Читать книгу Himmler's Island - Richard G. Buchanan PhD - Страница 4

KIRA PHILLIPS was born in Springfield, Ohio, then a small gritty industrial city one of whose principle employers was a company once called International Harvester whose plant made the company’s small to medium trucks. When she was growing up, her father, educated and trained as a Mechanical Engineer, was its Consumer Products Engineer. His job was to review letters to the company about its new tucks to determine if complaints about the trucks were valid, and if they were, he would get together with the truck’s Design Engineers and/or manufacturing subcontractors to modify the offending part or parts or assembly to rectify the deficiency or deficiencies. The company prided itself on the quality of its products, most of which it sold to farmers who couldn’t afford equipment breakdowns, especially during the harvest season. She remembered hearing he father’s pride when he talked about his job.

Medical conditions associated with her birth, but never discussed with her, resulted in Kira being an only child. Her family had a small farm north of the city on which she was raised as a farm girl and became her father’s “tomboy,” resiliently independent and able to do things on her own. She attended Springfield Central High School and her parents expected her to attend Wittenberg College, a local semi-religious institution that reflected her parents’ strong Lutheran faith.

However, Antioch College, a liberal (some conservative “Springfielders” called it opprobriously Progressive) institution that was ten miles south of Springfield had a work-study program in which students held full time, called “co-op,” jobs for six months of the year, attending school for the remaining six months. One of its students had worked in the Pharmacy of Springfield General Hospital when Kira was a high school volunteer, or “Candy Striper.” She had a number of long discussions with him, and, being interested in broadcasting, she asked him to find out about the jobs held in that industry. She looked at the list which caused her to make Antioch her irrevocable first choice of a college.

Kira’s parents were aghast, but grudgingly agreed to pay just her tuition, room and board. She held a multiplicity of part-time jobs while on campus, ruthlessly budgeting her modest jobs’ pay. When she went on co-op jobs, none of which were in the Springfield area, she did the same by living in cheap dingy apartments with fellow students. She also discovered that ethnic foods could be purchased less expensively, so she learned ethnic cooking. She also met and married a fellow student in a wedding unattended by her parents.

She held a number of increasingly professional, increasingly responsible broadcasting and related positions within the co-op system. After her graduation, she had an internship in a TV soap opera; was a copy researcher in an actor’s public relations firm; an assistant in a video production firm; and on college football game day, a remote set-up manager at ESPN-2—terminated after the football season ended.

Her marriage failed after which she and her mother resumed having telephone conversations. Her mother asked her to apply for a newly opened position at WDTN, Springfield’s local TV station, and to return to the farm, at least for a while. She discovered the station was affiliated with CNN, so she agreed, applied for, and got the job, and then moved back in with her parents at their farm where she made peace with them.

The station’s local broadcasts, other than news and weather, were “fluff” pieces, including a cooking show. She convinced the Station Manager to let her do the show by preparing a multi-ethnic set of dishes. Her hosting, which included active participation, was a minor hit, garnering fan mail.

She applied to for a CNN Junior reporter job that was posted on the inter-company bulletin board, but had an initially poor interview with CNN’s hiring manager who was concerned about the contradiction between her resume of a vast and varied job experiences and the thinness of experience found in the station’s background check. She explained that much of the experience was under her married name which she dropped after her divorce. With the contradiction resolved, she was hired.

Leslie looked out the left-hand window at the apron next to the Epps Aviation building. After a while she saw a woman dressed like her, followed by a tanned man with greying thinning hair in a suit that did a fairly good job disguising a slight paunch, followed by a uniformed man towing a cart with a single suitcase. She lost sight of the woman and the suited man as they got closer to the front of the plane when she heard the cargo door open, a bag loaded, then the cargo door shut.

The two Leslie had seen boarded the Citation. Jan ushered the woman to the seat across the table from Claire and the man across the table from Leslie.

The woman had red hair cut fashionably short, and Claire noticed some slight crinkles around her eyes, suggesting she was a bit older than Claire and Leslie. Leslie’s first impression of the man was verified; the man was well into middle age.

Jan said; “Please buckle your seatbelts.”

When she saw that both of the new passengers had complied, she duplicated what she had done before, and, as before, when she was done, the engine noise increased, the plane moved from the terminal’s apron to a taxiway to the end of the runway; it entered the runway; turned towards its end; then after a short pause, started its takeoff roll, gathered speed and took off.

Again, when the plane leveled off, and the engine noise diminished, a bell sounded, Jan unbuckled herself and walked to the table where she asked Claire and Leslie; “The same ladies?”

Claire answered; “Yes please,” but Leslies bristled a bit and just nodded.

Then she asked the red-headed woman; “What may I get you?”

“I’ll have a Coke.”

Jan said; “And you sir?”

The man answered; “Jan, did that bottle of Chablis get put aboard?”

“Yessir, it’s on ice.”

“I’ll have that.”

As Jan disappeared into the Galley, Claire extended her hand across the table; then automatically said; “Claire James. . .MSNBC.” in announcer cadence.

The woman took her hand, then said; “Kira Phillips. . .CNN,” mimicking Claire.

Leslie joined by extending her hand across the table and aisle to Kira, saying; “Leslie Cummings. . .Fox.”

All three women giggled.

Claire and Leslie turned to the man who was smiling mischievously before he said to the two of them; “George Kingson. I’m the Manager of The Project where we’re going. Kira and I have already met, and as I asked her to do, please call me George.”

Leslie looked across the aisle to Kira and said; “No fair. You got a jump on us,”

George replied; “No she hasn’t; I didn’t discuss anything about The Project with her.”

Leslie looked at Kira who just nodded.