11:45 A.M. GMT, September 26, 1957 — London, UK

  It was approaching noon, and in the preceding four-ish hours, Raymond Latham had shown the two reels to a series of increasingly important officials. Now, finally, Sir Gareth Llewellen—Chairman of the British Broadcasting Corporation since 1952—was seated on the very couch where Ray and his two friends had first viewed the film. The three men had agreed Ray would tell the story exactly as it happened, just leaving out the presence of anyone else. As further cover, he’d scattered several of the other film reels that had arrived at the same time, pcing them in pin view—camoufge by clutter.

  Six thousand kilometers away, Senator Jonah Merrin of Wisconsin was enjoying a breakfast of eggs and bacon, scanning the Washington Post for any mention of his name—still oblivious that the sky was about to fall on him from across the Atntic.

  At precisely 12:10 P.M., the room in London was quiet. All eyes turned to the respected Chairman as he considered what he’d just watched—and frowned.

  “We show it,” he said simply, rising to his feet.

  Ray felt a rush of emotion at those three wonderful words, but kept his face impassive. Others in the room were less composed. Some of the men had been as shaken as he’d been during his first viewing; others wore their reluctance pinly. Ray guessed they must have come down from the sixth floor—BBC Legal.

  Sir Gareth turned to the Director of Broadcast Programming.

  “Clear forty-five minutes tomorrow night,” he instructed, then pivoted to the Director of Content. “You have until then to put something together—an introduction, the two reels, and a discussion. Forty-five minutes.”

  “Do we put a parental warning at the start? Some viewers may find this program shocking? It’ll air during family time.”

  Sir Gareth looked at the two men who’d been most vocal about not airing the footage. His raised eyebrow was all the prompting they needed.

  The shorter of the two finally said, “We’ll give you an answer in time to add one, if necessary.”

  Just like a wyer, Ray thought. Never commit unless you absolutely must.

  “Do we mute Larsen’s name when it’s mentioned? And the pce he works?” the programming director asked.

  “Where he used to work,” Sir Gareth’s assistant corrected. “Our contact at the Times says his employment was terminated three months ago—to avoid an investigation of treasonous activities.”

  “We can’t edit this film in any way,” said the content director firmly. “We can’t give the Yanks a chance to accuse us of tampering. It has to be shown exactly as it came in. Raw footage.”

  “I agree,” Sir Gareth said. “We show it as is. It was an open hearing. Larsen’s name is already public. I’m surprised the story hasn’t leaked already.”

  They had no way of knowing that, even as they debated transparency, Senator Merrin was contempting the opposite. All thirty-four reels of film were en route from his Senate office back to the Government Printing Office.

  Clyde Thompson was, at that moment, having an uncomfortable conversation with Harold Colfax about the delivery.

  “If you quit, he’ll just find someone else,” Clyde said to the man who had just threatened that very action. “We can’t stop him. But we can sure as Shino slow him down. You understand me, right? Everything by the book. No cutting corners.”

  Hal nodded. He understood perfectly. Just making a safety copy of each reel would take the better part of a day. Then a manual review of each frame to ensure quality. If he pyed his cards right, it would be at least a week before he delivered the first segment of the senator’s edited “version.”

  And if none of the four news organizations had done anything in that time, Harold Colfax would be very surprised—and sorely disappointed.

  “I understand,” he said. “He wants a first-rate job. No cutting corners.”

  Everyone on both sides of the Atntic had their marching orders. And they all had their work cut out for them.

  Hal had no way of knowing that his work would come to a sudden screeching halt at 7:00 P.M. GMT (3:00 P.M. EDT) on Friday.

  Reynold Sharpe was on his third viewing of the two reels.

  His notepad was covered in words—some crossed out, some underlined, some excimed, some running vertically up and down the length of the sheets, scoffing at the printed horizontal lines as they crossed them.

  Senator, until now I hadn’t realized how twisted—how reckless—you’ve become. You’re Ahab, chasing your own demon, not realizing what you’re hunting is inside you, not outside. And when all is said and done, sir... Have you no shame? No sense of decency?

  He’d underlined those lines three times—once for each time he’d heard them spoken by the man with the New Engnd accent. Powerful words. Even on bck and white film, Reynold had seen how some of the faces seated around the curved table reacted to that indictment of the junior senator from Minnesota.

  Indictment.

  The only woman on the committee—Reynold would have to check, but it could only have been Eleanor Vaughan Ransome, the only woman in the Senate—had used that exact word.

  I’m ashamed to admit that I was an early supporter of the Senator, and these hearings. That was before I saw what passed for evidence in his cssified files. Documents so threadbare that no massively expanded definition of the word could—or should—encompass that title. Accusation through rumor. Indictment constructed whole cloth from hearsay. Political assassination of character. Personal grudges painted with the thinnest gloss of prejudice.

  Several heads had nodded in agreement. But an equal number had shaken in negation.

  But of all the words spoken in those twenty-two minutes of footage, Reynold Sharpe found the most explosive to have come from Senator Jonah Merrin himself:

  I am an instrument of the Lord Our God! I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.

  Twenty-seven words, and they spoke volumes.

  Jonah Merrin was on a holy crusade. However he had started out—and some, Senator Ransome among them, had believed that America faced a real threat from the unchecked power wielded by persons with enhanced abilities—he had since strayed from the true path of investigation into the realm of inquisition.

  Reynold Sharpe thought the title given to these hearings was aptly picked: The Salem Witch Trials.

  Merrin fancied himself an orator. Reynold didn’t need a researcher to tell him that—there was more than enough evidence on film. It so happened that Reynold Sharpe also considered himself an orator. Not of Merrin’s stamp, certainly. Not fire and brimstone. Reynold preferred the precise, patrician, provocatively articute idiom. Where Merrin loved to pontificate, Sharpe preferred a duel of intellects—the back and forth of two (or occasionally three) razor-sharp minds. No pun intended.

  So he would challenge the United States Senator to a duel.

  Not with a sp from a leather glove, but with a forty-five-minute exposé—Which would nd in the senator’s face at the same time the rest of the world received it.

  May the best man win.

  6:35 P.M. GMT September 27, 1957 — Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.

  Ed Martell closed the outer door, removed his wet raincoat and pced it on the coat rack in the small entryway. He wiped his feet before opening the inner door and stepping into Lilian Davies’ ft. The merest hint of her perfume that drifted past him as he closed the door behind him let him know that his nddy had already left for her weekly night of bridge.

  He washed his hands in the kitchen sink before opening the icebox as she still preferred to call it. In his hand was the note that she’d written and taped to the refrigerator door.

  There’s mb stew if you’re hungry. And apple crumble for dessert.

  She’d signed the note L. D. as if there was someone else living in her ft besides the two of them. She’d added a heart, and given it two small eyes and one rge smile. That was new, though not entirely unexpected. She was a widow in her early fifties, he was a divorced postgraduate student in his te thirties. His work kept him fit, and trim. Good genes kept her lithe and attractive. She had a burn on the back of her neck from the Blitz which she had recently taken great pains to hide. Just as she had showed more interest in her hair and makeup since Ed had taken up residence.

  It was fine. Harmless. Even a bit endearing.

  Between work and school he had little time for mischief. For anything, really. But he wasn’t quite so busy that he couldn’t find time for a little harmless flirting. Her smile and girlish giggle was ample payment for that small effort.

  He heated the stew on the stove and opened a bottle of brown ale and set both on the tray table next to the chair in the sitting room that sat in front of the mahogany enclosed television. Lillian and her husband Solomon had bought it for the coronation in ’53. Sol had died the year after, and Lillian and had only started watching it again after Ed had arrived.

  He turned on the box and listened to it hum as he ate his dinner.

  7:00 P.M.

  The image on the screen created itself. It was not what Ed expected.

  A man sitting behind a desk. Neat as a pin. Hair combed back, slightly shiny. Well-trimmed eyebrows and mustache. Starched white shirt with a thin tie and a coat that was not quite bck. He sat squarely facing the camera. His was a face that needed no introduction—but offered one anyway.

  “Good evening, dies and gentlemen. I’m Reynold Sharpe.

  This is not the programming you were expecting.

  What follows over the next forty-five minutes is not a fiction. There will be no brave men enduring hardship in the trenches of the Somme. The bravery—and the cruelty—you see will be all too real.”

  Ed leaned forward, elbows on his knees, as Reynold Sharpe continued to speak.

  “Some of you may see yourselves in one of the faces that appear on your screen. Some of you may cry, or swear. Some may nod your head in agreement, or shake it in disbelief. That’s all right. What we ask you not to do is turn away, or avert your gaze.

  This is too important to ignore.

  This is raw film. Unedited. It depicts a hearing held by the United States Senate. It is shocking. It is unbelievable. It is genuine.

  After it begins, and for the next twenty-two minutes, there will be no narration. Except for loading it into the projector, we have not touched the film we received—anonymously—in any way.

  I will have more to say once the film has ended. As, I am sure, will you.

  I, Reynold Sharpe, encourage you to put your thoughts on paper and send them to us.

  We will share them with the United States Senate.

  And now, the film.”

  Ed Martell sat on the rug that only partially covered the sitting room floor.

  The hiss of the radiator underscored the steady patter of rain against the two windows at the far end of the room. His dinner sat half-eaten on the tray table beside the chair he’d occupied when the program began—then abandoned as it drew him forward. By the end, he was just inches from the screen.

  Like everyone else who’d tuned in expecting the next episode of Hold the Line, he’d been surprised—and then captivated—by what he witnessed.

  The raw footage ended. The man reappeared.

  As the image of him formed, he was tapping ash from the cigarette he held into an ashtray. Beside him sat a heavy-bottomed — half-filled — gss.

  He was perched on the corner of his desk. His jacket was gone. His tie loosened, the top button of his shirt undone. The sleeves, now slightly rumpled, were rolled up to his elbows. He sat at an angle to the camera, head turned toward the lens, eyes steady.

  He took a drag from the unfiltered cigarette and exhaled slowly before speaking.

  “Senator Merrin has repeatedly warned us of the threat of individuals with unchecked powers.

  But what of the unchecked power of a United States Senator who runs roughshod over the rights and liberties of his country’s citizens?

  Where is the warning about that?”

  He took another breath—another lungful of smoke.

  “America cims to be the defender of freedom.”

  A measured silence, a drag on his dwindling smoke.

  “I wonder if, after viewing our presentation, it still cims—or still feels it has the right to cim—that title.

  I invite Senator Jonah Merrin to appear on my show, Sunday, October 7th, at 7 PM.

  If the senator’s faith does not permit him to work, or travel, on the Lord’s Day, I am happy to accommodate him any day the following week.”

  A long beat. He smokes, flicks ash, turns the gss slightly clockwise but does not raise it. He’s unhurried. It’s vintage Reynold Sharpe. His eyes find the camera lens at st.

  “Good night, dies and gentlemen. Until next time.”

  Ed sat for a few minutes before he realized that his hands and feet were cold. His dinner was also cold, but it was just mb stew and five minutes on the stove would fix that.

  But the coldness he felt in his chest, that would take more than physical warmth to cure. It was like someone had poured ice water on his soul. His face was turned down towards his unfinished supper as he stirred it in the pot, the heat from the burner warming it , and his hand. But his thoughts were elsewhere. He ate mechanically afterward, not really tasting it, but knowing that it was important to eat. Later he tried to concentrate on homework. Cssical Electrodynamics and Statistical Mechanics. He didn’t find the work difficult, except that he kept making mistakes that he’d wouldn’t normally make. He was staring at an open text book when Lillian returned. He had allowed himself the luxury of spreading out at the kitchen table. Normally he would long since have finished when she returned. But not tonight, and her first gnce at him reminded her of a man in a trance. She had been about to say what a pleasant surprise at finding him still out of his room, but she could clearly see that something was wrong.

  “What’s happened?” she asked. Her question nudged his mind out of its fog, and he looked up at her. His brain was still processing the show he’d watched, and her serious tone of concern, so different from her usual muted affectionate way of treating him, reminded him so much of Maggie that for a moment he thought it was his ex-wife speaking to him, and he spoke with the openness between husband and wife.

  “Something…the telly tonight…” his words came out in fits and starts.

  “There was a special broadcast. And it…I don’t...”

  She’d seen enough men in shock during the war that she recognized it immediately in him.

  She reached up into the top cupboard and retrieved the bottle of sherry and two gsses.

  “Move your scribblin, love, and we’ll have a nice chat.”