"To those who ask whether the military operations of Fat'ah are truly necessary, Fat'ah replies: they are precisely that. To those who have known some Jew who showed a spark of human decency, Fat'ah reminds you that in war, there is nothing personal. Each operation is a military operation, and must be supported by those who love freedom.
"The friends of world Jewry are the enemies of peace and freedom. The friends of Fat'ah—like Mr. Cawthorn—are the friends of final peace. The Jew wants the Coming of his Messiah?" A two-beat pause before, "Fat'ah will see that he goes to meet it."
Everett did not remember the fatuous mouthings Cawthorn had made afterward. Cawthorn did not matter: he was only the envelope in which this reeking turd had been handed to the voters of Buffalo, and in their own homes.
As the lights brightened in the conference room, Everett met the stunned gaze of Barb Costigan. She had been an investigative reporter herself and could usually be expected to stand fast against government interference with a free press, but: "Utterly unconscionable," she said into the silence.
Professor Rooker nodded gravely. "Of course, Ms. Costigan. But it is different from a few other incidents only in its degree."
"Not true," Leon Cole said. "For one thing, it wasn't even to the point of Cawthorn's candidacy. It was a global message, a—a hymn to hatred," he finished, hoping he had found a useful phrase.
"Why the hell did Cawthorn do it," asked Engels. "It must've queered his chances at the polls."
"Cawthorn never had a chance anyway," said Cole, cynical with his campaign experience. "I suspect Cawthorn did it for more money than the cost of his entire campaign. He made a profit on the Purification Party; it's that simple. What I'd like to know is, where that interview was done."
"I can tell you that much," David Engels said, stretching his long legs restively. "Consider it restricted data. The tape was made in Quebec two weeks ago with private equipment and a CBC man, moonlighting the job. The Mounties just pieced that together in the past couple of days. They had assumed Arif was already in the States when that videotape was shown on a Buffalo station. Arif made a smart move choosing Buffalo. He got coverage in Toronto, too, with the new cable channels."
"They must be turning the whole province upside down for him," Everett said.
"They would've, but they got a strong fresh lead in Toronto yesterday," Engels grimaced. "Turned out to be a very cute diversion, apparently a solo effort using telephone links, a blind lead with a rented aircraft, and so help me God, a thermite bomb to delay tracing him."
"So he's in Toronto?" Rooker's face was hopeful.
"No such luck. Hakim Arif got clear across to Victoria, while the RCMP had its thumb in its ass, pardon me Barb."
"Either he's several people," Everett mused, "or he's mighty spry."
"Spry enough," from Engels. "He made it into Washington State under a little sloop, we think, and the Canadians are damned glad he isn't loose up there anymore. I leave it to your imagination how the Bureau feels. They almost stumbled over him. Well—they'll nail him." Engels's tone suggested an inaudible, maybe.
Thomas Wills coughed politely for attention. "If we can return to the present," he said drily, "I suggest we separately consider drafting statements at your earliest conveniences, to further elaborate existing policy on political messages."
The members scribbled notes, Costigan doodled nervously with her pen. "Could you help with a legal opinion, Mr. Wills?"
The gray brows elevated into a vee in the stolid face. "Not really; it isn't an attorney's problem at this stage. A philosopher's, perhaps. Dr. Rooker?"
A courtly smile from the educator. "You do me honor, Mr. Wills. I think the problem resolves itself, if Mr. Cawthorn fails to achieve public office and uses his terrorist money to buy something besides bullets."
Engels: "But it's inflammatory material! This little Arab isn't just threatening violence, he's promising."
"Just as the Jewish Defense League does, whenever the American Nazi Party schedules a parade. Our system is designed to withstand extremism of many stripes, Mr. Engels," said Rooker, with patient scholastic phrasing.
"Are you forgetting that we are part of that system? If we do nothing, are we delinquent?"
"Over-response is repression, Mr. Engels. Sometimes the best thing to do is—nothing. I think our system can absorb extremist rhetoric."
"So long as it stays purely rhetorical," Everett growled, louder than he intended. He flushed uneasily.
David Engels, the only other member who knew Everett well, snapped his fingers. Costigan jumped. "That's right, you're Jewish, Maury. I'd forgotten."
Everett ran a hand through his bush of graying brown hair. "So do I generally," he said. "It's my mother who's really Jewish, my dad was a goy; she claims I am too." He grinned suddenly, a boyish cast on the ruddy fortyish features: "But don't you say it to her."
"Drown me in chicken soup, most likely," Engels muttered, getting his small laugh.
"It'd put you out of your misery," Everett snarled good-naturedly; "you're already dying in Charlie's old jokes." The riposte was not quite fair: NBN's star comedian, Charlie George, had used the idea in a TV sketch only days before. Charlie was a favorite among the Commissioners, most of whom had met him at some media fete. Carefully awkward in his slapstick, but with overtones of Sahi and Cavett, Charlie George brought to television a sense of the absurd that was layered like veal parmesan, with peppercorns of logic and political truths to sting the unwary palate. Engels was not the first government figure to steal Charlie's material.
Wills coughed again. "The agenda, gentlemen? The other videotapes may constitute new business."
"I'd like to view the Phoenix kidnapping," Barb Costigan said. "I know some of the people involved, and that injunction was granted on what seems like awfully shaky grounds. But again, isn't that a legal matter?"
Wills leaned back, nodding, patting his paunch reflectively. He took his good time with an answer. The Commission had already taken complaints from all three of Phoenix's major network stations on an injunction which, within hours of a banner news event, had prevented television newsmen from using parts of their on-the-spot ENG coverage. The event was unprecedented in media terms, and in a highly public place. Yet the kidnapping of CBS correspondent Wally Conklin had begun in a room of the Phoenix Convention Center, and that room had been rented for a private gathering of newspapermen. The private element was at issue: was it reasonable to prohibit results of electronic news gathering after ENG equipment had been allowed in the room?
"The ENG reporters claimed implied consent," Wills said slowly, "when they carried their ENG equipment in. But not one of them bothered to ask for a release beforehand. They were newsmen covering an event of other newsmen—a family affair, as it were. But the family doesn't always pull together. I tend to stand with the private group—really only one member of it, and a member from another medium, at that. It gets a little complex," he admitted. "Hadn't we better show the tape and then discuss it?"
No one disagreed, partly due to curiosity over footage that had been forbidden to the public.
The videotape began as ranking members of the Investigative Reporters and Editors sat with Wally Conklin, the famed CBS anchorman, in a half-acre room of the Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. The correspondent had been perspiring in the August heat despite air conditioning, and minced no words in his assessments. "Frankly, some network people are afraid to use your findings," he was saying to the IRE members, "because they feel your work has too much emotional carryover from the Don Bolles bombing. We realize it was the Bolles incident that caused the IRE to be formed—but perhaps with too much zeal in your efforts to do what is really police work."