Prophet (4 page)

JOHN’S FACE WAS
getting redder, and it showed, even through the makeup. As he watched the live camera monitor showing what Mel’s camera was seeing at that very moment, he could still see that rabble-rouser standing above the crowd. The monitor had no sound, but he could easily imagine what the old man was shouting. He dared not curse—he might be on the air. At least Leslie’s video was still running on the air and people weren’t seeing what he was seeing right now.

LESLIE WAS DUCKING
her head and looking behind her, at least
while the video report was running. She kept trying to hear her next cue through her earpiece.

The crowd was starting to chant, “Pro-life, that’s a lie—you don’t care if women die!”

JOHN GRABBED HIS
desk phone to talk to Rush Torrance. “Can’t we get that kook off the screen? Rush? You there?”

No answer. Leslie was coming back on.

MEL THE CAMERAMAN
nodded furiously. “Yes! You’re on, you’re on!”

Leslie straightened, held the mike in a trembling hand, and almost shouted her cue line. “So, John and Ali, this campaign could be an exciting roller coaster ride for both candidates, and the whole thing—” Someone screamed. “—the whole thing begins in just a few minutes!”

THE OLD MAN
on the planter couldn’t believe it. Suddenly two characters he’d never seen before, one with stringy hair and a bald spot on the back of his head, the other black-haired, hulking and tattooed, came from nowhere and started throwing punches at his audience, hitting men, women, anybody—on his behalf!

“Dirty baby killers!” shouted one.

“Hallelujah!” shouted the other.

“No . . . no! Don’t do that!”

Too late. Some of the audience were switching from shouting to slugging.

“No! This won’t solve anything!”
Oof!
Something—it sounded like a can—bounced off the man’s head. Hands were grabbing at his legs. He started pulling away, dancing on the planter.

JOHN COULD SEE
it all on his news desk monitor, as could every viewer watching the news at that moment. He’d been given his cue, but his mind went blank. He searched his script and found the question he was supposed to ask, scribbled in at the last minute. “Uh . . .
Leslie . . . this . . . uh . . . campaign seems to be loaded with a lot of hot issues . . . how does it look from where you stand?”

LESLIE JUST ABOUT
said, “How do you think it looks?” but simply replied, “I guess you can see for yourself, John and Ali. And if you don’t mind, I think we’ll move a little further away so we can keep covering it from a safe distance.”

“NO!” SHOUTED TINA
Lewis. “Don’t lose it!”

“Stay on it,” Rush instructed through his headset.

Leslie ducked sideways out of the picture. If she heard the instruction she wasn’t indicating so. The picture wiggled, tilted, jostled. Mel was moving the camera.

“Stay on it!” Tina ordered. “Mel, stay there!”

The camera came down solid again. Mel had planted the tripod.

No Leslie on-camera—only the crowd, the scuffle.

Producer Rush Torrance barked the order into his headset as he yanked pages from the show’s script and dropped them on the floor. “We’re bumping 480, Boy Pilot, and 490, the Running Lizards. We’ll stay with this!”

“OH TERRIFIC!”
John moaned.

FROM BESIDE THE
planter a big black man, his eyes full of fire, leaped into the crowd. “You wanna fight, I’ll teach you to fight!”

He was after those two intruders who’d started the fight in the first place. He found the first one, the weasel with the stringy hair and bald spot, and put him out of commission with one well-placed haymaker to the jaw. The big guy with the tattooed arms was a little more of a match, and they both went down to the pavement, taking several other bodies with them.

Three big college jocks finally got their paws on the old man and wrestled him from the planter, locking him in a painful hold with his
arms behind his back. “Come on, old man! Party’s over!”

His face was etched with pain and fear as they began forcing him along, almost carrying him from the plaza, two holding him from behind, one pulling him by his hair, the prophet’s body bent forward, off balance, tripping, stumbling. He cried out.

Suddenly—it looked like a violent, tumbling play from a football game—the black man burst through the crowd, pushing bodies aside until he could reach the old man. With his tremendous weight and powerful arms he grabbed the first two men by their necks and smacked their heads together like melons. They went limp, falling backward, releasing their hold. The third let go of the old man’s hair right away and only wanted to defend himself, holding his arms in front of him.