Hard News

by Jeffery Deaver

  Maisel considered this. He was less skeptical than a moment ago. He said, "Keep going."

  Rune felt like a juggler. It was tough to keep all the parts of the story in the air at once. "When Mr. Frost, the new witness, died? It wasn't an accident at all. Piper knew his name. She saw it from my story. She sent that fat guy to kill him. And then what happens? All the cassettes disappear. And she knew where I'd put the duplicate cassette of Frost. And she'd know how to get into the computer and steal the master."

  She felt the silence from the other end of the line-- his concentration as he weighed her words, the shock. But maybe also the excitement reporters must feel when they first sniff a lead to a hot story. When he spoke it was almost as if to himself. "And she was pretty smooth when she ad-libbed the broadcast."

  Rune said, "Like she'd known all along she was going to have to do it."

  A long pause. "This is a nuclear bomb we're playing with, Rune. You've got a lot of speculation. There's no direct evidence linking her to the killing."

  "I know she did it, Lee."

  "The way you knew Boggs was innocent?"

  She said nothing to that. The producer continued. "Just let me ask you one thing. You're bitter because Piper fired you and ruined your story. If that hadn't happened, if you were an objective reporter, would you still be coming down against Piper?"

  "Yes, I would. Maybe there're no eyewitnesses but there's plenty of circumstantial evidence."

  Maisel was silent for a moment. "I'll have to call Dan Semple. I'll ..." His voice was fading. "Semple ..."

  Rune asked, "What are you thinking, Lee?" She remembered Semple's picking Piper up in his limo after she and Rune had dinner at that French restaurant. "Oh, no, you think he's in on it too?"

  "They had an affair, you know. Piper and him. Around the time Hopper was killed."

  Rune said, "And after Hopper was killed Semple got his job ...! "What are we going to do, Lee?"

  Maisel said, "Okay, stay on the line. I'm going to make some calls." She heard him use his cell phone to talk to Jim Eustice at home and tell him what Rune suspected. He then called Timothy Krueger, the Network lawyer who'd presided over Rune's unemployment. Then she heard a conference call as Maisel spoke to Krueger and, apparently, the police. She deduced that they were all going to rendezvous at the Network in a half hour--in Studio E, an old, unused space in the basement of the building where they could meet in private.

  Maisel hung up his mobile phone and came back on the other line. "Rune, you there?"

  "I'm here."

  "I talked to Jim and our legal department."

  "I heard."

  Maisel confirmed that they were meeting two homicide detectives in Studio E.

  "I'll be there," Rune said.

  "Lay low until the cops get there. We don't want Piper to see you."

  "Sure."

  "Man, this's bad," he muttered. But that was the only emotion he showed. Instantly he was Edward R. Murrow again. He said to her, "You did a good job, Rune. Whatever the fallout from this, you did good. See you in a half hour."

  THESE WERE THE LONGEST MINUTES OF HER LIFE.

  The hour was late but television networks never sleep and she was afraid that if she got to Studio E before Maisel or Krueger or the police, a security guard might see her and word would get back to Piper or Dan Semple.

  So she sat in the booth at the Greek diner, bouncing her toes on the linoleum, feeling the terrible sting of betrayal.

  Feeling fear too. Recalling all the time she'd spent alone with Sutton, inches away from her, a killer whose heart was as cold as her journalist's eyes.

  After fifteen minutes Rune could stand it no longer and she left the deli and headed back to the Network. She slipped in through the door Bradford had doctored to let her inside then started down the corridor through a slightly more populated part of the studio.

  A noise nearby. Rune froze.

  But it turned out to be only Bradford.

  "What's up?" he asked, noticing her troubled face.

  She looked around. "Just between us, okay?"

  "Top secret," he whispered.

  "Piper Sutton had Lance Hopper killed."

  "Are you serious?" the young man said.

  "You bet I am," she answered. "He was going to fire her. She found out about it and hired Boggs and his friend to kill him."

  "Jesus!"

  "I'm going to meet Lee down in Studio E." Then her face broke into a smile. "And after she's in jail I'm going to talk Lee into letting me do the story for the Network."

  "You?"

  "Sure. Why not?"

  Bradford apparently couldn't think of any reason why not and simply nodded. He said finally, "Brother, you've sure graduated from overturned ammonia trucks. Say, after your meeting, how 'bout that beer?"

  "How 'bout some champagne?" Rune said.

  "It'll be on me," he said.

  THE NETWORK BUILDING WAS LIKE A WARREN--AS COMplicated and big as a huge high school.

  Rune got lost several times on her way to Studio E, which was at the end of a dozen dim corridors. At least she didn't have to worry about being seen now. The studio was in a completely deserted part of the Network building.

  She pushed inside and waved to Lee Maisel, who sat at a battered swivel chair, engaged in a somber discussion with someone whose back was to Rune. This would be either Jim Eustice or the lawyer, Tim Krueger. The cops weren't here yet.

  "Rune, come on in," Maisel said. He nodded at her hand. "You've got the files you found in Personnel?"

  "Right here," she said.

  "Good." Maisel stepped forward and took them from her.

  Rune sat down at the table and turned to the other man as she started to ask when the police would be here. She froze.

  The man was Jack Nestor.

  He eyed her up and down and said, "There you go, Lee, I told you them girls look alike. No wonder I shot the wrong one."

  chapter 32

  IT WAS LIKE THE TIME SHE HAD THREE FROZEN MARGARItas, crazy drunk--her mind giddy and spinning, her body sick.

  She tensed to leap up out of the chair. But Jack shook his head. "Naw, naw, don't bother." He showed her the butt of a pistol in his waistband.

  She relaxed. He was right. There was no place to go even if she'd had the strength to get past Maisel, which she didn't. Maisel closed the door and leaned against it.

  Her mind was racing, trying to pin down the speculation. "It was you?" she whispered.

  Maisel sighed and nodded.

  Rune said, "When I called you at home you just pretended to call Eustice and Krueger and the cops, right?"

  "That's right, Rune. There won't be any cops."

  "You did it just to get me here. So you could kill me."

  Maisel didn't answer.

  "You bastard," Rune hissed at him.

  Jack wore a short-sleeved striped shirt over his huge belly and gray baggy pants and some kind of rounded, scuffed brown work shoes. He looked her over then picked up a cup of coffee, noisily drank from it.

  "Sorry, Rune. I'm so sorry." Maisel gave her a grim smile but the disappointment and disgust in his face overwhelmed it. He blew air slowly out through his rounded cheeks. Rune could see he was suffering.

  Good, she thought.

  Maisel poured his drink down in one swallow. "I don't know what to say to you. I tried to stop it all without hurting you."

  Jack said, "Yeah, he's right. We tried to kill Boggs in prison. That would've solved--"

  "You tried to ..." Rune looked at Maisel; he wouldn't meet her eyes.

  "Paid to have a buddy of mine in Harrison kill Boggs. Then when you got him out I tried to do it myself. But that man just wouldn't die."

  "It wasn't Piper? But she did everything she could to stop the story."

  "Well, sure," Maisel said. "The story would've been bad for her image--she didn't want the EEOC suits coming to light. She hated having the courts to fight her battles for her. But just because she didn't want the
story to run didn't mean she was going to stop it."

  "You encouraged me to keep going with it."

  "There'd been rumors that there was more to Hopper's death than just Randy Boggs acting alone. We needed you to find the evidence, witnesses. We knew we could control you."

  Rune said to Maisel, "Why did you do it?"

  "What does it matter?"

  "It fucking matters to me!" she snapped.

  "Beirut," Nestor said.

  "Shut up!" Maisel snapped.

  "The story where those people got killed?"

  "Right."

  "She doesn't need to know," Maisel muttered.

  "Why not?" Nestor said. "You fucked up, Lee. You may as well admit it." To Rune he said, "You know Lee's big scoop a few years back? His big fucking award?"

  She remembered his Pulitzer. She nodded.

  "Well, it was all fake. He made up the interviews, he made up the names of the locals. Who understands all those raghead names anyway? He said they had machine guns and hand grenades and rockets. He scooped everybody."

  "Jack ...," Maisel said angrily.

  But Nestor kept right on going. "Only the problem was the U.S. Army believed the story and when they went into this village they were loaded for bear. Some Arab kid shot a round at a dog or rabbit or whatever they got over there and, jittery trigger fingers, the whole platoon opened up. When the smoke cleared there were a bunch of dead ragheads and a couple of our own boys. All friendly fire. All courtesy of Mr. Newsman here."

  "You made up the whole story?" she asked.

  "It wasn't a big deal," Maisel said bitterly. "I mean, it shouldn't've been. I didn't even think anybody'd pay attention to it. You have to understand--there's so much pressure to get stories. There's so much time to fill and so little hard news. And always the fucking competition breathing down your neck. I started just adding a few quotes and the next thing I knew it got out of hand. I never thought it would have any consequences."

  "But it did," Jack Nestor said, laughing cruelly. "And one of 'em was that Lance Hopper was going to investigate what happened."

  "So you hired him." Rune nodded toward Nestor.

  The killer said, "Mercenaries and journalists hang out a lot together in combat zones. Isn't much difference between them really, you think about it. Lee and me spent some time together over there, looking for the underground bars--fucking ragheads can't even drink--and hanging out. I go off to Sri Lanka and come back to California, where I do some funny stuff that lands me in Obispo for a while, doing easy time. When I get out Lee calls me and flies me into town to talk to him. The rest is history...."

  Maisel didn't look good. He was pale and sweating. Beneath his salt-and-pepper beard, you could see his lips pressed together. She wondered what bothered him the most: That he'd nearly been caught violating journalistic ethics or that he'd had several people killed to cover it up.

  Rune said, "What about Randy?"

  "Boggs?" Nestor snorted. "That loser? We set him up. He didn't know anything about the hit. He couldn't kill anybody if he was about to get whacked himself. He lost his job in Maine and called me looking for work on a fishing boat in Florida. I had him meet me in New York. I made up some shit about a credit card deal. Lee and I were going to make it look like he hit Hopper then I'd waste him and leave the gun. There would've been a few loose ends but basically there's a perp and there's a vic so the cops'd be happy. But the son of a bitch ran right into a cop car. Well, he doesn't know we'd planned to kill Hopper so he plays stand-up guy and doesn't turn me in."

  Nestor continued. "Everything was going along fine but then I read in the paper about you planning on getting him out. So I come to town and talk it over with Lee. We try to make the story go away and in the meantime I have this spic buddy of mine happens to be in Harrison try to move on Boggs but that doesn't work. Then you get him out and things go to hell. He's got his money and he's gone."

  The shock wave passed over her like a fever. So Randy was innocent--to the extent he could be innocent after having been mixed up with people like these. She swallowed. "Please let me go. I won't say anything. I don't care about Hopper. Just let me go, please? I'll be quiet about it."

  Maisel looked at Nestor, who was shaking his head no in a humorous, exasperated way. "Can't, Lee. You can't trust her."

  Maisel said, "Rune, Rune ..."

  Her teeth were pressed together and she felt anger, hot and searing. Oh, what she wanted to say to him ... But the words were logjammed in her mind and even if she found the strength and the calm to sort them out she knew he wouldn't comprehend them.

  Nestor stirred. She understood. This was his show now. He'd seen Lee weakening and knew it was time for the pro to take over, before more mistakes were made.

  Maisel said, "Jack, I don't think--"

  The killer held up his hand, a patient school teacher. "It's okay, Lee. I'll take care of it."

  Rune said, "No, please, I promise I won't say a word." Her eyes were in Maisel's. He opened his mouth to speak then looked away and sat down in his chair.

  Nestor stood up. Pulled a gun out of his pocket.

  "These're soundproofed rooms, right?"

  Maisel, looking away from Rune, nodded.

  The killer looked around and saw a large roll of dusty seamless: a ten-foot-wide paper used for backdrops. He dragged Rune toward it and shoved her down. Presumably to absorb the blood.

  Then he looked down at the gun and pulled the slide back, aimed it at her head matter-of-factly. He hesitated. "Do you ever see pictures?" he asked. "Pictures in your head?"

  Rune, crying, said, "What do you mean?"

  Nestor shook his head. "Never mind." He started to pull the trigger.

  "Don't move!" a man's voice called.

  Bradford Simpson walked into the room, pointing a pistol at Jack Nestor. "Drop it!" he screamed.

  Nestor glanced over his shoulder in disgust and when he saw the hysteria in the young man's eyes, tossed the gun on a nearby table. "Who the fuck're you?"

  "Bradford!" Rune said, running toward him.

  The boy's attention was wholly on Maisel now; he had no interest in Nestor, who watched the young man with some amusement.

  "You son of a bitch," the young man cried. "You killed him! It was you!"

  Maisel glanced at the pistol, which was feet from his chest. He said nothing.

  "What're you doing here?" Rune asked.

  "I'm going to kill him." Bradford said.

  "Why?"

  "Because Lance Hopper was my father."

  chapter 33

  "FATHER?" MAISEL ASKED, FROWNING.

  "My mother," Bradford said, gazing at the reporter with angry eyes, "was one of the secretaries who worked at a station where my dad was a newsman twenty-two years ago. I was one of Lance Hopper's illegitimate kids the tabloids were so happy to start rumors about. Only in my case it wasn't a rumor. Four years ago my mother told me who my real father was. I came to see him.

  "At first he thought I wanted money or something. But then he realized I just wanted to meet him, get to know him. We spent some time together. I liked him. He was a good man at heart. He had his vices and weaknesses--" Bradford laughed. "I guess I was the product of one of those vices. But he was somebody I started to admire. I decided to become a journalist and switched majors. He was going to get me a job here at the Network but I said no, I wanted to do it on my own. I applied for the internship and got accepted and that gave us an excuse to spend time together. We had different last names so no one ever knew who I was. But then he was killed ... It just about destroyed me. I assumed the story about what happened was true and let it go at that. But a few weeks ago I was doing mailroom duty, going through all the unsolicited mail, and I found Boggs's letter. I read it a dozen times. I got to thinking that maybe there was more to my father's death than what came out in court."

  "You're the one who put the letter on my desk," Rune said.

  Bradford smiled. "You're a crusader, Rune. Nobody else her
e'd give a damn about finding the real killer. But I had a feeling you would."

  "You were using me too!"

  "Let's just say I was looking over your shoulder. The more you found, the more I got to thinking that it must've been Piper or Dan Semple who'd killed him. Lee, you crossed my mind too--that Beirut situation always seemed fishy to me." He nodded toward Rune. "When she told me you were going to meet down here--a deserted studio--I figured you might be the one so I hid up there." He glanced at the empty control booth.

  "Look, kid," Nestor said impatiently. "Why don't you just let us walk out of here. And we'll forget everything. You go your way and we'll go ours."

  But Bradford ignored him. He nodded at the control booth and said to Maisel, "I got everything you said on tape, Lee."

  Maisel closed his eyes. He slumped in the chair.

  Nestor sighed and shook his head. "Think you're on your own here, Lee. Nice doing business with you." The killer grabbed Rune by the hair and pulled her to her feet.

  "No!" she cried.

  Bradford pointed his pistol toward Nestor but the fat man paid no attention. He walked to the table where his own gun lay and picked it up.

  "Don't!" Bradford said.

  "Yeah, right," Nestor muttered.

  "Shoot him!" Rune shouted to Bradford. "Now!"

  But the young man froze. His eyes wide, his mouth open in fear as Nestor lifted the gun and fired at him as casually as if he were tossing coins in a wishing well. Rune couldn't tell whether Bradford was hit or not. He fell or dove to the floor. Maisel slid from his chair and rolled to cover under the table.

  Tugging Rune after him, Nestor said, "Let's go, honey. May need some insurance, in case the kid called the police."

  "No! Goddammit!" she raged, trying to pry his hand off her hair. But he simply got a better grip and dragged her more quickly behind him.

  "Shut up," he whispered.

  Maybe Bradford had called the police. Maybe Sam Healy and a hundred other cops were outside right now, their guns pointed at the door. Nestor'd see that and give up.

  He pulled her in front of him and kicked open the door that led to the parking lot.

  Please, she thought, let there be a thousand knights waiting here to slay the dragon ...

  They stepped outside. Nobody. She scanned the alley and the parking lot. Empty.