Evening News

by Arthur Hailey

  ”Hi, Dad!” the Sloanes' eleven-year-old son, Nicholas, shouted from the stairway. He was tall for his age and slimly built. His intelligent eyes lit up as he ran to hug his father.

  Sloane returned the embrace, then ran his fingers through the boy's curly brown hair. It was the kind of greeting he appreciated, and he had Jessica to thank for that. Almost from the time Nicky was born, she had conveyed to him her belief that feelings about loving should be expressed in tactile ways.

  At the beginning of their marriage, being demonstrative did not come easily to Sloane. He held back in matters of emotion, left certain things unsaid, to be assumed by the other party. It was part of his built-in reserve, but Jessica would have none of it, had worked hard at smashing the reserve and, for herself, then Nicky, had succeeded.

  Sloane recalled her telling him early on, "When you're married, darling, barriers come down. It's why we were 'joined together'—remember those words? So for the rest of our lives, you and I are going to say to each other exactly what we feeland sometimes show it too.”

  That final phrase had been about sex, which for a long time after their marriage held surprises and adventure for Sloane. Jessica had acquired several of the explicit, illustrated sex books which were plentiful in the East and loved to experiment, trying new positions. After being slightly shocked and diffident at first, Sloane came around to enjoying it too, though it was always Jessica who took the lead.

  (There were times when he couldn't help wondering: Had she owned those sex books when she and Partridge were going together? Had they made use of what was in them? But Sloane had never summoned the nerve to ask, perhaps because he feared both answers might be yes.)

  With other people his reserve lived on. Sloane couldn't remember when he had last hugged his own father, though a few times recently he had considered doing so but held back, uncertain how old Angus—stiff, even rigid in his personal behaviour might react.

  ”Hello, darling!” Jessica appeared wearing a soft green dress, a color he always liked. They embraced warmly, then went into the living room. Nicky came in for a while, as he usually did; he had eaten dinner earlier and would go to bed soon.

  Sloane asked his son, "How's everything in the music world?”

  "Great, Dad. I'm practicing Gershwin's Prelude Number Two.”

  His father said, "I remember that. Didn't Gershwin write it when he was young?”

  "Yes, twenty-eight.”

  "Near the beginning, I think, it goes dum-de-dah-dum- DEE-da-da-de-dum-de-dum-de-dum-de-dum.” As he attempted to sing, Nicky and Jessica laughed.

  ”I know the part you mean, Dad, and maybe why you remember it.” Nicky crossed to a grand piano in the room, then sang in a clear young tenor, accompanying himself.

  "In the sky the bright stars glittered

  On the bank thepale moon shone

  And from Aunt Dinah's quilting party

  I was seeing Nellie home.”

  Sloane's forehead creased with an effort of memory.”I've heard that before. Isn't it an old song from the Civil War days?”

  Nicky beamed.”Right on, Dad!”

  "I think I understand,” his father said.”What you're telling me is, some of those notes are the same as in Gershwin's Prelude Two.”

  Nicky shook his head.”The other way 'round—the song was first. But no one knows if Gershwin knew the song and used it, or if it was just chance.”

  "And we'll never know.” Amused, and impressed with Nicky's knowledge, Sloane exclaimed, "I'll be damned!”

  Neither he nor Jessica could remember exactly how old Nicky had been when he began to exhibit an interest in music, but it was in his very early years and now music was Nicky's dominant concern.

  Nicky had gravitated to the piano and took lessons from a former concert pianist, an elderly Austrian living in nearby New Rochelle. A few weeks earlier, speaking with a heavy accent, the tutor had told Jessica, "Your son already has a mastery of music unusual for his age. Later he may follow one of several paths—as a performer or composer, or perhaps a scholar and savant. But more important is that for Nicholas, music speaks with the tongues of angels and of joy. It is part of his soul. It will, I predict, be the mainstream of his life.”

  Jessica glanced at her watch.”Nicky, it's getting late.”

  "Ah, Mom, let me stay up! Tomorrow's a school holiday.”

  "And your day will be as full as any other. The answer is no."

  Jessica was the family disciplinarian and, after affectionate goodnights, Nicky left. Soon after, they could hear him playing on a portable electronic keyboard in his bedroom which he used when the livingroom piano was unavailable.

  In the softly lighted room, Jessica returned to the martinis she had been mixing earlier. Watching her dispense them, Sloane thought, How lucky can you get? It was a feeling he often had about Jessica and the way she looked after more than twenty years of marriage. She no longer wore her hair long and didn't bother to conceal streaks of gray. There were also lines around her eyes. But her figure was slim and shapely and her legs still brought men's eyes back for a second glance. Overall, he thought, she really hadn't changed and he still felt proud to enter a room, any room, with Jessica beside him.

  As she handed him a glass she commented, "It sounded like a rough day?”

  "It was pretty much that way. You watched the news?”

  "Yes. Those poor passengers on that airplane! What a terrible way to die! They must have known for the longest time they didn't have a chance, then just had to sit there, waiting.”

  With a pang of conscience, Sloane realized he hadn't thought about that at all. Sometimes as a professional news person you became so preoccupied with gathering the news, you forgot the human beings who made it. He wondered: Was it callousness after long exposure to the news or a necessary insulation, the kind acquired by doctors? He hoped it was the second, not the first.

  ”If you saw the airplane story,” he said, "you saw Harry. What did you think?”

  "He was good.”

  Jessica's answer seemed indifferent. Sloane watched her, waiting for more, wondering: In her mind, was the past completely dead?

  "Harry was better than good. He did it like that,” Sloane said, snapping his fingers.”Without warning. With hardly any time.” He went on to describe CBA's luck in having the crew in the DFW terminal.”Harry, Rita and Minh all came through. We beat the pants off the other networks.”

  "Harry and Rita seem to be working a lot together. Is something going on there?”

  "No. They're simply a good working team.”

  "How do you know?”

  "Because Rita's having an affair with Les Chippingham. The two of them think nobody knows. Of course everybody does.”

  Jessica laughed.”My god! You're an incestuous little group.”

  Leslie Chippingham was the president of CBA News. It was Chippingham whom Sloane intended to see the next day about the removal of Chuck Insen as executive producer.

  ”Don't include me in any of that,” he told Jessica.”I'm happy with what I have at home.”

  The martini had relaxed him, as it always did, though neither he nor Jessica was a heavy drinker. One martini plus a glass of wine with dinner was their limit, and during the day Sloane never drank at all.

  ”You're feeling good tonight,” Jessica said, "and you have another reason to.” She got up and from a small bureau across the room brought back an envelope, already opened—a normal procedure since Jessica handled most of their private business.”It's a letter from your publisher and a royalty statement.”

  He took the papers out and studied them, his face lighting with a smile.

  Crawford Sloane's book The Camera and the Truth had been published several months earlier. Written with a collaborator, it was his third. In terms of sales, the book got off to a slow start. The New York critics savaged it, leaping at the opportunity to humble someone of Crawford Sloane's stature. But in places like Chicago, Cleveland, San Francisco and Miami, reviewers l
iked the book. More important, as weeks passed, certain comments in it gained attention in general news columns—the best kind of publicity any book can have.

  In a chapter about terrorism and hostages Sloane had written bluntly of "the shame most Americans felt after the 1986-87 revelations that the U.S. Government bought freedom for a handful of our hostages in the Middle East at the expense of thousands of Iraqi deaths and mutilations, not only on the Iran-Iraq battlefield but among civilians.”

  The war casualties, he pointed out, resulted from weaponry supplied by the U.S. to Iran in payment for the hostages' release.”A modem dirty thirty pieces of silver”was how Sloane had described the payment, and he quoted Kipling's Danegeld:

  We never pay any-one Dane-geld,

  No matter how trifling the cost;

  For the end of that game is oppression and shame,

  And the nation that plays it is lost!

  Other applauded Sloane remarks were:

  —No politician anywhere has the guts to say it aloud, but hostages, including American hostages, should be regarded as expendable. Pleas from hostages families should be heard sympathetically, but should not sway government policy.

  —The only way to deal with terrorists is by counterterrorism, which means whenever possible seeking out and covertly destroying them—the only language they understand It includes not striking bargains with terrorists or paying ransom, directly or indirectly, ever

  —Terrorists who observe no civilized code should not expect, when caught red-handed, to shelter under laws and principles which they despise. The British, in whom respect for law is deeply ingrained, have been forced to bend that law at times in defending themselves from a depraved and ruthless IRA.

  —No matter what we do, terrorism will not go away because the governments and organizations backing terrorists don't really want settlements or accommodations. They are fanatics using other fanatics and perverted religions as their weapons.

  — We who live in the United States will not remain free from terrorism in our own backyard much longer. But neither mentally nor in other ways are we prepared for this pervasive, ruthless kind of warfare.

  When the book came out, some of CBA's brass were nervous about the "hostages should be regarded as expendable”and "covertly destroying”statements, fearing they would create political and public resentment of the network. As it turned out, there was no reason for concern and the executives quickly joined the chorus of approval.

  Sloane beamed as he put aside the impressive royalty accounting.

  ”You deserve what's happened and I'm proud of you,” Jessica said.”Especially because it isn't like you to take chances in being controversial.” She paused.”Oh, by the way, your father phoned. He's arriving early tomorrow and would like to stay a week.”

  Sloane grimaced.”That's pretty soon after the last time.”

  "He's lonely and he's getting old. Maybe if you're that way someday you'll have a favorite daughter-in-law you'll want to be with.”

  They both laughed, knowing how fond Angus Sloane was of Jessica and vice versa, and that in some ways the two were closer than the father and son.

  Angus had been living alone in Florida since the death of Crawford's mother several years earlier.

  ”I enjoy having him around the house,” Jessica said.”So does Nicky.”

  "Okay then, that's fine. But while Dad's here, try to use your great influence to stop him sounding off so much about honor, patriotism and all the rest.”

  "I know what you mean. I'll do what I can.”

  Behind the exchange was the fact that the elder Sloane could never quite let go of his World War 11 hero status—as an Army Air Forces lead bombardier who won a Silver Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross. After the war he had been a certified public accountant—not a spectacular career, though on retirement it provided him a reasonable pension and independence. But the military years continued to dominate Angus's thoughts.

  While Crawford respected his father's war record, he knew the old man could be tedious when launched on one of his favorite themes—"the disappearance nowadays of integrity and moral values,” as he was apt to put it. Jessica, though, managed to let her father-in-law's preachments flow over her.

  Talk between Sloane and Jessica continued over dinner, always a favorite time. Jessica had a maid come in daily but prepared dinner herself, managing to be organized so that she spent minimal time in the kitchen after her husband's arrival for the evening.

  Sloane said thoughtfully, "I know what you meant back there, that it isn't like me to venture out on limbs. I guess, in my life, I haven't taken chances as often as I might. But I felt strongly about some things in the book. Still do.”

  "The terrorism part?”

  He nodded.”Since that was written I've done some thinking about how terrorism might, how it could, affect you and me. It's why I've taken some special precautions. Until now I haven't told you, but you ought to know.”

  While Jessica regarded him curiously, he went on.”Have you ever thought that someone like me could be kidnapped, become a hostage?”

  "I have when you've been overseas.”

  He shook his head.”It could happen here. There's always a first and I, like some others on television, work in a goldfish bowl. If terrorists begin operating in the U.S.—and you know I believe they will, quite soon—people like me will be attractive bait because anything we do, or is done to us, gets noticed in a big way.”

  "What about families? Could they be targets too?”

  "That's highly unlikely. Terrorists would be after a name. Someone everybody knows.”

  Jessica said uneasily, "You spoke of precautions. What kind?”

  "The kind that would be effective after I'd been taken hostage—if it happened. I've worked it out with a lawyer I know, Sy Dreeland. He has all the details, and authority to make them public if and when that's needed.”

  "I don't much like this conversation,” Jessica said.”You're making me nervous, and how can precautions be any good after something bad has already happened?”

  "Before it happens,” he said, "I have to trust the network to provide some kind of security protection, and they do that now, more or less. But afterward, just as I said in the book, I wouldn't want any kind of ransom to be paid by anyone, including from our own money. So one thing I've done is make a solemn declaration—it's all in legal form—to that effect.”

  "Are you telling me all our money would be tied up, frozen?”

  He shook his head.”No. I couldn't do that, even if I wanted. Almost everything we have—this house, bank accounts, stocks, gold, foreign currencies—you and I own jointly and you could do whatever you wanted with them, just as you can now. But after that solemn declaration was made public and everybody knew the way I felt, I'd like to think you wouldn't go some other route.”

  Jessica protested, "You'd rob me of the right to make a decision!”

  He said gently, "No, dearest. I'd relieve you of a terrible responsibility and a dilemma.”

  "But supposing the network were willing to pay a ransom?”

  "I doubt they would be, but certainly not against my wishes which are on record in the book and repeated in the declaration.”

  "You said the network is giving you some kind of security protection. It's the first I've heard of it. Just what kind?”

  "When there are telephoned threats, or screwball letters which sound a certain way, or a rumor of some kind of possible attack—it happens at all networks and especially to anchor people—then private security men are called in. They hang around the CBA News Building, wherever I'm working, doing whatever security people are supposed to. It's happened with me a few times.”

  "You've never told me.”

  "No, I guess I never have,” he conceded.

  ”What else haven't you told me?” There was an edge to Jessica's voice, though clearly she had not made up her mind whether to be angry at the concealment or just anxious.

  ”Nothin
g else at the network, but there are some other things I've arranged with Dreeland.”

  "Would it be too much to let me know about those too?”

  "It's important that you know.” Sloane ignored the sarcasm which his wife sometimes resorted to when emotional.”When someone is kidnapped, no matter where in the world, nowadays it's a certainty they will make, or be compelled to make, videotape recordings. Then those recordings turn up, sometimes are played on television, but no one knows for sure whether they were voluntary or forced and, if forced, to what extent. But if there's a prearrangement of signals, someone who is taken hostage has a good chance of getting a message back that is clearly understood. Incidentally, more and more people who might one day be hostages are doing that, leaving instructions with their lawyers and establishing a signal code.”

  "If this weren't so serious, it would sound like a spy novel,” Jessica said.”So what kind of signals have you arranged?”

  "Licking my lips with my tongue, which is something anyone might do without its being noticed, would mean, 'I am doing this against my will. Do not believe anything I am saying.' Scratching or touching my right earlobe would mean, 'My captors are well organized and strongly armed.' Doing the same thing to my left earlobe would mean, 'Security here is sometimes lax. An attack from outside might succeed' There are some others, but we'll leave it for now. I don't want all this to distress you.”

  "Well, it does distress me,” Jessica said. She wondered: Could it happen? Could Crawf be kidnapped and spirited away? It seemed unbelievable, but almost every day unbelievable things did happen.

  ”Apart from fear,” she said thoughtfully, "I have to admit some of this fascinates me, because it's a side of you I don't believe I've ever seen before. But I do wonder why you haven't taken that security course we talked about.”

  It was an anti-terrorism course put on by a British company, Paladin Security, that had been featured on several American news programs. The course lasted a week, and in part was intended to prepare people for just the possibility Sloane had raised—how to behave as a victim in a hostage situation. Also taught was unarmed self defense—something Jessica had urged her husband to learn after a savage attack on the CBS anchorman Dan Rather on a New York street in 1986. The unprovoked attack by two unknown men had sent Rather to a hospital; the assailants were never found.