Authors: Jack Cavanaugh
W
ith two hours and forty-four minutes remaining on Hunz Vonner’s life clock, at 6:03 a.m., Sydney turned on the television.
Death Watch dominated the airwaves. Reruns of
Family Ties
and
Cheers
were preempted by special reports featuring terrorism specialists who gave updates on the latest developments—which meant they rehashed old news—and psychologists who advised parents how to talk to their children about death and terrorists.
In the bottom right-hand corner of every station in every region of the country, the Homeland Securities Awareness system indicated the nation was now on Level Four, the highest alert. Terrorist attack was imminent.
A news segment aired on WBBT. The morning anchor, a middle-aged brunette, looked more like some kid’s mother than a media professional. However, she had a warmth and sincerity that came across nicely, and to Sydney, it was obvious why the station had hired her. People tended to adopt news personalities into their families, and this woman had “understanding friend” written all over her.
Reports
of death watch-related deaths are coming in from all over the world.
Sydney had turned the television on too late to get the woman’s name.
In Italy, a young couple, both nineteen years old, committed suicide by jumping from the fifth floor of the Leonardi Edera Hotel in historic Rome. The police found a note in their room in which they compared themselves to Romeo and Juliet. The young Romeo was a death
watch recipient with less than an hour to live. His Juliet wrote, “I refuse to live in a world without my true love.”
The news anchor paused, moved with motherly emotion for the young lovers.
And closer to home, in Peoria, Illinois, veteran storyteller Homer Blakely, a nationally acclaimed, award-winning storyteller, fell dead just as he was completing his story, “Terror at the Top of the Stairs.” Blakely, a regular at the Chinquapin Folk Music and Storytelling Festival, which is held annually at Camp Wokanda, was performing at the Ghost Story Concert. According to eyewitness reports, he was just about to reveal the terror that lurked at the top of the stairs of his childhood home when he fell over dead. A death watch notice was found in his pocket.
Meanwhile, around the world, reports attributed to the death watch terror continue to escalate at staggering proportions, prompting several countries to declare themselves under attack, while here at home, the president has scheduled a national address for this evening.
It is
believed he will at that time explain the rationale behind raising the Homeland
Security
Awareness system from Level Three to Level Four, the highest level possible, indicating severe conditions. This will be the first time in our nation’s history the risk level has been set at Level Four.
And finally, here in Chicago, another first.
Visiting
international newscaster Hunz Vonner, on assignment from EuroNet news, will broadcast a live death watch Special Event from the Hilton Hotel at O’Hare International Airport. Vonner, a death watch victim, will share the thoughts of a dying man as the clock counts off the final minutes of his life. This WBBT Special Event will be.the first live broadcast of a death watch death aired on national television. Here, on WBBT at 10:00 a.m.
The newscaster pursed her lips with distaste before handing the news to the weatherman. Sydney knew how she felt.
“It’ll make a splash,” she said flatly, turning the television off.
6
:50 a.m.
One hour, fifty-seven minutes remaining.
Sydney sat on the French sofa staring at the bedroom door. She hadn’t heard a sound come from the other side in the last thirty minutes.
Hunz’s muffled voice had fallen silent. Earlier she could hear him talking, not clear enough to make out what he was saying, but the pattern of speech and pausing suggested he was on the phone.
Every now and then he’d laugh. Sometimes his tone was conciliatory. Somber. Then his tone would change, indicating another call, another person. Sydney found herself wondering who was on the other end of the line with each change, sort of a mix-and-match game, pairing voice tone with the people Hunz had told her about.
She chastised herself for listening, but she couldn’t stop herself. At one point she thought he was talking to his old girlfriend, but she couldn’t be sure. It started out lighthearted, turned to melancholy, then almost apologetic.
On a previous call, he bordered on anger. His father? A coworker? A friend? Hunz never mentioned any of his friends. Probably like her, he didn’t have many outside the industry. Contacts, for the most part. Sources. People you could spend an enjoyable evening with, but not anyone you would consider a friend.
And now the other side of the door had fallen silent. Sydney ached to cross the room and knock on it.
Just to see if he was all right.
But the strength of her desire was far greater than mere casual concern. It bordered on compulsion.
She wanted to talk to him before the camera crew arrived, to tell him about the Scripture verse she’d remembered, the one about not fearing the one who could kill the body, but fearing the One who could kill the soul.
She wanted to make sure he understood about the second death.
That phrase came to her often now, unboxed for the occasion from somewhere in the attic of her mind. Probably from a sermon she’d heard. She wanted to warn him of the greater danger.
All men die, Sydney.
She knew the truth of that now. Billy was right. All this death watch hoopla was a clever diversion from the real threat.
All men die.
Yet look at all the time and effort and money and resources that go into postponing death, postponing the inevitable. Compare that to how few resources go into warning about the second death. The one that counts. Everyone was so concerned about the pop quiz, they weren’t preparing for the final exam.
Sydney stood, crossed the suite to the bedroom door, and lifted a hand to knock. Gently. More of a suggestion of a knock than a real knock.
But before her knuckle hit wood, she heard Hunz’s voice from the other side.
“Helmut! Hunz. .. Ja.. “Then he began rattling off German sentences, none of which Sydney understood.
She lowered her hand and retreated to the sofa.
T
he WBBT crew arrived while the bedroom door was still closed, 7:30 a.m. according to Sydney’s watch.
One hour, seventeen minutes remained.
There were three of them. Phil, the cameraman. Dorian, the soundman. And Joanna, to do the makeup.
Dorian, a round-faced, good-natured African American in a Hawaiian shirt, seemed to be the one in charge. He made the introductions and asked Sydney where to set up. She asked them to wait a moment and knocked on the bedroom door.
It swung open midknock. Hunz had obviously heard the crew come in. He was all business, pointing and giving instructions without so much as a glance at Sydney.
She stood off to one side while the soundman and cameraman turned the area surrounding the French sofa into a ministudio. They worked quietly, efficiently, hospital quiet, on the verge of mortuary quiet. They spoke in low tones.
“Mr. Vonner, if you’ll sit over here.”
Joanna, a thirtyish woman with auburn hair and fire-engine red nails, pulled out one of the chairs at the table by the window. Hunz sat. She fitted him with a tissue collar and opened up a good-sized tackle box of cosmetic goodies. She grabbed a white wedge latex sponge from a bag. Next she sorted through disks of foundation.
Hunz sat motionless. He stared straight ahead at nothing, the way Sydney remembered her father sitting in the barber’s chair.
“You have nice coloring,” Joanna said. “Do you know what shade-—”
“Suntone,” Hunz said.
Joanna found the right makeup disk and began with his cheeks.
Hunz appeared calm. Had this been any other broadcast, Sydney would have equated his quiet mood to a baseball pitcher’s game face. It wasn’t unusual for a broadcaster to withdraw just before airing, using the time to arrange his thoughts and put himself in performance mode.
But this wasn’t a normal broadcast.
And Hunz had to have things on his mind other than how he was going to come across on camera.
“Are you all right?” Sydney asked.
Joanna glanced at her, as if wondering whether asking such a question of a dying man was acceptable etiquette.
“You’ll need to do Sydney too,” Hunz said to Joanna. “She’ll be on camera with me.”
Clearly, he didn’t want to talk about it. Maybe he didn’t want to talk about it in front of strangers. Either way, Sydney got the message.
It was 7:49 a.m.
Hunz had less than an hour to live.
T
he news program featuring Hunz Vonner’s death began at 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time, 10:00 a.m. local time, though the studio was not scheduled to send it live to Hunz until a quarter past the hour.
“Countdown to Death” was the title the network settled on. At the top of the hour, the team in the hotel room was performing sound checks and making last-minute adjustments to the lighting.
Sydney and Hunz stood in front of the French sofa.
“There will be three cuts to us, the first at 10:15, the second at 10:25, and the last at 10:40,” Hunz said. “At that time we’ll take it to the end.”
Sydney nodded.
“The first cut, right after I introduce myself, you introduce yourself. That’s all you need to do.”
She nodded again.
“You don’t have to do anything else until the third cut. I’ll start out, take it for as long as I can, then ” He gave her a half grin. “Well, then you’re on.”
You’re on. Simple as that. I’ll be lying dead on the floor at your feet; you take it from there. Did he know what he was asking her to do?
“What do I say?” she asked.
“A good reporter writes his own copy. Just wrap it up and send it back to the studio.”
Just wrap it up and send it back to the studio. Simple. Piece of cake. Easy as pie. Walk in the park.
Sydney really didn’t want to do this. She
really
did not want to do this.
1
0:15 a.m., local time.
Sydney heard two voices in her earphone, the WBBT morning news team. A prepared clip documenting the sudden appearance of Death Watch two days ago and its vicious rampage around the populated world had just ended. The anchors were segueing from the clip to the live feed at the Hilton Hotel.
“This morning we have with us one of our own, a veteran newscaster, himself a death watch victim.”
That was Hunz’s cue.
Portable tungsten lights made seeing anything beyond five feet impossible. The three-person crew moved like spirits behind the cameras.
Holding a microphone and looking every bit the professional, Hunz gazed into the camera lens and said, “This is Hunz Vonner…”
He trailed off.
Sydney had her own microphone. That would change with the third segment when she alone would hold a microphone. Apparently, the studio execs had discussed this at great length before dispatching the crew. It was their opinion that when Hunz died, it would look unprofessional for him to drop the microphone. Sydney would hold it for him.
“…and Sydney St. James,” Sydney said to the camera audience.
Hunz said, “We’re coming to you live from the Hilton Hotel at O’Hare International Airport, Chicago, Illinois.” He took a breath. “Victor Hugo wrote, ‘All men are condemned to death with indefinitely suspended sentences.’ And while that was true in Victor Hugo’s world, a new world began two days ago when thousands of people had their suspended sentences revoked and the time of their deaths appointed and announced. I’m one of them.”
Hunz held up an email printout.
“Nearly forty-eight hours ago, I received notice that I would die at 8:47 a.m., Pacific Standard Time. I’m not the first to receive a death watch notice; many have received notices with an announced time of death earlier than mine. To the best of my
knowledge, without exception, they are now dead. Death Watch has proved itself frighteningly accurate. The night before last I witnessed one man’s death, a victim of Death Watch. Although he was surrounded by emergency personnel at the time of his death, nothing could be done to save him. Which means I have every right to believe that within"—he checked his watch—"thirty minutes, I will be dead.”
Sydney checked her watch too. Thirty-one minutes, fifteen seconds, to be exact.
Hunz continued. “Between now and the appointed time of my death, I will share with you the thoughts of a man who has been abruptly reminded of his own mortality. But, for now, back to the studio.”
A teaser to keep the viewing audience tuned in.
The voices in Sydney’s earpiece picked it up from there.
“Carol, that must be tough,” said the male anchor, “to be suddenly aware of the time of your death, and to know nothing can be done to save you.”
“You’re right, Hal. And the precision of the timing I’ve heard that death watch sentences—for that’s what they are, aren’t they?—are carried out at the exact second. Chilling.”
From behind the cameras, a voice: “The Hugo quote was a nice touch,” Dorian said.
“Thank you,” Hunz replied.
Sydney leaned close. “Hunz? Before we go back on the air, I want to talk to you about. ”
Hunz fiddled with his earpiece. He took it out and stepped toward the lights. “Excuse me a minute, Sydney. Dorian, can you take a look at this? It was cutting in and out during the last segment.”
1
0:25 a.m., local time.
More prepared clips were aired between the live segments,
recorded segments of world leaders reacting to Death Watch. The Prime Minister of Great Britain said the earth was “on the edge of Armageddon.” President Hu Jintao of the People’s Republic of China declared the Death Watch—which had hit his country hard—to be a Western plot to overthrow the Chinese government. As evidence, he cited the number of death watch announcements that had been transmitted via modern communication devices: computers, faxes, cell phones. He likened Western technology to the Trojan Horse.
All around the world, combative nations blamed each other for Death Watch, in many cases launching retaliatory strikes.
A second prepackaged segment documented theories of who was behind Death Watch. The theories ranged from Death Watch being a prelude to an alien invasion, to nanobots that had formed an intelligence and declared war on human life-forms.
Hunz and Sydney were standing on their marks—masking tape Xs on the carpet—ready for the next live portion of the show, though Sydney didn’t know why she was needed, since Hunz would do all the talking on this segment.
It was Dorian who told her to get into position. Another directive from the powers-that-be? Were they concerned Hunz might keel over before his time, possibly from a heart attack brought on by the anxiety? But then, if that were to happen, couldn’t they just cut back to the studio? Maybe they were hoping she’d provide some good old-fashioned female hysterics.
To make a splash.
If that were the case, she could certainly oblige them the way her pulse was racing. She felt like she’d downed a dozen cups of coffee, her nervous system caffeine-charged even though she’d only sipped her latte.
The live feed was passed to Hunz.
“It’s difficult to describe to you the range of thoughts and emotions that have crossed my mind in the last forty-eight hours,” he said to the camera.
“From thinking it was a prank, or a mistake; to getting angry and desperately wanting to track down whoever was behind this; to the realization that the mortality rate for Death Watch was 100 percent, yet still believing that a solution or cure would be found; finally, to realizing that I was soon to go the way of all men and there was nothing I could do about it.”
All men die, Sydney.
But not like this, Sydney thought. Hunz wasn’t dying. He was being executed.
Hunz continued. “More times than I care to admit within the last forty-eight hours, the universal cry of the victim has escaped my lips: Why me? What have I done to warrant death? Am I a random victim, someone who walked into the wrong restaurant at the wrong time and sat next to a man with a bomb strapped to his chest? Or was I selected? Marked for death?
“And not just me. What of Lyle Vandeveer of Pasadena, California, who lived long enough to see his wife and daughter die when a commercial air flight plummeted to the ground, only to die while tinkering with his model trains? To whom was he a threat?
“Or Cheryl McCormick, who even now lies in a hospital bed not far from here at Prentice Women’s Hospital. A compassionate woman, mother of a beautiful three-year-old daughter, heavy with her second child, hoping to deliver before her time runs out and she dies. A threat to whom? What kind of man would dispatch a death watch notice to Cheryl McCormick? What kind of monster would deny little Stacy and her unborn brother or sister their mother?”
Hunz’s voice grew husky with emotion.
Had she been asked, Sydney would have been willing to bet that never once in his career had Hunz Vonner come close to losing control of his emotions on camera. He was close now.
“I am one of thousands of death watch victims,” Hunz said. “Together, we cry out with a single voice: Why? To be sentenced to die is one thing. But not knowing why is cruel and inhuman. Every
death watch victim lowered to his grave will have one word on his lips. Why?”
The show was once again transferred back to the studio.
“Hunz, we have to talk,” Sydney said.
He dropped his microphone onto the sofa and pulled out his earpiece. Squaring his shoulders, he looked at her. The weariness he would never show on camera revealed itself now. His eyes sagged. His shoulders slumped.
“Sydney, could we do this later? I’d really like to be alone right now.”
It was a plea, not a directive.
“Sure,” she said.
It wasn’t until he’d crossed the room to the bedroom and closed the door that she realized Hunz Vonner didn’t have any “later” left.