For the older members of this small group, the image that Jax Mason had edited in next evoked the haunting memory of a still photograph from a previous generation: one of a young Vietnamese girl screaming, tears streaming, arms flailing, running frantically for her life. For others it triggered flashes of ash-caked hair and the blank faces of bewildered souls straggling up from the World Trade Centre decades later, or blood-spattered commuters emerging out of the London Tube. Jax’s own graphic was “shot” at the 42nd Street subway station. A young businesswoman, glued to her cell phone, was strutting up the subway exit steps when an invisible force hoisted her up off the ground and flung her violently forward through the air, her feet flapping unable to get purchase on anything, and slammed her with a nauseating thud through the side of a passing delivery truck.
Jax’s simulation was sickeningly lifelike. One or two seconds later, while a number of Isis’s accomplices were rubbing their suddenly parched lips or pinching the tops of their noses, the same truck was mashed by what moments before had been a 40-floor office building.
As the underground crater greedily gaped below, devouring whatever was fed to it from above, the tremor’s assault drove upwards. The street above was an easy victim. They watched on-screen as Times Square split apart like a dry cracker and whole sections collapsed in single chunks into the widening cavern, dunking screaming street vendors, bumper-to-bumper cars and Yellow Cabs, and every other bit of human detritus unlucky enough to have been there.
Buildings shook, tall and small, glass blew out, shards speared bystanders frozen in shock. The famed flashing signs and illuminated billboards flickered, convulsed and randomly sputtered out. Almost one by one they tore loose of their moorings, segments swayed and ripped off, tumbling down to crash on the street or onto the few people still there, or into the ever-growing hole into which more of the roadway was still falling.
For the first time in its life, Broadway had become an understatement.
“Terrorists could do this,” warned the on-screen caption.
“If you don’t want that…,” it offered a menu of the subway design modifications Jax was convinced were essential.
“This could happen almost anywhere: New York, Washington DC, London… any city with an interlinked subway.”
“This is the key to turning the election around,” said Isis, cool as ice. “If we need to do that, if things pan out so it is necessary, this is how we’ll do it.”
Even Diana swallowed.
24
ISABEL WOKE AT five, as usual, and leant over and picked up the photograph. “So I’m half-Chilean, half-Bolivian. Like an alpaca,” she smiled at her father’s picture, “though not so well-bred.”
She swung out of bed, threw on a fluffy robe and opened the door into her hotel suite sitting room. A female Secret Service agent who’d flown in with her was on the lounge reading a book and jumped up to greet her, the paperback spilling to the floor. Isabel saw it had a pastel pink cover. The agent blushed and quickly pointed out the table laden with fresh coffee, bagels and a package of news wires and articles from the Sunday papers.
Isabel poured them both a coffee and took the news pack back with her into the bedroom.
Not surprisingly, almost all the newsclips were about Close-up. The free publicity they’d generated for tonight’s show would be worth an entire month’s campaign spending.
The speculation was rampant but not one paper had anything firm or believable. One ridiculous story had Isabel in an intriguing sex romp with a black woman, but that was in a British tabloid. Among the pages she was flicking through was a faxed single sheet with “love Gregory” scrawled across the bottom. It was headed “Scoop”:
Chilean to land-locked Bolivian: “Definition of absurd: a Bolivian navy.”
Bolivian to Chilean: “Definition of absurd: Chilean Ministry of Justice.”
Isabel’s spirits lifted. Gregory was her Mr Fixit, her cheerleader, her know-everything, do-everything. And yet, he could still take the time to lower the heat with a joke. After she’d worked her way through the pile, she switched on cable and flicked through the channels. The speculation about Close-up had hit rival networks like FOX, CNN, you name it. But there was no breaking news, not about her.
Not even “sources close to” the program were giving anything away. It looked to Isabel like the network had managed a complete lockdown on the story.
She switched on her cell phone for messages. Ed had sent her a text message at around 3 AM: “If UR reading this B4 I call U, go back 2 sleep. CU in Auto Alley.”
She smiled and phoned him anyway.
Ed had heard nothing but told her he’d cancelled his London trip—he was supposed to fly out that morning—and was coming to Detroit to be with her. “I won’t get there in time for Mass,” he joked.
“Shame,” Isabel retorted, “You’re the one who really needs it.”
“I’ll get there for the debate prep, okay?” Isabel breathed a little deeper knowing he’d be there to support her during the Close-up timeslot.
AS Isabel went down in the elevator, she skimmed the background briefings on people she’d meet during the day. Her media arranger started giving her the rundown on what to expect with the press hounds waiting downstairs and on the radio program they were heading to: Bobby Foster’s new tax policy, her promise for improved health insurance portability…