Ignoring the pleas from the crowd for information about loved ones’ futures, stock tips, answers, answers, answers, Will pointedat the nearest camera crew and motioned them forward. A trim, middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair seemed to be the manin charge—he was wearing a suit and had a microphone in his hand and had the polished vibe of a news anchor.
Once he was close enough, Will leaned over and shouted over the crowd noise, right into the man’s ear.
“You’re going to have to do an uplink with this signal,” Will said.
The anchor gave him a puzzled look. Will pointed at the camera.
“I need this to go someplace specific,” he said, in an attempt to clarify. “What’s your name?”
“Crandall Fontaine,” the anchor said, who didn’t seem like he had completely processed the situation.
“Okay, Crandall, do you have a tech guy I can talk to?” Will said.
The anchor nodded. He waved to a heavyset man standing nearby.
“Jerry! Get up here,” Crandall Fontaine called.
The tech approached warily, his eyes never leaving Will’s face.
“Jerry,” Will said, keeping his voice calm and patient. “Hold on just one sec. I’ll need your help.”
He turned back to the helicopter.
“I need the phone again,” he shouted at Grunfeld, still lurking in the open cabin door.
Will was expecting to have to spend another few minutes convincing the Coach to give him the phone, but it sailed out of thehelicopter door without a word. Evidently she had decided she was in for a penny, might as well be in for a pound. Will caughtthe phone neatly. He turned back to Jerry the tech and held it up.
“Now, Jerry, in a little while, someone will call this number. You’re going to talk to them and get the signal where it’ssupposed to go. The footage from here will need to be sent someplace else, I think via satellite, and you’ll be receivinganother feed the same way. The person over there needs to see and hear me, and I need to be able to see and hear them. Canyou do that?”
“Yes, sir,” Jerry answered. “Should be simple, if they have the right gear.”
“Good.”
Will handed Jerry the phone.
He stepped back and looked around the roof, making eye contact with different faces in the crowd, seeing the surge of eagernesswhenever someone thought they’d made a connection. They wanted him to help. They wanted him to save the day.
Will turned around and climbed back up into the helicopter. He pulled the door shut behind him. The aircraft had good soundproofing—ithad to, because of the rotors’ din. The sudden silence once the door latched shut was a balm to Will’s noise-lacerated ears.
Will stepped toward the seats containing Leigh and the mercenary guarding her.
“Move,” Will said to the man.
They locked eyes.
A beat.
The soldier stood. Will sat down next to Leigh.
“What’s happening?” she said.
“It’s all getting set up. It’ll take a few minutes.”
Leigh considered this.
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
“Of course,” he answered.
“What do I do, Will?”
“For a living?”
“Yes,” Leigh said. “For a living.”
“You’re a journalist,” Will said.
“What kind?”
Will thought this over.
“For a website,” he said.
“Correct,” Leigh said. “So why in the world would I know anything about TV stations in Denver?”
Will frowned.
“I . . . guess I didn’t think about it. Just seemed like something you would know. But you did, right?”
Leigh looked at him, very intent.
“I used to date a guy in college. After graduation, he moved out here and took a job with KUSA. I visited him a few times,saw where he worked. That’s the only reason I knew. I shouldn’t have, but I did. We had zero time—the Coach was two secondsfrom ordering her guy to shoot us, and I had exactly the information you needed, at exactly the right moment. What is that, Will?”
Will exhaled, a long, slow breath that communicated an utter lack of surprise at what he’d just heard.
“What can I say, Leigh?” he said. “The Site provides.”
Leigh reached out and gripped his forearm.
“Please, Will,” Leigh said. “Tell me you’ve really got a plan.”
“Answer the lady,” the Coach said. “What are you doing, Mr. Oracle?”
“Waiting,” Will said.
He leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes.
Chapter 45
The streets swarmed. An immense crowd, thousands strong, had gathered around KUSA headquarters, filling every open spot aroundthe building, flowing across the grounds of the golf course up the street. People screamed, their hands in the air, tearsrunning down their faces.
The Oracle had descended from the mountain—he was, in fact, standing on the steps of a helicopter on the roof of the televisionstation with a thick black cord tied around his waist—and, oh, the things he could tell them.
“Jerry!” Will shouted over the crowd noise, calling over to the KUSA technician, who was standing not far away next to a nervous-seemingcameraman, each holding portable video equipment with cords trailing back across the roof and into the building through anopen access door. “How we doing?”
“Hello, sir,” Jerry said. “It’s all set up. Good to go.”
Will looked at the crowd.
“This won’t work. I can’t hear anything. Can we do it in the helicopter?”
Jerry thought for a moment.
“I don’t see why not.”
“Good. Bring the camera guy inside.”
“What about Mr. Fontaine?”
Will had forgotten about the station’s anchor. He looked now and saw him standing slightly off to one side, anxiously awaitingwhat he thought was his golden ticket—mediating some sort of conversation between the Oracle and Törökul. Crandall Fontaineflashed Will a broad smile.
“We don’t need him, I’m sorry. There’s not much room in there, anyway.”
“I’ll let him know, sir.”
Will thought he detected a little satisfaction in Jerry’s tone.
Moments later, Will was back in the helicopter, sitting opposite a cameraman with a monitor next to him displaying a grainy,poorly lit image of the rock-strewn floor of a dry desert canyon. It was night in Qandustan, and outside the circle of lightshown in the monitor, the canyon faded quickly into inky blackness.
