From: George Ramos, Operations Captain Jean Swanson
To: Captain Jean Swanson
Cc: Cliff Dayton
Subject: Re your File: 178/2506.
Request to travel to London granted. Keep us posted on every development.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
London
It took a day and a half working almost round the clock in the bunker for Diamond and Dave Turecamo, his editor, to assemble a rough cut of the report. They hunched over Dave’s laptop editing system at one end of the room. At the other end, Steve and Charlie hovered around a large glass-topped table, scrolling through other documents on their laptops; occasionally consulting a large white board above them filled with scrawled organizational charts, photographs, and scribbled notations. Mike Rourke and Edith Jones kept them supplied with food.
During the few breaks, Ed entertained them with accounts of his various reporting adventures: his classic interview with Saddam Hussein, when he asked the Iraqi dictator why he had pretended he had weapons of mass destruction.
“How do you keep it together when things get really tense?” asked Charlie.
“Old yoga technique,” said Ed. “I take a deep breath, count to five when I let it out. Then take another breath and do the same. Works all the time.”
Steve was interested in a different subject. “What about the problem of corporate control of your broadcasts?” he asked. “I mean, the great majority of media outlets in the United States are owned by mega-corporations. And it’s only getting worse. How can you maintain your independence?”
“I won’t kid you,” said Ed. “It’s a huge challenge.”
“Your network is owned by Riggs Entertainment, correct?” said Steve.
“Since two years ago.”
“Any idea what the company is worth?”
“About three hundred billion dollars, give or take a few billion.”
“What else do they own?” said Charlie.
“Have trouble keeping track myself,” said Ed. “The network’s just a small part of an empire. Riggs also has a movie studio which streams video, and Vibe, which streams music. There’s also Pixtalk on social media.”
“I didn’t know Pixtalk was owned by Riggs,” Charlie said.
“There’s also something like eight independent TV stations, a separate sports network, fifteen cable companies in the U.S., Japan, South Korea and, I think, Turkey, plus a bunch of newspapers, but the papers don’t make much these days.”
“Does that mean you’ve sometimes got to pull your punches in the reports you do?” said Steve.
Ed paused. “So far, no. We did hold off a few years back on a report about the heads of U.S. cigarette companies lying under oath.”
“I remember.”
“Also held back for a while on a story about U.S. torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Afghanistan. Another correspondent got fired when he screwed up on a document regarding the Pentagon. So far, that’s it. But we’ve never put together anything this strong about a sitting U.S. president.” He shrugged. “Always a first time I guess.”
By Friday afternoon London time, they had finished the rough cut. Exhausted, Ed’s editor stumbled off to his bedroom on the fourth floor of the mansion. For Ed, however, it was time to start contacting the outside world.
The first call was to Josh Kantor, the executive producer of Focus. Before scurrying off to catch his flight to London, Diamond had ducked into Kantor’s office with Sarah Levin just behind him, closed the door and said, “Josh, I’m leaving for a couple of days. If it works out, we’ve got a sensational broadcast, biggest scoop in years.”
“About what?” said Kantor, removing his reading glasses to look up at Ed and Sarah. The bookcase behind him held almost as many broadcasting awards as Ed’s.
“I can’t tell you what it’s about,” said Ed.
“Gotta be Stokes,” said Kantor.
“You didn’t hear it from me,” said Ed. “But if it’s as good as my source says, it’ll be dynamite. I’ll have it ready for this Sunday.”
“You going to introduce me to your charming friend,” said Kantor, looking curiously at Sarah.
“This is Sarah, Sarah Levin. Sarah, Josh. She’s going to be installing an app on your laptop.”
“Sounds like fun,” Kantor smiled. “I was thinking you could just use my Skype account. It’s encrypted, right?”
Sarah scowled. “Not encrypted enough to block the NSA and whoever is after us. This app will allow you two to have encrypted phone conversations over the next few days,” she explained. “The calls will be routed through a very sophisticated anonymous relay. Anyone intercepting them will have no idea where on the planet they’re coming from.”
“Great, but just so I’ll know, where the hell will it really be coming from?” said Kantor raising his hands.
Sarah shook her head, “Can’t tell you,” she said. “And you’d never understand the geeky details.” The previous day, she’d made a quick round trip to Washington to set up the same secure facility on the private line of Senator Bill Gurd.
“Ed, wait,” said Kantor, raising his voice. “As your supposed boss, I at least get to know where the fuck you’re going.”
“Sorry, Josh, I’ll be in touch by Friday. You gotta trust me on this one. If anyone asks what I’m up to, just tell them it’s something to do with corruption in a U.S. embassy somewhere.”
Since arriving in London, Ed had called Josh once over the encrypted line to assure him that everything was on track, but he still refused to give any details on the report. Now, two days later – early Friday afternoon in London and Friday morning in New York – Ed put in an encrypted call to Kantor’s Focus office.
“Josh, the story is for real. A major scoop, believe me. It will be the coup de grace for Stokes. It’s about his illicit financial dealings – hundreds of millions of dollars – with Kozlov and a handful of Russia’s biggest billionaire crooks. It’s dynamite. Also a great personal bravery/crusading story about the former CIA agent who cracked this whole thing wide open. We’ve got him exclusive. I’ll be sending you an encrypted script, but here are the details.”
Diamond continued for the next fifteen minutes to outline the report to Kantor, interrupted by the executive producer’s increasingly wary questions. “Sounds like it could be a winner, Ed,” said Kantor cautiously. “But between thee and me, taking on Stokes with these kinds of accusations could be a real challenge.”
“Not when you’ve got the kind of ammunition we do,” said Ed.
“Who are your sources?” asked Kantor.
“I told you,” said Ed. “This former CIA agent, Steve Penn. He was the one who headed the goddamned CIA investigation into Russian hacking. He’s handed us a pile of documents. We’ve been checking it all out over the last couple of days. Everything’s fine.”
“Where do the documents come from?” said Kantor.
“From the agent’s sources.”
“And who are they?”
“He can’t say. Their lives would be on the line. But they’re all legit. Believe me.”
“I’ll have to let the lawyers look at them,” said Kantor.
“Fine. We can encrypt the main ones and send them to you, along with our translations. The lawyers can also go over the script. But they will have to read it live in front of you, I don’t want a copy floating around even for a second before we air it.”
“So, finally, where the hell are you?” asked Kantor.
“Still can’t reveal that,” said Diamond. “Every bloody intelligence agency in the U.S. and Russia is going to be looking for us if they aren’t already. Everyone here is restricted to base until we feed the piece.”