"And why won't anyone sponsor him?"
"The guy is a handful. He's worked for everybody, then gets into pissing matches, and gets fired," she says. "But forget about Snyder for a moment. Do you have any stories you're doing while he's away?"
"I have some ideas."
"But you haven't filed anything, right?"
"Not yet."
"Good. Look, you don't have a laptop, so come work out of my office," she says. "I want to keep an eye on you."
On Winston's arrival the next morning, Zeina glances up from her computer, fingers still typing. "Gotta take care of this bulletin. Sit. I'll be done in two minutes." She completes it and shakes out her fingers. "Let's go-I'm taking you to your first presser."
But not so fast: Winston has no accreditation to get into a press conference and is stopped at the door of the Arab League. Zeina does her utmost but cannot pull him in with her. Eventually, she sneaks a Palestinian undersecretary out to him. The undersecretary, who speaks English, patiently explains the goings-on inside. Winston scrambles his pen across the page but has never taken down quotes before and finds speech unexpectedly rapid; within three words, the sentence is off and running while his pen straggles behind. Eventually, the undersecretary excuses himself.
"What did you get?" Zeina asks.
Winston studies his notes, which consist of opening phrases-"We believe that…" or "The real problem is…" or "What you must know is…"-followed by unintelligible scrawl.
"A couple of good bits," he replies.
She sets him up at a spare computer in her office and leaves him to write. He is still at it when she goes home for the night. "Call me if you're going to file anything to the paper," she says. "I want to check it first."
But by the next morning he still hasn't finished. In the late afternoon, he finally shows her a draft.
"Well," she says, after a quick read, "it's a start. Definitely a start. I do have a couple of comments."
"Please, go ahead."
"First off, a standard rule for a news article-and I don't mean to mow down your creativity here-is to identify the location and the day at some point. Also, you should cite the names of anyone you talk to. And you might want to avoid using the word 'thing' so much."
"Otherwise it looks okay?"
"Well, this is a test story-let's consider it like that."
"Do you think the paper will want it?"
"It is slightly old by now."
"It happened yesterday morning."
"Which is old in news terms. I'm sorry-I tend to be fairly negative, so don't take my comments too much to heart. But I have to say, you spend way too many words getting to the nut of this story. Also, I felt the undersecretary's goatee received too much attention. Frankly, I wouldn't even mention it."
"I thought it was germane."
"Not in the lead. Don't get me wrong-I like your attempts to insert color. But I felt you were trying too hard at times. Like this bit: 'As he spoke, the yellow Egyptian sun shone very brightly, as if that golden sphere were blazing with the very hope for peace in the Middle East that burned also within the heart of the Palestinian undersecretary for sports, fishing, and wildlife.'"
"I considered deleting that line."
"I'm not even sure it's grammatical. And, for the record, the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict do not 'hark back to an ancient spelling mistake.' Not that I've ever heard."
"I thought that might draw the reader in."
"But it's not true."
"I don't know, Zeina-the undersecretary spoke so fast. And somebody went by selling ice cream. The noise. It distracted me."
"I know-you mention the ice-cream vendor in your article."
"A bit of local color, I thought. So I shouldn't offer it to the paper?"
"Offer it, by all means."
"Or maybe not."
"Look, come back tomorrow. We'll find you another story."
Admittedly, his first attempt flopped. But, as he heads back to the apartment, Winston is electrified-he has conducted a real interview. This was actual journalism. His mobile rings, triggering instant panic: maybe it's Menzies from the paper, demanding stories. No such luck.
"Wassup, bro?"
"Snyder, hi."
"In the Nile Valley. Military commandos. Islamists."
"I'm sorry? I'm hearing only bits of what you're saying. You're coming in telegraphically. Can you repeat that?"
"Aid groupie satphone. Charges by minute. Talk fast. How's research?"
"The stuff you asked me to do? To be completely honest, I haven't had tons of time to work on it. I've sort of been trying to do my own stories. Anyway, it sounds like you're in a rush, so I won't get into the details. Point is I've had difficulty doing the research. In part because you have my laptop."
"Did Kathleen call?"
"No," Winston responds. "Why? Was she supposed to?"
"Halt your story. Do my research."
"She said that?"
"Massive project. Award candidate. In or out?"
"Are you serious?"
"In? Or out?"
Winston settles into a carrel at the American University library. At first, he is irked at having to do Snyder's bidding, but is soon drawn into the material. He cannot deny a certain relief in being able to sift through academic tomes, fulfilling his journalistic duty without having to barge past security guards at the Arab League or grab man-on-the-street from women at the market. This library work is easily his favorite part of reporting so far. Indeed, he grows so engrossed that he's still at it three days later, when Snyder returns to town.
They arrange to meet for lunch at L'Aubergine.
Snyder arrives twenty minutes late, chattering into his cellphone. He sits and continues talking. After ten more minutes, he clicks off his phone. "Wicked to see you, bro."
"No problem," Winston says, though Snyder hasn't apologized for anything. "I've got that research you wanted."
Snyder digs a finger into Winston's hummus. "Awesome time down there. I ditched my military watchers on, like, day one. Met up with the Bedouins. Infiltrated the muj. Riding donkeys. Sugarcane fields. Choppers. Bunker-busting. Madrassas. Extremist training camps. You should have come."
"I got the sense you wanted to go alone."
"Ohmigod-are you kidding? All I want is for the news to come out."
"Did you meet any terrorists?"
"The real deal, bro." He pauses. "Not full-on Qaeda. But they're way up the waiting list."
"There's an application process?"
"Totally. OBL is whacked that way."
"Who's OBL?"
"Osama," he replies. "I don't know him that good. We only met, like, twice. Back in Tora Bora. Good times."
"What's he like?"
"Tall. That's what hits home most. If he hadn't taken a wrong turn, maybe a career in professional sports. That's the tragedy of this conflict-so much talent wasted. Whatever. The thing that pisses me off about GWOT is the ignorance. Don't get me wrong-I reject extremism in all forms. I only hope that, in a small way, people might read my work and hear the voice that cries out in every article."
"And what is that voice saying?"
"I'm gonna finish the hummus, 'kay?"
Winston piles three binders on the table. "Almost everything you asked for. There's a table of contents and an index."
Snyder eats without looking up.
Winston makes another attempt. "Do you want me to leave it here?"
"Keep it, guy. My present to you."
"Don't you want the research?"
"Don't you read the paper, dude? The story already came out."
Winston absorbs this. "I got a contributor's tag for a story I didn't even read?"
"But you said not to put your name on my story. Didn't you say that in an email or something?"
"Never."
"Yeah, you did. Since obviously it was, like, my story and stuff." He dive-bombs his hand into Winston's eggplant dip. "So, you gonna try freelancing now?"
"Well, I'm still going for this stringer job."