Alive Day
"I didn't know that people didn't like working for me."
"Do you care?"
"No." Pause. "Of course I care. Anybody would care." Another pause, another pivot. "But honestly, I don't." Having exhausted the number of positions he could take on the same issue, Will decided it was time to apply indignation to his argument. "I am a perfectly nice guy and I have the focus group data to prove it, so maybe the problem lies not with me—"
Charlie seemed on the verge of laughter. "I hired a new EP for you."
"What do you mean?" The indignation reached fever pitch and Will's hands gripped the edge of the table, telegraphing his surprise and frustration at the turn in the conversation. "I'm never going on vacation again. You hired a new EP without my meeting him?"
"Yep. One of MacKenzie's guys." Reading the mixture of incredulity and growing anger on the other man's face, Charlie spoke even more rapidly. "I had to right the ship, Will. You're too big an asset to screw around with and your focus group data isn't saying what it said three weeks ago."
"Charlie, have you hired to run my show—without consulting me—" Will ensured each syllable was distinct for impact.
"His name's Harper, James Harper. He was in Peshawar with her, the Green Zone for a year before that. They were filing stories from caves—"
"I know that and I don't care. Not MacKenzie, and not her people—not for my show—"
"She comes home and there's nothing for her at CNN, nothing for her at ABC." Charlie's voice dropped with sadness. "Nothing for her here, either, because she knew you wouldn't—"
"Absolutely not."
"She's exhausted, Will, they all are. Not like at the end of a long day. Mentally and physically exhausted. They've been shot at in three different countries and been to way too many funerals for kids their ages. She called me and asked me to give him a chance—"
"She's just using it as a chance to worm her way—"
"She didn't ask for herself."
"Just a matter of time."
"Goddammit, Will. You don't know what happened—"
Resolute, Will shook his head. "I can't give my approval. Not MacKenzie, and none of her acolytes—"
Charlie leaned back and crossed his arms. "Well. It's happened. He's coming up from Washington today."
"The hell it's happened. I have approval over my executive producer."
"You would think so, wouldn't you? Business Affairs went through your whole deal. Na-da. It's not gonna go your way, Will."
oooo
"Yes?"
"I'm Jim Harper."
Maggie scrunched her face in an exaggerated pose of recall.
"The new EP. I'm supposed to be meeting with Will. Will McAvoy."
"Will. Oh yes, Will." She looked relieved at the familiarity of that name, at least.
"Is Will in his office?" Jim tried to look over the young woman's shoulder.
"He should be back any minute now. He had to talk with Charlie—"
"Skinner? The news division president?" Jim brought one hand up to rub his temple.
This didn't bode well.
"What's your name?"
"Maggie. Margaret." She let a beat pass before revising it again. "Margaret Jordan." Beat. "But Maggie's fine."
"Okay, Maggie. Let me try to guess at something and you tell me how close I am to being right. My being here may have been done behind Will's back and he just found out now, and he stormed off to see why he doesn't have approval."
Another beat, followed by a slow nod. As Jim began to recalibrate his expectations for the afternoon, Maggie suddenly spied a familiar face passing through the bullpen.
"Don? Don? Over here." She waved him over. "You should meet Jim Harper."
"Harper," Don repeated. "You the new hire?"
"Yeah. I'm replacing the guy who's going to 10pm with Hirsch."
"That would be me. Don Keefer."
They shook hands
"Were you with MacKenzie in Afghanistan? I mean, Charlie told me—"
"Yeah," Jim hurried to cut him off. "Afghanistan. And Iraq. Sometimes Pakistan. A little over two years' worth of sand and shitty food."
Don made the requisite little chuckle. "I interned under Mac a long time ago. How is she?"
For the first time during the exchange, Jim seemed to become reticent. "She's—she's fine. Why?"
"Well, I mean—Charlie said there had been an explosion and that—"
"She's okay. Mac is okay." Jim repeated it like a mantra, which immediately made Don uncomfortable and a little suspicious. So he changed the subject.
"You ever produce from the studio?"
"For about a year in Atlanta before Mackenzie took me out. Sporadically since. CNN really didn't have a place for us."
They both became aware of a presence. Will had materialized behind Don.
"You him?"
"Yeah." Jim knew exactly who this was and the attitude to expect.
"In my office."
Once the door had closed, Will leaned back in his chair.
"Tell me who you are again."
"Jim Harper. I think Mr. Skinner was supposed to—"
"Well, I respect Charlie's judgment and all, but I have some say over who's going to produce my show. So, when I hire the new EP, who I will hire by hiring him myself—whoever it is, is going to be—"
"You're saying I don't have a job—"
"I'm saying you don't have this job. Yet."
Jim threw his hands up. "I quit my job at CNN for this. But you don't want me or the three people I brought with me from Atlanta—who, by the way, are in the process of moving themselves and their families. They've put down security deposits. They've found daycares and roommates."
"None of that can't possibly be my problem."
"But it is." Overheated, Jim reached to loosen the unfamiliar necktie strangling him. "Look. I've come here to produce a news broadcast that I am told resembles the one you did before you got popular by not bothering anyone. Mr. Skinner brought me in to help you. Now, do I need to call him to referee this thing?"
"I'm the referee, Scooter. I'm the umpire. I'm the goddam commissioner of baseball where you are concerned. I'm the ultimate authority for this show. That's all you need to—"
Jim thrust his hands into his pockets. "Then I'll let you tell Skinner why I—"
"MacKenzie set all this up, behind my back," Will seethed. "You're just collateral damage, and don't think I can't hear her words in everything you just said. She's not going to run my show, even remotely, through you. I'll make the decision on the best EP for my—
"You already missed the best EP for your show." Jim crossed his arms and glared at the other man.
"—And he will have the judgment and experience to helm a show like this one."
Jim took a deep breath and plunged in. "Last week, the second longest-serving Congressman in the House was forced to step down from the Ways and Means Committee over ethics violations. The president signed the Affordable Care Act, which may radically alter health care in this country. And the U.S. Department of Education proposed a nationally standardized curriculum, which may wrest education away from state control. Meanwhile, News Night devoted one whole show to a sneak peek at the new iPhone 4—"
"Technology is news," Will shot back, unmindful of the petulant tone that had crept into his voice.
"That was product placement, not news," Jim dismissed. "Oh, and News Night also spent the better part of an hour on that movie that won an Academy Award—"
"It was a movie about the war in Iraq," Will insisted, as if that was prima facie evidence.
"—And the rest of the time pitching softball questions to Sarah Palin."
"And your point is?"
"I can't believe I actually have to say this," Jim muttered to the room, before returning his attention back to Will. "You need to be reclaiming journalism as an honorable profession. Skip the gladiatorial combat for ratings and advertising dollars, and make this the nightly newscast that informs a debate worthy of a great nation."
Will threw a hand up to cover his face. "Oh, god. I hear her in every syllable."
"Yeah. I guess the only real differences between her and you are her two Peabodys and the scar from the explosion—" Jim stopped abruptly and took a deep breath to calm down. "But I can see where you wouldn't be interested in any of that," with loaded irony.
Jim's phone chirped at the same time Maggie entered the office.
"There's—there's—Neal says there's a iNews yellow alert for—"
"—An explosion in the gulf," Jim informed the others, having dug his phone from his pocket. "It looks like—oh, this is gonna be big." He looked up from his phone, the gears in his head visibly turning.
Will understood the look and suddenly capitulated. After all, Don was still moving to 10pm with Hirsch and News Night still needed someone. It might take weeks to put out feelers and interview likely candidates.
"Okay, Jim Harper. I didn't buy any of that bullshit you just said, but can you start two weeks early? You'll do for the interim. So, for the moment, your people can have their jobs."
Jim hesitated, uncertain of the small victory and feeling the need to cement it.
"They're really good. You're gonna want to keep them." Suffused with the win, he immediately overplayed his hand. "You know what—something great is going to happen here and you're gonna proud to be a part of it. This is a solid promise: We're going to do the best news on TV."
"Get out of my office."
oooo
The four days immediately following the Deepwater Horizon gusher were hectic and intense. Having broken the story—at least, such salient parts of the story as the inability of BP to cap the well and the potential environmental harm—News Night led, authoritatively, in the follow-ups. The young team under Jim Harper's aegis snagged prized interviewees ahead of other news programs
Will McAvoy was in an enviable and unusual spot. His show at ACN had nabbed both the prestige and the ratings.
Except…
He couldn't help but feel that he was treading on someone else's largesse. That—had it not been for Neal's quick finger on the mouse or Jim's connections—that perhaps ACN might not have fared so well.
In other words, he knew how lucky he was.
But when he considered deeper, tried to trace the source of that luck, he reached only one conclusion.
MacKenzie.
It was through her intervention that Harper was there, and it was only through Harper's presence that the rest had been possible. Sampat was a smart guy, but he wouldn't have found traction with the story on his own. Very possibly no one would have even dared breach Will's inner sanctum with the initial iNews alert.
His curiosity about her had been piqued, and he resented having her in his thoughts again.
At least, she wasn't working in New York. He'd have heard about it by now. If she was competition at another network, he'd definitely know. It would be impossible to hide Mac's professional light under a bushel.
There's nothing for her at CNN. So, she wasn't in Atlanta, either, according to Charlie.
Must be back home in Old Blighty, then.
Good place for her. Lots of distance between the two of them. No need to worry about accidental encounters or mutual acquaintances.
He made a mental note to look her whereabouts sometime, because he wanted to be certain.
oooo
A week later, Jim stood in front of a dry erase board and gestured with the tip of his marker to each bullet-point.
"'Is this information we need in the voting booth?' 'Is this the best possible form of the argument?' and 'Is the story in historical context?'" He capped the marker and turned around. "You can use a mnemonic device. The three I's."
Perched on the edge of Neal's desk, Will cradled a Diet Dr. Pepper and watched the antics on the other side of the glass-walled conference room. Hands shot up around the table. Professor Jim was surely regurgitating MacKenzie-isms by now.
Will took a sip.
"—Civility, respect, and a return to what's important. Speaking truth to stupid. We have the chance to be among the few people who can frame that debate—" Jim noticed the pairs of eyes glazing over at his rhetoric, so he decided to simply bring it home.
"There simply aren't two sides to every story. Some stories have five sides, some only have one. One party says it's raining outside, the other party says it isn't. Our job—" Jim put both fists down on the table, "our job is to go outside and see which is true."
The younger faces around the table nodded sagely. Will could almost visualize the light bulbs glowing over their heads. All that idealistic crap.
It was one hundred percent MacKenzie McHale.
"Okay, so Kendra's booked us the governor tonight for nine minutes. She's only talking to Will about this state bill 1070, this Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act that requires immigrants carry their alien registration documents at all times."
"No panel?" Gary Cooper seemed surprised.
"Nope. Our studio is a courtroom and we only call expert witnesses. Will is the attorney for both sides and he only deals in facts. Not opinions, not party positions—only facts. You will be amazed at the guests we will book using that obvious template."
Jim consulted the wall clock. "Okay. We've got four hours until show. Neal, I need you to get something up on the blog—what we talked about earlier is fine. And Maggie, I need you for a pre-interview with Governor Brewer's office."
After the others had filed out and as Jim began to gather and square his papers, Will sauntered into the conference room.
"I was surprised you didn't actually start baptizing the disciples."
Jim managed a sheepish smile. "Trying to give them some sense of scale of the importance of this thing we do every day. Keep them motivated."
"Hmm. Well, you've had two good weeks."
Jim couldn't help but notice that, while Will noted the coverage, he hadn't yet handed out any praise for it. And it made him a suspicious.
"So—what, you're canning me?"
Jim was only being slightly facetious. His continued employment at ACN had begun to feel more like an oversight on Will's part than any discrete decision.
"I'm saying, you've had a good two weeks, Scooter, so don't screw anything up." Will made a huff that might have been a chuckle. But to make sure that Jim still squirmed a bit, in penance for the whole 'News Night 2.0' lecture he'd inflicted on the staff earlier, he added, "I'm keeping all my options open, though."
Jim nodded slowly. They were just perpetuating the professional truce, was all. Will was trying to remain noncommittal on the subject of whether Jim had earned the job yet.
"I heard what you said earlier. A lot of it sounded… um, familiar." Then, in an abrupt change of conversation, Will suddenly asked, "So, what did you do in the war, Ike?"
Jim felt the edge behind Will's jocularity. This wasn't just friendly get-to-know-you conversation. The other man was fishing for something.
"I reported for fifteen months from Afghanistan and Iraq. I lost a couple of friends. I took a slug." Jim's eyes had narrowed and he looked confrontational.
Will seemed genuinely impressed. "Where?"
"Outside Kabul. That's in—"
"I know where Kabul is. Remember, I report news every night. What I meant was, where'd you get shot?"
A touchier distinction.
"Um… the glute."
"You were shot in the ass?"
"Nothing wrong with that," Jim shrugged, knowing that Will disparaging the injury still couldn't diminish actually being wounded under live fire. "Safest place to be shot, actually. Muscle, not soft organs." He continued moving papers around, waiting for Will to resume.
"So—was that the day MacKenzie saved your life?" With that same studied nonchalance.
"She wasn't there that day."
Will made a judicial hum of acknowledgement. "That sounds about right. Not around when you—"
Suddenly, Jim saw red.
"You don't know what the fuck you're talking about." The profanity, coming as it did from the lips of one who had a mild demeanor and had never raised his voice in anger during a stressful two weeks in the newsroom, had the desired effect. "The week before, there had been an IED—"
"And that was when she saved everyone?"
"Look. I get that you don't like me for my association with someone whom you'd—well, I'd say you'd rather forget, except that you're the one who keeps bringing her up. So maybe you need to ask yourself why it's so important to you."
"It isn't," Will snapped, reflexively. "I don't want to know anything from you except what's important to this show. Got it?"
"Roger that."
oooo
Will waited impatiently in Charlie's office, idly inspecting the rows of memorabilia displayed on Charlie's bookshelves. The one that most interested him was a bronze disk, with George Foster Peabody embossed around the bottom. On the base of the statuette, there was a small brass plate with supplementary words: Charles A. Skinner, Television News, 1975.
"How're things going down there?" Charlie entered his office, coming up behind Will and then retreating to his desk chair.
Will sighed and turned. "I came up to personally apologize for tonight's show."
"It got away from you a little."
"It bordered on unprofessional."
"Here's professional," Charlie put one hand on his desk, "here's the border, and here's unprofessional, and waaaay back here is tonight's show." Despite the implicit rebuke, Charlie's eyes twinkled.
"It was my fault." Pause, then a sudden about-face. "What the fuck am I saying? I've got an EP who is an adversarial punk and the team he's put together is only hours out of a community college journalism class."
"Sounds like you're evenly matched," Charlie smirked, sitting down behind his desk. "But you're going to need to get it together down there. Before we all hear about it from up there." He rolled his eyes to indicate a higher station, effectively communicating Lansing involvement.
"How'd you come to find this particular guy?"
"Harper? I told you, MacKenzie called and—"
Will waved a hand dismissively. "Yeah, yeah, but how'd she even get over the threshold, metaphorically speaking, with you? I mean, she's never worked for you. You don't know her."
"I know of her. You may live in a bubble, Will, but the rest of us have relationships with our peers and colleagues."
Will grunted and waited another few seconds before adding, "Just seems funny no one's hired her. Peabody awards and all."
Charlie leaned back. "Did it ever occur to you that she didn't want to be hired?"
That provoked a long pause, during which the obvious began to dawn on Will.
"You offered her the EP job first, didn't you?"
"Of course." There was no harm in admitting it now.
"But she turned you down."
"She knew you wouldn't want her here." Charlie shrugged and hesitated. "Well—that on top of everything else, I guess."
"What's 'everything else'?"
"She didn't tell me anything. I heard it from other sources, people in the industry—"
"You're holding something back. What is it?"
With a wan smile, Charlie admitted, "The word was that she didn't come back—well, right."
The very inexactness of the phrase seemed ominous.
Charlie sighed again. "Look, I'm dancing around this out of respect for her reputation and whatever regard you may still—"
"Don't worry about that. MacKenzie and I are over."
Unconvinced but willing to let Will have his way, Charlie yielded. "Well. Since, as you say, you're over her—I guess perhaps you can handle this." He waited a beat. "There was a roadside bomb, one of those things that are detonated remotely—"
"IED."
"Yeah. Messy things. From what I gather, there were broken bones. My contact at CNN hinted there was a concussion, perhaps mild TBI. Long, painful recovery. But the main thing—the big thing—was that she took some shrapnel."
"Shrapnel," Will repeated.
"She had to stop the on-camera work—not vanity, because she isn't that way, everyone says, and you probably know better than I. But it shook her confidence, and then there was—"
The scar from the explosion—
What Harper had said earlier came back. "Where did the shrapnel—?"
Charlie looked pained. "Face."
MacKenzie's face—the face he had chased from his thoughts for three years—suddenly appeared in his mind's eye, laughing in the way that she did when they were together.
"You're saying that she—" He stopped, gathered his thoughts. "How bad—"
"But this isn't like the old days," Charlie went on, seemingly oblivious to Will's grappling with the concept. "I mean, in the First World War, guys had to wear goddam metal masks to disguise their wounds. You probably don't know this, but cosmetic surgery originated because of the grievous wounds from that war—"
"Wait." Will put out his hand, willing Charlie to be silent while he came to terms with the revelation. "You're saying that Mac—"
"I understand," Charlie nodded, sympathetically. "It's pretty tough to hear, even if you're over."