Free Conspiracy by Dana Black

instructions: they blunted the cutting edge of the documentary. You had to be outrageous with this kind of thing if you were going to be remembered, and Sharon had dropped all the inflammatory stuff. Worse, she had picked the worst possible time to go into her “responsible conservative journalist” act—the very night that they’d learned the ratings were crucial. Taggart’s stomach gave another twinge. He could see it now, having to come back to his Bank Street apartment three weeks early and tell the friend he had sublet to that the project had bombed out.
    Not that he hadn’t tried to get the decision-making control for moments like this. He’d offered to produce and direct the World Cup for Cantrell at only a slight increase in salary. He’d even had the name picked out: “A Wayn-Art Production.” But Cantrell had made this prior commitment to Larry Noble. So because of this prior commitment, the whole month’s setup was about to go down in flames.
    His fingers toyed with his gold medallion, rubbing it in a circle on the smooth skin above his navel. Possibly, he thought, this one didn’t have to go the wrong way.
    Cindy was finishing up. Expertly she flipped the completed video cassette out of the slot marked “2” on her editing deck. Then she took a bright orange gummed label from her supplies cabinet and penned in “Russian Documentary— Revised.” She removed the paper backing and pressed the label onto the cassette’s rough gray plastic shell.
    “Just to make sure we don’t get ’em mixed up,” Cindy said, and removed the other cassette from the “1” slot, placing both on the table behind her, where Taggart was sitting. “Might as well save the original copy for Dan’s scrapbook, yes? Now I’m all ready to work on yours, Mr. T.”
    She lifted the big reel containing the two and a half hours of Barcelona coverage and hoisted it into place on the deck, snapped the spindle clip to hold the reel firm, and with skilled fingers threaded it through the machine’s innards. Then she took a blank cassette from her supplies cabinet. “Goes ’round and ’round,” she said, snapping the cassette into the “2” slot, “and it comes out here.”
    Taggart put his clipboard in front of Cindy. “Can you read my writing?” he asked pleasantly. “That’s forty-three minutes in, where I want to start. It’s the first Argentina goal”
    -As he spoke, Taggart lifted the revised cassette from the table and carefully peeled the orange sticker from the nubbly plastic. Cindy’s eyes were on the timer readout on the editing machine, waiting for the reel to spin to the forty-third minute of coverage. There she would begin to transfer the signal to the smaller cassette that would be used for the master tape for tonight’s broadcast.
    Taggart had no difficulty placing the orange sticker on the cover of Dan Richards’s original cassette.
    Slightly over an hour later, Cindy had finished editing the game coverage, and also Rachel Quinn’s interview with Keith Palermo. Four cassettes were lined up on her table, three of them with orange stickers.
    Dan Richards opened the door to the editing cubicle. Small in stature, he had been known in his earlier broadcasting days as “the little man with the big grin.” Now he was in his fifties, tanned and weathered, and an institution in sportscasting. The grin was still bright and infectious. Even in his green UBC Sports blazer, Dan looked like good company, as though he had news to report that would make a person feel better right away. Just off the shuttle plane from Barcelona, he was freshly shaved, his shoes freshly shined, the crease in his tailored slacks sharpened. After many years of travel, he had mastered the art. Whether he was arriving for a dinner with a placekicker or for a taping, as he was tonight, Dan could be counted on to arrive immaculate.
    “Hiya, troops!” he said, turning on the grin. “Set for round two?”
    Taggart grinned back and got