Private Screening (47 page)

“As Stacy Tarrant and Colby Parnell fought to save those they love, we have witnessed things almost too personal to watch: her struggle to overcome the trauma of James Kilcannon's death; the surprising help of Anthony Lord; the Parnells' shared yet divisive agony over their lost son, Robert.…”

Alexis's throat began working. Frozen in the tennis dress, the last still image was hers.

“And now the largest audience in history waits to save Alexis Parnell by voting, a vote Phoenix will consider only if Parnell and Lord meet his final demands. But the other possibility—her televised execution in little more than an hour—is beyond imagination.…”

Her watch read five minutes until eight.

On screen, her face dissolved, becoming Rachel's.

“Upstairs,” she continued, “Parnell waits with his attorney in an office near the set. And though Lord and Special Agent John Moore are watching from the SNI control room, Lord has declined to speak with anyone but Phoenix.…”

Her fingers reached for his.

Feeling this, he turned to her. When he tried to smile, it hurt him that she could not see.

“As for Stacy Tarrant, she has not been seen.” Rachel paused. “Whether this relates to some decision Lord has reached, or to Harry Carson, no one knows.…”

Alexis seemed to sense his sudden stillness. Gently, as if fearing to offend, she touched his shoulder.

“But within minutes,” Rachel finished, “we will know Parnell's decision.”

Her skin felt cold. As they turned back to the screen, her hand stiffened.

Parnell sat alone. There were circles beneath his eyes, and his round-bellied slouch seemed spiritless. His forehead glistened in the lights.

For a moment he did not speak. “Phoenix,” he said dully.

Somehow, Phoenix thought, it made him more aware of her.

“How much—” Parnell choked, then repeated, “How much, how very much, you must hate me.…”

Save her, damn you.

“Please, do not hate
her
.” His voice faltered. “I—I've prepared the five million dollars.…”

Phoenix felt himself slump, and then he touched the forehead of his hood.

As if to soothe him, her fingers grazed his shoulder. Only Parnell's silence made Phoenix look again.

Parnell was shaking his head in bewilderment. “You've asked me,” he mumbled, “to explain something personal.…”

Phoenix tensed. With palpable effort, Parnell made himself stare fixedly at the camera.

“The only way I can do this … is talk to my wife. As if she were here, in front of me.…”

Her hand stopped moving.

“Lexie …”

Phoenix felt his flesh rise. He could not look at her.

“I wanted to protect you from this. Robert and I …”

What would he say? What would she think?

“You were so beautiful.…” As her nails dug into Phoenix's shoulder, Parnell blurted, “God help me, I thought he wasn't mine.…”

She stood, trembling.

It brought him to his feet. Suddenly, she shrieked at her husband's image, “God damn you, he was
yours
.…”

Parnell's face fell in his hands.

She turned from him, pale with shock. Her voice seemed to echo in the cabin.

“He was
ours
.…” she whispered, to Phoenix.

“Jesus,” Lord said.

He stood with Moore behind two control consoles manned by technicians, sloping downward to a wall of television screens. Each showed Parnell at multiple angles and ranges.

“Forgive me—” he mumbled to his wife.

“Camera two,” the producer said, “and hold.”

A close-up of Parnell covering his face filled all but one screen. Lord turned away, brushing past Moore.

At the end of the hall, Danziger appeared, leading Parnell from the set.

Lord walked toward them in the semidark.

It took a moment for Parnell to see him. When he looked away, reflexively touching his glasses, Lord remembered their cross-examination. It seemed longer ago than it had been.

“Will you do it
now
?” Parnell asked.

Lord hesitated. “We need to talk, alone.”

“Please, he's waiting for your answer.…”

“It's nearly eight-thirty, Mr. Parnell. We're running out of time.”

Danziger's shaken look moved from his client to Lord. “There's an office down the hall,” he said.

It was a room with one table. When the two men sat, Lord saw that Parnell had cut himself shaving. He stared at Lord's watch as Danziger shut them inside.

The watch read 8:23.

“You ask a lot of me,” Lord said softly. “To save a woman I don't know, from a terrorist I'm afraid of, when it seems that she's started to help him.”

Parnell reddened. “She's a prisoner.…”

“She's also turning on you, and now I can't be certain what she'll do if I show up. She might even turn on
me
.” Lord paused. “If you can't tell me exactly why this is happening, and what Phoenix has found to play on, I'm afraid you've asked too much.”

Parnell's hand tremored. “Please, I've just explained.…”

“I've known my son for seven years now, Mr. Parnell. I've found better reasons for loving him than that he's mine.”

Parnell watched the time become 8:27.

“He—” His throat sounded dry. “Robert was too close to Alexis.…”

Parnell stopped, embarrassed by tears that jarred Lord with their suddenness. His eyes shut against them.

“‘Close,'” Lord repeated quietly.

Parnell swallowed. “It came between us … even when he was small, he hated me. I'd come to his room, and he'd cover his eyes. For years, he'd just cover his eyes, and wait for her.…”

Lord watched his shudder of repressed emotion. Nothing followed.

Softly, he asked, “Then why did Robert leave her?”

Parnell touched his glasses. “There was an incident …” he began, and could not finish.

Tears were running down his face.

The watch read 8:29, Lord saw, but Parnell no longer knew.

His voice startled Lord. “She would dress at the window,” he murmured. “Sometimes, her skin seemed to glow in the sun. So beautiful …” His speech became thick. “It was like that, the morning I went to Robert's room.…”

When Lord looked up, Parnell was pale.

“His clothes were on the bed. We both could see his mother, through the curtain where he stood.” Parnell's eyes opened in remembered shock. “When he turned, I saw what she had become to him.”

Lord stared at the table. “So you told him to leave.…”

“I offered him an arrangement.” The word echoed with shame. “If Robert left that morning, she would never know.…”

Lord's eyes rose to his. “Does she?” he asked.

“Yes.” Parnell raised his head, and then turned away abruptly. “She was sickened,” he mumbled. “Sickened.…”

Lord felt a slow, appalling comprehension. “You told her,” he said quietly, “
before
the kidnapping.”

Parnell gave a convulsive nod. “Afterwards, we could never talk of it.” His voice rose. “How could we, when I refused to ransom him, and she'd been too ashamed to stop me.…”

Lord could only stare. Turning, Parnell's face was ravaged.

“You see,” he blurted, “part of me wanted him dead.”

He was crying, Lord knew, from guilt.

Parnell's gaze broke. “This monster has opened it all up for her. Without him, it never would have happened. Never.…”

For a brief moment, Lord thought of Carson. He could feel his own silence.

“Please, Mr. Lord, it's not her fault. She doesn't deserve to die.…”

Lord touched his arm, to stop him.

Mute, Parnell stared at this, and then he saw Lord's watch.

It changed to 8:34.

Alexis's watch read 8:35.

They faced the television, Phoenix standing behind her. He could not bring himself to watch her face.

“At this moment,” Rachel said, “Parnell is closeted with Anthony Lord.…”

To wait for them filled Phoenix with the angry dread of a child whose parents had locked the door. He could almost feel her heartbeat.

Please, you bastard. Let her live.

In his desire for this, he imagined leaving her on the deserted beach below, to be rescued once he called them. Perhaps still wanting to be with him, watching as he disappeared with Lord to make his final broadcast.

On SNI, he would announce to them that she was safe. But when he turned the camera, Lord would be sitting in her place.

As two hundred million people watched, he would gently place the Mauser to Lord's temple, and pull the trigger.

He would let the camera linger there, as his mind was now; the moment was so startling in its beauty that he could not imagine his movements following the blackout.

Burying Lord's body.

Suddenly, he would be alone. Tearing apart the control room, dumping its pieces in the Eel, leaving his van and cabin as remnants of another nameless isolate who had simply disappeared. Telephoning SNI where to find Alexis. Still missing her.

Escaping.

Two weeks in the wilderness of Humboldt as they hunted him. Then a nighttime flight through California to Mexico, along the secret route of dope smugglers.

Night again would cover his landing in the Cayman Islands. Then the hours until morning, with the Mauser for protection.

At nine the next day, he would enter a selected bank, with five million dollars on his back.

The bank would ask no questions. Through five different countries, they would transfer the money by wire to a numbered account in Switzerland. As they had for many others.

In the days and nights that followed he would pass as a beachcomber, watching their search cool as it spread across the world, wondering how she lived now. Waiting for the flight to Geneva that would settle his own fate.

There was a plastic surgeon there, and Phoenix had never liked his face.

Yet this, and most of all her life, depended on Lord coming.

His mind flashed once more to Lord, dying in her chair.

When the picture changed, Lord was sitting where Parnell had been, on SNI.

Instinctively, Phoenix touched Alexis's shoulder. Her shudder became his.

Lord's stare had a bleak directness. “I'll be brief,” he said. “First, you've asked Stacy Tarrant to pledge her concert money to specific groups. She will.…”

As his eyes closed, Lord's words came through a fog. “Second, you've asked that I ‘reclaim' the hostages.” Lord paused. “I will.”

Alexis collapsed against him.

He felt his heart pounding.

When at last she faced him, SNI was flashing telephone numbers for voters to call. They used photographs as background: Alexis the starlet; Alexis smiling, the day of her wedding to Parnell. Alexis with her husband and young son.

“Please,” she whispered.

Gently, she placed one finger on the hood, tracing the angles of his face. He quivered as it crossed his cheek.

As she reached beneath his hood, he could not stop her.

On the screen, a computer printout appeared. Ninety percent of callers in the first three minutes wished for her to live.

Lightly, her index finger traced the curve of his mouth.

He did not move as she found the lines at the corner of his eyes, his eyelids as they shut again, the ridge of his nose. Her touch lingered there.

It stopped at the tears on his face.

His skin tingled. He could feel her head tilt, imagine her looking at him.

He opened his eyes.

She was staring at the eye slits of his hood.

Her hand slipped from beneath it, fingers raising to touch beneath each slit, barely grazing the burlap. As if she felt his breathing stop.

Paralyzed, Phoenix saw them as two figures beneath a single bare light bulb, utterly still. Each waiting for the other to move.

Slowly, she pressed the burlap to his face.

Blood pounded in his temple. Lips parted, she saw the color of his eyes.

Phoenix could no longer see or hear the television. Only Alexis.

Hand trembling, she began to slide the hood above his mouth.

“
No
,” he cried out.

Her face turned white.

The sound of his voice froze him there. Her hand seemed to move on its own.

“No,” he whispered, and then she looked into his face.

As she took one stunned step backward, his hood fell to the floor, between them.

When Lord walked from the set to the hallway, Stacy was there.

For a moment, they faced each other. The darkness lent a few feet of privacy.

“I tried to call.” Her voice was quiet. “You were out, and then the line was busy. So I came.”

He did not know what to say. “Did you ever have a day,” he finally asked, “when it seems you've relived your entire life story, and some other people's.”

“Yes. Except I put you there.”

“No.” He paused for emphasis. “I did.”

Her head angled slightly, as if to hear what was not said. Finally, she murmured, “Carson told you something about John.”

“That dream.” He leaned against the wall, both hands in his pockets. “You've wondered about Damone, haven't you. All along.”

“Not consciously—I haven't wanted to face it.” When she flicked back her bangs, the gesture stopped at her temple. “I think now I wanted
you
to. Maybe, at first, I thought you knew something about him.”

“I keep hearing that.”

She looked away. “Whatever Carson said this morning, you didn't know, did you?”

“No.”

“Oh, Tony—” she began, and then leaned on the wall across from him. “I'm so sorry.…”

“Don't be.” He smiled a little. “Know what I wish, though?”

Her shoulders moved. “No.”

He waited until she looked at him again. “That we'll be friends for a very long time, and never have to ask another question. Not like these.”