Neal Stephenson - Interface

"Her boss. Who got it from Denver. And they got it from Washington. I'm sure."

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Eleanor said, "but I'm sure that this wasn't the only patch of federal land in Colorado that was housing squatters."

Ray smiled. "You got that right."

"Have any other such communities been evicted?"

Ray shook his head.

"Just this one," Eleanor said.

"Just this one."

"So this wasn't a blanket order from Washington. It was targeted at this one piece of land."

"Sure looks that way."

"And why," Eleanor said, "do you suppose that some bureaucrat in D.C. would suddenly take an interest in this one parcel?"

Ray shrugged. "I can only speculate."

"Please do."

"This bureaucrat probably went to law school with one of Senator Marshall's aides. Or was his college roommate. Or their kids go to the same day care. Something like that."

Eleanor waggled a finger at Ray. "There you go making assumptions. How do you know there's a connection to Caleb Roosevelt Marshall?"

"The piece of land in question adjoins the Lazy Z Ranch," Ray said, "and the cattle grazing on it now all wear the Lazy Z brand."

"Say no more." Eleanor said. "You win."

The Lazy Z ranch was owned by Sam Wyatt. Sam Wyatt was Caleb Roosevelt Marshall's biggest private contributor. And the president of Senator Marshall's PAC. Sam Wyatt was one of a dozen or so constituents who could get through to the Senator on the phone whenever he wanted to.

But in this case, he probably hadn't. This was too much of a dirty detail for the Senator to mess around with personally. He had probably just called one of the Senator's aides. He had probably called Shad Harper, that underaged son of a bitch who had the office across the hallway from Eleanor's.

Ray was watching her in fascination. "You have this look on your face like you're plotting an assassination," he joked.

"Something like that," she said.

When little Bianca Ramirez was finally released from Arapahoe Highlands Medical Centre after one week of hyperbaric oxygen treatment, a dozen television crews, four satellite uplink trucks, one Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, thirty print reporters, a hundred supportive protesters, the Mayor of Denver, staffers from all of the local senators' and representatives' offices, and a few lean and hungry lawyers were waiting for her. The only question was whether or not her parents, Carlos and Anna Ramirez, would actually show up to collect her.

Her progress from nameless refugee to media star could be tracked by checking the headlines on a local newspaper, which had been sliding in the direction of out-and-out tabloid journalism for a number of years, and which had been driven completely beyond the pale by the Bianca Ramirez story.

"TRUCK OF DEATH"

had been the first headline concerning the Ramirez family. Slightly less hysterical coverage of the tragedy had actually made it on to a couple of national network newscasts, which was unusual to say the least; plenty of Chicano kids had suffocated in the backs of trucks without even being mentioned in the local newspapers. But this time around, several national Hispanic organisations got into the act and managed to stir up some interest on a national level. The case of the Ramirez family was a good one for TV. The truck of death per se was sitting in a driveway in Denver and anyone could go and videotape it. There had been one survivor, who happened to be an adorable little girl, and although this didn't get reported right away, there was, as the saying goes, more to the story: a failure of responsibility by a major, rich, private hospital, and hints of potential scandal involving one Sam Wyatt, wealthy cattleman, golf partner of senators and CEOs.

"LET HER DIE!"

was the headline on Day 2. The story about Highlands' refusal to treat Bianca had been leaked to the press by Ray del Valle. Leaked was a deceptive term. A leak was a tiny seeping crevice. In this case, blowout might have been more accurate. Ray made sure everyone with a minicam, laptop, pen, or pencil knew about the story. More sober journalists just viewed it as another example of "dumping," the refusal of some hospitals to treat indigent patients. If they knew their business at all, it was an issue that they had already covered. Much more melodramatic examples of it happened in other cities.

"HANG ON BIANCA!"

was the headline for Day 3. This was somewhat meaningless. Day 3 was a Sunday and not much was going on. And Bianca's ability to hang on had never really been in question. The fact that she was still breathing when she was pulled from the Truck of Death, and when the ambulance crew had taken her to Highlands, where they had been told Let Her Die, meant that the parts of her brain that controlled breathing and heartbeat still worked. She was, in other words, stable, albeit in a coma. There was nothing to hang on to. But it made for a great headline, and it gave the tabloid (and the television journalists who functioned at the same journalistic level) a bit of breathing room. For a couple of days they had been accumulating a great mass of basically irrelevant human-interest material: pictures of the big-eyed Bianca, testimonials from family and playmates, descriptions of her favourite foods and toys. Sunday gave them a chance to unload all of that stuff on the public. If nothing else, Sunday was the day that Bianca became an official public figure, someone who could be referred to by her first name in a tabloid or on a TV broadcast, like Madonna or Di. As such, she represented a money factory for the tabloid; for at least the next couple of weeks, whenever they needed to goose their circulation figures they just printed any headline containing the name Bianca.

But Sunday was not a day of rest for everyone. A bleary-eyed Ray del Valle led a caravan of half a dozen journalist-laden vehicles on a drive across the prairie, headed for the patch of Forest Service grazing land where the Ramirez children had played their last game of soccer. The reason that Ray was bleary-eyed, even though the caravan departed at the civilized hour often a.m., was that he had spent the entire night driving from Denver to the site and back. On his drive out to the site, his car had been full of used toys and house-wares, which he had purchased for a few dollars at Goodwill. On his drive back to Denver, the car had been empty.

When the caravan of journalists arrived at the site in mid-afternoon they were treated to the blindingly photogenic sight of cattle grazing over the remains of a hastily evacuated migrant settle­ment. Remains of human tragedy were strewn everywhere: Raggedy Andy dolls, overturned cooking pots, baby clothes, a battered, well-loved Malibu Barbie or two.

None of it had been there the day before; the migrant workers had had plenty of time to pick up their things before they'd evacuated the site, and were not so wasteful as to leave perfectly good pots and toys strewn around. But it looked great, especially when the handsome, pony-tailed Ray del Valle squatted down in the grass to ponder an abandoned soccer ball as fat cattle emblazoned with the Lazy Z brand grazed contentedly nearby. So it was no big surprise when a photograph along those lines took up most of the front page of the next morning's tabloid, accompanied by the headline:

"WYATT: 'THROW 'EM OUT!'"

It would be an understatement to say that Sam Wyatt, his very close friends in Senator Marshall's offices, and most of the Denver medical establishment were, so far, not amused by the way the Ramirez situation had been covered in the media. And although Ray del Valle had begun the new week with a crushing sucker punch, afterward it became the Week of the Backlash. The "THROW 'EM OUT!" headline had been on the newsstands for less than six hours when two cars full of INS agents pulled up in front of the home of Pilar de la Cruz, nee Ramirez, and came to the door with the intention of arresting Carlos and Anna Ramirez, who both happened to be illegal aliens. If these agents had been reading their tabloids, they would not even have stopped; they would have known that Carlos and Anna were not there by the fact that the TRUCK OF DEATH was not parked in the driveway. But they made the mistake of going to the door anyway. Pilar, alerted to the fact that Immigration was after her sister and brother-in-law, telephoned Arapahoe Highlands Medical Centre, where they were visiting Bianca, and warned them. They cut their visit short, jumped into the Truck of Death, and vanished from the face of the earth.