Up and Down (31 page)

How very creative. I’m glad Landon was out of range and sequestered in a classroom. Houston police were out in force but did not intervene. I saw Kelly off to the side of the melee speaking with the senior police officer on the scene. She was smiling and seemed quite relaxed about it all. She saw me and waved, giving me a quick thumbs-up before turning back to the policewoman. I stood there for about three-quarters of an hour. After twenty minutes, five of the seven satellite trucks departed. The remaining two left ten minutes after that. They all had apparently gotten their quota of video. After that, the demonstrators, who were from a particularly extreme local right-wing church, seemed to lose interest. The rally was breaking up as I hustled back to my room in time for my teleconference.

At the appointed hour, I dialled into the conference call line and listened to the repetitive strains of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” arranged for the pan flute. Mercifully, I had to endure only a few bars of it before the call started.

“Okay. Hi, everyone,” Crawford started. “I’ve got Michael Crane here with me in the room. Who else is on the line?”

“It’s Diane, along with Amanda here in Toronto,”

“And it’s David here in Houston.”

“All right. Let’s get going. We’ve got a lot to cover and an important decision to make,” Crawford said. “Well, that was not
exactly the launch news conference we were hoping for, now was it? We were lucky to persuade
NASA
to let Landon Percival even go to Houston. I figure after yesterday and the media coverage this morning, she’s on life support right now. We need to decide whether to pull the plug or give her a few more days. I know what I want, but I’d like to hear from the rest of you.”

“It’s Diane here. I don’t think we’d have gotten anywhere near the coverage we did had Landon not been so, um, so newsworthy. I thought she handled herself, under David’s guiding hand, very well.”

“Diane, we’re not looking for media coverage at any cost. We want positive coverage for
NASA
. They’re the client here.”

“I hear you, Crawford. But if I were
NASA
, I wouldn’t be too unhappy with yesterday’s launch. There was a ton of coverage in both countries, and that should continue as we get closer to the lift-off date. I say leave Landon in the play. She’s a media magnet.”

Bless you Diane, I thought to myself. I decided I needed to get into the discussion. After all, I was the one in Houston.

“I couldn’t agree more with Diane’s perspective,” I said. “In fact, I spoke to Kelly Bradstreet this morning and she’s not unhappy with yesterday’s newser. She did note that she’d like more
NASA
-focused coverage in the coming weeks but I think we can get that by more targeted story pitching. Besides, I don’t think we can pull the plug anyway. We’re too far down the road already, and
NASA
will make that call in the end, won’t they?”

“Okay, let’s get one thing clear,” Crawford interjected in a tone that chilled the call. “This is our program. We are their advisers. We have an obligation to provide our very best advice to serve their interests. I’ve got
CNN
playing in the background even as we speak here, and there’s ugly coverage of an anti-Landon rally at the
JSC
going on right now. I would have thought that David would have briefed us on that at the top of the call. We’ve got to stop this and stop it fast.”

“I’ve just come from that so-called rally and it was anemic at best,” I spun. “As soon as the cameras left, so did the demonstrators. They’re part of the same group that pickets the funerals of those who have died from
AIDS
saying they deserved it. They are incredibly offensive and they don’t represent the views of mainstream society. In fact, I think the protest will strengthen support for Landon and for the client. If
NASA
backs down because of a bunch of placard-waving wackos who couldn’t even chant in unison, then we certainly aren’t giving our client good advice. I say we ride it out, have Landon lie a little low for the next week or so, and try to get Eugene Crank up to the plate where he can hit one out of the park, if you know what I mean, Crawford.”

“Don’t go there, David. I mean it. I think you’ve been seduced by your wrinkly bush pilot and your judgment is clouded. The coverage we’ve seen so far, and there has been a ton, has very little to do with
NASA
. It’s all Landon, all the time. And there is absolutely no evidence that this will change going forward. As Diane says, Landon is a media magnet. That’s our problem.
That’s what we must fix. We need
NASA
to be our media magnet. I’m going to call my
NASA
contacts and have Landon cut loose. Toronto, you can start the process to pick a new winner.”

“But you can’t do that,” I protested. “A heap of negative press will rain down on
NASA
if Landon is kicked off the mission, especially right now when her public profile is so high. It makes no sense. You’ll enrage every seniors group and every gay rights organization in both countries. The Canadian media will go ballistic. It’s just not right for the client, and it’s not fair to Landon.”

“Crawford, I have to say I agree with David,” Diane cut in.

“What a surprise! I’ll alert the media,” Crawford cut in, heavy on the acidic sarcasm.

“It just feels premature to jettison Landon right now. David makes some solid points and we ought to listen to what he’s saying. I really worry about the backlash here in Canada if you toast Landon. David is closest to all of this and I think his advice is sound.”

“David is a little too fucking close to all of this,” was Crawford’s response. “Look, I don’t like to play this card very often. But this account team is not a democracy. I got us in to pitch
NASA
in the first place. They are a
TK
client because of my contacts. I’m running this account, and Landon Percival will soon be heading out of the goddamned spotlight and back to whatever godforsaken part of the Canadian wilderness she calls home. End of story. We’ve already drafted the news release.”

“Crawford …” Diane began.

“This discussion is over!” Crawford roared, with the finality of a thermonuclear device. “Now I’m going to ask Michael here to brief us on the ongoing media relations program that we’ll be undertaking here in the U.S. After that we’re going to …”

We all heard what sounded like a knock on the door of the
D.C.
boardroom.

“You can obviously see that I’m running a meeting here,” Crawford said angrily to the interloper.

“But she says it’s extremely urgent and that you are to be interrupted,” said the voice.

“Christ! I’ll take it in my office,” snapped Crawford. “Michael, take over. I’ll be back.”

I could actually hear Crawford Blake stomping out of the room. Or perhaps my imagination inserted its own soundtrack. A second or two later, Michael, whom I barely remembered from our Washington pitch so long ago, started his presentation on the media relations play. I was still reeling from Crawford’s announcement. I couldn’t believe we were about to shoot ourselves in the foot, or in this case, the head, by sending Landon Percival home. On the other hand, I wasn’t convinced Kelly Bradstreet would support the recommendation. But her power was not supreme in
NASA
. Crawford wouldn’t even be calling her. He’d go around her to his more senior contacts, and he’d twist the story to his own benefit. I knew that some of the
NASA
leadership had been dragged kicking and screaming to the citizen astronaut party and would probably welcome the chance to piss
in the punch bowl and put the uppity Kelly Bradstreet in her place. Clearly some of them never wanted Landon Percival on board in the first place.

Fifteen minutes later, I realized that Michael was still talking and I’d heard not a word of his presentation. I’d been too busy analyzing our desperate situation and trying to devise a Hail Mary that might save Landon’s seat on the shuttle. Maybe Emily Hatch was the answer. I tried to tune back in to the conference call but Michael really wasn’t saying anything that interested me any more. As far as I was concerned, Crawford Blake had just set fire to the city and passed Nero’s fiddle to Michael Crane.

I was desperate to talk with Amanda and Diane but didn’t feel I really could until the call ended. I was just about to email Amanda on my bb when I heard that familiar two-tone chime that announced the arrival of another party to the conference call.

“Hello?” the newcomer said. “Is this the
NASA
team call?”

“Yes, it is,” said Michael. “Who has just joined?”

“It’s Margot Spinello here in New York. I’d like to know exactly who is on this call,” she asked.

Margot Spinello, Margot Spinello. I knew the name but couldn’t place it. A suddenly very deferential Michael ran down the list of participants on the call. I MSNed Amanda on my laptop:
‘margot spinello?’

“So it’s just the
TK NASA
account team on the call?”

“Yes,” Michael replied.

“Diane, it’s good to know you’re on the call. It explains why I kept getting your voicemail in the last hour,” Margot said.

“I’m here, Margot. Is everything okay?” Diane asked.

Just then, Amanda’s
MSN
response arrived: “holy shit!
TK
global
CEO
in
NY
!”

“No, everything is most decidedly not okay. What I’m about to tell you is highly confidential and should never be spoken of again. There could be legal implications. About twenty-five minutes ago, I fired Crawford Blake from
TK
with cause, effective immediately. He has left the
D.C.
building and is on his way to a meeting with our corporate legal counsel. About fifteen minutes ago I spoke to a Kelly Bradstreet at
NASA
and informed her that Crawford had been let go from
TK
, and I briefed her fully on the reason. I also resigned the
NASA
account. However, by the time I’d finished speaking with Kelly, we were back on the business. Let me explain. Again, all of this is highly confidential.”

It was deathly quiet on the line. I thought I knew what was coming. I just didn’t know how it had happened.

“Earlier this morning, it was brought to my attention that the American winner of the Citizen Astronaut contest that we conceived and administered, a Mr. Eugene Crank, is a childhood friend of Crawford Blake. More importantly, the selection of Mr. Crank was not the result of a random draw but a purposeful manipulation by Crawford Blake. Five minutes ago, I spoke to the
CEO
of Borden-Bennett here in New York. He is taking steps to terminate their
D.C.
office
GM
and the senior lead on
the
NASA
contest administration. Obviously, their oversight of the draw was inadequate at best and incompetent at worst. They will also make these changes very quickly and very quietly. As you can imagine, they, like us, have every interest in keeping this all below the radar.

“I said earlier that we’re still on the account. Let me explain that, too. Kelly believes, and I agree, that going public and invalidating the entire contest would be an enormous public blow to
NASA
when they are already on their knees. We both agree that the odds of anyone else discovering this, particularly with Crawford no longer with the agency, are slim. The odds are not zero, but they’re slim. Crawford’s name was neither mentioned in any media materials nor noted in any coverage. So while it’s not ideal, the decision has been made to press ahead and deal with any revelations when they arise. I’m not completely convinced this is the wisest or safest approach, but as the client, Kelly Bradstreet should carry more weight in the final decision. And she has decided to ride it out. If we make it through, this approach has the benefit of protecting
TK’S
image and reputation, even though we don’t deserve it. We will immediately put in place a crisis contingency plan that will be invoked should this situation ever hit the streets.

“Finally, Crawford told me before I broke my news to him that he was about to recommend that our Canadian winner be sacked and a new one chosen in light of the recent media coverage. I took the liberty of raising this with Kelly Bradstreet and she shut
the idea down immediately. Landon Percival is to stay in the program unless she fails the training. Is that understood?”

“We understand, Margot, and we agree,” said Diane. No one else dared speak. “That was the advice we’d already given to Crawford, and that he’d rejected.”

“Diane, I haven’t had a chance to speak to you about this, but as the next most senior
TK
er on the project, I’d like you to assume overall account leadership on the
NASA
business.”

“I’ll clear the deck and take the helm,” Diane replied without missing a beat.

“If I could ask the rest of the Toronto team to hang up now, I need to speak to Diane and Michael about the
TK
D.C.
office in the wake of these events.”

I hung up, jumped up and down on my bed until I hit my head on the light fixture, and then called Amanda on her BlackBerry.

“Did you send that baseball team photo to Margot Spinoodle?” I nearly shouted.

“It’s Spinello,” she corrected. “And I might have.”