To protect herself from being accused of misleading a guest she intended to pounce on by being friendly before one of her interviews, Jan made it a rule not to associate with guests beforehand. Even in the last few minutes before the cameras went on, as she sat opposite her guest on the small studio set, Jan busied herself giving directions to staff members waiting in the wings or pretending to study notes she kept on her lap but never used. GO Thomas, however, simply refused to be ignored.

“I would like to take this opportunity, Mrs. Dixon,” he stated in a deep, resonating voice, “to thank you for this chance to appear on your show.”

Jan looked up at Thomas, surprised at hearing him use Scott’s last name and not Fields. As befitting a professional woman Jan used her maiden name at work to demonstrate that she was still an independent entity. “Well,” she replied in a halfhearted effort to make light of the compliment, “it was either you or the monkeys from the zoo again.”

Thomas chuckled. “I hope it doesn’t turn out that you regret not using the monkeys.”

Though she was tempted to reply that she hoped he didn’t have the same regrets in a few minutes, Jan held her tongue.

“One minute, Ms. Fields,” the producer called out. Jan glanced up at a monitor and saw that a commercial was running over the air. Sitting up, she gave her shoulder length hair a quick toss before staring at the camera as she waited for the red light to flash on.

As if activated by the same impulse, Jan began as soon as her cue illuminated, telling her that her lead-in was over. “Yesterday on this show,” she stated without any preamble, “we discussed the investigation into the bombing in April of a Federal building in Kansas, as well as the breaking of the FBI siege in Wyoming last month. Like many of us, our panel of experts on domestic terrorism are concerned that the FBI seems to be no closer to making any arrests in connection with those investigations.”