Terminal Freeze

25

Throughout the meeting in the infirmary, Conti had remained silent, preferring to keep his observations to himself. As the group broke up, he stayed behind for a moment, watching Gonzalez and the newly returned Private Phillips carefully wrap the body in preparation for storage. From the soldiers’ chatter he’d learned that, in order to isolate the corpse from the rest of the personnel, a spare meat locker in the south wing would be used. Now he began making his way slowly and thoughtfully back to the central section of the base.

As he reached the entrance plaza, he saw Fortnum and Toussaint approaching.

“Emilio,” Fortnum said. “We heard you wanted to see us?”

Conti glanced around quickly before answering. The plaza was empty, the guard station temporarily unattended. Conti lowered his voice anyway.

“I have some assignments for you,” he told them. “Some special footage I need.”

The two nodded.

“Consider these projects to be under the radar. Surprise segments I’m going to insert for added effect. Don’t take any others along. And nobody is to know-not Kari, not Wolff.”

The cinematographers looked at each other, then nodded again, a little more slowly this time.

“Have you heard the news?”

“What news?” Fortnum replied.

“Josh Peters is dead.”

“Josh?” the two men said in unison.

“How?” asked Toussaint.

“The scientists think a polar bear got him-it happened outside. Wolff thinks it was whoever stole the cat.”

“Christ,” said Fortnum. He’d gone dead white.

“Yes. And we have to capitalize on this while we still can.”

The men looked at him blankly.

“Kari is going around right now, spreading the word of Josh’s death.” He turned to Fortnum. “Allan, I need you to find her. Get reaction shots from the crew. The more extreme, the better. But be subtle about it, try not to clue Kari in on what you’re going for. If you don’t get the reactions you want, wait until Kari has left and then embellish on her descriptions while the camera’s running. I want to see naked fear. Hysterical tears would be even better.”

A puzzled look had spread over Fortnum’s pallid features. “This is our own crew you’re talking about filming-right?”

“Of course. They’re the only ones around who don’t know about Peters yet.” Conti waved an impatient hand. “You need to hurry up, Kari’s out there already, playing Johnny Appleseed with news of the killing.”

Fortnum opened his mouth as if to raise another objection. Then he closed it instead and-with one last curious look at Conti-walked off in the direction of the crews’ quarters.

Conti watched him go. When the DP was out of sight, he turned toward Toussaint. “I have an even more important job for you. The body is currently being held in the infirmary. It’s in the south wing, I’ll sketch out a map for you. They’re going to place it in cold storage, but I heard them saying that some repairs are needed to the unit; it won’t be ready and chilled until tomorrow. That’s our opportunity.”

“ Opportunity,” Toussaint repeated a little uncertainly.

“Don’t you understand? Once the body’s in the freezer, it’ll be locked up.” Conti tried to master the almost frantic impatience and frustration that had been building within him since he’d first heard about the missing cat. “It’s like this. Wolff doesn’t want us filming Peters’s corpse.”

“Naturally.” Toussaint’s voice sounded detached, far away.

“But we have to. This is a fluid situation; it’s changing all the time. The documentary has to change with it.” Conti grasped the cameraman’s sleeve. “Our livelihoods, our reputations, are on the line here. We were dealt a rotten hand. That cat was the heart and soul of our show-and now it’s gone. But something new is beginning to happen. What started this morning as just a mystery has become a murder mystery. Do you see? Done right, this could be even bigger than Raising the Tiger. With the publicity that’s already run we’ve got a built-in audience. And we can give them something nobody’s given them before: a ‘closed-box’ documentary that suddenly morphs into something completely different. A crime drama that plays out in real time, among the actual crew.”

Toussaint blinked in reply.

“But you can’t have a murder mystery without a shot of the corpse. That’s where you come in. I want you to wait until dinner. Things will have settled down a little by then. I’ll make sure the soldiers are occupied-nobody will be around. It’ll be quick. Consider it a recon: get in, get the shot, get out. Don’t worry about the lighting or the framing or anything like that. It’s the footage that’s important. Do it in one long take; I can fix it on the DataCine back in New York. Okay?”

Toussaint nodded slowly.

“Good man. And listen-remember not to tell anybody. Not even Fortnum. It’ll be our secret-until the final cut, and the applause of the network execs. Understood?”

“Understood,” said Toussaint in a very quiet voice.

Conti gave a quick, birdlike nod. “Now, prepare your equipment. I’ll make you that map.”