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“Come on,” said Cole. “He talks from a script just like everybody else.”
“Actually,” said the producer, “that’s just the talking points. Everything else, he makes up as he goes along. The thing is, Bill likes soldiers. He likes heroes. At the same time, he’s going to be pretty skeptical of a claim that the Army’s going to stage a coup.”
“A small element within the Army is going to attempt it,” said Cole.
“Like I said, you just stick to your story and tell the truth. I don’t think Bill’s going to hurt you. But he’s going to give you plenty of chances to hurt you
rself.” She leaned closer to him. “Captain Coleman, here’s the main law of TV interviews. Whoever gets mad, loses. Don’t get mad. Don’t even show anger.”
Cole smiled at her. “Ma’am, you don’t survive in the U.S. Army without being able to listen to stupidity for hours on end without showing the slightest reaction.”
“Good,” she said. “Because we’re trying to get General Alton onto the program via a hookup in the Washington studio.”
“He’ll just deny everything.”
“That’s right,” she said. “And he should have a chance to do it. Fair and balanced, remember?”
It was Mark who told them that Cole was going to be on O’Reilly that night. He came home from a friend’s house and charged into the living room, where Reuben was taking something like a nap on the couch. “The other guy’s going to be on Fox tonight.”
Still a little groggy, Reuben was sure he must have missed something. “Who’s the first guy?”
“You are. The other guy, the guy who was shooting terrorists with you. He’s going to be on The O’Reilly Factor.”
Reuben made himself alert at once. “Okay. Thanks, Mark. You heard this at a friend’s house?”
“His dad was watching Fox News when he got off work.”
“But you aren’t supposed to tell people—”
“Dad, I’m not supposed to tell them that you’re here. They already know that you’re my dad. It’s too late for me to deny that.”
They kept the TV on while they ate dinner—usually against the rules—but the promos for O’Reilly were neutral enough. Tonight Bill talks with one of the heroes of the fight at the Tidal Basin. Only as they got closer to the actual show did the promos start talking about “astonishing revelations” and then, in the last promo, “serious charges” against “high-ranking officers.”
“Sounds like they got some corroboration,” said Reuben.
“Sounds like they’re hyping a TV show,” said Cessy.
When Cole’s segment came on, Reuben felt like leaving the room. He liked this soldier, he trusted him, but military people were notoriously bad on television. They kept their cool, yes, but they didn’t let anything show. They usually came across wooden. Scripted, even.
Cole, though, looked like a real guy. With normal human emotions. At first O’Reilly got him talking about the fight at the Tidal Basin. And Cole told it clearly but humanly—it didn’t sound memorized. He skipped around a little. And when he talked about how they didn’t get the other launcher in time, he choked up and it looked genuine. “People call us heroes but it doesn’t feel like that,” said Cole. “It feels like mission failure.”
“But it wasn’t your mission,” said O’Reilly.
“My mission is to defend the United States of America and its Constitution, sir,” said Cole. “It was being attacked, and there was nobody else close enough to make a difference. Rube and I—Major Malich and I, we both keep thinking, what if we’d chosen a different target. Driven a little faster. Run harder. Shot sooner. One second, and maybe we could have stopped it.”
“In my book you are a hero, Captain Coleman,” said O’Reilly. “Heroes don’t always succeed. They’re the ones that try.” Then he took a commercial break with the promise that there’d be more with Captain Cole after the ads.
“So far so good,” said Cecily.
“He didn’t go to Fox News to talk about the Tidal Basin,” said Reuben.
When the show came back on, it wasn’t just Cole on the screen. There was also an inset showing General Alton. “Joining us from our Washington studio is General Chapel Alton. Thanks for joining us, General.”
“It’s an honor to be on the program with Captain Coleman, sir,” said Alton.
“Oh, right, like he doesn’t know what Cole’s going to talk about,” said Reuben.
“It’s television,” said Cessy. “War by other means.”
