Jeffery Deaver - Hard News

The affair with Semple had lasted one year, when they were both on the ascendancy in the Network. But that had been four years ago. Then came Hopper's death, one consequence of which was what Sutton had predicted would happen: Semple was named Hopper's replacement. The day after the board announced the appointment she walked into his office to say how happy she was for him and how she'd known how much he'd wanted the job. Sutton had then taken Semple's hand, kissed his cheek and ended the affair.

Since then Semple'd waged an almost adolescent campaign to win her back. Although they saw each other often and dined together and attended benefits and formal functions she'd decided that their intimate days were over. He didn't believe her when she said it was a hard decision for her as well, though it was. She was attracted to him physically and she was attracted to him for his strength and brilliance and decisiveness. Sutton had settled for weak men in the past and had learned her lesson; she had a number of exes to prove it.

This romantic tension was an undercurrent in every conversation she and Semple had. It troubled her that, although Semple respected her immensely for her ability, hedesired her only on the lowest level. The power she had over him was the power of a courtier, not a reigning queen, and that infuriated her – at the same time her continual refusal to resume the affair stung him.

"How was Paris?" she asked.

"Comme ci, comme fa. How is it always? The same. Paris never changes."

The coffee arrived. The executive vice presidents had their own dining room, which delivered their requests for food or beverages on Villeroy amp; Bosch china, carried on parent-company-logoed lacquer trays. Semple poured a cup and sipped it.

"Tell me about this story."

Sutton did, quickly, without emotion.

"Her name is Rune? First or last?"

"Some kind of stage name bullshit. She a cameraman with the O amp;O here in Manhattan."

"What does Lee think?" Semple asked.

"Slightly more in favor of doing the story than I am. But not much."

"Why are we doing it, then?" he asked coolly. Semple's dark eyes scanned Sutton's blouse. She was glad she'd worn the wool suit jacket over the white silk. But only a part of his eyes was seeing her body. What the other part was considering, and what was happening in the brain behind those eyes, was a complete mystery to her. It was one of his most magnetic qualities – that she hadn't been able to fathom him. It was also one of his more frightening.

She answered, "The girl said, in effect, that if she didn't produce it forCurrent Events she'd do it independently and sell it elsewhere."

"Blackmail," he snapped.

"Closer to youthful fervor."

"I don't like it," Semple said. "There's no point to the story." He sipped more coffee. Sutton remembered that he liked to sit naked in bed in the morning, a tray resting on his lap, the cup and saucer directly over his penis. Did he like the warmth? she used to wonder.

He asked, "What does she have so far? Anything?"

"Nope. Nothing substantial. Lots of background footage. That's all."

"So you think there's a chance it'll just go away?"

Sutton avoided his eyes. "She's young. I'm keeping a close eye on her. I'm hoping she gets tired of the whole thing."

Semple had the power to make this story go away forever, leaving behind fewer traces than a couple of pixels on a TV monitor. He glanced at Sutton and said, "Keep me informed on what she finds."

"Okay."

"I mean daily." Semple looked out the window for moment. "I dined at a wonderful restaurant. It was off St Germain."

"Really?"

"I wish you'd been there with me."

"It sounds nice."

"Michelin was wrong. I have to write and urge them to give it another star." And he uncapped a fountain pen and wrote a note on his calendar reminding himself to do just that.

Rune was sleepwalking. At least, that's what it felt like.

She'd been sitting at her desk, in the same curvature-of-the-spine pose, for seven hours, looking over tapes. The close air of the studio was filled with the buzz of a dozen yellow jackets, which she'd thought was the video monitor in front of her until she'd shut it off and realized that the buzzing had continued; the sound was originating from somewhere inside her head.

Enough is enough.

She stood up and stretched; a series of pops from her joints momentarily replaced the buzzing. She left Bradford in charge of logging in the recent tapes she'd shot and headed outside. Rune walked through the complicated maze of corridors and into the spring evening. She removed the chrome chain necklace of her ID from around her neck and slipped it in her leopard-skin bag.

Outside a harried woman employee of the Network stood on the sidewalk. Her husband – a young professional – walked up to her with their two young children in tow. It had apparently been his turn to pick up the kids tonight.

The mother gave them perfunctory hugs and then started making weekend plans with her husband. Their daughter, a redhead about Courtney's age, tugged on her mother's Norma Kamali skirt. "Mommy…"

"Just aminute" the woman said sternly. "I'm speaking to your father." The little girl looked sullenly off.

Rune gave the kid a smile but she didn't respond. The family walked off.

Man, I'm beat, she thought.

But as she walked she felt the cool, electric-scented city night air waking her up and she saw from the clock on the MONY tower that it was early, only eightp.m. Early? Rune remembered when quitting time had been five. She continued down Broadway, past the pastel carnival of Lincoln Center – pausing, listening for music but not hearing any. Then she continued south, deciding to walk home, a couple miles, to get the blood back in her legs. Thinking of what she needed to do for the story. Getting her hands on the police report of the Hopper case was the number one item.

Then she'd have to talk to all the witnesses. Get Megler on tape. Maybe interview the judge. Find some jurors. She wondered if there was an old priest who knew Boggs. A Spencer Tracy sort of guy.

Ah, well, now, sure I'd be knowing the boy Randy and I'll tell you, he helped out in soup kitchens and took care of his mother and left half his allowance in the collection plate every Sunday when he was an altar boy…

A lot to do.

She walked through Hell's Kitchen. Her head swiveled as she went down Ninth Avenue. Disappointed. The developers were doing a number on the area. Boxy high-rises and slick restaurants and co-ops. What she liked best about the neighborhood was that it had been the home of the Gophers, one of the toughest of the nineteenth-century gangs in New York. Rune had been reading about old gangs lately. Before she got waylaid by the Boggs story, she'd been planning a documentary on them. The featured thugs were going to be the Gophers and their sister gang, the Battle Row Ladies' Social and Athletic Club (also known as the Lady Gophers). Not a single producer had been very interested in the subject. The Mafia and Colombians and Jamaicans with machine guns were still the current superstars of crime, according to the media; and there wasn't much demand for stories about people like One-Lung Curran and Sadie the Goat and Stumpy Malarky.

Her feet were aching by the time she got to her neighborhood. She stopped outside the houseboat, looked at the dark windows for a moment. Behind her another family walked past, a mother and father and their child, a cute boy of about five or six. He was asking questions – where does the Hudson River go, what kind of fish are in it – and together the mother and father were making up silly answers for the boy. All three of them were laughing hard. Rune felt an urge to join in but she resisted, realizing that she was an outsider, When they had passed she walked up the gangplank and inside the houseboat. She dropped her bag by the door and stood listening, her head cocked sideways.