Jack Cavanaugh - Death Watch

The newscaster pursed her lips with distaste before handing the news to the weatherman. Sydney knew how she felt.

“It’ll make a splash,” she said flatly, turning the television off.

6:50 a.m.

One hour, fifty-seven minutes remaining.

Sydney sat on the French sofa staring at the bedroom door. She hadn’t heard a sound come from the other side in the last thirty minutes.

Hunz’s muffled voice had fallen silent. Earlier she could hear him talking, not clear enough to make out what he was saying, but the pattern of speech and pausing suggested he was on the phone.

Every now and then he’d laugh. Sometimes his tone was conciliatory. Somber. Then his tone would change, indicating another call, another person. Sydney found herself wondering who was on the other end of the line with each change, sort of a mix-and-match game, pairing voice tone with the people Hunz had told her about.

She chastised herself for listening, but she couldn’t stop herself. At one point she thought he was talking to his old girlfriend, but she couldn’t be sure. It started out lighthearted, turned to melancholy, then almost apologetic.

On a previous call, he bordered on anger. His father? A coworker? A friend? Hunz never mentioned any of his friends. Probably like her, he didn’t have many outside the industry. Contacts, for the most part. Sources. People you could spend an enjoyable evening with, but not anyone you would consider a friend.

And now the other side of the door had fallen silent. Sydney ached to cross the room and knock on it.

Just to see if he was all right.

But the strength of her desire was far greater than mere casual concern. It bordered on compulsion.

She wanted to talk to him before the camera crew arrived, to tell him about the Scripture verse she’d remembered, the one about not fearing the one who could kill the body, but fearing the One who could kill the soul.

She wanted to make sure he understood about the second death.

That phrase came to her often now, unboxed for the occasion from somewhere in the attic of her mind. Probably from a sermon she’d heard. She wanted to warn him of the greater danger.

All men die, Sydney.

She knew the truth of that now. Billy was right. All this death watch hoopla was a clever diversion from the real threat.

All men die.

Yet look at all the time and effort and money and resources that go into postponing death, postponing the inevitable. Compare that to how few resources go into warning about the second death. The one that counts. Everyone was so concerned about the pop quiz, they weren’t preparing for the final exam.

Sydney stood, crossed the suite to the bedroom door, and lifted a hand to knock. Gently. More of a suggestion of a knock than a real knock.

But before her knuckle hit wood, she heard Hunz’s voice from the other side.

“Helmut! Hunz… Ja… “Then he began rattling off German sentences, none of which Sydney understood.

She lowered her hand and retreated to the sofa.

The WBBT crew arrived while the bedroom door was still closed, 7:30 a.m. according to Sydney’s watch.

One hour, seventeen minutes remained.

There were three of them. Phil, the cameraman. Dorian, the soundman. And Joanna, to do the makeup.

Dorian, a round-faced, good-natured African American in a Hawaiian shirt, seemed to be the one in charge. He made the introductions and asked Sydney where to set up. She asked them to wait a moment and knocked on the bedroom door.

It swung open midknock. Hunz had obviously heard the crew come in. He was all business, pointing and giving instructions without so much as a glance at Sydney.

She stood off to one side while the soundman and cameraman turned the area surrounding the French sofa into a ministudio. They worked quietly, efficiently, hospital quiet, on the verge of mortuary quiet. They spoke in low tones.

“Mr. Vonner, if you’ll sit over here.”

Joanna, a thirtyish woman with auburn hair and fire-engine red nails, pulled out one of the chairs at the table by the window. Hunz sat. She fitted him with a tissue collar and opened up a good-sized tackle box of cosmetic goodies. She grabbed a white wedge latex sponge from a bag. Next she sorted through disks of foundation.

Hunz sat motionless. He stared straight ahead at nothing, the way Sydney remembered her father sitting in the barber’s chair.

“You have nice coloring,” Joanna said. “Do you know what shade-—”

“Suntone,” Hunz said.

Joanna found the right makeup disk and began with his cheeks.

Hunz appeared calm. Had this been any other broadcast, Sydney would have equated his quiet mood to a baseball pitcher’s game face. It wasn’t unusual for a broadcaster to withdraw just before airing, using the time to arrange his thoughts and put himself in performance mode.

But this wasn’t a normal broadcast.

And Hunz had to have things on his mind other than how he was going to come across on camera.

“Are you all right?” Sydney asked.

Joanna glanced at her, as if wondering whether asking such a question of a dying man was acceptable etiquette.

“You’ll need to do Sydney too,” Hunz said to Joanna. “She’ll be on camera with me.”

Clearly, he didn’t want to talk about it. Maybe he didn’t want to talk about it in front of strangers. Either way, Sydney got the message.

It was 7:49 a.m.

Hunz had less than an hour to live.

The news program featuring Hunz Vonner’s death began at 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time, 10:00 a.m. local time, though the studio was not scheduled to send it live to Hunz until a quarter past the hour.

“Countdown to Death” was the title the network settled on. At the top of the hour, the team in the hotel room was performing sound checks and making last-minute adjustments to the lighting.

Sydney and Hunz stood in front of the French sofa.

“There will be three cuts to us, the first at 10:15, the second at 10:25, and the last at 10:40,” Hunz said. “At that time we’ll take it to the end.”

Sydney nodded.

“The first cut, right after I introduce myself, you introduce yourself. That’s all you need to do.”

She nodded again.

“You don’t have to do anything else until the third cut. I’ll start out, take it for as long as I can, then ” He gave her a half grin. “Well, then you’re on.”

You’re on. Simple as that. I’ll be lying dead on the floor at your feet; you take it from there. Did he know what he was asking her to do?

“What do I say?” she asked.

“A good reporter writes his own copy. Just wrap it up and send it back to the studio.”

Just wrap it up and send it back to the studio. Simple. Piece of cake. Easy as pie. Walk in the park.

Sydney really didn’t want to do this. She really did not want to do this.

10:15 a.m., local time.

Sydney heard two voices in her earphone, the WBBT morning news team. A prepared clip documenting the sudden appearance of Death Watch two days ago and its vicious rampage around the populated world had just ended. The anchors were segueing from the clip to the live feed at the Hilton Hotel.

“This morning we have with us one of our own, a veteran newscaster, himself a death watch victim.”

That was Hunz’s cue.

Portable tungsten lights made seeing anything beyond five feet impossible. The three-person crew moved like spirits behind the cameras.

Holding a microphone and looking every bit the professional, Hunz gazed into the camera lens and said, “This is Hunz Vonner…”