaction. “Good. Keep ’em in a safe place, will you? There’s no telling what’ll happen to this story in the next hour or so.” He straightened up and looked around the newsroom, his domain. “I’ll be in my office. I’m expecting a call from Loren Harris any moment.”

  Ben went back toward his office, tapping Leslie on the shoulder as he passed her desk. “Better finish up your work quick. You’re going to be busy on something else today.”

  TWO FLOORS UP, Loren Harris, short in stature but imposing in position, slammed down the telephone, took just a moment to brew up some appropriate and professional demeanor, and then grabbed up the phone again, banging out Ben Oliver’s number.

  He’d just heard from Governor Hiram Slater.

  SLAM! TINA LEWIS put down her phone, incensed. She needed a moment to regain control. She sat in her chair, trying to do some deep yogic breathing, think of beautiful ocean beaches, anything. But all she could visualize was tearing out John and Leslie’s hair by the roots. Finally she decided she should be up-front, direct, honest, and confrontational, and she bounded from her office to have words with Ben Oliver. She’d just heard from chief of staff Martin Devin.

  HAL ROSEN THE weatherman knew the forecast was going to be pleasant—outdoors. But in the newsroom it didn’t take weather radar or a satellite to see some dark clouds gathering. They were moving right past the weather desk, in full view. First came Ben Oliver, walking tall and alone like Gary Cooper in High Noon, heading back to his office as if he would be facing death.

  Oh-oh! Here came Tina Lewis, bursting from her office with her weight so far forward he was afraid she would crash right on top of him instead of making that sharp right turn toward Ben’s office.

  Whew! She made the turn. At least Ben would catch all that thunder and not Hal!

  Tina got to Ben’s door and waited, leaning against the doorpost on one foot, the other swinging in little circles and punching holes in the carpet. Ben was on the phone.

  Then he came out of his office again, carrying some papers and videotapes. She started whispering something to him with such force that he grimaced and turned his head to protect his ear.

  “C’mon,” Hal heard him say. “We’re meeting Loren Harris up in the viewing room.”

  And away they went, around the corner and out of sight, Tina still whispering, and Ben trying to hold her off until they got upstairs.

  Loren Harris! Now this was going to be weather!

  LOREN HARRIS HAD done many a Channel 6 editorial, and on-camera his manner had always been studious, reserved, and proper. Now, as he stood before the gathering in the Client Viewing Room, his suitcoat buttoned, his tie subdued in color and straight in knot, and his posture exuding dignity, he was trying very hard to maintain that image, to look like the man in control, the wielder of power, now deigning to descend into the sweating, groaning galley of the ship.

  John and Leslie had just come up from the newsroom and joined Tina and Ben at the small conference table. They could feel the tightly wound tension in the room the moment they stepped inside. Ben’s eyes were locked into that narrow gaze that meant a toe-to-toe tangle, and Tina was into her treed cougar role.

  As for Loren Harris, he would not have appreciated being described as shaken and discomfited. It would have been better to say he was approaching a power of conviction and a fervency of delivery they’d never seen before—and should pray they would never see again. He glared at them, one by one, looking for weakness, testing for guilt.

  Then he spoke. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a choice before us, an immediate question of agenda. Do we settle this quickly and professionally, with the best interests of Channel 6 at heart and our emotions and personal views safely in check, or do we take off the gloves and let our feelings totally disrupt the orderly process so that we get nowhere? Decide now which it will be.”

  He looked at them, and they looked at each other. There were no outbursts, but neither were there any concessions. Each person stood his ground.

  Harris made the choice for everyone. “We will settle this matter quickly and professionally and then continue with our normal business. Understood?”

  Leslie said, “Understood.”

  John
nodded.

  Tina glared holes in the table.

  Ben just looked out the window.

  Harris proceeded. “Now, John and Leslie, for your information, the rest of us have seen excerpts of the video and have perused your notes, and there is no question that this is going to be a delicate matter not only for the governor but for this station.”

  “And for women everywhere . . .” Tina muttered, still glaring holes in the table.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing, sir.”

  Harris let it slide. “For your information, I’ve just had a conversation with Governor Hiram Slater, and he was . . .” Harris showed a slight grimace at the memory. “. . . he was furious, he was indignant, he used an abundant amount of profanity, and he made as strong an appeal as he could to me as a friend to take control of this situation.” He paused to see if his words had produced any effect, any reactions.

  “Are you going to kill the story, sir?” John asked.

  Tina hissed, “There’s no story to kill! This isn’t a story! This is trash!”

  Harris cut them both off. “I will finish what I have to say, thank you very much!”

  They looked his way.

  “The governor has his opinion about all this, naturally. He’s convinced that we’re about to do a very damaging story about him, something slanderous to himself and his family, and he put my feet to the fire, suggesting in the strongest terms that we were doing this only because this is an election year and he’s right in the middle of a campaign. He accused us of pursuing a political hatchet job—a suggestion I find revolting and offensive, and I told him so. Nevertheless, he then went on to bemoan how he once trusted us, how he always thought our station had a favorable position toward him, or at least an unbiased position, and asked how I, being his friend, could tolerate such sleazy, muckraking, gossip-mongering reporters on my news staff, including . . .” He looked at Ben. “. . . my news director.”

  Ben raised an eyebrow but held his peace.

  Tina crossed her arms and smirked at John and Leslie. Had she been a schoolgirl she would have been sticking out her tongue.

  John and Leslie just waited to see what direction Harris was going.

  Harris continued, “So, ladies and gentlemen, I now find myself in a substantial bind, caught between the ideals of journalistic freedom and . . . the higher ideals of friendship, decorum, restraint . . .”

  “Pragmatism,” Ben suggested.

  Harris didn’t like the contribution but couldn’t disagree. “Perhaps.”

  Ben was ready to push it, and he did. “The governor’s your friend, you voted for him—” He shot a glance at Tina. “—like most of the news staff did—and the only bias that ever gets caught around here and condemned is bias against Slater and his kind of politics. Couple that with the bucks he’s pouring into this station for all that slick advertising, and you’ve got yourself a Teflon governor we don’t want to stick anything to. Excuse my frankness, sir, but that’s the way I see it.”

  Harris didn’t receive that well. “I take it you think we should run the story, Ben.”

  “You’re darn right I do. This is a big story. It has everything to do with Slater’s credibility as a candidate, the sincerity of his agenda, whether he has any respect for the public’s ability to think!”

  Tina wasn’t about to let this slide by. “Mr. Harris, I think the real bias here is obvious! This . . . this is utter madness! It isn’t news!”

  Ben shot back, “It’s news! Get used to it.”

  “It’s trash! It’s . . . it’s slanderous and damaging, and what purpose could any of it possibly serve anyone? So the governor’s daughter died from one unfortunate accident! He’s already revealed that! He’s freely admitted it to the world!”

  “Freely admitted!” Leslie jumped on that. “Mr. Harris, he only went public with that information because he knew we were about to, and he didn’t tell the whole story, not at all!”

  “He told enough! It’s his life, his privacy. Why drag it all out again? What’s the point?”

  “I think the point is obvious! If present policies and laws allow this to happen—”

  “There is nothing wrong with the present laws! The laws are in place to protect privacy!”

  Fortunately, there was a table between them, though Leslie seemed about to jump over it. “You mean to protect that clinic and Dr. Huronac and any other quacks out there!”

  “All right, ladies . . .” Ben cautioned.

  “Well, so much for objectivity!” Tina shouted without reserve. “This is a hatchet job!” She turned to Harris. “This is a hatchet job! It’s sleaze, pure and simple!”

  “Tina!” Ben cautioned more loudly.

  She was virtually screaming for help. “Mr. Harris, you’ve got to do something!”

  “QUIET!”

  It was Loren Harris who shouted that. No one could believe it. They all fell silent immediately.

  Harris began to tap the table with his finger rapid-fire as he spoke slowly and deliberately. “This . . . is what . . . we are up against, people! A story that inflames, divides, tears the scabs off old wounds, that disrupts my News Department—”

  “But a story that is true,” said John.

  “You haven’t sold me,” Harris retorted.

  “What’s to sell?” Ben fumed. “You’ve seen the video. We’ve got a governor who cares more about politics than the safety of his own family, or anybody else for that matter. There’s another girl dead because he tried to bury this, and another girl who’s been virtually scared into silence!”

  Harris had heard enough. “Ben . . .”

  “And you’re gonna stick up for this guy? You’re gonna bury this just for him? If you bury this, you’re just as bad as he is!”

  “BEN!”

  Ben stopped.

  “That will be more than enough!”

  John raised his hand. “Sir, there’s something we haven’t brought up yet, and that’s the matter of the Brewers. They were simply trying to find out the true cause of their daughter Annie’s death when this station did a story on them that virtually portrayed them as pro-life invaders of privacy trying to weasel their way around the laws. It was a terrible injustice toward them—”

  “It was a factual and reliable piece!” Tina objected.

  “Oh, right,” Leslie said with a leer, “totally objective and unbiased!”

  Tina spat right back, “I’m sorry if the story did not favor your position!”

  “Oh, that reminds me!” Leslie dug through the notes on the table and produced Dr. Mark Denning’s autopsy report. “Here, Executive News Producer!” She slapped it down on the table in front of Tina. “I still remember how you made such a big deal about the Brewers having no bona fide autopsy report to prove what killed their daughter. You may consider this bona fide autopsy report shoved up your nose!”

  That brought a long enough silence from Tina for Harris to interject, “John, your point?”

  “As I told Ben, we owe it to the Brewers to finish their story. The first time they came up dry—they didn’t find out anything. Now all the facts are assembled. Their daughter died on May 26th after undergoing an abortion at the Women’s Medical Center on May 24th. We have a witness, we have documents, we have a pathologist, and . . .” He nodded toward the autopsy report Tina refused to look at. “. . . a complete autopsy report. We can prove it all.”

  “And this is the second victim of the clinic, Hillary Slater being the first, is that right?”

  John gave a deep, emphatic nod.

  Tina cut in with, “I strongly object to the use of the word ‘victim.’”

  “They’re both dead, aren’t they?” Ben asked.

  Harris seemed to be softening. He was obviously thinking about it.

  Tina spoke in desperation. “Mr. Harris, please don’t let them run this story. It just isn’t worth the horrible damage it will do!”

  “Tell that to Hillary and Annie!” Leslie was quick to say.<
br />
  Tina lashed back with, “If you don’t stop—!” Her hand actually raised as if it would strike. She stopped herself, settled back in her chair, and covered her eyes with her hand.

  “I’ll hear what you have to say, Tina,” said Harris.

  When Tina lowered her hand from her face, her eyes were watery. She looked at Leslie and John, her eyes burning with anger . . . and pain. It was as if her hardened emotional armor had worn thin from the onslaught and something deeply human was finally showing through. “You . . . you people keep talking like somebody did some horrible thing. Mistakes can happen . . . But women have a right to do what they have to do, and it simply is no one else’s business.”

  Ben asked, “Tina, do you need a break?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “You sure?”

  “I said no, thank you!”

  John caught her eye. “Tina . . . for whatever this is worth, I want you to know I understand. I really do. I know where your pain is coming from.”

  She cursed him. “You religious bigots are all alike. What right do you have to judge me?”

  Harris intervened. “No one is judging anyone—we are trying to judge the newsworthiness of this story—that is, if we can keep our own feelings separate from the deliberations!”

  Tina didn’t seem to hear him. She was still looking at John with both hurt and hatred in her eyes. “I didn’t do anything wrong!”

  John knew he’d heard her say it herself, the outward Tina, the one sitting across from him, and both of them knew what Tina was talking about.

  A tear escaped her eye and ran down her face as she said it again, looking directly at John. “I didn’t do anything wrong!”

  Ben broke in, not realizing her real meaning. “Nobody’s saying anybody did anything wrong! I authorized that story, and we ran it. It was all in a day’s work, and hey, you win some, you lose some, but you keep trying.”

  Tina gave Ben a quick, obligatory glance as she recovered quickly and deliberately, getting her armor snugly back in place. Then, upon wiping her eyes and nose with a tissue, she summarized her position. “The story . . . the information . . . is inflammatory and prejudicial. It is long, long after the fact, lacks currency, and is therefore irrelevant. And as executive news producer I consider it far outside the bounds of propriety. For these reasons, and others, I do not consider it news, and I see no way that a story of this nature would be in the best interests of Channel 6.”