Cutting him off, Maxwell continued. "No buts! The man is an officer and he is our commander. You will not call him 'shithead,' 'moron,' 'idiot,' or anything else other than 'sir' in my presence. Is that understood, Graddy?"
Graddy shook his head. "No, I don't understand, Sarge, but I'll do what you say."
"Good. Now carry on." Turning, Maxwell began to march off, thinking over and over that Graddy was right — the man was a shithead. Then Maxwell stopped, turned back to Graddy, and called out, "And for Christ's sake, challenge anything that moves. If it don't answer, shoot."
The staff of the WNN Cairo Bureau, standing in front of a bank of TV monitors, watched copies of the news story WNN and five news teams from other networks had fed back to the States. Half a dozen national news programs in the U.S. would be opening their nightly news broadcasts with the footage of the assassination attempt that Jan Fields and her British camera crew had taped less than seven hours before. All the news commentators, faces fixed in grave masks of concern, spoke in deep monotones of how terrorism had again raised its ugly head. Fortunately for their viewers, they cut quickly to the tape, which all dubbed "dramatic and harrowing" after warning their viewers that the clip contained scenes of violence. In quick succession, Jan Fields was plastered across all the TV monitors in the room.
The clip started with her introduction and selected shots of the VIPs arriving, the live fire exercise as it progressed, and an occasional comment by Fields. Suddenly, in the middle of one of her comments, the scene became blurred as the camera was jerked away from the exercise and Fields toward the rear of the reviewing stands. When the camera stopped and refocused, it did so on two Egyptian army jeeps charging for the reviewing stands. The scene was jumbled as the cameramen ran closer. Despite the distortion, however, the TV viewers could clearly see two figures, one dressed in the camouflage uniform worn by the U.S. Army, pistols drawn, run toward the charging jeeps. These figures, followed by Egyptian soldiers, stopped and began to fire at the jeeps. A zoom to the jeep on the left showed a terrorist hanging out of it, firing his automatic rifle. The camera remained fixed on this jeep until it made a sharp turn to the right, then rolled over several times.
Not waiting for it to stop, the camera jerked over to the jeep on the right. The second jeep continued to charge. Panning back, the camera caught three men standing in the path of the jeep. Focusing in on them, the camera watched as one of the three was thrown back by the impact of rounds hitting him. The other two, one of them the man in the U.S. Army uniform, leveled their weapons and began to fire. Like the first jeep, the second one suddenly jerked to one side, then rolled over. The camera stayed on it for a moment before panning back and forth from one jeep to the other as more soldiers ran up and searched the wreckage. There was a slight pause; then the tape continued. This time the man in the American uniform was in front of the camera, the rank of a lieutenant colonel visible on his collar. He was still panting as if he had just finished a run. In his right hand, ready for use, was his 9mm pistol. He glanced from side to side, looking at one jeep, then the other, then toward the reviewing stands. When he saw the camera watching him, he waved his left hand in front of it, motioning it to cut. The camera crew did not leave him until he turned his back on it and walked away.
The crowd in the newsroom commented on or exclaimed at the quality of the camera work. Despite the speed of the action and the distance involved, the TV viewers could see everything, from the bloodstained body of the Egyptian soldier at the American colonel's feet to the colonel's name tag. Fay Dixon, however, didn't need exceptional camera work to be able to recognize her husband. She could have picked him out of a crowd of American officers wearing the same uniform.
She had overseen the editing of the tape before it was fed to the WNN home office. Even though she had reviewed it a half a dozen times already and knew every inch of it, every word, the image of her husband standing there, pistol in hand and a body at his feet, still sent a shiver up her spine. It was hard for Fay to relate the figure she had seen blasting away in the tape, killing real people, to the man with whom she shared a bed. Though she knew Scott was a soldier, and a veteran, Fay had always been able to conveniently ignore that aspect of her husband's life. The tape of the shooting, however, rubbed her nose in it. Inch by bloody inch ran past her eyes as she edited it, burning images in her mind of her husband placing himself in danger with seemingly careless abandon while taking other men's lives. Though she tried to be rational and professional about what she was doing, the fact that it was Scott bothered her as nothing ever had before.
Standing alone against the back wall, Fay watched the TV monitors and the rest of the staff. When the spot on the assassination attempt was finished, the monitors went blank. The WN staff, as one, turned to Jan Fields and applauded. Watching them push and shove to get close to Jan, Fay felt real anger and hatred. What bothered her, however, was that she was unsure whom she was angry at. Was she mad at Jan for building a career on the death and misery of others? Or was she mad at Scott, for the casual manner in which he placed himself in harm's way?
She was still mulling over her feelings when Jan, breaking free from her admirers, came up, grabbed Fay by the shoulders, gave her a hug, and announced to the others that without a great producer like Fay, a reporter was nothing. Caught off guard, Fay looked about as the others in the room came up to shake her hand or give her a peck on the cheek. Jan Fields stood next to her, arm in arm and all smiles. For the moment, the concerns of the real world disappeared as Fay graciously accepted the warm regards of her fellow workers.
The meeting of the General Secretariat had long ago degenerated into a screaming and shouting match as those who had been lukewarm about the operation heaped abuse on those who had pushed it. At the head of the table, the Leader of the Revolution sat calmly, detached from the melee in which his council was engaged. He watched without comment, as accusation and counteraccusation were flung across the table. At the far end, Colonel Nafissi also stood aloof from the fracas, watching the Leader of the Revolution and waiting for the other members of the council to wear themselves out. The only break in the marathon screaming match had come when the council stopped to view a television in the comer of the room. The news program they watched showed the same tape clip around the world. There was no need for Nafissi to become involved in the petty war of words. Those of the council who supported him were more than holding their own against those who supported the Leader.
For a moment Nafissi pictured the council as nothing but pawns in a great chess game between himself and the Leader. Everyone knew who had the power and who were the mouthpieces. There would be much shifting of power as a result of the failed plot. An astute politician had much to gain if he made the right moves and was ruthless. Nafissi was ruthless; no one doubted that. What remained to be seen was whether or not he could make the right moves.
Tiring of the squabbles, the Leader of the Revolution sat up and, with the wave of a hand, brought silence to the council chamber. "We have solved nothing. Were we in the desert, your hot air would have blown away all the sand. What we have not discussed is what we will do now. As we have seen, the Egyptians are building a campaign of hate and falsehoods against us. No doubt, once they have convinced the world that we were responsible, they will use this excuse to strike at us and destroy not only us but what we stand for. With the fall of Iran, we are the last true defenders of the faith. What we do is therefore critical not only to the survival of our people but also to all those who truly believe. As the chief of staff of the armed forces, what do you propose to do now, Colonel Nafissi?"