Interface

This was a hard pitch. The politics of the Israeli/Palestinian question had been dissected and analyzed to an impossibly minute degree, over decades, by persons whose sole function in life was to know everything about these issues. Every squiggle and jog in the contour of Israel's border had its experts, who knew about everything that had happened in that place since the time of the pharaoh. West Bank settlement and the status of the PLO had become more arcane than the concept of the Trinity in the early church: every conceivable idea had already been come up with, and its ramifications worked out and analyzed. Of all the millions of possible opinions one could have on these subjects, there were only a few that a presidential candidate could get away with having, and in order merely to explain these opinions the candidate had to master a new vocabulary and even a new form of logic that did not really apply anywhere else. The best way to trip up a governor who was ru

Cozzano maneuvered through it perfectly, delivering an answer that was seemingly erudite; that hit all the key buzzwords that would prevent him from being vilified by Jewish organizations; and yet was so vague and imprecise that it said practically nothing at all. Like compulsory figure in an ice-skating competition, it was devoid of content and not much fun to look at, but to the initiate, it was an extremely impressive display of technical skill.

By the time he was finished, it was time to break for a com­mercial. The host made a witty, self-deprecating remark about how dull the show had been up to this point and then promised that the rest would be more lively. The students applauded. The director, staring at a monitor, turned to the performers and said, "You're clear."

Cozzano turned toward the table and poured himself half a glass of water. He was just about to jump into some small talk with the host when a voice came out of the darkness behind the television lights.

"Governor Cozzano, Frank Boyle from The Boston Globe. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but I just got a call on my portable phone here from our correspondent who's following your daughter in Mi

A hundred feet away, Cy Ogle, perched in the Eye of Cy, sat and watched William A. Cozzano's bio readouts go ballistic.

The television monitor in the Eye of Cy was patched into the pool feed from the cameras in the auditorium, and Ogle couldn't help watching it. Cozzano's face had turned deathly pale as Frank Boyle of the Globe told his story, and had now gone red. His eyes had become red and glistening too. And Ogle could see from the bio monitors that Cozzano's heart rate had gone up to 172, almost three times the norm. His blood pressure was explosively high.

"Jesus Christ," Ogle said out loud, "this could only be the work of Jeremiah Freel!"

He looked back at the television monitor, but Cozzano wasn't there anymore. Just an empty chair. Then the camera wheeled around, spi

In the background, a disturbance was making its way up the aisle as a man shoved his way toward the exit. Apparently this was Frank Boyle of the Globe. Cozzano had gone after him, and he had decided to get out of the building.

Throughout the campaign, Ogle had prided himself on being ready for anything. But he hadn't been ready for the return of Freel. Ogle took a deep breath, tried to still his own heart, and then put his hands on the control panel and set about calming Cozzano.

Cozzano was in front of the stage having a conversation with his Secret Service men. They were all talking into their shirt cuffs and holding their hands over their earpieces, trying to hear each other over the murmur of the shocked and scared students.

A woman with press credentials stepped close to Cozzano. "Governor? I'm with the Globe. And we don't have anyone named Frank Boyle."

The head of the Secret Service detail, listening to his earplug, shook his head conclusively and caught Cozzano's eye. "It was a total fabrication," he said. "Mary Catherine showed up at Macalester College on time and is speaking at this moment."

Cozzano, suddenly, was calm and collected. He shook his head, seemed to forget that anything had happened, and returned to his seat on the stage.

"Would you like to delay-" the host said, as the sound man was fixing Cozzano's microphone.

"No," Cozzano said. "Let's continue as pla

"Are you sure? You must be very upset."

"I'm fine," Cozzano said. "Why should I be upset?"

The headline of the next day's edition of the New York Post read,

"WHY SHOULD I BE UPSET?"

COZZANO NOT BOTHERED BY "MURDER" OF HIS OWN DAUGHTER.

The President, delivering off-the-cuff remarks in the aisle of Air Force One, said that he was shocked and disgusted by the impostor who had delivered the fake news to Cozzano.

At the same time, though, he could not help but find it strange, and just a bit disturbing, that a man who, to all appearances, had just lost his own daughter, would agree to continue with what was, after all, nothing more than a campaign event, the sole purpose of which was to scrape up more votes. Surely, he said, there were limits that should be observed, for the sake of decency.

Nimrod T. ("Tip") McLane made a surprise appearance in a hotel bar where a number of reporters had gathered - not just to drink, but because they had received a tip from McLane staffers that Tip might feel a bit thirsty around eleven o'clock.

Coincidentally, the evening news happened to be ru

McLane and the reporters engaged in some friendly banter, but everyone turned toward the television set when the image of William A. Cozzano appeared on the screen. The cameras had caught the entire thing and the feed had gone out all over the country. They watched Cozzano going into shock as he heard the false story about his daughter. They watched him jumping out of his chair in a blind rage, and they watched him sitting back down a minute later, calm and collected. The actual content of the two-hour discussion received no coverage whatsoever.

All of the reporters looked at McLane. McLane turned away from the TV and looked nonchalant. Finally a reporter asked him what he thought of the whole thing.

"Well, I don't really want to talk about it," he said, "the whole episode is really distasteful. But now I see that the media have grabbed on to this whole thing - in the typical way that they do - looking for the sensational and paying no attention to content... and I can see that now the media are trying to take this event and turn it into some kind of a test of Cozzano's psychological fitness to be president."