“You’ll get it.”
“I know you didn’t call to tell me that,” Stolojan said. “Was there something you needed?”
Danielle hesitated. “I called for Lizuca. I keep getting her answering machine.”
“She went home.” Stolojan remembered the picture of the CIA man, Alexander Cody, that Lizuca had searched for.
“That’s unusual.”
“Why?”
“She told me she would help me with some research I was doing. She’s never walked away from an assignment I asked her to take care of for me before.”
“I told her not to waste her time pursuing the information you wanted.”
“Waste her time?” Danielle’s voice rose in disbelief and anger. “Mr. Stolojan, there is a CIA team operating in this city that is at odds with the U.S. Rangers for some reason. I’ve seen them, and I want to identify them. Given the present state of affairs here, I’d think that would be of some importance.”
“Your mission there is to relay the news, Ms. Vinchenzo,” Stolojan replied in an icy voice. “Not make the news.”
“A CIA team—”
“Is of no interest to the news stories we’re currently covering there,” Stolojan said. “The people want coverage of the war. The Western world wants to see how the United States military is handling things, just as they did in Iraq. Our presence there with the stories they want is improving our market share in those areas. We are going to give them coverage of the war. Not stories about the CIA, who are probably there in an intelligence support capacity.” He paused. “Are we clear on that?”
“Crystal.” Danielle’s voice was cold, distant.
“Good.” Stolojan grinned, enjoying his triumph. He loved squashing the plans of others. The sense of power he got when he was doing so gave him a feeling of exhilaration that was unmatched by anything else in his life. “Then I’ll expect that interview about the casualties taken there soon?”
“Soon.”
“Very good, Ms. Vinchenzo. Did you need anything else?”
“No.”
“Good day.” Stolojan broke the phone connection and returned his attention to the plate of biscuits. He glanced at the wall of monitors, spending more of his time spying on the building’s employees than watching the news. Over the years, he’d learned that controlling the news was a simple matter. Carpathia had become a master of it, and it was that skill that had brought him the presidency of Romania only a few days ago.
Those same skills now had gotten Carpathia an invitation to New York City to speak to the United Nations. OneWorld NewsNet continued to farm out footage of interviews with Carpathia, of his ascension to the Romanian presidency as well as his news conferences regarding his decision to go to the United States in these confused times. Other national news agencies had access to the interviews Carpathia would grant while in New York City and to his first address to the United Nations.
But the actions of OneWorld’s employees interested Stolojan most. He exercised his control over them relentlessly. In Romania’s struggling economy, working at OneWorld had quite literally changed their lives and the lives of their families.
Only Danielle Vinchenzo remained beyond Stolojan’s reach.
But hopefully not for long. Stolojan grinned in anticipation and reached for another biscuit. She would make a mistake or serve past her usefulness. Then she would be his. Stolojan had already been promised.
18
OneWorld NewsNet Mobile Platform
Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local Time 1129 Hours
Weary and worn, Danielle gazed around the RV news center. The past few hours had brought precious little in the way of answers. However, they had gigabytes of brutal and bloody imagery from the attacks. The death toll was going to be high—again—when the final numbers came in.
If those numbers ever did, Danielle thought with a chill. No one knew for sure how many citizens of Sanliurfa remained within the city’s walls. Many had fled in the first wave during the SCUD attacks, and others had disappeared over the ensuing days. Still more had already formed another mass, ready to flee at daybreak.
Captain Remington hadn’t returned her message about conducting a live interview. Maybe he was awaiting clearance from the Joint Chiefs, but Danielle believed that the Ranger captain was still caught up in whatever was going on with the CIA team in Sanliurfa.
She clicked her digital camera to life and brought the CIA man’s picture onto the screen again. She remembered him from the time she had seen him in Bucharest. Who are you?
The image remained silent.
Irritable and cranky, Danielle switched off the camera and gazed up at the feeds other news agencies pumped out. Local television stations in the area picked up those feeds, but they weren’t able to hit the at-home audiences in the United States the way they hoped. Their phone communications appeared to remain intact, but they couldn’t get video feeds out on the stories they covered.
Danielle felt badly for the other reporters. During brief lunches or meetings she’d had with them, the occasional debriefings held by Captain Remington and his Turkish counterpart, Captain Mkchian, all of the reporters had lamented the fact that they didn’t have access to the rest of the world like OneWorld NewsNet did.
Stolojan’s smarmy voice still echoed in Danielle’s mind, setting off land mines of anger and frustration. When she’d taken the job with OneWorld NewsNet a few days ago, she hadn’t considered that she might get a news producer who was so narrow-minded. After the years she’d put into the business, though, she knew she should have known better.
Impatient, Danielle stood suddenly, drawing the attention of the people working the computers and breaking down the footage and stories she and her team had turned in last night and so far this morning.
“I’ve got to stretch my legs,” Danielle said.
“You should get some sleep,” Costin Bogasieru advised, barely taking the time to glance away from the two monitors he scanned. His fingers never hesitated on the keyboard as he changed lighting, color, and film speed. Pieces of camera shots filled the monitor as
