Someone counted down from ten, and stirring music filled the control room. Barron Harkness arranged his face into a serious frown and looked up from his desk into the camera. “Good evening,” he said, and his voice let the viewer know that something important was to follow. “Last night, a good friend of this newscast and of many of us personally was gravely injured in a terrible accident. Sasha Nijinsky was to have joined me at this desk tonight, and she is badly missed. All of us here pray for her recovery. All of us wish her well. All of us look forward to her taking her place beside me. We know you do, too.”

Music swelled, and an announcer’s voice heralded the evening news. Stone watched as Harkness skillfully led half a dozen correspondents through the newscast, reading effortlessly from the TelePrompTer and asking an occasional informed question of someone in Tehran, Berlin, or London, while the control room crew scrambled to squeeze his opening statement into their allotted time.

During a commercial break, Cary turned to Stone. “What do you think?” she asked.

“Very impressive,” he said, looking directly at her.

She laughed. “I meant about the newscast.”

“Not nearly as impressive.”

“Well, Barron’s a little self-important,” she said, “but nobody does this better.”

“Read the news?”

She laughed again. “Oh, come on, now, he’s reported from all over the world; he doesn’t just read.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

The newscast ended, and she led Stone out another door and down a spiral staircase to the newsroom set. A dozen people were working at computer terminals.

“They’re already getting the eleven o’clock news together,” Cary said.

Barron Harkness was having the last of his makeup removed. He stood up and shook Stone’s hand firmly. “Detective,” he said.

To Stone’s surprise, Harkness was at least six four, two twenty, and flat bellied. He looked shorter and fleshier on camera.

“Come on, let’s go up to my office,” Harkness said.

They climbed another spiral staircase, entered a hallway, and turned into Harkness’s office, a large, comfortably furnished room with a big picture window looking down into the newsroom. Harkness waved Stone to a leather sofa. “Coffee? I’m having some.”

“Thank you, yes,” Stone said. He could use it; he fought off the lassitude caused by the bourbon and the newscast.

Cary Hilliard disappeared without being told, then came back with a Thermos and two cups. Both men watched her pour, then she took a seat in a chair to one side of Harkness’s desk and opened a steno pad. “You don’t mind if I take notes?” she asked Stone.

“Not at all,” he replied. “Forgive me if I don’t take any; I remember better if I do it later.” He turned to Harkness. “Mr. Harkness—”

“Please call me Barron; I’d be more comfortable. And your first name?”

“Stone.”