The Artifact Read online

  Andrea shook her head in obvious disgust, retrieved her cane and started her lopsided gait out of the room, favoring her left leg that felt like it was dead from the knee down. “Talk to your boss, Rand, the big bean counters. Consult T.P. Let me know before I go on the air.”

  On the way back to her office Andrea could sense the looks of awe from fellow employees

  as she greeted people she knew and concentrated on minimizing the painful limp from what felt like

  the hourly deterioration of her leg. The NNC grapevine worked at light speed, and she realized that the entire company probably knew every word she and Duncan had uttered in his office before she stepped out of the elevator.

  Andrea had earned the reputation of an imminently proficient investigative reporter throughout the broadcast news business even before she had joined NNC, yet was also regarded as a profligate iconoclast who was hard to manage. Within the organization, she had become respected and often reviled for the absolute confidentiality with which she protected the sacrosanct origins of her stories and inviolable copy. In recent years, her arguments with T.P. had become legend, but the savvy news director was quick to realize that Andrea Madigan was probably the most committed, smartest, intuitive news professional he had ever worked with. A practical man bereft of ego, it did not take Viola long to decide that he would rather deal with the vicissitudes of a crack investigative reporter who was contentious and aggravating, than some follow-the-leader drone he could handle.

  On her side, Andrea’s occasional disagreements with T.P. were offset by the respect she afforded him on a personal level, her deference to him in the presence of others and the genuine esteem in which she held him. That working relationship might have continued indefinitely if NNC corporate had not installed thirtyish Rand Duncan President and CEO of their broadcast news division two years ago. Duncan had matriculated from Harvard Business School, had virtually no experience in the TV industry, none at an all-news station, and a proclivity for dictatorial management. Despite T.P.’s efforts to mitigate their instant dislike of one another, Andrea Madigan and Rand Duncan had remained at cross-purposes from the moment they had been introduced.

  The international jewel thief code-named Boer had exhausted his inquiries by telephone, e-mail and

  personal visits within his primary geographic area of activity. He rose from the wide slab of teak

  that served as his desk in a large room lit by bright sunshine, whose walls boasted the heads of several wild game animals and a rack of the rifles that had brought them down. He walked through the open floor-to-ceiling doors of bulletproof glass installed by a previous owner during the Bantu

  uprisings before the Whites had finally accepted the end of Apartheid.

  Boer stood at the rough wood railing surrounding his broad veranda, gin and tonic in hand, ignoring the lingering heat of day as he stared out across the wide swath of dense scrub and cut elephant grass that grew to full height before relinquishing ground to the jungle beyond.

  The universal claim of ignorance regarding the purloined Iraqi artifacts among his contacts within his tightly knit spheres of shady art and gem consorts brought him to two possible conclusions, both of which he was powerless to pursue. First, the entire matter was a hoax, as initially feared by Yank, perpetrated by insurgents posing as Bedouins, or Saddam Hussein himself, wherever he was. Second, the soldier perpetrators had gone to ground with their loot and might not surface for years.

  He was ready to go back inside to telephone his beliefs to Brit Jameson when a jaguar flushed a covey of pheasant from the bush in the near distance, their frightened squawks and frantic flapping of wings calling his attention to the swift, silent rush of the stalker and its noisy prey. The sleek quadruped leaped into the air to snag a bird in mid flight, dragging it back into the deep grass. Boer stood watching the escaping pheasants beating their wings in frantic retreat over the treetops as the tall stalks jerked above their luckless sister he assumed was struggling in resistance to the sharp teeth of the rapacious carnivore. Suddenly the bird broke free of the grass, taking flight on an injured wing as the jaguar leaped after it, falling back to ground and slinking off into the brush, probably with one eye pecked from its socket. Never assume in the jungle, Boer mused, freezing

  in mid-turn as he did so. Nor in the real world, for that matter.

  * * * * * *

  “There’s no action at all,” Boer told him. “Queries, speculation, hypotheses, but no offers to sell

  anything like ancient purloined treasures.”

  Brit’s tone reflected his disappointment and resignation. “So a dead end then.”

  “Unless everyone, including us blokes, is on the wrong rail track.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Suppose the artifact don’t contain the gems and golden icons the Nomads claimed? Or the Madigan woman is lying?”

  “Bloody hell! Point us all in the opposite direction while she follows the scented trail unencumbered by competitive news organizations and the rest of us. Brilliant!”

  “Could be an ossuary after all, the skeleton of some 300 BCE Babylonian, Egyptian ruler or notable, died on a trip across the desert, his writings, secret directions to a real treasure, The Ark of the Covenant tucked into the folds of his rotting robes.”

  “Ten times more valuable than the purported jewels and icons,” Brit reflected.

  “But that’s just conjecture. Even if true, where does that leave us?”

  “Out in front of the pack if we can capitalize on it.”

  “Validate,” Boer said.

  “Since the Bedouins have disappeared and the army thieves have gone to cover, the only one who has more info than they do is the female reporter.”

  “Snatch and torture ain’t my style, Man.”

  “Nothing so crude,” Brit replied. “However, there must be some evidence in her home. A list of archeologists we can compensate to divulge details, research papers, notes, an outline of a plan of some sort, e-mails on her computer.”

  “If we can break into high-security museums and the vaults of private collectors, a house or apartment should be a cinch.”

  “Precisely.”

  “I can get to America in a couple of days,” Boer told him. Have Yank fax me the particulars

  on her residence, layout, access, egress, alarms, problems.”

  “This is not a major operation. Yank is there, local accent, local knowledge, good as any of us at a job like this. I’ll ring him up.”

  “Let me know if he wants backup.”

  Andrea flipped through the hangars at the back of her walk-in closet. She stopped to examine a bright red outfit, smiling as she held it up against her body in the full-length mirror, then brought it out to her office. Rand and T.P. had agreed that she would join Frank for his regular three PM Studio ‘A’ newscast to preview her comprehensive report on the artifact story to date, and announce the reward details and amount, thereby preempting competitive coverage and ensuring a maximum audience for the evening news.

  She glanced at the LCD on her phone when it rang, and recognizing T.P.’s extension on Caller ID, picked up the handset.

  “Sounds like you won a round after all.”

  “You don’t seem happy about it,” she replied.

  “I’m going to miss you.”

  “Not for a while, Toilet.”

  “Bring the artifact up to date,” T.P. said. “Shoot me copy for the six o’clock ASAP. I’ll try to get a reward number from Rand before you go on.”

  “Now you’re smokin’.”

  “Frank bookends your Preacher interview in a special timeslot we’ll promo for Sunday night.”

  That would give her more prominence than excerpts of her Georgia interview within or after some regular weeknight news broadcast. “Deal,” she told him.

  She laid the red suit on the couch and began transcribing her notes taken in the general’s

  office into on-air copy, with allusions to the subsequent prog
ress she and Sammy had made since. She had almost finished when she heard three quick raps on the outer door and a voice telling her, “Twenty minutes, Andy.”

  “Get your stuff, Shel, and start me here,” she called back. “You can finish up on the set.”

  Andrea knew that a television audience appraised a newswoman sitting at a studio desk

  differently than a female reporter toughing it out in a bombed out town in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The latter could look windblown, disheveled and sunburned, an ostensibly hard-working foreign correspondent working a dangerous war zone to bring them the news. In the studio, viewers wanted to watch an attractive, fashionable, talking head--more glamorous and personable than even her male counterparts.

  She had pulled her sweater off and was seated at the computer in her bra, head cocked to the side, squinting through the smoke curling up from the cigarette dangling from her lips, when Sheldon returned with his make-up kit to apply his cosmetic magic. He too, averted his head to keep the smoke from his eyes. Andrea ignored him, her fingers dancing on the keyboard as she continued polishing her copy.

  When they were both satisfied with her appearance, Andrea faxed her script to T.P. and the producer, then stepped out of her jeans. Sheldon helped her squirm into a beige slip, the red suit and her old loafers. They selected a thin, gold necklace and bracelets to match the buttons on her jacket before they started down the hallway toward Studio ‘C.’

  “How’s your leg?” Sheldon asked, glancing down at her limp.

  “About the same,” she lied. “Tripped and fell on my tush last night after the shoot at Bragg

  that bruised my ego more than the leg.”

  “Get one of those elastic sleeves with magnets I wear for tennis elbow. They have ‘em for knees, ankles, everything.”

  “Do they work?”

  “I use one with arthritis ointment and Tylenol. The combination gives me enough relief to swing a mean backhand.”

  Andy sat at the anchor desk next to Frank, who was dressed in a navy pinstripe suit and

  muted paisley tie. They exchanged greetings, Morrissey appraising her outfit with evident concern,

  then abruptly left the set.

  “Three minutes, Frank,” the producer called after him.

  A sound assistant ran a wire under Andrea’s jacket and she inserted the earplug as the tech clipped a tiny mike to her lapel. Sheldon touched up her mascara, then gave her hair a few caresses with a curling brush.

  Andrea picked up the phone at her elbow and pressed the key for T.P.’s extension, combing her fingers through the gray streak in her hair. “What’s the number?” she asked, when he answered, then listened to his response on the other end of the line.

  “If he’s stalling me to let Bozo give it later,” she said, “that’ll be the stupidest career move he ever makes.” She hung up as Frank sat down again tightening the knot on a fire engine-red necktie.

  “Revised copy, I understand,” Frank said gesturing toward the teleprompter running in fast reverse.

  “I’m not trying to hog your show, Frank.”

  She handed him the intro copy she had prepared for him to read prior to her report on new

  developments, questions and suspicions she and Sam had generated on the artifact cover-up. Frank

  frowned, but accepted it, instructing the copy boy to run it through the prompter again. Sheldon hovered behind her, applying spray to her errant locks, patting them in place with his palm and brush. “Sit on that hand, will you, Andy?”

  Silence enveloped the studio as the producer reached the count of one, and floor monitors showed the two reporters seated together behind the anchor desk with the large blue and white NNC logo behind them.

  “Good afternoon,” Frank said to the camera. “This is Frank Morrissey and....”

  “Andrea Madigan...” she added.

  The camera cut in tight on Frank, who picked up his lines: “...with an exclusive follow-up on the alleged Arab antiquities theft reported last week in an NNC newscast for the first time anywhere. During that announcement, you may recall, a surprise appearance before our camera was made by General Clyde G. Callaghan, commandant of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina...” A still shot of Andrea and the General from her newscast that evening replaced the logo behind them. “...who denied that any artifacts had been stolen by American soldiers under his command during the April ’03 search for Saddam Hussein in northern Iraq.”

  Camera two came in tight on Andrea as she said: “The day after my interview with General Callaghan, however, our NNC research team discovered that every U.S. Army computer facility that might contain unclassified Iraq War information has been shut down. Despite the Army’s renewed obstruction to public access--this reporter has determined which infantry platoon of approximately 70 soldiers was dropped into the area of the Syrian Desert where the presumed theft took place. We are currently pursuing critical new information that should help to identify which squad of Airborne troopers may have firsthand knowledge of the alleged theft of the Arabian treasures. The task before NNC now is to identify the soldiers who could have perpetrated that theft, confirm their involvement and report our findings to the American people.

  “Recent interviews with members of then Colonel Callaghan’s 82nd Airborne Third Battalion Bravo Company have led us to two specific areas of inquiry that look extremely promising, resulting in the monetary reward I will offer on behalf of NNC-TV at the end of this

  broadcast.”

  The red light on camera three went out and reappeared on camera one, to which Andrea turned. “In addition to finding the artifact and soldier thieves, we are determined to learn why the military is denying their existence. Are they doing so through naive ignorance or complicit disinformation?”

  The video cut to a close-up of Frank, reading local and national news items from the prompter as Andrea picked up the telephone beside her, surreptitiously brushing her left toe against

  his right shoe to ensure his awareness of her off-frame phone call.

  Andrea tapped a button on the keypad, grasped her lapel mike in her fist and looked up at the VIP booth above them.

  “What?” Rand Duncan demanded into the phone behind the glare of reflected lights on the glass enclosure.

  “The reward money,” she whispered. “How much?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “Make it quick.”

  “Don’t push me, Madigan.”

  “How much?”

  His response was hoarse with fury. “We will discuss that tomorrow. Fudge out of the dollars for now.”

  She paused, frustrated, her mind racing. With the handset pressed against her ear she whispered in feigned astonishment: “Five?”

  “I don’t know if I’ll have an answer by then.

  Then she moved her shoulder to block Frank’s view of the phone and broke the connection. “Say that again,” she demanded of the dial tone, pretending to listen.

  “Five hundred thousand dollars,” she said into the dead telephone, at which Frank Morrissey flubbed his reading. ”You’re getting the hang of this, Rand.”

  Andrea smiled and replaced the handset in its cradle as Frank came to the end of his copy. “...a trip that the President hopes will begin to establish a closer relationship with those South American nations.”

  Frank turned to his right, his expression anticipatory. “Andrea?”

  Andy summarized the contents of the MI artifact investigation, then segued into the last

  report she would ever make on NNC-TV.

  “I have just this moment received an unprecedented on-the-air phone call from NNC management authorizing a reward of five hundred thousand dollars for information leading to the stolen artifact and/or personal interviews with the American soldiers involved in the discovery and theft of ancient treasures from the Syrian Desert during the early days of the Iraq War.”

  Andrea could sense Frank stiffen beside her as the red light on the telephone at her e
lbow began flashing. She yanked the cord of her earpiece before the producer could verbally communicate his frantic gestures ten feet in front of the anchor desk, and continued addressing the live camera before they could shut her off. “I repeat this last second NNC offer on which we will expand in future broadcasts: National News Corporation has just authorized payment of a half million-dollar reward for information leading to our personal interviews with any American soldier involved in the theft of the artifact in question or the treasure itself.”

  She gave the phone number of their established hotline from memory and turned the

  broadcast over to Frank, who to his professional credit continued his newscast, ignored the

  reward and signed them off.

  In the narrow, windowed booth on the rear ceiling the producer transferred his on-air program responsibility to a counterpart in another studio. On the floor below, the crew stood still and quiet, refraining from their usually effusive post-program chatter. Andrea pushed herself up from her chair, shedding her wire tethers as Frank extricated himself from his own. Rand Duncan flipped a switch on the console in the glass VIP booth, turning the volume on the studio audio speakers to max, and they crackled to life.

  “Witness all here present,” he announced in obvious anger, “that Andrea Madigan had

  absolutely no authorization whatsoever from NNC management to offer a public reward of any kind, much less the incomprehensible magnitude of five hundred thousand dollars.” The studio lights had been dimmed and Duncan could be seen standing behind the angled glass panes. He looked down at T.P. Viola still seated in a chair beside him. “Am I correct, T.P?”

  “Yes, Rand.”

  “Get this on tape,” Duncan said as he turned to stare icicles down at Andrea, who had remained standing immobile since he began speaking.

  “Andrea Madigan, your employment here at National News Corporation is hereby severed with cause, effective this time and date. Security guards will escort you from the premises immediately. You will remove nothing from this office except the possessions you have with you now. Our attorneys will contact yours.”