Conspiracy

by Dana Black

  On the graphics screen and the on-air, Sharon read the words TIME REMAINING and then the numbers, changing with each elapsed second: 2:21 .. . 2:20 . . . 2:19 .. .

  Three men sat at the console. On the left was the rotund, balding Larry Noble, flicking switches to change the signals going into each of the three slo-mo units. To Larry’s right, at the center of the board, Wayne Taggart was barking commands at Billy Leon, the technical director, who moved the switches that put up whatever camera signal Taggart ordered.

  “. . . cut to Seven . . . now Nine . . . Christ, what a move he made, it’s on Seven, Seven . . . goddammit, will you put up Seven? For chrissake how many times do I have to say it?” As he spoke, Taggart shifted constantly in his chair, sometimes up on one knee, to make notes, then slumping back, his feet in sandals up on the edge of the console, tilting his chair; then upright, drumming fingers on his clipboard. Sharon had worked with him before at NBC, and found his constant nervous aggression difficult to put up with. But Taggart was quick, one of the best free-lance directors around, and he knew soccer, and Larry Noble liked the way he talked about “creative symmetry.”

  Sharon sat at her position in this tiny cubicle behind the three men: a narrow console with telephone connections to the other two trucks and to the outside world, and a direct line to the UBC switchboard and Molly in the building across the highway. She spread out the papers she had brought with her. There was so little room in the cubicle that the back of the bench Sharon sat on was simply padding on the wall, and the front of the console before her was only an inch or two from the chairs of Larry and Wayne. When Taggart leaned far back, the cowboy hat he never seemed to take off was practically in Sharon’s lap.

  “Do you mind, Wayne?” Sharon said quietly, moving her papers to one side. Lany Noble and Billy heard her, turned around, and said “Hi.” Taggart did not respond. He kept his chair tilted back and continued calling out the camera numbers.

  Now the hat brim brushed against the roll of stadium plans Sharon had brought, knocking them to the floor.

  “Wayne, do you mind?” Sharon pushed the hat away from her, in the process tilting it.down over Taggart’s face so that he could no longer see the bank of monitor screens before him.

  Taggart gave a cry of rage. He leaned forward, clutching the hat to straighten it, and whirled around to face Sharon, eyes blazing. His thick brown Pancho Villa mustache quivered with indignation. “Just what do you think you’re doing?” he screamed. “Do you realize I couldn’t see?”

  Sharon replied calmly, “You can’t see the monitors when you’re looking at me, either. And you’re missing a good shot on Eight.”

  Larry Noble’s soft baritone cut in before Taggart could answer. “Put up Eight, Billy. And Wayne, get back to the board. Put up the score, Chyron, and then get ready with the lists of tomorrow’s highlights.”

  “You’re not going to say anything to her?” Taggart turned to the producer in anger. “You’re just going to let her get away with it?” Pinpoints of sweat appeared around the top of his pink forehead, moistening his permanent-waved ringlets of brown hair. The skin of his chest, bared by the blue silk shirt he wore open to the navel, was flushed red. His fingers clutched the heavy gold medallion on the chain around his neck as though he were about to tear it off and throw it.

  “Simmer down, Wayne,” Larry Noble said quietly. “Put up Six, Billy. Now put up Eight again.” His soft brown eyes watching the board, Larry fished a new cigarette from his shirt pocket and chain-lit it.

  Over the ceiling loudspeaker, Dan Richards’s voice continued the commentary “. . . now, with less than a minute to go, the Italians move desperately after the ball . . .”

  Taggart glared at Sharon. Then he spun around in his chair to face the board again.

  When the game was completed, Sharon waited to see if Taggart would have anything more to say to her about his hat, but he did not. The second that Dan Richards completed the wrapup, Taggart turned to Larry and slid his clipboard over for the producer to see. “I think fifteen minutes ought to do it,” he said, pointing to the events he had written on his clipboard, with the times at which they had occurred. “We start with the first goal, then we flash back to the opening ceremony, then we go to the three shots we had of that first Italian penalty. . . .”

  Sharon watched as Taggart continued to explain what he planned to include in the segment of game coverage that would be broadcast tonight during U.S. prime time. It sounded good to her; even though she had not seen the game, she had watched enough soccer to know that Wayne had chosen a good balance between the action-filled highlights of this particular contest and the corner kicks, blocks, and play setups that Dan Richards chose to describe and analyze for viewers unfamiliar with soccer. Evidently, Larry Noble thought so too, for he gave his approval immediately. Taggart stood up then, his back to Sharon, and appeared to be leaving.

  “Two things before you go, Wayne,” she said.

  “Yes?” He turned toward her, his face taut.

  She pointed to the roll of stadium plans that she had retrieved from the floor. “I want you to take a look at these possible camera placements for the U.S. team practice here tomorrow morning. And Katya Romanova will reschedule for next Sunday when Dan Richards is back. I set it up for two in the afternoon so we can run it Sunday night when the kids are watching.”

  He nodded, thumbing through the plans. “What is all this?” he said impatiently. “Where are the cameras?”

  “They’re the red X’s on the top sheet. The other pages are plumbing and wiring and the other parts of the stadium. The Spanish government gave us a complete set.”

  Taggart circled two of the X’s and pointed to a third. “Platforms here and here, and I’ll have Emerson and his handheld unit over here to catch the goals. Is that all?”

  “Far as I know. I do remember a phone message from you on my desk, though. Something about an emergency?”

  “Oh, that.” He sounded evasive. “I already took care of it myself.”

  “Mind telling me what it was?”

  “That interpreter you hired yesterday. I caught her stealing. When you didn’t return my call, I told her she was fired.”

  Larry Noble looked up. “You told her what?”

  Taggart folded his arms across his chest, avoiding Larry’s eyes. It was plain that he knew he had acted outside his authority, that producers, and not directors, did the hiring and firing. “She was stealing,” he repeated. “I caught her. It seemed to me there was only one choice.”

  “What did she steal?” Sharon asked.

  He kept his eyes down. “My complimentary tickets for the championship game. One of them, anyway. Probably she would have come back for the others tomorrow.”

  “You’re certain it was Maria?” Larry puffed on a fresh cigarette, grinding out the old one in his ashtray. “She seems like such a nice kid.”

  Taggart’s head came up. “I found her putting my tote bag back on my desk. The ticket was in her hand.”

  “Where is she now?”

  He put his hands into the pockets of his Levi’s and shrugged. “She went out of my office on a crying jag when the game was about to start. I don’t know where she is. I’m going back to prepare the master tape for tonight.”

  “Cindy won’t be ready for you in the editing truck,” Sharon called after him. “She’s still working on the changes for Dan’s documentary.”

  There was no answer. The outer door of the truck slammed behind him.

  After Billy, the TD, had said goodbye and gone, Larry turned to Sharon. “Sorry about that nonsense.” He started a fresh cigarette. “Wayne’s really off tonight. I think it was the pep talk from the boss man.”

  Just before coming back to the truck this evening, Sharon had heard the do-or-die warning that Ross Cantrell, the Texas oil magnate who owned UBC, had given to the UBC team. She nodded agreement. “Do you really think all those sponsors will drop us if we don’t make our ratings the first week?”


  Larry shrugged. “I don’t want to find out. I also don’t want to find out why Cantrell let them write a ratings figure into their contracts, and I don’t want to find out what kind of inducements the other networks are offering to make our sponsors drop us. I’ve got enough to give me ulcers without looking for trouble.”

  “You think we’ll get our twenty-one rating?”

  He shrugged again. “Do you?”

  “I think we’ve got a chance. It’s summer, so we’re up against network reruns. And the audience should build as the week goes on.”

  “It better build. A twenty-one would put us in the top fifteen shows of the week, this time of year. That’s a lot of soccer fans for America.”

  “It doesn’t sound so tough. I can’t think of more than fourteen shows I’d rather watch.”

  Though she could laugh, Sharon still felt the strain caused by Cantrell’s change of position on the ratings issue. UBC, they had all been told when they were first hired, would be a network concerned with quality programming rather than mass popularity. If there were revenue difficulties, Cantrell had promised, his own personal capital would ensure that the network stayed afloat for at least a full year. He hadn’t mentioned that promise tonight. And he had looked under more strain than usual.

  But she djd not have time to speculate on Cantrell’s motives. Even before she finished talking to Larry, the phone on her console buzzed.

  Molly Perkins, at the UBC switchboard, was on the line. A middle-aged Texan, she had been part of Ross Cantrell’s oil operation when he formed UBC. Normally Cantrell’s appointments secretary, she was doing double duty on the switchboard while they were in Madrid.

  She sounded worried. “I’ve got a young Spanish gal named Maria Coquias here with me,” she said, “and she’s practically begging to see you. Can I send her over right away?”

  14

  About a minute later, the salesman started his engine. Groves, seeing the cloud of exhaust smoke, got to his feet and made for the doorway. The sandwich and milk he had wolfed down felt like lead in his belly, but now was the important time and he had to move with precision.

  He paused in the parking lot to retrieve the single unbroken ampule, and reached the jeep just as the blue Chevy disappeared from view on the eastbound entrance ramp. Groves got in, gunned the engine into life, and drove out smartly, not wanting to let any more distance get between him and the salesman than was necessary. He had anywhere between five and ten minutes—between five and twelve miles, depending on the salesman’s driving habits. The acid from the ampule, crushed by the salesman’s right rear tire as it rolled forward, would take about that long to eat its way through the tread.

  When that event occurred, Groves wanted to be immediately behind the salesman, the first car to arrive on the scene.

  Out on the highway he felt naked and exposed, but he told himself there was no point in worrying. He hadn’t any choice. If there were roadblocks up ahead by now looking for the jeep, that was too bad. The odds were that they’d be expecting him to stay on the off roads, though, and that they’d be reluctant to stop traffic along the big arteries. Besides, he reminded himself, there were three other main highways he could have taken. If they’d discovered the bodies, they’d have plenty of other miles to cover than the ones he was traveling.

  No choice, he repeated to himself. In a way, that had been the case through this whole project, from the afternoon the thin one had awakened him as he dozed on the sand in front of his beach house in Marbella. “You’re working for the Patrón again,” the thin one had said, his pale eyes squinting in the glare off the Mediterranean. “If you succeed, you will be considerably more wealthy.” If Groves failed, the thin one had gone on to say, or if he refused, there were police on three continents eager to learn of his whereabouts, assuming the Patrón would let him live long enough to be arrested. And to try to escape the Patrón was to invite disaster. After all, the Patrón had found Groves in Marbella, had he not?

  Watching the road, Groves tried to cheer himself. There was hardly any eastbound traffic. Maybe his luck had improved.

  The tire blew out and the Chevy started to fishtail coming over a rise. Groves saw it from about twenty car lengths back, rolling along at a sensible fifty-five miles per hour. The salesman was a good driver and controlled the skid, pulling off the road with no more disturbance than to raise a small cloud of alkali dust. Groves slowed to watch the dust and see which way the wind was blowing—from the west. Then he tapped the brake pedal and pulled over behind the Chevy, less than a car length away from the salesman’s now-opened trunk.

  They were in barren country, without any more cover than a creosote bush or two, and some mesquite. Farther back from the road were some small pinions, but too far out of reach to be of any use. Groves climbed over the stick shift of the jeep and stepped out without opening the door, vaulting neatly onto the gravelly soil by the roadside. He grinned at the salesman, who was kneeling by the deflated tire, prying at the hubcap with the pointed end of his jack handle and not having much success.

  “Flat, huh?” The wind was at his back, a soft breeze that cooled his neck.

  The salesman nodded.

  “Fixing to jack her up?”

  The man said he was. Groves grinned again and hunkered down beside him, tasting dust. “If you want, you won’t have to mess with your spare. I’ve got one of our army-issue canisters in my jeep. Seals the hole, pumps the tire, and off you go. Good for a hundred miles, minimum. Two hundred on a smooth highway like this one.”

  The salesman blinked in the wind. “How much?”

  “We’ll test it out first. If it works, I’ll charge you ten dollars. If it doesn’t—sometimes the hole’s too big or the vinyl glue don’t sit right—I won’t charge you at all.”

  He thought it over, then grinned. “Let’s give it a try, then. And by the way, thanks for stopping, soldier. My name’s Austin, Barry Austin.”

  “Gene Groves, Barry. Lieutenant Gene, they call me back at the base.”

  Groves stood up and returned with a small black canister of Cobor. Careful to stay upwind, he crouched down again alongside the salesman, found the valve cap to the deflated tire, and removed it. Then he showed the salesman the black canister.

  “We open this little wing nut here first,” he said, “to activate the CO2 charge. Then we’ll apply the nozzle tight against the tire valve.”

  Before Barry Austin had a chance to notice that there was no way the Cobor nozzle would fit onto the tire valve, Groves had the wing nut loosened. He held it open for a count of five, holding his breath. “Smells kinda sweet,” Austin said.

  Then his eyes widened in surprise and pain. He tried to get his breath, but his chest, diaphragm, and stomach muscles convulsed simultaneously with a sudden violence that seemed to tear his tongue from its very roots. The spasm induced by the gas then triggered the voluntary muscles. Austin’s arms and legs went rigid; his hands balled helplessly into fists; his jaw clamped down on his outthrust tongue, biting it through.

  He pitched forward, dead.

  Groves held his breath for a full minute, shuddering. No choice, he repeated over and over in his mind, like a litany. No choice.

  Two minutes later, hidden from traffic by Austin’s car, he had dressed himself in Austin’s shirt, tie, slacks, and shoes. A good omen, he told himself, that the shoes fit well. He had known that the clothes would be the right size when Austin first stepped out of his car in the parking lot, just as he had known that the man’s sandy hair and facial features were similar enough to his own to confuse his pursuers, if only temporarily.

  Groves put the Cobor canister back into the case with the others, pulled up the torn canvas top of the jeep, and clamped the latch on to the windshield hook as best he could. Then, sheltered by the jeep top from the view of passing drivers, he lifted Austin’s body into the jeep and wrestled it into place behind the steering wheel. From a distance the body, dressed in Groves’s army fatigues and uniform cap, wo
uld appear to be waiting for a roadside meeting, or resting.

  Choosing a moment when no traffic was visible on either side of the highway, Groves hurriedly removed the case of Cobor grenades from the jeep and put it carefully into Austin’s trunk alongside several cartons of drug samples. He slammed down the lid, retrieved Austin’s jack from the roadside, got into Austin’s car, and drove off slowly, along the shoulder. When he had driven far enough so that he could no longer see the jeep in the rearview mirror, Groves stopped and changed the tire.

  15

  Maria looked desperately unhappy. Her dark eyes, wide like a frightened deer’s, were red with crying, her softly rounded cheeks smudged with tears. As she talked, her hands went nervously to pat her long black hair, braided into a tight bun at the back of her head. “Please, Miss Foster,” she begged Sharon. “We are both Basques, my husband and I. If you report me to the agency, the government will dismiss my husband too. Neither of us will be able to work in Madrid again.”

  The two women were alone in the control truck. Sharon was still at her console, where she had been working on schedules and assignments for the next few days. Maria was sitting in Taggart’s chair. “That doesn’t sound fair to me,” Sharon said. “Why should the government do that to your husband?”

  “Raul is a security guard here at the stadium. He and everyone in his immediate family must have a clear record, no exceptions. Especially during El Copa Mundial.”

  “They’d fire him, even though all you took was one ticket?”

  Maria gave a short, bitter laugh.-“It seems unreasonable to you? That is because you are not Spanish, and not Basque either. The government has a great mistrust of all Basques. Even though many of us do not want separation from Spain and do not support the terrorists, Spanish officials mistrust those of us who work here. They would rejoice at the excuse to send us away.”