The Evening News (76 page)

Other security measures were arranged
.
Tomorrow and the next day, while a studio and control room were being
used to produce the one-hour News Special, security guards would be
posted outside, admitting only those persons on a list to be compiled by
Rita. Also, the normal studio output line would be disconnected so that
no one beyond the studio and control room could view on a monitor what
was happening inside
.
It was agreed, however, that on Friday morning security would be relaxed
slightly, to the extent of doing broadcast promotional advertising during
the day. This would advise viewers that important new information about
the Sloane kidnapping would be revealed on that evening's National
Evening News and the one-hour special. Also during the day as a
professional courtesy, other networks, news wire services and the print
press would be advised of the same thing, though no details would be
disclosed
.
At length, Partridge asked, "Is there anything else, or can we get to
work
?
”

"One more detail
.”

It was Rita, a touch of mischief in her voice
.”
Les
,
I need your approval for another Learjet, this one for Friday night when
it's my turn for Peru. I'm taking an editor-Bob Watson-and an editpak
.
Also, I'll have the bankroll
.”

There was a chuckle among insiders at the table and even a smile from
Crawford Sloane. Rita was enhancing her chances of traveling by private
plane, first by taking an editor and editpak, the latter consisting of
bulky editing equipment, hard to transport otherwise. Second, it was
considered unwise to travel commercially with large amounts of U.S. cash;
though Rita hadn't mentioned the amount, it would be fifty thousand
dollars. Yet hard currency was essential in a country such as Peru where
local money was close to worthless and dollars would buy almost anything
,
including special privileges which were certain to be needed
.
Chippingham
sighed inwardly. Inconsiderately, he thought,
a
nd despite their affair which continued to flourish, Rita had put him on the spot
.”
Go ahead
,”
he told her
.”
Book it
.”

Only minutes after the meeting ended, Partridge was at a computer
terminal working on his co-anchor introduction for Friday's National
Evening News.

Several startling new developments, he wrote, have come to light
concerning the kidnapping, fifteen days ago, of the wife, son and
father
of CBA News anchorman Crawford Sloane. Investigative reporting by CBA has
led us to believe that the three kidnap victims have been transported to
Peru where they are being held by the Maoist revolutionary guerrillas
Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path, who have terrorized large portions of
Peru for many years
.
A motive
for the kidnapping is not yet known
.”
at is known is that a United Nations diplomat, using a New York bank
account, supplied money to the kidnappers, which made the abduction, as
well as other acts of terrorism, possible
.
Our extensive coverage begins, as so many other crimes begin, with money
.
CBA
's business cor
respondent Don Kettering explained.
It would be, Partridge reflected as he began to revise what he had
written, the first of many similar introductions he must compose and
record before leaving Manhattan
for Teterboro Airport at 5 a.m
.

PART
FOUR

It was still dark, and raining, a few minutes before 6 A.m. Eastern daylight time when a Learjet 36A took off from New Jersey's Teterboro Airport for Bogot
a
, Colombia. Aboard were Harry Partridge, Minh Van Canh and Ken O'Hara
.
The 36A did not have the range for a nonstop flight to Lima, but they
would be in Bogot
a
only long enough to refuel and hoped to reach the
Peruvian capital by 1:30 P.m. Eastern standard time, which Peru stayed
on all year round
.
Partridge and the other two had come directly from CBA News headquarters
to Teterboro in a network car. During the busy night, Partridge managed
to slip away for a half hour to the Inter-Continental Hotel and pack a
bag. He hadn't wasted time checking out; someone from the network would
do that in the morning
.
He had also asked the CBA News assignment desk to arrange some sleeping
facility in the Lear and was delighted to find it ready. On the right
side of the passenger cabin, two facing seats had been lowered to become
a bed, with a mattress, sheets and blankets invitingly in place. It was
possible for another bed to be made up on the opposite side, but Minh and
O'Hara would have to work that out between them. In any case, he didn't
think their night had been as arduous as his own
.
By the time they were in the air and on course, Partridge was asleep. He
slept soundly for three hours, then awakened to find the cabin in
semidarkness, someone having thoughtfully
l
owered all the window shades, though bright sunshine
enough to see by-was visible around their edges. Across the cabin, Minh was curled up and asleep in a seat. O'Hara, also sleeping, was in another seat behind
.
Partridge checked his watch: 9 A.m. New York time-still only 8 A.M. in
Lima. Reaching for a flight plan the co-pilot had brought before takeoff
,
he calculated it would be another two hours before the refueling stop in
Bogota
. The hum of jet engines was steady but quiet and there was no hint
of turbulence. A phrase came to Partridge: a silky
journey. Enjoying the
luxury, he lay down again and closed his eyes
.
This time sleep did not come. Perhaps the three hours had been enough
.
Perhaps too much had happened in too short a time for him to rest for very
long. On other occasions in the past he had found he needed little sleep
during periods of stress and action, and this was such a time, or would be
very soon. Yes, he was going into action--quite probably and literally into
battle-and he felt his senses stir agreeably
.
That feeling, he supposed, had always been dormant inside him, though
Vi
etnam had awakened it and, afterward, other wars in other places
satisfied his need. It was what made him, in TV news jargon, a "bang-bang
”
correspondent, a label that used to bother him but didn't anymore
.
Why not? Because there were times when a "bang-bang
”
like himself was
needed, just as Balaklava had had soldiery who performed their jobs while

Cannon to right of them
,
Cannon to left of them
,
Cannon in front of them
,
Volleyed and thundered
..

He smiled, amused by Tennyson's romanticizing, and his own. It hadn't always been that way with h
im. For a while, when he and Gem
ma were together, he consciously avoided wars and danger because life was sweet, too gloriously happy to risk a sudden termination. Around that time, within the network, he knew word had gone out to the effect: Give Harry some safe
assignments,- he's earned them. Let the newer reporters
follow the sound of gunfire for a while
.
Later, all of that changed, of course. When Gemma was no longer on the
scene, Partridge had ceased to be protected and was sent again to wars
,
in part because he was so good at them, in part because he made it known
he didn't care what chances he took. That last was one reason, he
supposed, why he was on this journey here and now
.
How strange that since this project began he had mentally relived his
time with Gemma. It was during the air journey from Toronto immediately
after the kidnap that the memory came back to him of the Pope's Alitalia
DC-10 and meeting Gemma . . . his own conversation with the Pope and the
"Slavs-slaves
”
mix-up which he resolved . . . then Gemma delivering his
breakfast tray and bringing him a rose
.
One day later on this assignment-or was it two?-more memories at night
in his hotel . . . of falling in love with Gemma and, while still
continuing on the papal tour, proposing marriage . . . During a brief
stopover, their taxi ride to the old city in Panama, and Gemma standing
beside him while the juez in his ornate office pronounced them man and
wife
.
Then barely a week ago, while being driven in darkness from Larchmont to
Man
hattan after visiting Crawford Sloane, there had been the remembrance
of Partridge and Gemma's idyllic, halcyon days in Rome where their love
had grown; Gemma's shining gift of laughter and joy; the checkbook she
could never balance; the car she drove like a fiend, arousing his fears
. . . un
t
il she surrendered the keys on learning she was pregnant. And
after that, the news of their move from Rome to London . .
.
Now, here he was, on another air journey and with more quiet moments
,
back again with thoughts of Gemma. This time, unlike the others, he did
not resist the memories but let them flow.

Their life in London was unbelievably good
They took over a pe
asant furnished flat in St. John's Wood which
Partridge's predecessor
had vacated, Gemma quickly add
ing touches of her own style and color. The rooms were always filled with flowers. She hung paintings they had brought from Rome, shopped for china and table linens in Kensington and added a striking bronze sculpture by a new young artist exhibiting in Cork Street
.
At the CBA News London bureau, Partridge's work went well. Some stories
he covered were in Britain, others on the Continent-in France, the
Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden
though he was seldom away
from home
for
long
.”
en he wasn't working, he and Gemma explored London together
,
delighting in their
j
oint discovery of history, splendor, curiosity and
oddity, often in intriguing, narrow streets, some still as Dickens had
described them, or around corkscrew, convoluted corners
.
The multitude of mazelike streets perplexed Gemma and she often got lost
.
When Partridge suggested that parts of Rome could be equally difficult
,
she shook her head in disagreement
.”
They do not say idly 'the Eternal
City,'
Harry caro. In Rome you move onward; it is something you can feel
.
London plays with you like cat and mouse; it turns you sideways and
backward and you never know. But I adore it; it is like a game
.”
The traffic bewildered Gemma too. Standing with Partridge on the steps
o
f the National Gall
ery, watching the speeding circl
e of massed taxis
,
cars and double-deck buses rounding Trafalgar Square, she told him, "It
is so dangerous, darling. They are all going the wrong way
.”
Fortunately, because she could not adjust mentally to driving on the
left, Gemma had no desire at all to use their car and, when Partridge was
not available, she either walked a great deal or traveled by Underground
or taxi
.
The National was one of many galleries they visited and they savored
other sight
s too, both conventional and off
beat, from the changing of the
guard at Buckingham Palace to viewing bricked
up windows on old
buildings--a holdover
from the early 1800s when windows were taxed
to
finance the Napoleonic wars
.
A guide they hired
fo
r a day showed them a statue of Queen Anne who, the
guide noted, had nineteen pregnancies and was buried in a coffin four
feet eight inches square. And at New Zealand House, formerly the Carlton
Hote
l
he told them Ho Chi Minh once worked there as a kitchen porter--all
of it the
kind of information Ge
mm
a loved, and she squirreled it away in an ever-growing notebook
.
A favorite Sunday pastime was visiting Speakers'
Corner near Marble Arch
whe
re, as Partridge explained, 'pro
phets, loudmouths and lunatics get
equal time
.”