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Sept. 16, 2004 The hallway was dark. That part of the building was deserted, cleared out by direct order of the negotiating team. A lone figure sat in a chair in the middle of the room down the hall. Aids whispered low to each other. The chief negotiator walked up. What's going on, he asked. He's got a bomb strapped to himself. He says he'll set it off if we don't back down. He has those darn papers and if we don't back him up he's gonna take the place up and him with it. The negotiator picked up the nearby mobile phone. He had to wait a second for an answer. The person on the other end sounded nervous. No, the big man couldn't be reached. You'll just have to handle this as best you can. Okay, we're on our own. The big guy can't be reached. We've got to do this without his help. That's what I said. Give me a shield and a bullhorn. I'm going in. Shock crossed the faces of the team. You're gonna talk to him. He might set the bomb off. Yeah, nothing else to do, though. If anything happens tell my family I loved them. The negotiator started down the hall. He got within yards of the shadow shrouded figure in the chair. Buddy, he called, come on man, you don't want to do this. Don't let it end this way. Let go of the bomb. Ease it off. What do you want? "I want people to believe me. I've got the papers. I don't care if they're true. I want them to be true, they have to be true. If they don't believe me I will blow the place." They negotiated back and forth for several hours. Finally, the figure in the chair cut the bomb loose and handed it to the negotiator. As the negotiator came back down the hall and dropped it in a pail of water the shadowy figure moved over a news desk, the smile of victory on his face and prepared to go back to work. He chuckled insidiously to himself. Self satisfied. So he won? Yeah, Dan Rather won. What are we going to do? What else could we do. The big guy couldn't make it. If he had, it might be different. He's got a lot more experience talking to crazies and getting at the truth. Well, where IS the big guy? He's back down in Florida checking his house for hurricane damage. "Limbaugh's down in Florida?" So, because Limbaugh's in Florida dealing with a hurricane we gotta give Rather his way? "Yeah, he says now if he says it's true, it's true. Nothing we can do about it." ------------ About the author: Lee Zelhart is a proud graduate of McKendree College in Lebanon, Illinois. He is the widowed father of two teens and the prospective author of a soon to be published book called: The Ghost of the Cavalier. Sometime in summer 2005, or before. Email: graphicsdoctor1@sbcglobal.net Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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