Arthur Hailey - Evening News

Finally, knowing the most difficult part of his Medellin/ Sendero assignment was still ahead and that he needed rest, Baudelio took two hundred milligrams of Seconal and slept.

At about 11:50 A.M., in the apartment at Port Credit, Harry Partridge had switched the living room TV to a Buffalo, New York, station—a CBA affiliate. All Buffalo TV stations, whose signals had only to travel an unobstructed sixty miles across Lake Ontario, were received clearly in the Toronto area.

Vivien had gone out and would not be back until mid-afternoon.

Partridge hoped to learn, from the noon news, the latest developments following yesterday's Muskegon Airlines disaster at Dallas-Fort Worth. Consequently at 11:55, when programming was interrupted by the CBA News Special Bulletin, Partridge was watching.

He was as shocked and horrified as everyone else. Could it really be true,, he wondered, or just some incredible snafu? But experience told him that CBA News would not have put out a bulletin without satisfying itself of the story's authenticity.

As he watched Don Kettering's face on the screen and heard the continuing report, he felt, more than anything, a personal concern for Jessica. And mixed with his emotions was a surge of camaraderie and pity for Crawford Sloane.

Partridge also knew, without even thinking about it, that his vacation, which had scarcely begun, was already over.

It was no surprise, then, to receive a phone call some forty-five minutes later, asking him to come to CBA News headquarters in New York. What did surprise him was that it was a personal appeal from Crawford Sloane.

Sloane's voice, Partridge discerned, was barely under control. After the preliminaries, Sloane said, "I desperately need you, Harry. Les and Chuck are setting up a special unit; it will work on two levels—daily reports on air and deep investigation. They asked me who I wanted in charge. I told them there's only one choice—you.”

In all the years that he and Sloane had known each other, Partridge realized they had never been closer than at this moment. He responded, "Hang in there, Crawf. I'll be on the next flight.”

"Thank you, Harry. Is there anyone you especially want to work with?

"Yes. Find Rita Abrams, wherever she is—in Minnesota sornewhere—and bring her in. The same for Minh Van Canh.”

"If they're not waiting when you get here, they'll be with you soon after. Anyone else?”

Thinking quickly, Partridge said, "I want Teddy Cooper from London.”

"Cooper?” Sloane sounded puzzled, then remembered.”He's our bureau researcher, isn't he?”

"Right.”

Teddy Cooper was an Englishman, a twenty-five-year-old product of what the British snobbishly called a red-brick university, and a cheerful Cockney who might have auditioned successfully for Me and My GirL He was also, in Partridge's opinion, a near-genius at turning ordinary research into detective work and following it up with shrewd deductions.

While working in Europe, Partridge had discovered Cooper, who at the time held a minor librarian's job at the British Broadcasting Corporation. Partridge had been impressed with some inventive research work that Cooper had done for him. Later he was instrumental in having Cooper employed, with more money and better prospects, by CBA's London bureau.

”You've got him,” Sloane replied.”He'll be on the next Concorde out of England.”

"If you feel up to it,” Partridge said, "I'd like to ask some questions, so I have something to think about on the way down.”

"Of course. Go ahead.”

What followed was a near-replay of queries already put by FBI agent Havelock. Had there been threats? . . . Any special antagonism? . . . Unusual experiences? . . . Was there any notion, even the wildest, as to who . . .? Was there anything known that had not been broadcast?

The asking was necessary, but the answers were all negative.

”Is there anything at all you can think of,” Partridge persisted, "some little incident, perhaps, which you may have dismissed at the time or even hardly noticed, but which might relate to what has happened?”

"The answer's no at the moment,” Sloane said.”But I'll think about it.”

After they hung up, Partridge resumed his own preparations. Even before Sloane's call he had begun packing a suitcase that only an hour earlier he had unpacked.

He telephoned Air Canada, making a reservation on a flight leaving Toronto's Pearson International at 2:45 P.M. It was due into New York's La Guardia Airport at 4 P.m. Next, he called for a taxi to collect him in twenty minutes.

After his packing was finished, Partridge scribbled a goodbye note to Vivien. He knew she would be disappointed at his abrupt departure, as he was himself Along with the note he left a generous check to cover the. apartment refurbishing they had discussed.

As he looked around for a place to leave the note and check, a buzzer sounded in the apartment. It was the intercom from the lobby below. The taxi he ordered had arrived.

The last thing he saw before leaving was, on a sideboard, the tickets for the next day's Mozart concert. He reflected sadly that those—as well as other unused tickets and invitations in the past—represented, more than anything else, the uncertain pattern of a TV newsman's life.

* * *

The Air Canada flight was non-stop, a 727 with all-economy seating. A light passenger load enabled Partridge to have a three-seat section to himself. He had assured Sloane that he would apply his mind to the kidnapping while en route to New York and had intended to begin planning the direction he and the CBA News investigative group should take. But the information he had was sketchy, and obviously he needed more. So after a while he gave up and, sipping a vodka-tonic, allowed his thoughts to drift.

He considered, on a personal level, Jessica and himself.

Over the years since Vietnam he had grown accustomed to regarding Jessica as belonging only in the past, as someone he had once loved but who was no longer relevant to him and in any case far beyond his reach. To an extent, Partridge realized, his thinking had been an act of self-discipline, a safeguard against feeling sorry for himself, self-pity being something he abhorred.

But now, because Jessica was in danger, he admitted to himself that he cared as much about her as ever, and always had. Face it, you're still in love with her. Yes I am. And not with some shadowy memory, but with a person who was living, vital, real.

So whatever his role was to be in searching for Jessica—and Crawf himself had asked that it be a major one—Harry Partridge knew that his love for Jessica would drive and sustain him, even though he would hold that love secret, burning out of sight within himself.

Then, with what he recognized as a characteristic touch of quirky humor, he asked himself, Am I being disloyal?

Disloyal to whom? Of course, to Gemma who was dead.

Ah, dearest Gemma! Earlier today, when he had remembered the one exception to his apparent inability to cry, he had almost let memories about her crowd in. But he had pushed them away as being more than he could handle. But now thoughts of Gemma were flooding back. She will always come back he thought.

* * *

A few years after his duty tour in Vietnam and some other hard-living assignments, CBA News sent Partridge to be resident correspondent in Rome. He remained there almost five years.

Among all television networks, an assignment to a Rome bureau was considered a plum. The standard of living was high, living costs modest by comparison with big cities elsewhere, and though pressures and tensions were inevitably transmitted from New York, the local pace of life was leisurely and easy.

As well as reporting on area stories and sometimes roving far afield, Partridge covered the Vatican. Also, several times he traveled on papal airplanes, accompanying Pope John Paul II on the pontiffs international peregrinations.