Night of the Jaguar by Joe Gannon Page A

countryside.
    Then his white phone rang.
    Then his blue phone rang.
    He drew himself up in the mirror. He shook off the funk. Matthew Connelly liked this part of the job.
    â€œShowtime!”
    By the time he crossed from the bathroom to his desk, he had done his dispatches in his head. He snatched up the blue phone, NBC radio: “Sheila? I’m ready. One second.”
    He snatched up the white phone, the Miami Herald, “Paul? Pass me to the tone. I’m sending now. Six hundred words on the senators, and four hundred on who’ll replace Joaquin Tinoco.”
    What a world! Matthew had stayed long enough to see the journalism biz rocket into a new age. For years he’d had to laboriously dictate his stories over the phone and have them read back to him, or, worse, to go down to the international exchange and bang them out on the old Teletype and then hand feed the tape into the machines. But now, these new RadioShack computers let you store 1,200 words and then send over the phone to any newspaper office in the world. (As long as the international operator didn’t mistakenly cut in, or the wind wasn’t blowing the telephone wires too hard.) Soon they’d be coming out with a model that could store 2,000 words!
    He stuck the white phone’s handset into the rubber cups and sent his copy to the Herald . Then he went back to the blue phone—NBC radio—closed his eyes a moment and composed.
    â€œSheila? Okay, recording in three, two, one: Nicaragua’s ruling Sandinista Front is engaged in their biggest internal crisis in years as different factions fight to place one of their own on the National Directorate, which makes all policy for the beleaguered country. The Nine, as they are known, became eight with the death of Joaquin Tinoco, known as El Mejicano . Tinoco was one of the last original founders of the Front to serve on the Directorate, and his replacement represents a generational turnover. The only candidate openly talked about for the position is Vladimir Malhora, the current head of State Security, who is known as a hardliner. The skirmish takes place against the backdrop of tomorrow’s arrival of a fact finding mission from the US Senate whose verdict will sway the pending vote in Congress on a one-hundred-million-dollar aid package for the Contra rebels, which will likely pass and instigate a huge escalation of the war. For NBC radio, this is Matthew Connelly in Managua. Three, two, one. Out. How was that?”
    Sheila would have a supercilious comment or two, or three, to make. Every editor he’d ever had believed reporters were simpletons sent to the field because they didn’t have the brains to be editors.
    â€œI used ‘known’ twice? Okay, I’ll do another one for another fifty bucks, but then I just used ‘another’ twice, too … What? Great. I’ll send the profile of Malhora to the mainframe for the commuter rotation.”
    He hung up, checked his copy had gone to the Herald , and walked to the bathroom, running the abacus in his head. Between Tinoco’s departure and the senator’s arrival, the radio pieces alone would cover expenses for two months. The newspapers would surely cover his R&R to Belize in September. He flipped open the medicine cabinet and ran his finger along the rows of pills. He chose a Praziquantel for his Olympian battle with intestinal parasites. It would turn his stools rock hard. He hadn’t had a satisfying bowel movement since 1984.
    He closed the medicine cabinet, had a good look at himself in the mirror, and dry chewed the Praz.
    â€œ Matthew! Le buscan!”
    He did not hurry downstairs, but as he went, he picked up the faint murmur of Spanish from his sala. To his surprise, he saw two uniforms, a captain and a lieutenant, seated around his matching rattan rockers and table. Graciela, he noticed, had laid out the good cups and served up the good coffee in the French press.