我是处女座

民主和平等，对于小人物，在美国仍然可能不得。

“死胖子”Richard Jewell就是一例。

他是白人，遭受不到种族歧视，但不能幸免于对失败者、社会底层的鄙视。

他从小有英雄主义，立志加入执法队伍，保护民众。

内心柔软，从对妈妈的关爱中自然流露。

缺点也很明显。

他非黑即白，只有对错，不懂灰色。

一个生硬地坚持己见的保安，常常被视为另类。

他也爱表现，出于单纯的自豪感和正义感，却因为是“失败的死胖子”而被视为怪胎。

没人会多看他一眼，除了妈妈、死党，和一个具有慧眼的律师——也不知是否属于对这个角色的美化。

他在亚特兰大奥运会的一个活动上发现了炸弹，一夜间成为民族英雄，被各大媒体连篇累牍地颂扬，人生达到巅峰，妈妈流下激动的泪水。

喜悦尚未两天，蓦然又变成FBI的嫌疑犯。

媒体再次蜂拥而至，报道FBI的不断造访和Richard Jewell母子的茫然无措。

煎熬持续了八十多天，直到FBI声明解除怀疑。

小人物虽然一直不得志，但仍存有信念。

大事临头，却发现理想是错位的，信念是可疑的。

所谓的真相和正义，明明如此清晰，却如此不可及。

理想和信念崩塌了，他对FBI说，我始终以为执法部门效力而自豪，但从此可能不会了。

虽然从来就没有任何证据，那个探员Shaw始终对自己的判断深信不疑。

当然电影为了突出主线，很可能不赘述其它线索上的追踪，但Shaw直到最后FBI宣布放弃时仍然坚持，就是这个死胖子。

他的执迷不悟很可能代表了大部分自以为是的美国人的偏见。

死胖子的伯乐，律师Watson好似一股清流，慧眼关注到他的优点，并寄语他保持。

虽然这个伯乐明显带着俯视，但比大多数看都不看他一眼的要强多了。

Watson在新闻里看到Richard成为民族英雄，立马联系他，要当他律师，以防出版社找他签约时，他看不懂合同。

当Richard成了嫌疑犯，找他辩护，他也犹豫片刻，直到助理女朋友提醒这是个juicy client才下了决心。

不可否认律师帮助Richard洗脱嫌疑的作用，也不可否认律师对Richard的相信和不遗余力，只是这一切可能出于同情和正义，更可能出于对一炮而红后滚滚资源的渴望。

连Richard自己在一次过于恼怒时脱口而出，你不是就想赚我出版的律师费嘛！

毕竟不同阶层，毕竟萍水相逢，没有无缘无故的友谊。

电影结尾的字幕表示，他们成为一生的朋友，Richard母亲还为律师夫妇带过孩子。

这个真实的后续，很可能是共患难后引发的真情。

作为电影，每个人物表达得鲜明立体，每次冲突和情绪也让同为小人物的观众感怀不已。

即使远离亚特兰大，即使“灾难”未曾降临到自己头上，现实的残酷就如同电影那样清晰，甚至更惨。

对每个小人物来说，碰不上云淡风轻，碰上了天崩地裂。

电影结局当然是事实，也安抚人心，但大家都知道现实中正义的胜算有多少。

（只是不认可不择手段的爆料女记者最后留下忏悔眼泪的安排。

如果事实并非如此，这个流泪太牵强。

如果事实竟然如此，那电影缺了铺垫。

扣一星。

）

摘自letterboxd用户matt lynch：“Probably my favorite from the Late-Eastwood Heroism Project, mostly because instead of focusing on the trials of law enforcement or military service or even SULLY's simple grace under fire, this is just about a culture of unending cynicism and mistrust and anger. Everyone's looking to poke holes in Richard, everyone is convinced that he's too dumb, too fat, too fucking polite to be anything other than a shifty weirdo at best, a mass-murderer at worst. Plenty of material for both sides of the Clint divide to chew on here too, including a maybe-problematic portrayal of women, a self-interested and inherently deceptive media landscape, some hypocrisy re: law enforcement, and even the prominent placement of a few Confederate flags, but I submit to you that it's all of a piece given Eastwood's career-long infatuation with subtle gradations of virtue (or lack thereof). Also Paul Walter Hauser is very goodhere.”

一. 对理查德的人物描绘很棒 但剧情的全面性让人失望作为一部由真实事件改编的片子，制作团队确实在刻画当事人的来龙去脉上下了工夫，还算流畅地刻画了一个坚定拥护司法系统的人的信仰逐步破灭的全过程。

但是剧情的全面性有些令人失望。

全片除了对理查德的描绘之外，对同样在这个事件中扮演重要角色的媒体和司法的代表人物的刻画过于脸谱化。

在为英雄正名的过程中，只有律师全程履行了职责、理查德的妈妈发表了一次公共演讲、理查德自己功过参半；其他人完全没有起到任何帮助作用。

二. Paul和Sam把理查德和律师演活了理查德是一个很常见的美国小城的善良邻家大胖哥哥的形象。

怂怂的“面团宝宝”、正义的使者、规则维护者，都是他，Paul的表演让我对这个人物的冲突性没有任何质疑。

美女记者的最好看的一段戏是在发表了爆炸新闻后被全体致敬后的得意和疯癫。

不过大多数观众最喜欢的应该会是Sam的痞痞律师吧，表演完全没毛病，如果我会再看一次这个电影的话，八成是因为想重温Sam的戏。

三. 看完觉得一口气憋在胸口 总觉得故事没讲完没有看嗨。

因为直到影片结束，还觉得有什么没有演出来。

诚然本片主角是理查德，对于理查德的心理变化和对司法的观点变化的描绘得很详细，但是对司法和媒体这两大影响着“为英雄正名”事件的人物代表选择了基本是纯负面的角度去描绘。

当片子出现了明确的好人和坏人的阵营时，观影的嗨感会下降。

四. 总而言之太脸谱化对人物的描绘不够丰满，对几个主要角色的处理过于扁平。

反面脸谱化了司法和媒体。

让整个片子少了一些真实感。

FBI探员和美女记者都使用了典型的坏人光影处理（如FBI探员哄着理查德录爆恐吓语音的典型坏人化光影、美女记者在主编室争取发表爆炸新闻的脸部明暗交叠光影）。

FBI的两个探员一个没有起到啥作用，一个全程在违反规则、跟着感觉走，在大费周章做了调查但没找到任何证据的情况下，依旧认为理查德是凶犯，FBI探员真的只有这个水平吗？

（手动摊手表情）原以为在影片后半部分能帮到理查德的美女记者并没有起到什么作用。

只是在现场走了一圈、恍然大悟了一下、跑去酒吧骂了一句FBI探员、在发布会上流了几滴眼泪，然后就没有然后了。

总评：满分十分的话，我给六分。

加分项：1)对理查德心理变化的描绘 2)演员的表演 3)场景的设置尤其是对一个坚定拥护司法系统的人的信仰逐步破灭的全过程描绘得很流畅。

减分项：1)脸谱化司法和媒体代表 2)故事展现角度片面（比如：难道声名显赫的FBI真的只会揪着一个没有任何作案证据的人去调查，没有同步调查任何其他人？

）

1996年亚特兰大奥运会见证了美国无与伦比的大型活动的操办能力，却也是无数安保人员和志愿者的奉献才筑造了一场经典的奥运会，而理查德朱维尔事件所映射出的，是这个社会浮躁肤浅的表面，是那些为了博人眼球丝毫没有下线的媒体，是那些为了业绩和压力企图逼良为娼杀良冒功的执法人员……《理查德朱维尔的哀歌》是绝对的真实事件，而其中媒体和FBI的所作所为很难不让人气愤，一个兢兢业业的安保人员及时发现危险，本应该是英雄，却莫名其妙被所谓虚无的侧写形象冤枉成为罪犯，同类型的电影还让我想到了《萨利机长》，这样的悲剧发生，只能说明社会对于公理正义的追求仍然有待提高……还是会被山姆洛克威尔那该死的痞帅魅力所折服，虽然戏份一般，但是仍然够帅！

年度黑马 比起年底排片和口碑双丰收的 利刃出鞘 这部上映的悄无声息 排片也少得可怜 不是冲着老爷子的名号可能就错过了同样是真实故事改编 比起萨利 更被这部打动 老爷子实在太擅长讲这类故事了 从人本身出发 挖掘延伸 大概我永远也拒绝不了这类故事 比起Sully Richard身上 更能看到自己的某部分的缩影 容易满足也极易丧气 抱着幻想又不够脚踏实地 守着心里的一点点热忱和善良 还有微不足道的英雄梦想 按部就班 浑浑噩噩的过日子 他代表的不是少数 某一类人 他代表的是 平凡又普通的 大多数 迅速击溃我的部分 在FBI大摇大摆冲进Richard家四处取证 在那句 “警察对警察”后 沃森臭骂Richard开始 那一刻我才惊觉Richard如此善良 从那一part开始 心里开始升腾起巨大的难过 在母亲躲在卫生间哭过后抱着Richard说“怪我没有保护好你” 在发布会母亲极力镇定最终却哽咽着捂脸说求媒体记者放过Richard放过他们一家 在FBI最终审讯后镜头停在门上那个联邦政府的logo 一层一层的难过堆叠起来 即使从进影院前已经知道故事的定版 依然忍不住颤抖 老爷子在这部电影里对故事的表现手法依然 十分克制 全片几乎没有什么激烈的冲突 印象最深的是那个跳切到几乎有些生硬的蒙太奇 像是在刻意将观众的注意力从故事情节里拉出来 三天内两部电影看下来对老爷子的个人风格有了一定的了解 个人风格真的太重要了 能将讲好故事作为毕生追求的人太幸福了 国内多几个这种踏踏实实讲好故事的导演就好了

On July 30, 1996, the media identified Richard Jewell as the F.B.I.'s prime suspect in the Olympic Park bombing. For the first time, the 34-year-old security guard tells his extraordinary story, to MARIE BRENNER: his brief moment as a national hero, his hounding by the Feds and the press, and his eccentric friendship with the unknown southern lawyer who helped him through his public torment.FEBRUARY 1997 MARIE BRENNERDAN WINTERSThe search warrant was short and succinct, dated August 3, 9:41 A.M. F.B.I. special agent Diader Rosario was instructed to produce "hair samples (twenty-five pulled and twenty-five combed hairs from the head)" of Richard Allensworth Jewell. That Saturday, Atlanta was humid; the temperature would rise to 85 degrees. There were 34 Olympic events scheduled, including women's team handball, but Richard Jewell was in his mother's apartment playing Defender on a computer set up in the spare bedroom. Jewell hadn't slept at all the night before, or the night before that. He could hear the noise from the throng of reporters massed on the hill outside the small apartment in the suburbs. All morning long, he had been focused on the screen, trying to score off "the little guy who goes back and forth shooting the aliens," but at 12:30 the sound of the telephone disturbed his concentration. Very few people had his new number, by necessity unlisted. Since the F.B.I. had singled him out as the Olympic Park bombing suspect three days earlier, Jewell had received approximately 1,000 calls a day—someone had posted his mother's home number on the Internet."I'll be right over," his lawyer Watson Bryant told him. "They want your hair, they want your palm prints, and they want something called a voice exemplar—the goddamn bastards." The curtains were drawn in the pastel apartment filled with his mother's crafts and samplers; A HOME WITHOUT A DOG IS JUST A HOUSE, one read. By this time Bryant had a system. He would call Jewell from his car phone so that the door could be unlatched and Bryant could avoid the questions from the phalanx of reporters on the hill.Turning into the parking lot in a white Explorer, Bryant could see sound trucks parked up and down Buford Highway. The middle-class neighborhood of apartment complexes and shopping centers was near the DeKalb Peachtree Airport, where local millionaires kept their private planes. The moment Bryant got out of his car, the reporters began to shout: "Hey, Watson, do they have the murderer?" "Are they arresting Jewell?" Bryant moved quickly toward the staircase to the Jewells' apartment. He wore a baseball cap, khaki shorts, and a frayed Brooks Brothers polo shirt. He was 45 years old, with strong features and thinning hair, a southern preppy from a country-club family. Bryant had a stern demeanor lightened by a contrarian's sense of the absurd. He was often distracted—from time to time he would miss his exits on the highway—and he had the regional tendency of defining himself by explaining what he was not. "I am not a Democrat, because they want your money. I am not a Republican, because they take your rights away," he told me soon after I met him. Bryant can talk your ear off about the Bill of Rights, ending with a flourish: "I think everyone ought to have the right to be stupid. I am a Libertarian."At the time Richard Jewell was named as a suspect by the F.B.I., Watson Bryant made a modest living by doing real-estate closings in the suburbs, but Jewell and his lawyer had formed an unusual friendship a decade earlier, when Jewell worked as a mailroom clerk at a federal disaster-relief agency where Bryant practiced law. Jewell was then a stocky kid without a father, who had trained as an auto mechanic but dreamed of being a policeman; Bryant had always had a soft spot for oddballs and strays, a personality quirk which annoyed his then wife no end.The serendipity of this friendship, an alliance particularly southern in its eccentricity, would bring Watson Bryant to the immense task of attempting to save Richard Jewell from the murky quagmire of a national terrorism case. The simple fact was that Bryant had no qualifications for the job. He had no legal staff except for his assistant, Nadya Light, no contacts in the press, and no history in Washington. He was the opposite of media-savvy; he rarely read the papers and never watched the nightly news, preferring the Discovery Channel's shows on dog psychology. Now that Richard Jewell was his client, he had entered a zone of worldwide media hysteria fraught with potential peril. Jewell suspected that his pickup truck had been flown in a C-130 transport plane to the F.B.I. unit at Quantico in Virginia, and Bryant worried that his friend would be arrested any minute. Worse, Bryant knew that he had nothing going for him, no levers anywhere. His only asset was his personality; he had the bravado and profane hyperbole of a southern rich boy, but he was in way over his head.For hours that Saturday, Bryant and Jewell sat and waited for the F.B.I. From time to time Jewell would put binoculars under the drawn curtain in his mother's bedroom to peer at the reporters on the hill. Bryant was nervous that Jewell's mother, Bobi, would return from baby-sitting and see her son having hairs pulled out of his head. Bryant stalked around the apartment complaining about the F.B.I. "The sons of bitches did not show up until three P.M.," he later recalled, and when they did, there were five of them. The F.B.I. medic was tall and muscular and wore rubber gloves. He asked Jewell to sit at a small round table in the living room, where his mother puts her holiday-theme displays. Bryant stood by the sofa next to a portrait of Jewell in his Habersham County deputy's uniform. He watched the F.B.I. procedure carefully. The medic, who had huge hands, used tiny drugstore tweezers. "He eyeballed his scalp and took his hair in sections. First he ran a comb through it, and then he took these hairs and plucked them out one by one."Jewell "went stone-cold," but Bryant could not contain his temper. "I am his lawyer. I know you can have this, I know you have a search warrant, but I tell you this: If you were doing this to me, you would have to fight me. You would have to beat the shit out of me," Bryant recalled telling the case agent Ed Bazar. Bazar, Bryant later said, was apologetic. "He seemed almost embarrassed to be there." As he counted out the hairs, he placed them in an envelope. The irony of the situation was not lost on Bryant. He was a lawyer, an officer of the court, but he had a disdain for authority, and he was representing a former deputy who read the Georgia law code for fun in his spare time.It took 10 minutes to pluck Jewell's thick auburn hair. Then the F.B.I. agents led him into the kitchen and took his palm prints on the table. "That took 30 minutes, and they got ink all over the table," Bryant said. Then Bazar told Bryant they wanted Jewell to sit on the sofa and say into the telephone, "There is a bomb in Centennial Park. You have 30 minutes." That was the message given by the 911 caller on the night of the bombing. He was to repeat the message 12 times. Bryant saw the possibility of phony evidence and of his client's going to jail. "I said, 'I am not sure about this. Maybe you can do this, maybe you can't, but you are not doing this today.'"All afternoon, Jewell was strangely quiet. He had a sophisticated knowledge of police work and believed, he later said, "they must have had some evidence if they wanted my hair. ... I knew their game was intimidation. That is why they brought five agents instead of two." He felt "violated and humiliated," he told me, but he was passive, even docile, through Bryant's outburst. He thought of the bombing victims— Alice Hawthorne, the 44-year-old mother from Albany, Georgia, at the park with her stepdaughter; Melih Uzunyol, the Turkish cameraman who died of a heart attack; the more than 100 people taken to area hospitals, some of whom were his friends. "I kept thinking, These guys think I did this. These guys were accusing me of murder. This was the biggest case in the nation and the world. If they could pin it on me, they were going to put me in the electric chair."I met Richard Jewell three months later, on October 28, a few hours before a press conference called by his lawyers to allow Jewell to speak publicly for the first time since the F.B.I. had cleared him. Jewell's lawyers also intended to announce that they would file damage suits against NBC and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It was a Monday, and that weekend the local U.S. attorney had delivered a letter to one of the lawyers stating Jewell was no longer a suspect. "Goddamn it," Bryant had told me on the phone, "the sons of bitches did not even have the decency to address it to Richard Jewell."I had been instructed to come early to the offices of Wood & Grant, the flashy plaintiff lawyers Bryant had pulled in to help him with Jewell's civil suits. When I arrived, I was alone in the office with Sharon Anderson, the redheaded assistant answering the phones. "Wood & Grant . . . Wood & Grant . . . Wood & Grant"—the calls overwhelmed her. Lin Wood and Wayne Grant were rushing from CNN to the local NBC and ABC affiliates, working the shows. "Everyone has theories of who the real bomber is," Sharon said. "I just write it all down and give it to the boys."When Lin Wood arrived, he was still in full makeup. Movie-star handsome with green eyes and styled hair, Wood has the heated oratory of a trial lawyer. "It's a war! Why in this bevy of stories does not anyone point out the fact that Richard was a hero one day and a demon the next? They have destroyed this man's life!"Watson Bryant had worked with Wood and Grant years before in a local law firm. He admired Wayne Grant for his methodical sense of detail; Grant, a New Yorker, had once forced the city of Atlanta to pay large damages to a man injured while illegally digging for antique bottles in a park. But Lin Wood's suppressed rage was a marvel to Bryant. "He is so tough he could make people cry in depositions when we were kids," Bryant told me. Wood possessed the smooth style of a member of the Atlanta establishment, but he had a hardscrabble past. He was a boy from "the wrong side of the tracks" in Macon who at age 17 discovered his mother's body after his father had murdered her. His father went to jail, and Wood wound up as a lawyer. He went through college and law school on scholarships and with part-time jobs. I could hear Wood on Sharon's telephone: "He's more than innocent. He's a goddamn hero. . . . Everyone is going to pay who wronged Richard Jewell. Besides NBC and The A.J.C., we are going to look into suing CNN and Jay Leno."Through the large picture window, I had a clear view of the remains of the Centennial Olympic Park, where the bomb had exploded on the night of July 26. Where the sound-and-light tower had once been, there was now a flattened dirt field. It was possible to see the Greek commemorative sculpture that Richard Jewell used to describe for tourists at the AT&T pavilion, where he worked as a security guard.Suddenly, Jewell was in the room. "Hi. I'm Richard. I'm a little late. I don't want you to think I am rude. I am not like that." He had an open face, a bland pleasantness, an eagerness to please. "Can I get you a Coke?" he asked me. "How about some coffee?" Jewell wore a blue-and-white striped shirt and chinos. He occupied physical space like a teenager; he sprawled, he lumbered, he pawed through Sharon's candy bowl. On TV his face had a porcine blankness; he appeared suspicious. In person, Jewell has a hard time disguising his emotions.We were alone in the conference room; I noticed that Jewell avoided looking out the window toward the park. He shifted his glance nervously away from the view. He often awakens in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, thinking of the events in the park in the early morning hours of July 27. "It took me days before I could even come in here," he said anxiously.The newsroom atmosphere resembled that at F.B.I. headquarters; there was a frenzy to be first.When Jewell noticed a local ABC reporter outside near Sharon's desk, his face darkened. "I don't want to be around reporters right now. I guess I am a little nervous. What is he doing here?" The atmosphere was now filled with tension; the reporter was escorted out.Moments later, we gathered in the hallway. Wood was steely: "We are going in two cars. Richard, you drive with me. Your mother will go with Wayne. As we walk down the hall right now, if the ABC people are outside, I will tap you on the shoulder and I will say, 'How are you doing?' You will say, 'Fine.' Is that understood?" "O.K., Lin. I understand," Jewell said quietly, head bowed.As Jewell walked down the hall, an ABC cameraman photographed him looking grim. Seconds after the elevator doors closed, Jewell exploded: "What are they doing here, Lin? Did you invite them? They are animals. Why didn't you get them out of here?""ABC has been good to you. How do I get them out of the office on the day of your press conference?""That is what security is for!" Jewell said, quivering with rage. "Where is Watson?" he asked in the garage. "I told you: he's at a real-estate closing. He will meet you at the press conference," Wood said. Jewell moved to his mother's side, as solicitous as a child. "Are you all right, Mother?" he asked. "It is all I am going to be able to do not to do something!" she said angrily.When we arrived at the Marriott hotel on 1-75, there was another discussion in the parking lot, about who would walk with whom in front of the cameras. Jewell turned to his close friend Dave Dutchess: "Are you all right, man?" Dutchess, a truckdriver who worked with Jewell years ago, has long hair and a tattoo of a panther on his forearm. "Richard and I are like brothers," he told me. "I would die for him." As the cameras closed in on them, the group fled to a private room in the Marriott. The auditorium was filled with reporters. "Showtime! Showtime!" the cameramen yelled when Jewell, his mother, and all the lawyers took the stage."I hope and pray that no one else is ever subjected to the pain and the ordeal that I have gone through," Jewell said, his voice breaking. "The authorities should keep in mind the rights of the citizens. I thank God it is ended and that you now know what I have known all along: I am an innocent man."After the press conference, Bobi and Richard Jewell remained in a private room. The bookers from Good Morning America and the Today show pressed Jewell to step before their cameras, and when Watson Bryant told them no, Monica, the G.M.A. booker, began to cry, "I'll lose my job." Then Yael, the Today-show booker, cornered Nadya Light: "Is Richard doing something with G.M.A.?'Upstairs, Jewell and his mother were being filmed by a CBS camera crew for a 60 Minutes news update. "Well, Bobi, did you get your Tupperware back?" Mike Wallace asked by phone from New York. "Richard, you need to lose some more weight." Despite Wallace's festive spirit, the atmosphere was curiously flat. Bryant urged Jewell to talk to a USA Today reporter. Jewell balked: "They can all go suck wind."In the car on the way back to Wood & Grant, Bobi was angry. All of her possessions had come back from the F.B.I. marked up with ink. "Every piece of Tupperware I own is ruined, thank you very much. They wrote numbers all over it, and I have tried everything to clean it—Comet and Brillo—but nothing works."Back at the office, she sat on the sofa and listened as Bryant negotiated with Yael for a flight to New York— Delta, first-class, 9:30 P.M. Jewell was scheduled to appear on three shows in New York, visit the American Museum of Natural History, and then fly to Washington, D.C., for Larry King Live. "I would like to go home, put on my outfit, and walk in the woods," Bobi said. "Richard, we are leaving.""Yes, ma'am," Richard said.One hour later, a telephone call came in to the offices of Wood & Grant. The lawyers had the call on speaker, and it blared through the room. "Goddamn it, Lin. When will this be over?" In the background, you could hear Bobi sobbing. "What in the world?" Wood asked. Jewell explained that a sound truck from ABC had been waiting in the parking lot when the Jewells got home. There had been words and threats, and Dave Dutchess had taken his stun gun off his motorcycle and waved it at the ABC van. The cameraman yelled: Stop harassing us! Dave yelled back: You are harassing us! Now get your ass out of here!Wood shouted into the speakerphone: "Do not meddle! You cannot jeopardize where you have gotten to and what you want to do! All you have to do is put up with this for one more day and the damn thing is over. Bobi, there is nothing you can do about it; you have to stay cool." Bobi cried back, "They are going to destroy me!"The moment they hung up, Wood turned to Bryant. "New York is canceled. No Katie Couric. No Good Morning America. They are losing it. You better call Yael." "No," Bryant said, "they have lost it. All of the above: their patience, their temper and heart."That evening a very testy Katie Couric tracked Bryant down at Nadya Light's apartment, where we had gone to watch the news. "I want you to know that I canceled interviewing Barbra Streisand in L.A. for Richard Jewell. Don't think he is always going to be a news story. No one will care about him in three days," she said, according to Bryant. "Look, Katie, I am sorry. But Richard is in no condition to talk to the press. He is worn out," Bryant told her.Later, Jewell would tell me that that day, which should have been one of his most satisfying, was actually his worst. His notoriety had tainted the triumph; everything positive had become negative. "I was in despair," he said. As he had for most of the previous 88 days, he spent the night confined in the Buford Highway apartment, a prisoner of his circumstances, with his mother, Dave Dutchess, and Dave's fiancee, Beatty, eating Domino's Pizza and watching himself lead the newscasts on NBC, CBS, and ABC."This case has everything—the F.B.I., the press, the violation of the Bill of Rights from the First to the Sixth Amendment." 'This case has everything— the F.B.I., the press, the violation of the Bill of Rights, from the First to the Sixth Amendment," Watson Bryant told me in one of our first conversations. It has become common to characterize the F.B.I.'s investigation of Richard Jewell as the epitome of false accusation. The phrase "the Jewell syndrome," a rush to judgment, has entered the language of newsrooms and First Amendment forums. On the night of Jewell's press conference, a commentator on CNN's Crossfire compared Jewell's situation to "Kafka in Prague." The case became an investigative catastrophe, which laid bare long-simmering resentments of many F.B.I. career professionals regarding the micromanagement style and imperious attitude of Louis Freeh and his inner circle of former New York prosecutors, who have worked together since their days at the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District. Within the bureau, the beleaguered director now has a new nickname: J. Edgar Hoover with children. Like Freeh, those near him have also acquired a nickname: Louie's yes-men. Two of Freeh's closest associates, F.B.I. general counsel Howard Shapiro and former deputy director Larry Potts, have been severely criticized, respectively, for advising the White House of confidential F.B.I. material and for an alleged cover-up of the mishandling of the 1992 standoff at Ruby Ridge, where F.B.I. agents killed the wife and son of Randy Weaver, a white supremacist.In November and December, the Office of Professional Responsibility conducted an exhaustive investigation into the Jewell affair. Responding to an attempt by headquarters and certain officials to distance themselves, according to F.B.I. sources, several agents, including a senior F.B.I. supervisor in Atlanta, have provided the O.P.R. with signed statements insisting that Freeh himself was responsible for "oversight" during the crisis. These agents "shocked the investigators" because they reiterated, when asked who was in charge of the overall command of the investigation, that it was the director himself.What happened to Richard Jewell raises an important question central to Freeh's future tenure: in the midst of a media frenzy, does the F.B.I. have any responsibility to protect the privacy of an innocent man? Over the last year, this concept was broached with Bob Bucknam, Louis Freeh's chief of staff. During the long Pizza Connection trial in the 1980s, it was Bucknam who handed Freeh files at the prosecutor's table. According to highly placed sources in the bureau, Bucknam's answer was immediate: the F.B.I. has no responsibility to correct information in the public domain.Richard Jewell had a reverence for authority that blinded him to the paradox of his situation. He idealized the investigative skills of the F.B.I. and could not understand that he had become ensnared in a web fraught with the weaknesses of a self-protective bureaucracy. Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter has invited Jewell to Washington to testify at congressional hearings on the F.B.I.'s conduct in the Atlanta bombing. Ironically, the bungling of the investigation might lead to the reshuffling of personalities at the top of the bureau and threaten Freeh's reputation. In October, according to The Washington Post, Freeh sent an unusual memo to all 25,000 F.B.I. personnel: He would not be abandoning his post amid reports of problems with the Jewell case and Filegate, and of a growing dissatisfaction inside the bureau. "I am proud to be the F.B.I. director," Freeh wrote.From the beginning, Jewell was perceived in the public imagination as a hapless dummy, a plodding misfit, a Forrest Gump. On one of the first days he worked as a security guard at the AT&T pavilion, he noticed that his co-workers were covering the steps inside the sound tower with graffiti. On one step Jewell scrawled with a flourish two bromides: IF YOU DIDN'T GO PAST ME, YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE and LIFE IS TOUGH. TOUGHER WHEN YOU ARE STUPID. Soon after he was targeted as a suspect in the Olympics bombing, the F.B.I. confiscated the step. Analysts appeared to believe that the graffiti contained a clue to his character. "They told the lawyers the statement was an obvious taunt," Jewell said. In fact, the second line was an expression he had cribbed from one of his favorite actors, John Wayne.Within the F.B.I., the beleaguered director has a new nickname: J. Edgar Hoover with children."To understand Richard Jewell, you have to be aware that he is a cop. He talks like a cop and thinks like a cop," his criminal lawyer, Jack Martin, told me. The tone of Jewell's voice drops noticeably when he says the word "officer," and his conversation is filled with observations about traffic patterns, security devices, and car wrecks. Even the vocabulary he uses to describe the 88 days he was a suspect is out of the lexicon of police work, and he continues to talk about his situation then in the present tense: "This is an out-and-out ambush, and I am a hostage."Jewell has a need to accommodate. He can be startlingly opaque. On the afternoon of July 30, Jewell answered the door of his mother's apartment to Don Johnson and Diader Rosario from the F.B.I. "We need your help making a training film," they told him. "I never questioned it," he told me. The next day Rosario appeared again with a search warrant. "The weird thing was that when they were searching my apartment I was, like, 'Take everything. Take the carpet. I am law enforcement. I am just like you. Guys, take whatever you are going to take, because it is going to prove that I didn't do anything.' And a couple of them were looking at me like I was crazy."Leaving the apartment on one occasion, he told the agents, "I am wearing a bright shirt so y'all can see me easier." He recalled feeling anger when he read descriptions of himself as a child-man, a mama's boy, and "a wannabe policeman," but he said, "If I was in the place of everybody else and I saw a 34-year-old guy living with his mother, I would have reservations about that, too. I would think, Why is he doing that?"The December issue of Atlanta magazine reported that there was no record of a Jewell family in Danville, Virginia, where Richard Jewell was born. Atlanta referred to an article in the Danville Register & Bee which asked, "Did Richard Jewell ever sleep here?" "This is a part of my life Richard and I do not like to speak about," Bobi Jewell told me one night at dinner. Richard was born in Danville, but his name was Richard White; his father was Bobi's first husband, Robert Earl White, who worked for Chevrolet. According to Bobi, Richard's father, who died recently, was "irresponsible and a ladies' man." When Richard was four, the marriage broke up. Bobi found work as an insurance-agency claims coordinator and soon met John Jewell, an executive in the same business. Shortly after John Jewell married Bobi, he adopted Richard.From the time Richard was a child, he and his mother were a unit. Bobi, a woman of intelligence and disciplined work habits, is both tender and tough on the subject of her son. She still calls Richard "my boy," but she has a peppery disposition. Richard was brought up in a strict Baptist home. "If I didn't say 'Yes, ma'am' or 'No, ma'am' and get it out quick enough, I would be on the ground," he said. When he was six, the family moved to Atlanta. Richard was the boy who helped the teachers and worked as a school crossing guard, but he had few friends in high school. "I was a wannabe athlete, but I wasn't good enough," he said. He ran the movie projector in the library. A military-history buff, he liked to talk about Napoleon and the Vietnam War and read books on both World Wars.Jewell's ambition was to work on cars, so he enrolled in a technical school in southern Georgia. On his third day there, Bobi discovered that her husband had packed a suitcase. "He left a note saying that he was a failure and no good for us," Jewell said. Almost immediately, Richard moved back home and took a job repairing cars. "My mom and I tried to take care of each other," he said. "I think I handled it pretty much better than she did." Richard took the brunt of his father's abandonment; Bobi pulled even closer to her son. "She hated all men for about three years after that, and she became overly protective of me. She looked at it that I was going to do the same thing that my dad did. I was 18 or 19. I was working. She never liked my dates, but I never held that against her. We have always been able to lean on each other."Richard managed a local TCBY yogurt shop and once stopped a burglary in progress. At the age of 22, he was hired as a clerk at the Small Business Administration, and he impressed Watson Bryant and the other lawyers in the office with his personable nature. They called him Radar because of his efficiency. "You could say, 'I'm hungry,' and suddenly this kid would be by your side with a Snickers bar," Bryant recalled. When Jewell's contract with the S.B.A. ran out, he moved on to be a Marriott house detective. In 1990 he was hired as a jailer in the Habersham County Sheriff's Office, and in 1991 he became a deputy. As part of his training, he was sent to the Northeast Georgia Police Academy, where he finished in the upper 25 percent of his class. He finally had an identity; he was a law-enforcement officer.Jewell was unlucky in love. He presented one woman with an engagement ring, and later, in Habersham County, he would give another a large wooden key with a sign that read, THIS IS THE KEY TO UNLOCK YOUR HEART, but both relationships came apart. In northern Georgia, Jewell worked nights and became wedded to his job. By his own description, he was methodical. "I am the kind of person who plans everything. I like to go from A to B to C to D. This going from A to D and arguing over everything—I say no." Habersham County, a scenic part of the piney woods in Georgia's Bible Belt, was for Jewell like "leaving the 1990s and going into the 1970s in terms of law enforcement." Many rich Atlantans have country houses in the mountains, but the small towns of Demorest and Charlottesville are relatively undeveloped, reminding one of Jewell's lawyers of the scenery in the movie Deliverance. "If you get lost up there, you might find a guy with a bow and arrow," the lawyer said.Recently, Jewell and I took the 90-minute drive from Atlanta to Habersham County, which has acres of apple orchards. The leaves were turning, and the roads were mostly deserted. In the towns, however, were stores, apple stands, and even a good Chinese restaurant. As Jewell's blue pickup truck turned into the parking lot of a shopping center, several people came out to greet him.Jewell had lived in a small yellow house up a steep rocky driveway. On the day we visited, the current resident's Halloween decorations were still up, as were faded white satin ribbons hanging from many trees, remnants of a campaign to clear Richard Jewell organized by area friends. Jewell had lived 50 yards from the Chattahoochee River near a kayak-and-canoe tourist concession on a main road—not in a "cabin in the woods," as several reports stated after the bombing. He worked the night shift, and when he would arrive home at dawn, he told me, he could look up and "see a sky filled with stars."He was not a loner; he made friends with several local families. He would often leave a box of Dunkin' Donuts on friends' porches at four A.M. During the O. J. Simpson trial, he and the other deputies would meet in the turnaround on Highway 985 in the middle of the night and review the day's events and the bungling by the Los Angeles Police Department. Jewell would later be annoyed that the F.B.I. confiscated his copy of former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's account of the trial. Jewell dated a local girl, Sheree Chastain, and had a close relationship with her family.Jewell had a complex history working at the Habersham County Sheriff's Office. When he was still a jailer, he arrested a couple making too much noise in a hot tub at an apartment building where he did part-time security work. He was arrested for impersonating an officer and, after pleading guilty to a lesser charge, was placed on probation on the condition that he seek psychological counseling.By his own estimation, Jewell's strength as a cop was "working car wrecks." He had his mother's diligence; he worked 14 hours a day and organized a safety fair. Later in 1995 he wrecked his patrol car and was demoted to working in the jail. Rick Moore, a local deputy, advised him to accept the job, but Jewell despised the jailhouse atmosphere. He told me, "It was a small room filled with cigarette smoke. I couldn't take it." He resigned, and in a short time he moved to a police job at Piedmont College, a liberal-arts school with approximately 1,000 students on the main road in Demorest. The college police had jurisdiction only on campus and in an area extending out 500 feet. Jewell chased cars speeding down the highway and had arguments over turf with other officers. He was instrumental in several arrests, including that of a suspected burglar he discovered hiding at the top of a tree. For his work on a volunteer rescue squad, he was named a citizen of the year.According to Brad Mattear, a former resident director, Piedmont was a school of "P.K.'s"—preachers' kids. It was 80 percent Baptist with a strict no-drinking rule. The college had many rebellious students, according to Mattear, kids who were "away from home for the first time and wanted to party and drink." Mattear knew Jewell well and recalled his good manners and playful nature. "It was always 'Yes, sir' and 'Yes, ma'am.'" Jewell would tell students, "I know y'all are going to drink. Don't do it on campus."Jewell felt confined by his boundaries and could be heavy-handed when it came to writing out reports on minor infractions. Once when we were driving by the campus, he pointed to a small brick dormitory. "That was where all the partying would go on," he told me. Jewell would raid dorm rooms and report drinking violations. "I did not hesitate to tell the parents—in no uncertain terms—what their kids were up to," he said.He soon made enemies at the school. "Three or four times a week," Mattear said, Piedmont students were in the office of Ray Cleere, the president of the college, complaining about Jewell and other Piedmont police. After Jewell was admonished for a number of controversial arrests, he resigned.Jewell had an out: his mother was going to have an operation on her foot. He would go home to Atlanta for the Olympics and look for a new job. He called his mother: "Is it all right with you if I stay with you while you have your surgery?" He hoped he might get a job with the Atlanta police or, failing that, work security at the Olympics. "I thought, Working at the Centennial Olympic Park will look really good on my resume."At the age of 33, back in his mother's apartment, he was at first treated like a wayward teenager. Bobi was sharp with him about his slovenly habits, his weight, and his driving. Bobi had carved out a life for herself; she arrived at work by eight A.M. each morning and had many friends. Trim, with short-cropped hair, Bobi Jewell is the kind of woman who labels her clothes and spices and spends much of her spare time baking cakes and babysitting for extra money. She carries on telephone friendships with claim adjusters at other companies. It was somewhat unsettling for her, she told me, to have Richard at home after she had grown used to living with only her dog, Brandi, and her cat, Boots. Bobi was annoyed that he had wrecked a patrol car, and worried about his safety. "Every time he leaves the apartment, I'll say, 'Richard . . . ' And he'll say, 'Yes, ma'am. I know. The person that I am going to see will be there when I get there,'" she said. On one occasion Bobi talked about Richard's return to Atlanta. "What is wrong with trying to revamp your life?" she asked me. Her eyes filled with tears. "Why does everyone in the media think it is so strange?"On Friday, July 26, Bobi Jewell was home waiting for her niece to arrive from Virginia for the Olympic softball competition the following week. In preparation, she had stocked her apartment with food. It was a clear Georgia evening, not as hot as had been expected. As usual, Richard left for the park at 4:45 P.M. and arrived at the AT&T pavilion about 5:30. His stomach was bothering him; he was convinced that he had eaten a bad hamburger the day before. Lin Wood and Wayne Grant had arranged to take their children to Centennial Park that night. The park, in downtown Atlanta, stretches over 21 acres. There were air-conditioned tents, concerts on the stage, and hot-dog and souvenir stands. Downtown Atlanta was usually deserted in the oppressively hot, humid summer, but this year thousands of tourists filled the sidewalks, or sat on benches in the shade of some crape-myrtle trees, or cooled off by a fountain. Tour buses clogged the main arteries, and everyone complained that it took hours to get anywhere; stories were traded about athletes' getting to their competitions late because of the poor planning of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games.As always, Jewell was working the 12-hour night shift near the sound-and-light tower by the stage. He was pleased because one of his favorite groups—Jack Mack and the Heart Attack—was going to perform at 12:45. Jewell had a routine: he would check in and fill the ice chest he kept by a bench at his station. Jewell liked to offer water and Cokes to pregnant women or policemen who stopped to rest.After he arrived at the park, his stomach cramps grew worse and he had a bout of diarrhea. At approximately 10 P.M. he took a break to go to the bathroom. The closest one was by the stage, but the security staff was not allowed to use it. "I really have to go," Jewell says he told the stage manager. "And he said, 'Well, O.K. this time.'"When Jewell came out, he noticed that it was "real calm" and there wasn't much wind blowing. At that time of night, the crowd from Bud World became a little more raucous. Jewell was annoyed when he saw a group of drunks near his bench and beer cans littering the area beside the fence nearby. As he went to report the trash and the group that was carousing, he spotted a large olive-green military-style backpack, known as an Alice pack, under the bench. There had been a similar bag found the week before. Jewell later told an F.B.I. agent that he was annoyed that one of the drunks had tried to get into the lens of a camera crew. Jewell had told them to cut it out. "They were running off at the mouth," Jewell would later tell Larry Landers of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (G.B.I.)."I was light about the package at first," he told me, "kidding around with Tom Davis from the G.B.I.: 'Well, are you going to open it?' At that point, it was not a concern. I was thinking to myself, Well, I am sure one of these people left it on the ground. When Davis came back and said, 'Nobody said it was theirs,' that is when the little hairs on the back of my head began to stand up. I thought, Uh-oh. This is not good."I never really had time to be frightened. My law-enforcement background paid off here. What went through my head was like a computer screen of this list I had to do. I had to call my supervisor. I have to tell people in the tower that something was going on. I have to be firm with them, stay calm, and be professional."Almost immediately, Jewell and Tom Davis cleared a 25-foot-square area around the backpack; Jewell made two trips into the tower to warn the technicians. "I want y'all out now. This is serious."Two blocks away on Marietta Street, approximately 300 editors, copywriters, and reporters from Cox newspapers around the country had taken over the extra desks in the new eighth-floor newsroom at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to prepare the special Olympics edition they put out each afternoon. The paper had gone "Olympics-crazy," according to one reporter. The editor, Ron Martin, and the managing editor, John Walter—"WalMart," as they were called—had let it be known that no expense would be spared. Ann Hardie, who normally covers science, had been sent around the world to master the fine points of beach volleyball; Bill Rankin, officially on the federal-court beat, was assigned table tennis. The paper intended to set new standards in its hometown during the games, but in addition there was a hint of redemption in the air.Since Cox newspaper executives had forced the resignation of the distinguished editor Bill Kovach in 1988, the paper had suffered a severe loss of reputation. "We all felt just kind of beaten down," one reporter said. Kovach had been brought to Atlanta from The New York Times to elevate The A.J.C. into being the definitive paper of the New South, but eventually he irritated the local powers. Atlanta was inbred, a city of deals, and he resigned in a blaze of press outrage. Kovach now ran the Nieman journalism-fellowship program at Harvard, and the movie rights to his turbulent years in Atlanta—reported in these pages by Peter J. Boyer—had been sold to Warner Bros.Within the profession, The A.J.C. had become something of a joke. More and more, its emphasis was on what John Walter called "chunklets"—short bits in a soft-news style known as eye-candy. The paper published features on couples massage and how mushrooms grow in the rain. Walter had fired off several terse memos to ensure that there would be no more jumps of news stories to back pages and no more unsourced news stories, except on rare occasions. "I don't see any reason why you can't report hard news in a short form," one editor told me.The A.J. C. style of reporting in declarative sentences had a name, too: the voice of God. It was omniscient, because it allowed no references to unattributed sources. Subjects such as AIDS, which often required confidentiality, could not be covered properly in the paper, in the opinion of several reporters. The A.J.C. picked up news stories with unnamed sources from The New York Times, however, and reporters groused about the hypocrisy of the double standard.On Saturday morning, July 27, Bob Johnson, the night metro editor, left the newsroom at one A.M. The sidewalks were still crowded; Johnson sat on a wall outside waiting for an A.J.C. shuttle bus to pick him up. About 1:25 he heard a strange noise. "It sounded like an aerial bomb at a fireworks show," he said. He recalled thinking, Damn, that is sort of foolish. Then he heard screams and saw people running. Johnson rushed back upstairs to the almost deserted sixth-floor newsroom. Lyda Longa, a night police reporter, was still there. Johnson sent her down to the park and turned on the news, but nothing had moved across the wires. Just after two A.M., Longa called from the park. She told Johnson that one person had been killed and dozens were down—it was absolute chaos. Johnson could hear the sirens and the screams through the telephone; he began to type into his computer. "We were trying to get a bullet into the street edition," Johnson recalled. In the crisis, it took only minutes for reporters to return to the newsroom; several had been at the park when the bomb went off. Rochelle Bozman, an Olympics editor, appeared and took over for Johnson. Soon John Walter was there, as was Bert Roughton, who would assist him in supervising the A.J.C. coverage of the bombing.At the park, Jewell spoke with the first F.B.I. agents to arrive on the scene. The smell and the noise, he remembered, were overwhelming, and sensations blurred together. "It was hard to describe the sound," he said. "It was like what you hear in the movies. It was, like, KABOOM. I had seen an explosion in police training. We had ear protection when it went off. It smelled like a flash-bang grenade. The sky was not filled with black smoke, but grayish-white. All the shrapnel that was inside the package kept flying around, and some of the people got hit from the bench and some with metal."Bobi Jewell had just gone to sleep when the telephone rang. It was Richard. "Mom, they had a bomb go off down here, but I am O.K. regardless of what the TV says." He could hardly speak; he seemed paralyzed. Jewell did not mention to his mother that he had found the backpack and alerted Tom Davis. Bobi was perplexed. "I thought, What does he mean?"All night long she stayed on the foldout sofa watching the news reports. She was frightened by the ambulances, the noise, the bodies in the park.Soon veteran homicide detectives in the Atlanta police arrived at the bomb site. One sergeant was trying to make his way through the crowd when an Olympics official stopped him. "Tell these cops to get the hell out of here," he said, according to a captain in the homicide division. "Well, you get the fuck out of here. Who are you?" the sergeant demanded. Agents from the Atlanta F.B.I. office and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were in a shouting match over jurisdiction. "We are handling this!" one said. "No, this is ours!" an F.B.I. agent snapped.In the command center at F.B.I. headquarters in northeastern Atlanta, there was complete pandemonium. The Olympics were a national convention for law enforcement. Some 30,000 security personnel were on hand. Over the next few days, there would be an internal debate: Who was going to be in charge of the bombing investigation? In Atlanta at that time were three veteran investigators with executive experience: Tom Fuentes, who is credited with helping to bring John Gotti to heel; Barry Mawn, who has worked extensively in organized-crime probes; and Robin Montgomery, the head of the critical-incident unit at Quantico, who at Ruby Ridge in 1992 questioned the disastrous "rules of engagement" which led to tragedy.In the early-morning hours, F.B.I. agents picked up several suspects, including one referred to as "the drunk in the bar." According to F.B.I. sources, Louis Freeh himself got on the telephone to Barry Mawn. Freeh, a former F.B.I. agent, was personally monitoring the initial investigation by means of a series of conference calls from the command post at F.B.I. headquarters. He focused on "the drunk in the bar," who had been making threats the night before, and within hours the information was leaked that the F.B.I. had a suspect. From Atlanta, Barry Mawn contacted his superiors in Washington. "This suspect is not the bomber," he reportedly said, according to a former highlevel F.B.I. executive. Freeh allegedly lost his temper and belittled Mawn's professional abilities. He is said to have told Mawn that he "had handled this all wrong." The words one hears characterizing Freeh's telephone calls to the agents on duty in Atlanta are "abusive," "condescending," and "dismissive." A story went around the command center that Freeh was already saying, "We have our man," according to a source in the bureau.Watson Bryant was thinking, I cannot believe that I know anyone who throws pipe bombs into gopher holes.Freeh made a decision: however experienced Montgomery, Fuentes, and Mawn were, this investigation would be run by Division 5 of the F.B.I., the National Security Division, a former counterintelligence unit that has been looking for a purpose since the Cold War ended. Trained in observation, division members rarely made a criminal case—their strength was intimidation and manipulation rather than the deliberate gathering of evidence to be presented in court. The F.B.I. promptly declared the bombing a terrorism case and placed it under the authority of Bob Bryant, head of the division. David Tubbs of Division 5 was sent to Atlanta to be the spokesman and to augment Woody Johnson, the Atlanta special agent in charge (S.A.C.), who had been trained in hostage rescue and who was awkward in press briefings. Tubbs was not as experienced in criminal cases as Mawn or Montgomery, who returned to Newark and Quantico, respectively, "to get out of the line of fire," according to numerous F.B.I. sources. But Bryant and Freeh were reportedly micromanaging the S.A.C.'s and, later, the case agents Don Johnson and Diader Rosario. 106107 VIEW ARTICLE PAGESOn the morning of the bombing, Watson Bryant's alarm went off at six A.M. He was going to the Olympic kayak competition on the Ocoee River with Andy Currie, a friend from his Vanderbilt University days. He learned of the bombing on the radio as he was getting ready to go to Currie's house. "Whoever has done this should be skinned alive," he told Currie. He spent the day in the country, and on Sunday he went out to run errands. When he got home, there was a message on his answering machine: "Watson, this is Richard Jewell. You may have heard that I found the bomb and people are calling me a hero. Somebody told me I might get a book contract." It had been years since Bryant had spoken to Jewell, but he did not immediately return the call; he was busy finishing up some contracts so that he could take a few days off to enjoy the Olympics.In addition, Bryant was annoyed with Jewell. After Bryant had befriended him in their days at the Small Business Administration, Jewell had borrowed his new, $250 radar detector and never returned it. He had promised to pay him $100 for it, but he never had. In the meantime, Bryant's life had changed; he had set up an office as a solo practitioner. Bryant despised corporate politics and had no gift for them. His penchant for taking on pro-bono work for friends annoyed his wife, however. Bryant believed that Richard Jewell had attached himself to him years earlier because he lacked a father, but nevertheless Jewell could get on his nerves. By the summer of 1996, Bryant was preoccupied; his marriage had come apart two years earlier, and he was trying to sort out his life.When he finally returned Jewell's phone call, he said, "Well, damn it, where's my $100?" Jewell laughed uneasily and told him about discovering the green backpack that contained the bomb. "Didn't you see me on the news?" Bryant reminded him that he rarely watched TV. "I am proud of you, Richard," he said. "About this book contract, I think it's far-fetched, but don't sign anything unless I see it first."In the Newsweek cover story detailing the bombing, published Monday, July 29, there was no mention of Richard Jewell. It said only that "a security guard" had alerted Tom Davis of the G.B.I. that no one had claimed the backpack under his bench. By the time Newsweek was on the stands, however, Jewell had been interviewed on CNN. The AT&T publicity department had booked him on TV and told him to wear the shirt with the AT&T logo. Jewell reluctantly agreed. "The idea of going on TV made me nervous," he told me. "I was not the hero. There were so many others who saved lives."In Demorest, Ray Cleere, the president of Piedmont College, was home on Saturday, July 27, watching CNN. Cleere had at one time been Mississippi's commissioner of higher education, but he was now posted at the rural Baptist mountain school. He was said to feel that he had suffered a loss of status in the boondocks, where he was out of the academic mainstream. He called Dick Martin, his chief of campus police. Shouldn't they call the F.B.I. and tell them about Richard Jewell? he asked. Cleere had had a strong disagreement with Jewell when one of the students was caught smoking pot. Jewell wanted to arrest him; Cleere said no. Cleere, Brad Mattear recalled, "worried constantly about the image of the college." According to Mattear, "Cleere loved the limelight. He wanted public attention"—the very trait he reportedly ascribed to Richard Jewell.Dick Martin, who was fond of Jewell, suggested a compromise, according to Lin Wood: he would call a friend in the G.B.I. Cleere then called the F.B.I. hot line in Washington himself. Wood says Cleere later complained that no one had seemed to want to listen to what he had to say about Richard Jewell. But his telephone call would trigger a complex set of circumstances in Habersham County, where F.B.I. investigators fanned out over the hills, attempting to uncover evidence that could lead to Jewell's arrest. "The F.B.I. took his word, and what it actually did was get them both in a bunch of trouble," Mattear said. (Cleere has declined to comment.)For Richard Jewell, Tuesday, July 30, would become a haze in which his life was turned upside down. "The hours of the day ran so fast it is hard to remember what all happened," he told me. He started the day early at the Atlanta studio of the Today show. He was tired; the evening before he had had his friend Tim Attaway, a G.B.I. agent, for dinner. He had made lasagna and had drawn Attaway a diagram of the sound-and-light tower. Jewell had talked into the night about the bombing; only later would he learn that Attaway was wearing a wire.Despite the late evening, Jewell was excited at the thought of meeting Katie Couric and being interviewed about finding the Alice pack in the park. His mother asked him to try to get Tom Brokaw's autograph. "He was a man my mom respected a great deal," he said.When he got back to the apartment, he was surprised to see a cluster of reporters in the parking lot. "Do you think you are a suspect?" one asked. Jewell laughed. "I know they'll investigate anyone who was at the park that night," he said. "That includes you-all too." Jewell did not turn on the TV, but he noticed that the group outside the door continued to grow. At four that afternoon, Jewell received a phone call from Anthony Davis, the head of the security company Jewell worked for at AT&T. "Have you seen the news?" Davis asked. "They are saying you are a suspect." Jewell said, "They are talking to everybody." According to Jewell, Davis said, "They are zeroing in on you. To keep the publicity down, don't go to work."Within minutes, Don Johnson and Diader Rosario knocked on Jewell's door. They exuded sincerity, Jewell recalled. "They told me they wanted me to come with them to headquarters to help them make a training film to be used at Quantico," he said. Johnson played to Jewell's pride. Despite the reporters in the parking lot and the call from Anthony Davis, Jewell had no doubt that they were telling the truth. He drove the short distance to F.B.I. headquarters in Buckhead in his own truck, but he noticed that four cars were following him. "The press is on us," Jewell told Johnson when they arrived. "No, those are our guys," Johnson told him. This tactic would continue through the next 88 days and be severely criticized: Why would you have an armada of surveillance vehicles stacked up on a suspected bomber?It was then that Jewell started to wonder why he was at the F.B.I., but he followed Johnson and Rosario inside. Rosario was known for his skills as a negotiator; he had once helped calm a riot of Cuban prisoners in Atlanta. Johnson, however, had a reputation for overreaching. In Albany, New York, in 1987, he had pursued an investigation of then mayor Thomas Whalen. According to Whalen, the local U.S. attorney found no evidence to support Johnson's assertions and issued a letter to Whalen exonerating him completely, but Whalen believed it cost him an appointment as a federal judge.As Jewell sat in a small office, he wondered why the cameraman recording the interview was staring at him so intently. After an hour, Johnson was called out of the room. When he returned, he said to Jewell, "Let's pretend that none of this happened. You are going to come in and start over, and by the way, we want you to fill out this waiver of rights.""At that moment a million things were going through my head," Jewell told me. "You don't give anyone a waiver of rights unless they are being investigated. I said, 'I need to contact my attorney,' and then all of a sudden it was an instant change. 'What do you need to contact your attorney for? You didn't do anything. We thought you were a hero. Is there something you want to tell us about?'" Jewell grew increasingly apprehensive and later recalled thinking, These guys think I did this.When the agents took a break, Jewell asked to use the phone. "I called Watson four times. I called his brother. I told his parents that I had to get hold of Watson—it was urgent. I was, like, 'I have to speak to him right now.' What was going on was that Washington was on the phone with Atlanta. The people in Washington were giving them questions." Jewell said he knew this because the videotapes in the cameras were two hours long and "Johnson and Rosario would leave every 30 minutes, like they had to speak on the phone." The O.RR. report, however, would assert that no one at headquarters knew about the videotaping or the training-film ruse. Lying to get a statement out of a suspect is, in fact, not illegal, but clearly Johnson and Rosario were not making decisions on their own. Even the procedure of having a fleet of cars follow a suspect was an intimidation tactic used by the F.B.I. Later, according to Jewell, Johnson and Rosario would both tell him privately that they believed he was innocent, but that the investigation was being run by the "highest levels in Washington."Within the bureau, the belief is that during one of the telephone calls Freeh instructed Johnson and Rosario to read Jewell his Miranda rights. Freeh is said to have learned of Johnson's history from a member of his security detail, who had worked in Atlanta. He told Freeh that "Johnson had a reputation for being obnoxious and a problem." In addition, a week after Jewell's interview, Freeh reportedly received a call from Janet Reno, who had learned about the ruse from Kent Alexander, the local U.S. attorney, and Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick. Freeh wondered aloud how it was that, of all the agents in Atlanta, Johnson had been selected to work on the Jewell case. Like Jewell, Johnson had wound up in Atlanta because of his overzealous behavior—according to an F.B.I. source, the Whalen episode had resulted in a "loss-of-effectiveness transfer," an F.B.I. euphemism. (Johnson declined to respond.)On that same Tuesday, Watson Bryant and Nadya Light closed the office early and went to Centennial Park. Light, 35, a pretty Russian immigrant, had never met Radar, Bryant's old friend, and wanted to buy him a celebratory meal. Killing time until Jewell came on duty, they went into the House of Blues and then bought some hot sauce. Walking toward his car, Bryant saw newsboys hawking the afternoon edition of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "It was like out of a cartoon. They were all yelling!" he recalled. "I caught the headline out of the corner of my eye." The headline read: FBI SUSPECTS 'HERO' GUARD MAY HAVE PLANTED BOMB.Bryant borrowed 50 cents from Light to buy the paper and began to read: '"Richard Jewell, 33 . . . fits the profile of the lone bomber.' I could not believe it."At that moment, Bryant's brother, Bruce, who was on his way to the diving competition, got a call from Jewell. "Where is Watson?" As Bruce Bryant walked past a Speedo billboard with a TV screen, he saw Richard Jewell's face filling the screen. "Oh, my God," he said to his wife. At the same moment, Watson was in his car a block away on Northside Drive when he too noticed the Speedo screen. He could not get back to his house—the streets were blocked off for the cycling competition. From his car he called F.B.I. headquarters and demanded to speak to Jewell. "He is not here," the operator said. From his home phone, he picked up his messages and heard Jewell's low, urgent tones. "He didn't leave a number," Bryant told Light. "Call Star 69," she said. The number came back: 679-9000, the number for F.B.I. headquarters, which he had just dialed. Within minutes, Bryant had Jewell on the phone. Jewell told him he was making a training film. "You idiot! You are a suspect. Get your ass out of there now!" Bryant told him.Before The Atlanta Journal-Constitution broke the story of Richard Jewell, there had been a debate in the newsroom over whether or not to name him. One block away, CNN's Art Harris and Henry Schuster had alerted the network's president that Jewell was targeted, but they held the story, because they understood its potential magnitude. At The A.J.C., Kathy Scruggs, a police reporter, who had allegedly gotten a tip from a close friend in the F.B.I., got a confirmation from someone in the Atlanta police. According to the managing editor, John Walter, the first edition of the paper that Tuesday had a brief profile of Jewell. It was dropped in later editions as Walter questioned whether the paper had enough facts to support the scoop. Because of the voice-of-God style, the paper ended up making a flat-out statement: "Richard Jewell . . . fits the profile of the lone bomber."When I asked John Walter about the lone-bomber sentence, he said, "I ultimately edited it. . . . One of the tests we put to the material is, is it a verifiable fact?" One editor added, "The whole story is voice-of-God. . . . Because we see this event taking place, the need to attribute it to sources—F.B.I. or law enforcement—is less than if there is no public acknowledgment." John Walter indicated that he had not seen a lone-bomber profile. I asked him, "Whose profile of a lone bomber does Richard Jewell fit? Where is the 'says who' in this sentence?" Walter said that he felt comfortable with the assertion.The page-one story had a double byline: Kathy Scruggs and Ron Martz. Walter had told these two early on that they would be the reporters assigned to any Olympic catastrophe. Martz, who had covered the Gulf War, had been assigned the security beat for the Olympics; Scruggs routinely covered local crime. Scruggs had good contacts in the Atlanta police, and she was tough. She was characterized as "a police groupie" by one former staff member. "Kathy has a hard edge that some people find offensive," one of her editors told me, but he praised her skills. Police reporters are often "dictation pads" for local law enforcement; recently the American Journalism Review sharply criticized The A.J. C. for the scanty confirmation and lack of skepticism in its coverage of Jewell.The newsroom atmosphere resembled that at F.B.I. headquarters; there was a frenzy to be first. Kent Walker, a newsroom intern, published a story in the same edition, with a glaring mistake in the headline: BOMB SUSPECT HAD SOUGHT LIMELIGHT, PRESS INTERVIEWS. Since Ray Cleere's tip to the F.B.I., the "hero bomber" theory had been circulating among Atlanta law enforcement officers. Maria Elena Fernandez, a reporter, was sent to Habersham County on July 29. By coincidence, William Rathburn, the head of security for the Olympics, had been at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 when a fake bomb was found on a bus—left by a policeman who sought attention.On the surface, the story had an irresistible newsroom logic: Jewell was clearly looking for recognition. Bert Roughton, the city editor, had answered the telephone when a representative from AT&T called to ask if the paper would like a Jewell interview. According to Walter, Roughton himself typed a sentence in the Scruggs-and-Martz piece: "He [Jewell] also has approached newspapers, including The Atlanta JournalConstitution, seeking publicity for his actions." But he hadn't. Walter explained, "There was nothing wrong with that sentence. That's journalistically proper. It is not common practice, to my knowledge, to ask someone you are interviewing . . . 'Are you here of your own free will?'" Jewell had not contacted the paper—a fact which would have been easy enough to check. Walter became snappish when I described the sentence as "a mistake." "It was not a mistake," he said angrily. Scruggs and Martz quoted Piedmont College president Ray Cleere as backup. According to Cleere, Jewell had been "a little erratic" and "almost too excitable."There was no doubt raised by The A.J.C. about the value of Cleere's information or the fragility of the F.B.I.'s potential case. On Tuesday morning, July 30, Christina Headrick, a young intern on the paper, was sent to Buford Highway to stake out Richard Jewell's apartment. She phoned in that there were men doing surveillance. By deadline, John Walter had made a decision: he would tear up the afternoon Olympics edition and lead with Jewell.Several states away, Colonel Robert Ressler was watching CNN when the A.J.C. extra edition was shown. Ressler, who was retired from the behavioral-science unit of the F.B.I., had, along with John Douglas, developed the concept of criminal-personality profiling. He was the co-author of the Crime Classification Manual, which is used by the F.B.I. He had interviewed Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy, and as he watched the TV report, he was mystified. "They were talking about an F.B.I. profile of a hero bomber, and I thought, What F.B.I. profile? It rather surprised me." According to Ressler, the definition of "hero homicide"—a person looking for recognition without an intent to kill— perhaps emerged as "hero bomber." "There is no such classification as the hero bomber," he told me recently. "This was a myth." Later he said, "It occurred to me that there was no database of any bomber who lived with his mother, was a security guard and unmarried. How many hero bombers had we ever encountered? Only one that I know of, in Los Angeles, and his bomb did not go off." Ressler knew that something was off; profiles are developed from a complex set of evidence and facts derived only in part from a crime scene. The bomb had been deadly, which was not consistent with the "hero complex." Furthermore, he wondered, where did they get the information to put the profile together that fast? He asked himself, What came first here, the chicken or the egg? Was the so-called profile actually developed from the circumstances, or was it invented for Richard Jewell?When Jewell returned home from F.B.I. headquarters just before eight P.M., NBC was showing special Olympic coverage. He sat on the sofa and watched Tom Brokaw say, "They probably have enough to arrest him right now, probably enough to prosecute him, but you always want to have enough to convict him as well. There are still holes in this case."Jewell knew that Brokaw was his mother's favorite newsman; he looked at her and noticed "the color and the blood flow out of her face when she heard that." Bobi turned to him and asked, "What is he talking about?" Jewell later recalled, "Brokaw was talking about her son as a murderer. . . . She started crying, and what am I going to say to her? 'Mom, Watson is going to fix this'? What do you say? She doesn't hear anything anyway—she was in hysterics." At that point, Jewell said, he broke down as well.The day Watson Bryant inadvertently became the lead lawyer for Richard Jewell, he was an attorney whom almost no one in the Atlanta legal establishment had ever heard of. "Who the hell is Watson Bryant?" a caption in the daily legal sheet, the Fulton County Daily Report, would read after he had appeared on the Today show. Bryant understood Jewell's vulnerability and decided on a strategy: he would treat him as a member of his own family. In Atlanta, the Bryants were a clan: Watson's father, Goble Bryant, had been a West Point tackle, on the 1949 college all-star team; his grandfather had invented a process for putting handles on paper bags. Watson had partied through Vanderbilt University and had barely gotten accepted to law school at the University of South Carolina. He had a close relationship with his brother, Bruce, and their sister, Barbara Ann, and if he lacked staff at his office, he knew he could count on his family to pick up the slack. Bruce enlisted Jewell to help coach his junior football team; Watson had a picnic for Richard and Bobi at his parents' house at the Atlanta Country Club.When Bryant arrived at the Jewells' apartment that night, he pushed his way through the crowd standing outside in the spongy Atlanta humidity. Microphones were shoved in his face. "What is happening, Watson?" Bobi asked him. Bryant asked Jewell to speak to him alone. "I want to know if you can tell me, without any hesitation at all, if you had anything to do with the bombing," he said. "I didn't," Jewell told him. "I said, 'I am going to ask you again.' He would not look me in the eye. I said, 'Don't give me this "sir" shit.' I said, 'Richard, these people want to kill you. I cannot help you unless you tell me the absolute, unequivocal truth.' I was in his face. He said he did not have anything to do with it." Jewell was bewildered and numb, said Bryant, who left at 10:30 P.M. At midnight, Jewell called him to say, "They are massing outside the apartment, Watson."The next morning, Bryant went from talk show to talk show, starting with NBC. With the notable exception of The New York Times, virtually every newspaper in the country had picked up the A.J.C. story and run it as front-page news. There were 10,000 reporters in Atlanta; the Los Angeles Times would later call the squad bearing down on the Jewells "a massive strike force . . . Tora! Tora! Tora!" Bryant was in a daze, but he held his own. "Is it true that Jewell was at some time ordered to seek psychological counseling?" Bryant Gumbel asked him. "I know a lot of people that ought to have psychological counseling," Watson Bryant replied.By 10 A.M. he was back at the Jewells' apartment, studying a search warrant that had been delivered that day. The F.B.I., Jewell recalled, said that he could not be inside the apartment during the search. Bryant called F.B.I. headquarters: "What the hell is this? Why can't he be there?" Within an hour, at least 40 members of the F.B.I. had arrived, with dogs. "There was a physical-evidence team. There was a scientific team. There was a team for the bomb-squad people, and then the A.T.F. . . . They all had different-color shirts. Light blue for bombs, dark blue for evidence protection, red and yellow." Bryant could not believe what he was seeing. "This is like damn Six Flags over Georgia," he told them."I kept saying to Watson, 'I didn't do this.' And he said, 'Hey, kid, I believe you—we are doing what we can.'" Jewell was a gun collector. Bryant was sharp with him: "You get all those guns out of your closets and put them on your bed. We don't want any trouble."For seven hours, Jewell sat outside on the staircase in what has become one of the most famous images of last summer. Bryant had to take his daughter, Meredith, to the Olympic equestrian competition, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for her. As he left, he said, "Don't do anything stupid. Just shut up and let them do what they have to do." Hours passed as Jewell sat in the heat. "Finally I decided I would ask them if I could go in and use the rest room. They said, 'We got the order a couple of hours ago you could come in; you just can't get in our way.'" Jewell was told he had to wear rubber socks and gloves in order not to contaminate the site. The Jewell apartment is small—two bedrooms with a bathroom in between, a living room, an alcove dining room that has been turned into a den. As Jewell sat on the sofa, he thought he heard a crash in his bedroom. "I thought my CD player was on the floor, and I said, 'What are you-all tearing up?' and they said, 'You can't go in there right now; we are searching.' I said, 'I want to know what you-all just broke.'" One search warrant listed some 200 items the F.B.I. could confiscate, including "magazines, books . . . and photographs which would include descriptive information such as telephone numbers, addresses, affiliations and contact points of individuals involved in a conspiracy to manufacture, transport and . . . detonate . . . the explosive device used in the bombing at the Olympic Centennial Park on July 27, 1996.""They had all my pictures, all the stuff that was in the drawers. My personal things. How would you like to know that 12 different guys had been in your underwear, laid it out on the floor, probably walked on it and then folded it back up like nothing ever happened and put it in your drawer? So then Mom got to go and watch it on TV: 'Live from the Jewell house, the search continues. . . . We are expecting an arrest any minute.'"When Bobi Jewell returned home, the apartment appeared neat, until she walked into her kitchen. She looked down at her counters, where all her condiments, dog biscuits, spices, and crackers had been taken out of their Tupperware containers and placed in Ziploc bags. She began to cry. And then she went into the bedroom and "immediately started washing clothes," Jewell said.Driving home from the equestrian events, Bryant heard the live coverage of the search on the radio. "Why are you helping this guy if he's guilty?" Meredith asked.The next morning, Bryant received a copy of the F.B.I. inventory of articles confiscated in the apartment. On the list he was stunned to see "one hollowed-out hand grenade, ball-shaped" and "one hollowed-out hand grenade, pinecone-shaped." "What the hell is this?" he asked Jewell. "They were paperweights," Jewell said. "I bought them at a military store." "Oh, shit," Bryant said.For the first few days, the Jewells lived on ham omelettes; a neighbor had brought them half a ham from the Honey Baked Ham Company on Buford Highway. Bobi Jewell had a vacation scheduled, so she remained at home, lying on the bed and "listening to the ball game if it was on." For two weeks, she cleaned out her bureau drawers. Richard would spend the day watching CNN or movies such as Backdraft and Midnight Run. "I would look out the window and see about 150 to 200 press people. Then it would drop to five or six on the hill. They had one person sitting up there at all times with their binoculars." Richard believed they were being monitored. "They heard everything that was going on. They were over there with high-intensity zoom lenses. They had people over there who could read lips. They had a sound dish. They could hear everything that we said. They had a person writing down everything we said. I saw them."When Bobi walked out the door, Jewell said, they would holler obscenities and yell, 'You should both die'Once, Bobi's cat jumped on the window ledge under the curtain and the photographers began frenetically shooting pictures, believing that one of the Jewells was in the window. Sound trucks and boom microphones prevented the neighbors from getting near the apartment. Three F.B.I. agents were usually sitting near the tiny swimming pool; each time Jewell or his mother left the house, a cavalcade of unmarked cars would follow. Richard soon began to write a speech describing the horror he felt at being falsely accused. He ate grilled-cheese sandwiches, huge pans of lasagna, and can after can of Campbell's tomato soup."If my mom and I had something we wanted to talk about that we didn't want anyone to hear, we wrote it on pieces of paper. When she left to go to work the next day, she would take it with her, tear it up, and put it in the trash! That is how I kept my mother informed about what was going on with the case." The notes were specific: "What the Justice Department was saying, what my attorneys were hearing through the grapevine that I could tell my mom that was not privileged. It was mainly stuff like 'Keep the faith' and 'Can I borrow $10 for gas in the truck?' "Jewell described how, when his mother would walk out the door, "they would holler obscenities at her. They would yell, 'Did he do it? Did he blow those people up?' They would yell, 'You should both die.'" According to Jewell, "The cameramen were just trying to get us aggravated so they could get it on camera. You don't know how hard it is when they are saying stuff about my mother and me. . . . All she was trying to do was walk her dog. And she cannot do that without hearing that yelling. When someone did that to my mother, I would want to be up on the hill calling the police, because I would want them arrested. I was going to say, 'Mom, tell me which one said that!' And I was going to walk up to that person and introduce myself and say, 'Hi, my name is Richard Jewell. What is yours? Who do you work for? Who is your supervisor?' And I was going to go home and call 911 to get a warrant."By disposition, Jewell is a night person, but he would get up early when his mother went back to work and make her breakfast. By 11 A.M. he would be playing Mortal Kombat II and listening to 96 Rock on the radio, where one of his friends is a disc jockey. Four days into his period of captivity, he called the DeKalb County police. He recalled telling a Mr. Brown, "'This is Richard Jewell. I am sure you are aware of my situation over on Buford Highway.' He said, 'Yes, Richard, I know.' I said, 'I just want to tell you my situation. Number one: I did not do this. Number two: I am here and I am not leaving the apartment for any reason at all.' I said that all the press was doing right now was aggravating my mother and disturbing my neighbors, and I would really appreciate it if the neighbors could return to a normal life."On Saturday, August 3, as Bryant stared at the F.B.I. agent plucking Jewell's hair, he had already made a decision. "It was, like, screw it. I had had it." The next day was the closing ceremony of the Olympics; Bryant imagined that that would be the day the government might choose to arrest Jewell. "Who is the best criminal lawyer in Georgia?" he asked a state lawyers' association. Within a day, he had brought in Jack Martin, an expert on the federal death penalty and a Harvard law school graduate with close ties to the local U.S. attorney, Kent Alexander. "Let me tell you something about myself," Jewell told him in their first meeting. "I hate criminal lawyers." "Well, Richard," Martin said, "I don't much like cops, but sometimes I need one, and this is a time you sure need a criminal lawyer."That weekend, watching the Olympic basketball finals, Bryant had an idea: he wanted to be prepared with his own polygraph test of Jewell if the F.B.I. arrested him. From the game, Bryant called a close friend who was a former federal prosecutor. "Try Richard Rackleff," he said. "We worked together on the Walter Moody bombing case." Rackleff had recently set up a private practice, and he agreed to test Jewell the next day. On Sunday morning, Bryant was up early, unable to sleep. He drove around town, making calls from his cell phone. He dialed 679-9000—the F.B.I. "This is Watson Bryant. I am going to pick up Richard Jewell. I just want you to know that. I don't have a white Bronco. I don't have a wig, and I don't have cash in my car. We are just going to my office."Watson had coordinated an elaborate plan with his brother to dodge reporters; he would use a decoy and snake through a parking garage. Rackleff had been instructed to park blocks from Bryant's office, because his car could be identified easily, since he was well known in Atlanta law enforcement.When Rackleff sat down with Richard Jewell in the conference room, he later told me, he sensed almost immediately that Jewell was innocent. Rackleff had tested many bombers before, including Walter Moody, who was convicted of killing a federal judge. "They are strange ducks—they leave their attorneys cold," Rackleff said. Although no one knew Rackleff was in the building, more than 100 reporters gathered outside to get a look at Jewell. Inside, Jack Martin, Bryant, Nadya Light, and Jewell spent 12 hours in Bryant's office. Rackleff asked Jewell a series of questions, but the test was inconclusive. "Richard is tormented. He is exploding on the inside," Rackleff said. While he was testing him, CNN's Art Harris was visible through the window of Bryant's office, but he could not see inside. Bryant was thoroughly deflated, close to despair. "You have got to try to buck Richard up," Rackleff told him. "Who is going to buck me up?" Bryant asked.'We are not in missile range of arresting Richard Jewell, but we want him to take our own polygraph," Kent Alexander told Bryant and Jack Martin in their first meeting on the case. In the meantime, Rackleff had tested Jewell again, and he had passed with "no deception," the highest rating. By this time, it was clear that there was no damning evidence against Jewell discovered at the apartment or in his old house in Habersham County.Alexander was only 38, but he had been groomed for politics in a fancy local family. His father was a senior partner in a good Atlanta law firm, and he had worked as an intern for Senator Sam Nunn. Bryant worried about Alexander's lack of experience, but Alexander told colleagues that he was disturbed by the lack of substantial evidence against Jewell. He was trying to operate with decency, but he was cautious and had to check every detail with Washington.Bryant, however, didn't trust Alexander; he had had a bad experience with Alexander's predecessor. In 1990, Bryant had almost been put out of business in a tussle with the then U.S. attorney. The local Small Business Administration accused a bank Bryant represented of improper use of funds; the bank blamed Bryant, who was brought before a grand jury and over the next two years almost lost his practice. He spent $50,000 defending himself, and Nadya Light had to take another job, but eventually the case was settled with Bryant's agreeing not to do business with the S.B.A. for 18 months. Bryant had always felt that he had been manhandled by the office. "I learned everything I needed to know about dealing with this office in 1990," Bryant recalled telling Alexander. "No polygraph for Richard."At the meeting, Alexander told Bryant and Martin, "This is all off-the-record. This is a request that is strictly confidential." Weeks later, Louis Freeh came to town to address a breakfast of former F.B.I. agents. Almost immediately, the polygraph request was reported on CNN. "Kent, I thought we had an agreement," Bryant told him. "I cannot control Washington," Alexander said.When two of the bomb-blast victims sued Richard Jewell, Bryant brought in Wood and Grant to handle the civil litigation. Martin opposed the move. He believed in the cone of silence: "Circle the wagons and don't speak." He said that Wood and Grant had a different perspective: Attack, attack, and if you give any quarter, it is a sign of weakness. Martin had been reassured in private by Kent Alexander that Jewell was not in any immediate danger of being arrested, but the team disagreed about press tactics. Martin worked through the Atlanta-establishment back channels; Lin Wood was a rhetoric man. He favored "one big newsbreak a week." "You know who wrote the book Masters of Deceit? J. Edgar Hoover! And that was about the Communist Party in America. So now they have gone from masters of investigation to masters of deceit!" he would routinely tell reporters who called.Three days after Wood and Grant surfaced as the two new civil lawyers, a Ford van with a tinted bubble-shaped window appeared on the top level of the Macy's parking garage which faced the conference-room windows of their offices. According to Wood, the van did not move for 10 days. "We used to sit there and wave at it." Then the lawyers placed a camera in the window, and the next day the vehicle was gone. "For sure that van had laser sound-detecting equipment," Wood said.Jewell was annoyed that press descriptions of him always emphasized his "overzealousness"; he considers himself a man of details. Often, when he's watching movies at home, he freeze-frames in order to study props in scenes. The second weekend he was considered a suspect, he told me, "I walked in and I noticed white powder all over the telephone table in the conference room." It was a Saturday morning, and Jewell had been with his lawyers until late the night before. He told me he was convinced that the F.B.I. "had lifted a ceiling tile," and that the white powder was "dust that came down." Bryant and Jewell made light of it and did not sweep their phones, believing that any tap the F.B.I. would use would be of a laser or satellite variety and impossible to trace. "In the beginning of every conversation, Watson would curse for about a minute and tell them what lowlives they were. And then he would say, 'By the way, this is Richard's lawyer. Y'all can cut your tape players off,"' Jewell said. "I would call them dirty scumbags," said Bryant. But the local U.S. attorney, Kent Alexander, insisted that their phones were not tapped. "There are no wiretap warrants," he said.The F.B.I. did turn up one bit of potentially troublesome evidence in the Jewells' apartment—fragments of a fence that had been blown up in the explosion. After a telephone conversation with Watson Bryant, Kathy Scruggs quoted him saying, "Yes, he did have a sample of the blown-up bomb." Bryant accused her of egregiously misquoting him. He remembered saying to her, "Yes, Richard had souvenirs of the bombing." Scruggs had not taped their conversation. "She cut the 'ing' off of 'bomb,'" Bryant later told me, but Scruggs strongly denies this. The day the story broke, Bryant criticized Scruggs on local radio. That afternoon she appeared at his office to attempt to clear up the misunderstanding. "I don't like your reporting," Bryant recalled telling her. "I'm human, too," she said. The next day, Ron Martz inserted a quote from Bryant in an unrelated news story: "Oh, man, it's not even a scrap of the bomb—it's a piece of damned fence, for God's sake." But the quote would have little impact. Scruggs's version had been picked up; gathering force, it was eventually related by Bill Press on Crossfire on the evening of October 28: "The guy was seen with a homemade bomb at his home a few days before." (The next day CNN would be forced to apologize for the mistake.)By this time Bryant had grown enraged by the media coverage. The New York Post had called Jewell "a Village Rambo" and "a fat, failed former sheriff's deputy." Jay Leno had said that Jewell "had a scary resemblance to the guy who whacked Nancy Kerrigan," and asked, "What is it about the Olympic Games that brings out big fat stupid guys?" The A.J. C. s star columnist, Dave Kindred, had compared Jewell to serial murderer Wayne Williams: "Like this one, that suspect was drawn to the blue lights and sirens of police work. Like this one, he became famous in the aftermath of murder."Television journalism was also a revelation to Bryant; he felt he had "landed on Mars," and spent hours channel-surfing. On CNN, one criminologist said "it was possible" that Jewell had a hero complex. Bryant told his brother, Bruce, "I know I am going to sue someone. I just don't know who." Bruce Bryant searched for Jewell's name on the Internet three weeks into his ordeal and found 10,000 stories. The tone many of the journalists took was accusatory and pre-determined, with a few rare exceptions, such as that of CBS correspondent Jim Stewart. "Don't jump to any conclusion yet," he said sharply in a broadcast at the height of the frenzy.In his first week as Jewell's lawyer, Bryant went to the CNN studio to be interviewed by Larry King. After the broadcast, he was asked to stop in at the office of CNN president Tom Johnson. "They wanted to know what I thought of their reporting so far." Art Harris was in the room. "I turned around and I said to Art Harris, 'Who the hell are you and the rest of the media to make fun of how Richard Jewell and his mother live? Who are you to make fun of working people who live in a $470-a-month apartment? Is there something wrong with that? Who are you to say that he is a weirdo because he lives with his mother?' "According to Jack Martin, the F.B.I. spent weeks on one erroneous early theory—that Richard Jewell was an enraged homosexual cop-hater who had been aided in the bombing by his lover. Jewell had purportedly planted the bomb; the lover then made the 911 phone call warning that it would go off in Centennial Park. The rationale behind this idea was that Jewell was "mad at the cops and wanted to kill other cops," Martin told me.The rumor began at Piedmont College, perhaps invented by several of the students Jewell had turned in for smoking pot, but it had a chilling consequence. In mid-August, three agents appeared at the Curtis Mathes video store in Cornelia, where Chris Simmons, a senior at Piedmont, worked part-time. Simmons, a friend of Jewell's, who was engaged to be married, was a B student, but he displayed the same porcine blankness as Jewell and spoke in a slow drawl. He had a deep distrust of the government and carried a card in his pocket that read: CHRISTOPHER DWAYNE SIMMONS-CAMPAIGN SUPPORT FOR CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATES.The agents questioned Simmons in the store for one and a half hours. "They asked me if I was a homosexual. They asked me if I had accessed the Internet. . . . They later wanted to wire me. They said, 'If he is really a hero, we will find out, and if not, he has killed someone and injured a lot of people.' " Simmons was short with the agents and denied everything. They accused him of lying and said they could take him to Atlanta. The agents told someone Simmons had once worked with that Simmons might be involved in the bombing. "They kept wording questions differently. They kept saying: Do you think Richard Jewell could have done this if he believed that he could get people out in time and nobody would get hurt?" Simmons later called one of the F.B.I. agents and said, "I hear you don't believe my story." He recalled their conversation: " 'I think you are sugarcoating your answers,' he said. I said, 'Next time I talk with you, it will be with a lawyer.' And he asked me if I was threatening him. Then he hung up on me." Ultimately, Simmons volunteered to take a polygraph, which he says he passed. "I was a nervous wreck," he said. "I had only seen this on TV."What was not known outside a small circle of investigators was how deadly the Centennial Park bomb really was. It was well constructed, with a piece of metal shaped like a V, and inside, it had canisters filled with nails and screws. Jack Martin, who had spent time in Vietnam, compared its construction to that of a claymore mine, a sophisticated and lethal device. The bomb weighed more than 40 pounds. It was "a shaped charge," F.B.I. deputy director Weldon Kennedy would announce in December. It could blast out fragments from three separate canisters, but only one of the canisters exploded on July 27. Someone had moved the Alice pack slightly before the bomb detonated, causing most of the shrapnel to shoot into the sky. The composition of the bomb did not suggest the work of an amateur, Kathy Scruggs would ironically later report, after interviewing an A.T.F. chemist.As the weeks went by, Richard Jewell withdrew into a state of psychological limbo; he began to try to analyze what the agents might think of his behavior within the small apartment. "I would be watching a spy show on TV or something like a John Wayne movie. Someone would be talking about blowing something up, and I would think to myself, My God, that is going to sound really bad if they think I am listening to that." He worried that "they would think I was some kind of a nut," and often, when he could not sleep, he would find himself consciously switching to exercise videos and soap operas.Over Labor Day weekend, he drove up to Habersham County for a picnic with his ex-girlfriend's family, the Chastains. As usual, three F.B.I. cars followed him, but he had gotten adept at picking out the unmarked vehicles. As Jewell drove into town, he noticed that white ribbons hung from hundreds of trees; the Chastains had organized a campaign in his behalf. On the way home, Jewell drove with his friend Dave Dutchess. For the first time, he did not see an F.B.I. car following him, but he noticed an airplane flying low overhead. He drove another 20 miles, and the plane was still on him. "I said, 'Dave, do you think the F.B.I. would be following us in an airplane? It wouldn't be that hard to do, if they put some kind of beeper on the car.'" The plane followed them through Gainesville all the way to Atlanta—an hour's drive. "Just to make sure, we got off on an exit ramp and went about five miles back north. And I got out and took a picture. They followed us all the way back to the apartment! And they circled the apartment for about 15 minutes, until the F.B.I. car showed back up. I got very emotional. My cheeks got beet red. And Mom came home and said, 'What is going on? What is the matter?' It just destroyed the whole day."On September 2, Dave Dutchess and his fiancee, Beatty, were driving to their house in Tennessee. It was raining hard, and they noticed they were being followed by several F.B.I. cars. The storm grew worse, and they stopped at a hotel for the night. The next day, while getting coffee at a McDonald's, they were surrounded by F.B.I. agents. "We just want to talk to you. We are trying to be discreet." One agent, Dutchess recalled, spoke into his radio: "We have the suspect in hand." As they walked back toward their car, Dutchess said to Beatty, "They think I am his accomplice. I heard on the news they were looking for his accomplice!"After the interview, which lasted several hours, Dutchess spoke to Watson Bryant. "What did they ask you that concerns you?" Bryant asked him. "Well, I decided that I had to tell them the truth. Me and one of my friends used to set off pipe bombs for fun," Dutchess told him. "What?" Bryant exclaimed, incredulous. "Yeah, I told them we liked to throw pipe bombs down gopher holes when we lived out in West Virginia.""Did Richard know this friend?" Bryant asked apprehensively. "Hell, no. He never met him," Dutchess said, but Bryant knew that this could prolong the F.B.I.'s investigation perhaps by months. "I hung up and I was thinking, I cannot believe that I even know anyone who throws pipe bombs into gopher holes."As part of their strategy, Wood and Grant decided to mount a strong counterattack against the government. Wayne Grant had come up with the idea: Bobi Jewell should hold a press conference during the Democratic convention and make a direct plea to Bill Clinton. The day before she was to appear, Grant rehearsed her. It was difficult to work with Bobi; she was exhausted and could not stop crying. Confined under siege for almost a month, she could not see an end to it, since every day brought a new humiliation. The resident manager had threatened to take away their lease, and the manager's son was out selling pictures he took of them. A close friend from church was dying, Bobi said, and Richard could not go to see him, because of the swarm of F.B.I. agents and reporters who followed him everywhere. All of it came out in a rush in the conference room with Wayne Grant: Bobi had even had to give Bryant and Nadya Light the Olympic-basketball tickets she had won as colleague of the year, and every night she and her son were stuck together, staring at each other across the kitchen table. They were often irritable, and Richard sometimes lost his temper. "Mother, just shut up," he would tell her when she nagged him about the case. Then, Bobi later recalled, she would go into her bedroom and lie on the four-poster bed hoping that the photographers who rented an apartment across the way for $1,000 a day had no way of knowing what was going on.Grant kept careful notes on the session. Bobi was terrified about appearing in front of cameras. She sobbed and told him, "If I go on TV Monday, I'll be embarrassed. It will be, like, whenever I go anywhere, people will be looking at me: 'Did he do it or didn't he do it?' ""If you talked to the person who is in charge of the investigation, what would you say?" Grant asked her calmly. Bobi's voice was halting, but she was firm: "He is innocent. Clear his name and let us get back to a life that is normal."A few weeks later, Wayne Grant went to a party for a Bar Mitzvah, and a guest cornered him. She asked him if he had told Bobi Jewell to cry at the end of her press conference, and then added coldly, "Nice touch."The lawyers' strategy worked: after Bobi's press conference, the Jewells were deluged with interview requests. Bryant often received 100 phone calls a day. Bobi soon developed a system: letters from Oprah Winfrey, Sally Jessy Raphael, and TV producers were stacked on the console in the living room; flowers and baskets of Godiva chocolates and cheese and crackers from the networks were sent to the offices of Wood & Grant and then on to a children's hospital.At the U.S. Attorney's Office, it had become increasingly clear to Kent Alexander that something had to be done about Richard Jewell. Janet Reno had seen Bobi Jewell on TV and was moved by her sincerity. Privately, Reno and Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick were said to be concerned about the heavy-handed tactics of the F.B.I. "The case had become a total embarrassment," a Justice Department official told me, but Alexander was in a complicated situation. He was working closely with the F.B.I., and there was no sign that the bureau was ready to let go, despite growing consternation among the local agents that the Washington command center had mishandled the case. And there was another problem: Alexander did not trust Lin Wood.By late September, there was a tremendous strain within the team Bryant had hastily assembled. The other lawyers accused Jack Martin of cutting private deals with his friend Kent Alexander, pulling focus, and not being tough enough. For his part, Alexander, according to Martin, admired Bryant even though he believed he was a loose cannon, but he was fed up with Lin Wood."Alexander would say something fairly candid to me, and I would report it to the attorneys, and the next day he would see it on TV," said Jack Martin. "Alexander had checked out Lin, and he knew that he was a take-no-prisoners guy." The lawyers often argued among themselves. Wood insisted on a full-blowout press-attack strategy. Bryant had mastered his sound bite: "The F.B.I. is a 500-pound gorilla who will kick the shit out of anyone." Martin wanted the lawyers to ease up on the hyperbole: "I would say, 'We do not need to do this.' And Lin would say, 'Let's go public with this.' He was manic about it." In one argument, Wood told him, "Goddamn it, Martin, you're like my ex-wives. There isn't anything you can say I won't object to."There was an atmosphere of extreme apprehension between Bryant and Jewell as they drove to F.B.I. headquarters on the afternoon of October 6. They were on their way to what would seemingly be a session with conclusional overtones, but Jewell was worried: What if this meeting was a trick? It was difficult to believe that the bureau was really ending its two-month-long investigation into his life. For weeks, Jack Martin and Bryant had been going back and forth with Kent Alexander. Finally, Jewell had agreed to an unusual suggestion: if he submitted to a lengthy voluntary interview with the bureau, and if Division 5 was satisfied, then perhaps the Justice Department could issue a letter publicly stating that he was no longer a suspect. Jewell tried to imagine the questions he would be asked. "I wanted to look at everything from their angle," he told me, "trying to assess it and reassess it in my head."On the day of Jewell's exoneration, Jay Leno apologized for having called him a Unadoofus.Kent Alexander had set a firm ground rule: Only one lawyer representing Jewell could be in the room. It had been agreed that Jack Martin, the criminal specialist, would be the man, which enraged Lin Wood. "You could really see how these guys did not like each other," Jewell said."I am not comfortable with the one-lawyer agreement," Wood told John Davis, Kent Alexander's second-in-command, when they were assembled. "We have an agreement. If you attempt to renegotiate it, I will have egg on my face," Davis said, adding, "You are not a man of your word." With that, Wood recalled, he rose from his chair and started screaming, "You are not going to say that to me, you son of a bitch!" Kent Alexander interrupted, saying, "This is deteriorating. We aim to stop this. Let's just regroup."When Jewell, Davis, and Martin finally sat down for the interview, Larry Landers, a special agent with the G.B.I., and F.B.I. special agent Bill Lewis had lists of questions with blank space for answers in front of them. On the wall of the windowless room, there were extensive aerial photographs of the park and, as a prop, an actual park bench was later brought in. Martin believed that the agents intended to resolve areas in the affidavits and other questions: Had Richard ever accessed Candyman's Candyland for information on the Anarchists' Cookbook? Had Richard picked up any pieces of pipe when the park was under construction? Had he told anyone, "Take my picture now, because I am going to be famous"? None of this had happened, Jewell said. All he could remember telling someone was that he was off to Atlanta and "going to be in that mess down there," meaning the traffic jams. They pressed him about seemingly inconsistent statements he had made on the morning of the bombing: Why had he told Agent Poor everything was normal when he checked the perimeter of the fence? Jewell explained that he had been walking the "inside of the fence." He once again explained that he had wanted to work the sound-and-light tower so that he could watch the entertainment; he had arranged for his mother to hear Kenny Rogers four days before the explosion.The area, he told Landers, was "a sweet site" and a great place to look at girls. During a break, Martin asked about all his references to women. Jewell said he wanted them to know he wasn't gay. On several occasions, Landers became annoyed: Why couldn't Jewell pin down the times? Had he seen the drunks on the bench between 10:30 and 11 or between 11 and 11:30? Why hadn't he looked at his watch? Jewell later recalled, "I said, 'I don't go through my life looking at my watch. I don't care about time. When the bomb went off, I did not look at my watch.' They were wanting to know what time I went to the bathroom and stuff like that. When you have the runs, you are not really concerned about what time it is. You are concerned with getting to the bathroom."On the day after the F.B.I. meeting, Jack Martin dictated a 27-page account of everything that had been said during the six-hour interview. In the last moments, Davis said, "he wanted to give Richard the opportunity once and for all to say that he didn't do it." Jewell, Martin wrote, "unequivocally and fortunately said that he had nothing to do with the bomb and didn't know anything about the bomb and if he did he would be the first to deliver the bastard to their door." When Martin walked out, he thought to himself, This really was a formality. They had nothing.In November a rumor swept through the newsroom of The A.J.C. that Cox newspaper executives were rethinking their news policies. According to one reporter, "The sloppiness of the Jewell reporting and the lack of sources was the last straw." A reporter named Carrie Teegardin was assigned to write a piece examining how the media spotlight was turned on Richard Jewell. In large part, her article wound up being an examination of the role of The A.J.C. After Wood and Grant threatened to sue, the article was killed. "We didn't get through the editing of it," John Walter said. "The Jewells' attorney began saying, 'We're thinking lawsuit' . . . and that made us more cautious." Meanwhile, Lin Wood and Wayne Grant were busy holding meetings with lawyers from NBC and Piedmont College. At NBC, Tom Brokaw's carelessness reportedly cost the network more than $500,000 to settle Jewell's claims, although Jewell's lawyers would not confirm a figure, BROKAW GOOFED AND NBC PAID, the New York Daily News would later headline. In talks with Ray Cleere, the figure of $450,000 by way of settlement was first suggested, then withdrawn when Piedmont College learned that it had insurance. "This will cost them millions now," Lin Wood believes.On one occasion I asked Richard Jewell if he had any theories about who might have placed the bomb. Jewell said he had popped "two or three theories off the top of my head" on the night he was interviewed by the F.B.I. "I have gone over that night hundreds of times in my head. You try to think, What type of person would do that? I know it is someone who wanted to hurt people. It is someone who is sick. I hope they find him so he can get the help he needs. Because I am totally torn up about what happened. Every day I think about it, and I will think about it for the rest of my life."Jewell often speaks with Bryant three times a day. As Jewell searches for a new job, he hangs around Bryant's office, and he recently studied handwriting analysis at the police academy. He has been offered several security jobs with Georgia companies, but he is hoping he will be hired as a Cobb County deputy. In the meantime, Bryant, Wood, and Grant have become sought-after speakers on the First Amendment.At F.B.I. headquarters in late October, Bobi Jewell broke down and cried as she identified their possessions—the Disney tapes, the Tupperware, Richard's AT&T uniforms, address books. It was a tableau of ordinary middle-class life, laid out on brown paper on a long conference-room table. "I just don't fucking believe this," Watson Bryant said angrily as he packed Bobi's videos into packing crates. "The agents tried to shake my hand," Bobi told me. "I wouldn't touch them." It took 10 hours to remove their possessions, Bobi recalled, and four minutes to return them.The F.B.I. is working on a new and elaborate theory of who did place the bomb in Centennial Park. There is an informed opinion that the backpack discovered a week earlier had in fact been a test run to check F.B.I. procedures, and that the bomber—perhaps a member of a militia group—was quite experienced and had struck before. After a torrent of criticism in the press, Louis Freeh announced that the F.B.I. had arrested Harold Nicholson, an alleged spy for Russia, and he used the opportunity to appear on the Today show and Good Morning America, hyping his role in what was a minor arrest, according to one former F.B.I. agent.In Australia in November, Bill Clinton was asked about his campaign contributions from Indonesia. "One of the things I would urge you to do, remembering what happened to Mr. Jewell in Atlanta, remembering what has happened to so many of the accusations . . . that have been made against me that turned out to be totally baseless, I just think that we ought to . . . get the facts out." When Jewell learned of his comment, he pulled up the transcript from the Internet and became angry: "The president is just using me, like everyone else."What rights does a private citizen have against the government? The legal precedent for suing the F.B.I., Bivens v. Six Unknown Agents, focuses on the behavior of individual agents. Wood believes that Jewell has a strong case against Johnson and Rosario. When Wood learned of Colonel Ressler, he hired him as a possible trial expert. In December, the F.B.I. announced that it would pay up to $500,000 to anyone who could lead it to the Olympic Park bomber.As Jewell and I drove back from Habersham County in November, he went over the early-morning hours of July 27: "I remember all of the people who were my responsibility. I remember the guys' faces who were flying through the air. I remember people screaming. The sirens going off. I don't think I will ever forget any of that. You just kind of wish sometimes. You think, Could I have done something else? . . . What if we only had five more minutes? Then maybe nobody would have been hurt. But you are what-if-ing. I have been over it a thousand times. I think we could not have done it any better. I think that is something I will always be wondering."He said he was not sure if he would ever get a job in law enforcement again, particularly since he had been held up as a cartoon figure. On the day of Jewell's exoneration, Jay Leno apologized for having called him a Unadoofus, and said, "If Jewell wins his lawsuit with NBC, he will be my new boss." He later said that this was "the greatest week in trailer-park history." The Atlanta radio station 96 Rock had put billboards of Jewell all over town; "Freebird," they said, a reference to the Lynyrd Skynyrd song. Jewell would later file suit against the station, but the billboard's message was clear. Jewell knows that for many people in America there will perhaps always be a subtle doubt: What if, after all, Richard Jewell really did do it? What if the government let him go simply because it could not make its case? Then he becomes not the innocent Richard Jewell, but the Richard Jewell who may be innocent. "You don't get back what you were originally," he told me. "I don't think I will ever get that back. The first three days, I was supposedly their hero—the person who saves lives. They don't refer to me that way anymore. Now I am the Olympic Park bombing suspect. That's the guy they thought did it. " February 1997 | Vanity Fair

这是一部好电影，为90岁高龄的东木老爷子和他的创作激情鼓掌，但是这里想说一下，我对这部电影的一个想法：其实看完以后，我们去追究为什么理查德从英雄变罪犯时，我们追究的是关乎整个美国文化对某种标签下(大龄单身和妈妈一起住的胖子)的人的偏见、关乎美国司法体制的漏洞、更关乎大众心理学和人性……等更宽广的社会议题。

而对于现实主义题材来说，故事的起因可以是偶然的，但是推动故事前行的力量越是必然的，这个故事留给人们的思考就会越深邃。

比如在《我不是药神》中，激发药方(或警察)和癌症患者之间的矛盾，不是因为某个人物的好或坏，也不是因为谁的运气特别好或不好，而是因为——老百姓的“穷病”：穷是原罪，尽管垂危的病人们很可怜，但是我们目前也找不到为高额医药费买单的对象。

药厂与病人们的矛盾是必然的，观众们也会去追寻这道社会难题当下或是未来的解决之道。

可是，这部电影里，由于理查德对立面的主要人物都“坏得很肤浅”，让作为观众的我会认为，如果他面对的是一个正直的FBI警探和客观的记者，也许就不会遭遇这样的困境。

对于这种现实题材的作品，如果推动故事矛盾走向的核心力量的偶然性增加一分，那么电影的厚重感就少一分，我们对社会现状的反思就会降低一分。

做好人是一种任性，这句话，是我在7年前的知乎日报app上看到的一篇文章的标题，大概就是说，为什么生活中存在像男主角理查德这样的人，明明知道做好人很有可能是没有好报的，还是要执意做一个好人呢？

大概是任性吧。

看这部电影的时候，我感到很气愤，总会在主人公的身上看到自己的影子，虽然主人公在很大程度上比我更加社会化，更加有自己的坚持，他极富有正义感，警察技能熟练，会在晚上学习法律，很喜欢军事射击，简直就是一位天生成为好警察的料，可惜现实生活中的他，离开副警官的职位之后，多次的保安就职经历都不太顺利，以解雇作为终点。

好吧，在我看来，他做保安也是屈才了。

想起了主人公说了一句话，我曾经把成为一名FBI的警察作为自己的职业梦想，但是我现在发现，你们不去抓捕真正的爆炸案罪犯，反而在这里不断地臆想理查德是罪犯，我一点也不想成为FBI警察了。

理查德虽然是一位看上去“完美”的嫌犯，失意的白人，前警察背景，懂得炸药知识，还是第一个发现爆炸的人，之前还有大学院长说，他做保安的时候，是一个喜欢表现自己的人。

其实，他只是，一个善良的富有正义感的保安，他只是在履行自己的职能，尽管他当天可以请病假的，就像他说的，没有人愿意做尽职的保安了，只要看到可疑的包裹跑就好了，这大概就是职场中，多做多错，少做不错的同样场景的还原。

说到尽职，戏中的警察、记者大概是称不上了。

虽然，主人公在发现家中装置了窃听设备之后，和律师大吵了一架，说我就是没有办法变成你这样啊，我就是我啊，我很生气，但是我没有表露出来啊。

为什么选择你作为我的律师，因为，你是唯一不把我当作5岁小孩字的人。

在我看来，在某种象征层面上来说，主人公和律师是人生的不同阶段的象征，终究要反击，要保持愤怒，要变强大。

这大概是最近这段时间自己的生活感悟把。

看了电影后不是很能理解为什么这部电影在颁奖季没有什么水花，所以便在网上搜了搜评论。

在烂番茄上，这部电影的媒体评分只有73%，远远不及《利剑出鞘》等电影。

我更疑惑了，于是仔细看了看这些媒体的评价。

最终引导我看到了一个来自亚特兰大宪章报对这部电影的批评。

批评主要针对电影中女记者Kathy Scruggs的塑造。

这位女记者不折手段的用性交易的方式从FBI探员那里获取了他们即将对理查德·朱维尔展开调查的消息，从而一手导致了朱维尔从“英雄”到“凶手”的噩梦之旅。

实际上，大部分对电影的负面评价都针对于这个女记者的形象。

我在看电影的时候已经预感到了，这个女记者的形象触犯到了不仅仅是媒体的职业道德问题，而是已经触犯了目前最敏感的性别政治问题。

这部电影像老爷子的绝大多数电影一样以展现事实真相为中心。

所以批评者不可能不注意到这个女记者用性交易来获取信息这一细节是否是真的事实？

毕竟人已经去世，之前也没有任何证据。

所以很多批评者嘲讽这个电影是“太过戏剧化”的处理了真人真事。

有的评论直接点出了“抹黑女性”。

以至于饰演这个角色的演员奥利维亚·王尔德不得不站出来撇清：她作为一个演员无法决定和改变剧本的内容。

个人觉得老爷子确实不应该在电影里包含这一幕。

但同时也认为这可能就是老爷子的一种讽刺。

毕竟当年FBI在撤销对朱维尔的调查后，朱维尔转头就控告了包括NBC在内的多家媒体，大部分媒体都和他庭外和解了，只有亚特兰大宪章报坚持认为他们的报道是基于客观事实的推论，并没有捏造和污蔑的地方。

所以，一个FBI内部的消息，是怎么被一个女记者知道的呢？

老爷子如此推理，恰如当年的记者们通过朱维尔这个笨拙肥胖还与妈妈合住的单身白人男子形象推论他是凶手一模一样。

其实这个电影里处处都是这种嘲讽。

因为朱维尔本身就是一个不完美的小人物，他除了被不公正的对待外，还有过激的历史，不交税和一屋子的枪。

即便到了最后FBI找不出任何可以指控他是凶手的证据，那位FBI的探员还是铮铮有词的指责朱维尔：我知道你就是凶手，虽然我没有证据，但我知道你就是。

那位FBI探员并不仇恨朱维尔，也没有理由仇恨朱维尔，他只是对自己深信不疑，这种态度其实是大多数人的写照。

如果最后不是真凶浮出水面，多少人会一直怀疑朱维尔的清白？

不过亚特兰大宪章报的那个批评最有意思的其实是后面的读者评论，多达四百多条。

而这四百多条评论的焦点大部分转向了特朗普。

电影里有一句台词提到了"quid pro quo"。

这句话最近不要太火。

其实这个电影的剧本早在几年前就完成了，电影的拍摄也是在特朗普被弹劾调查之前就已经完工了。

但是谁让老爷子pro特朗普呢？！

整个美国的媒体都在骂特朗普，老爷子却说在“希拉里和特朗普之间，他肯定要选特朗普”。

这简直就是媒体公敌了。

就算没有那个女记者，估计老爷子的这个电影也不会受到媒体的好评。

但是有了这句台词，媒体又可以推论：老爷子在借电影讽刺民主党对特朗普的调查。

其实个人认为老爷子并非真的支持特朗普，他明确表示过不会以资金或其它任何形式来支持特朗普，他只是表明在希拉里和特朗普之间，他觉得特朗普至少是比较诚实的。

个人觉得美国媒体和“言论自由”简直就是矛盾的两级。

鲜有媒体是没有自己的立场的，但是你不能有和他们对立的立场。

我天天听崔娃的节目，这个节目的立场不要太鲜明，各种嘲讽丑化特朗普，采访希拉里各种夸奖赞美，还要多有倾向性呢？

但是你不能批评媒体不客观，这是他们的“言论自由”和“政治正确”。

关于这个电影，它所产生的真实背景，以及现在的舆论背景，都让对它的讨论不可能再是对电影的讨论了。

很有意思的是，在浏览这些评论的时候，我最大的感触是对同样的一个事物，人与人之间会有多么多的不同的感受与看法。

而我们每一个人在言说自己的感受时就在改变事实的真相，也许下一次的世界大战真的就是“口水战”吧。

《理查德·朱厄尔》电影剧本文/〔美国〕比利·雷译/罗姣（淡入）镜头对着两个联邦调查局探员。

汤姆·肖和达恩·贝内特坐在一套乡郊公寓里的咖啡桌边缘。

令人感觉不适的近摄——他们直勾勾地盯着镜头。

肖：好的，理查德。

我现在要把这部电话递给你……肖45岁，神色阴沉至极，他拨打了一个电话，朝镜头递过来。

内景，博比的公寓（乔治亚州），白天（1996年）理查德·朱厄尔坐在俩人对面的沙发上，看着电话。

他34岁，性格腼腆，身形矮胖、笨拙（如果这些联邦探员没搞错，他还是一个杀人凶手和炸弹袭击者）。

肖：当你听见那端传来“哔”的一声，我要你对着电话说，“百年公园里有颗炸弹，你们有30分钟时间”。

朱厄尔：抱歉，什么？

贝内特：我们需要一份声音样本。

希望你能重复几次。

肖：“百年公园里有颗炸弹，你们有30分钟时间。

”这或许是你洗脱嫌疑的唯一办法，理查德。

朱厄尔：我想帮你们，伙计们。

我也是执法人员，和你们一样。

肖：那你就应该比别人更清楚，像这样的东西会是多么有力的证据。

（朱厄尔身体变得僵直）“百年公园里有颗炸弹，你们有30分钟时间。

”这可能是你洗脱嫌疑的唯一办法，理查德。

他并非在提出请求。

电话“哔”一声响。

朱厄尔接过电话，做了一下心理准备。

然后，平静地——朱厄尔（对电话）：百年公园里有颗炸弹，你们有30分钟时间。

肖：很好。

请再说一次。

大点声。

朱厄尔（对电话）：百年公园里有颗炸弹，你们有30分钟时间。

肖：再来一次。

确切地说，我们一连串地说吧。

朱厄尔：百年公园里有颗炸弹，你们有30分钟时间。

百年公园里有颗炸弹，你们有30分钟时间。

百年公园里有颗炸弹，你们有30分钟时间。

百年公园里有颗炸弹，你们有30分钟时间。

百年公园里……（切至黑屏）黑屏上叠加字幕：十年前，1986年，加州亚特兰大市（淡入）内景，美国小企业管理局，物料室，白天朱厄尔手里拿着写字夹板，将一排排架子上放置的笔、胶带等分类登记。

他负责管理物料。

身上穿着制服上衣和卡其裤。

内景，美国小企业管理局，写字间／布赖恩特的办公室，白天朱厄尔推着物料推车穿行于写字间，仿佛一个看不见的影子。

他朝见到的每个人露出羞涩的微笑。

他正从一位律师敞开的办公室门口经过。

只听里面传来一半的电话交谈——没有现身的律师在对某人咆哮。

律师（画外）：我才不在乎呢！

你在侵犯一位企业主最基本、最神圣的权利，她没有办法对付你！

所以由我来对付你。

我会让你死得很惨，直到你公正地对待她为止。

不管这个人是谁，他很大胆无畏。

朱厄尔待在原地不动。

律师（画外）：听着，如果你想威胁我，请当着我的面说。

桃树街233号，19楼。

来吧，我们说定了。

（稍顿，平静地）我也很高兴能和您谈话，参议员。

参议员？

哇。

通话结束了，朱厄尔呆立在门外。

他推着车正要离开，这时——哦，不——那位没有现身的律师沃森·布赖恩特从办公室里探出头来。

布赖恩特：你是哪位？

布赖恩特35岁，学院派气质的南方人，穿着三件套西装。

朱厄尔被逮到，紧张起来。

朱厄尔：我叫理查德，先生。

我很抱歉，我刚才在听你说话。

我不想让你觉得我很无礼。

我不是那种人。

布赖恩特：你说每句话总是用“我”开头吗？

朱厄尔有点脸红，布赖恩特很享受这个家伙苦恼的样子。

朱厄尔：对不起。

我是物料室的职员。

布赖恩特：好的。

我还需要一些胶——朱厄尔：先生，你桌子的第二个抽屉。

有胶带和一盒新钢笔。

嗯？

布赖恩特走到他的办公桌前，打开第二个抽屉。

里面放着一卷胶带。

还有一盒新钢笔。

他看着朱厄尔。

朱厄尔：见你快用完了。

看看下面的抽屉。

布赖恩特打开最下面的抽屉。

五条士力架赫然在目。

他打量朱厄尔，几乎被惊吓到。

布赖恩特：你怎么知道我喜欢吃士力架？

朱厄尔：看到了你垃圾桶里的包装纸。

布赖恩特：理查德，从现在起你的名字叫“雷达”吧。

这听上去像是一种恭维。

朱厄尔露出一丝微笑。

内景，游戏厅，白天朱厄尔开了一枪——他的姿势很专业，表情专注而严肃，目光冷峻。

砰！

砰！

只不过——这是一把塑料枪，他正对着电子屏幕射击。

在这个满是孩子的商场游戏厅里，他是唯一的成年人。

一个坏人被击倒，然后又是一个。

铃响了！

他刚刚创造了“新纪录”！

周围的孩子们纷纷转身。

其中一个（贾斯珀，10岁）看着朱厄尔，仿佛在说：教教我吧！

拜托！

朱厄尔（仍在射击）：我不理会蓝色入侵者。

浪费子弹。

贾斯珀：哇。

谢谢……这就是朱厄尔：一个街机游戏英雄。

他向右瞥了一眼，尴尬地僵住了——他看见一个人走了进来：布赖恩特。

他也来到了这间游戏厅，手里拿着一大杯“福乐鸡”的汽水。

布赖恩特脚步顿了一下，没想到会在这里看到朱厄尔。

但是如果就此走开，会显得他人品很烂。

他不情愿地朝朱厄尔走去，朱厄尔又开了一枪。

布赖恩特：打得不错，“雷达”。

你经常来这里吗？

朱厄尔：我在为我的执法生涯进行练习，先生。

警察局，联邦调查局。

布赖恩特：你干吗想做那个？

一种对当局下意识的厌恶。

朱厄尔察觉到了。

朱厄尔：相信能保护人们，先生。

布赖恩特把硬币塞进旁边的游戏机里，开始射击。

很快，他们并排站着，半真半假地比试起来。

朱厄尔：我每天晚上都在学习《刑法典》。

布赖恩特：是吗？

（继续射击）在公众场合醉酒的违章号码是多少？

朱厄尔：OCGA16-11-1，先生。

布赖恩特：家暴呢？

朱厄尔：OCGA16-5-23。

朱厄尔对答如流，与此同时在游戏里将布赖恩特杀得落花流水。

布赖恩特：你很有条理。

朱厄尔：我确实喜欢从A到B到C再到D，从A直接到D，事事争论一番，我不喜欢。

布赖恩特的游戏结束了。

朱厄尔扫了一眼布赖恩特的得分，试图表现得有人情味些。

朱厄尔：第一次玩，相当不错了。

布赖恩特：第一次玩？

你知道什么？

布赖恩特把手伸进口袋，掏出八枚25美分的硬币，狠狠往下一拍。

这是在发出挑战呢。

朱厄尔心领神会。

朱厄尔：他们只给我半小时的时间吃午饭，先生。

布赖恩特：你可以说你跟我在一起。

他又把一枚25美分硬币塞进游戏机。

游戏继续。

镜头退出到——游戏厅外。

从外面注视他们——两个大男人在游戏里展开枪战。

玩得不亦乐乎……内景，美国小企业管理局，法学图书室，晚上今晚的朱厄尔没有推手推车，他穿行在书架间——架子上是各种法学著作和刑法典。

然后，他停下脚步。

朱厄尔：布赖恩特先生？

布赖恩特在一张桌子旁看书。

他烦躁地抬起头。

布赖恩特：什么事？

朱厄尔：我以后不在这里工作了。

来跟你说声再见。

（布赖恩特神色惊讶）我找到了一份保安的新工作。

明天开始上班。

布赖恩特：太好了，“雷达”！

执法工作，正是你想要的。

朱厄尔：是的。

我妈妈今晚要带我出去买领带之类的东西。

我得穿着得体。

布赖恩特：我想是的。

朱厄尔：去马克斯百货。

总之，谢谢。

你所做的一切。

他提步向布赖恩特走去，后者变得紧张起来。

他要拥抱我吗？

想让我拥抱他吗？

布赖恩特僵立着。

但朱厄尔只是放了点东西到桌上。

一条士力架。

布赖恩特盯着士力架。

朱厄尔：我看到你快吃完了……依然是那个腼腆、古怪又友善的朱厄尔。

布赖恩特注视着他。

布赖恩特：你的钱够吗，理查德？

买那些需要的领带之类的？

朱厄尔：我想是的。

布赖恩特掏出钱包，抽出一张100美元的钞票。

朱厄尔睁大了眼睛。

布赖恩特将钞票递给他。

朱厄尔：我不明白……布赖恩特：这是“quid pro quo”。

知道什么意思吗？

朱厄尔：知道，拉丁语。

一个换一个。

布赖恩特：没错。

公平交易。

所以，条件就是：当你戴上徽章的时候——我知道那一天很快会到来——别变成一个混蛋。

朱厄尔：啊？

我为什么要变成……布赖恩特：一点点权力就能把一个人变成怪物，理查德。

别让这种事发生在你身上，明白吗？

朱厄尔不知道该如何回答。

布赖恩特径直盯着他。

朱厄尔：我会还给你的，先生。

一领到薪水就还。

我保证。

布赖恩特失望/自嘲地一笑，很显然对方没有领会他的话。

内景，皮德蒙特学院，学生宿舍，走廊/201房间，下午（1996年）一个警察的超近摄镜头：警徽，手电筒，警棍，丹纳警靴，电击枪，佩枪。

凛不可犯。

这个人是——朱厄尔，十年后的他成了一个十分严肃的校园警察，他气势汹汹地沿着宿舍走廊走向一个房间。

字幕：1996年，乔治亚州德莫雷斯特，皮德蒙特大学他用警棍敲了敲201房间的门。

里面传来打碎瓶子的声音。

还有醉醺醺的笑声，与此同时：学生甲（画外）：你个笨蛋！

学生乙（画外）：我慌神了！

去开门！

俩人轰然大笑。

朱厄尔又敲了敲门：他并不觉得在校园里喝酒好玩。

一点也不。

门开了，但是——学生甲看见朱厄尔，又把门关上了。

只听见——学生甲（画外）：是那个业余警察！

学生乙（画外）：见鬼！

稍顿。

朱厄尔等待着。

门再度打开了。

学生甲：什么事，警官？

朱厄尔没有说话，径直用警棍顶开门——颇有克林特·伊斯特伍德的风范，然后走进去。

沉默。

地上是打碎的威士忌酒瓶。

他注意到墙上的啤酒海报。

摇摇头，用脚下警靴拨开一块湿漉漉的碎玻璃。

然后学生们放肆地大笑起来。

朱厄尔感到十分厌恶。

他凑近，几乎贴着学生一的脸——朱厄尔：你有什么想说的吗？

学生甲：是的，你知道“非法搜查”的概念吗？

朱厄尔：继续推我。

继续考我。

看看你会不会喜欢自己的下场。

朱厄尔向前倾身。

学生甲后退，但是脚下一滑仰面跌倒在地。

“咚”一声。

他没有受伤。

朱厄尔倒是当即被吓了一跳——我差点伤到人了。

一阵沉默。

学生们不知道该怎么办。

朱厄尔试图以凶猛气势来掩饰，但只是虚张声势——朱厄尔：我告诉过你们，不许在我的校园喝酒。

还记得吗？

赶快起来。

内景，皮德蒙特学院，克利尔的办公室，白天朱厄尔坐在60岁的院长雷·克利尔博士对面。

克利尔在查看厚厚一沓的朱厄尔的档案。

克利尔：我不知道为什么以前没有人提醒我注意你的档案。

有这么多针对你的投诉。

对学生进行身体攻击。

还有，你真的曾在高速公路上让人靠边停车？

朱厄尔：是的，先生。

我认为如果在公路上测酒驾，麻烦就不会来到校园里。

克利尔：我们对高速公路没有司法管辖权。

朱厄尔：我相信法治，先生。

一个国家不能没有法治。

克利尔（示意档案）：你被哈伯沙姆县警长开除了？

朱厄尔：你说过你不希望校园里有污糟事。

克利尔：我什么时候说过？

朱厄尔：去年的创始人日。

还记得吗，先生？

在潘趣酒杯旁边。

我做了自我介绍，告诉你我会是你见过的最棒的校警。

你说：“很好。

我可不想在这个校园里有任何污糟事。

”朱厄尔掏出自己的工作记事本，打开。

朱厄尔：“在这个校园里不能有污糟事。

”看到了吗？

你说过。

那么，那些学生在宿舍喝酒什么的，怎么办？

你就放任他们继续这么下去？

克利尔：你想主动辞职——还是我炒了你更好？

外景，射击靶场（亚特兰大），白天戴夫·达切斯在用猎鹿枪射击。

朱厄尔在旁边的靶道上，用的是配得上《第一滴血》里兰博使用的SIG-400突击步枪。

达切斯：反正那也是一份糟心的工作，和大学里的毛孩子们争吵不休。

再说了，接下来的几个月里会有很多保安工作，你做好准备吧。

朱厄尔：我很努力地干那份工作。

那些孩子简直太放肆了。

达切斯：要举办奥运会了，兄弟。

你可以为全世界维持治安！

外景，无名小巷（亚特兰大），夜晚一具尸体躺在小巷里。

全身都是刀伤。

凯西·斯克鲁格斯冷静地注视着尸体。

她35岁，美貌堪可参加选美大赛。

金发碧眼。

古铜色皮肤，性感而艳俗。

她也是一名锲而不舍且“多产”的记者。

凯西：第一具尸体？

她身旁是一个年轻的摄影师，眼看就要吐出来了。

但是凯西呼吸着污浊的空气，看上去却很兴奋。

凯西：这点至关重要。

那样的话就叫高级谋杀案。

她小心地跨过尸体，避免破坏犯罪现场。

凯西：别担心。

我的杂物箱里有枪。

这并没有让对方感觉好受些。

凯西用一支笔拨开受害者的外衣，露出一根断指。

凯西：对了。

小手指完全断裂脱落。

这种情况在刀刺案中时有发生。

摄影师干呕了一下。

这让凯西感到愉悦。

年轻摄影师：我们现在就不能做点奥运会前的报道吗？

凯西：亲爱的，有15000名记者要来城里报道赛事。

难道不应该有人讲讲这个可怜的白痴的故事吗？

年轻摄影师：我想你不是感情用事的人。

凯西：他的不幸可能是你的机会。

现在拍摄。

就在这时，一辆警车停了下来。

两个警察下车——他们并不惊讶凯西比他们先到。

凯西：伙计们！

怎么这么久？

内景，《亚特兰大宪法报》大楼，8层新闻编辑室，白天欢迎来到《亚特兰大宪法报》。

这里一派忙碌、紧张的景象。

挂在墙上的数字时钟在倒计时：距火炬点燃的时刻还有2天4小时6分32秒，31秒，30秒……这份报纸已经进入预备状态，这时——凯西穿过新闻编辑室气冲冲地走向布兰登·哈姆。

哈姆：哦，见鬼。

他给你布置了什么任务？

凯西：百年公园的庆祝活动！

嗬。

这个城市终于发生了点事情，而我却要去肯尼·罗杰斯的演唱会！

哈姆：情况可能会更糟。

要是让你去马术活动就更糟了。

凯西：我要去隆胸。

很快。

哈姆：不确定在我们这里有什么用处……凯西：到明年这个时候，我们都得挤破头进电视台工作。

或者做个C罩杯？

她做了个小幅度的抖胸扭臀动作。

几个女记者隔着两张桌子不以为然地看过来。

哈姆笑了。

哈姆：我会想你的，凯西。

虽然他们都不会。

凯西（大声地对几个女人）：女士们，很抱歉我那些劲爆的谋杀案总是把你们无聊的废话挤出头版！

（对哈姆）想喝一杯吗？

哈姆：我只会耽误你的时间。

她走开了。

哈姆咧嘴直笑。

内景，联邦调查局，外勤局（亚特兰大），办公室，同一时间汤姆·肖怒气冲冲，横眉瞪眼。

他刚刚被指派了任务。

肖：百年公园？

什么玩意儿！

内景，布赖恩特律师事务所，接待处/办公室，早上娜佳·莱特在狭窄的接待处：她是一个可爱的、凶巴巴的俄罗斯出生的犹太女人。

前台桌上放着一台迷你电视。

在她右手边的壁橱里有一台复印机。

而她的左手边——布赖恩特在一间逼仄的办公室里，穿着休闲短裤和马球衫，后移的发际线被棒球帽遮盖。

他在看一本小说。

面对的风景是一堵砖墙。

不再就职于美国小企业管理局。

不再穿三件套。

书柜上挂的一块牌子上写着：“我对政府的恐惧甚于对恐怖主义的恐惧。

”这些年在他身上发生了什么？

他身上少了点什么东西。

娜佳探头进来——她有浓重的俄罗斯口音。

娜佳：沃森，墨粉用完了。

布赖恩特：好吧。

她等待他自行领会。

然而他没有。

娜佳：如果我出去了，你就得接电话。

布赖恩特：哦。

那我去吧。

谢谢。

娜佳：沃尔玛正在大减价。

如果你能说出任何一个美国奥运代表队队员的名字就能有九折优惠。

布赖恩特（下意识地感到烦躁）：天哪。

娜佳：我知道：人们要微笑16天。

对你来说会很难受。

布赖恩特：不，那会是极好的事。

对可口可乐、美国有线电视新闻网之流……以及任何拥有停车场的人来说。

他走了出去。

外景，博比的公寓楼，停车场/院子，白天巨大的空旷的停车场，四周被租金低廉的两层楼建筑和树林环绕。

高速公路旁边有一个半空的、满是杂草的游泳池。

内景，博比的公寓，客厅/厨房，早上这个公寓在影片开头出现过。

一块牌子上写着：“没有狗的家只是一所房子。

”墙上挂着朱厄尔（身穿哈伯沙姆县副警长制服）的肖像照。

朱厄尔穿着一件胸前有美国电话电报公司标志的马球衫（背后印着“保安”字样），一边吃甜甜圈，一边看电视，上面在报道世界上跑得最快的人迈克尔·约翰逊。

妈妈芭芭拉（博比）·朱厄尔正在烤蛋糕，这是她的副业。

爱犬布兰迪在她脚边转来转去。

博比（从厨房）：你能相信真的要在这里举办了吗？

奥运会！

在我们的城市！

朱厄尔（在沙发上）：就是它了，妈妈。

我生命中的重要时刻。

我要证明自己，有人会让我再当上警察的。

博比：说得对，宝贝。

博比（腿脚不好）一瘸一拐地走到水池边。

朱厄尔踱步进来。

朱厄尔：我一直在考虑。

等你做完手术我再搬出去。

你可能需要我帮忙。

这样可以吗？

博比：你赶紧去忙你的。

我们可以在奥运会结束后再考虑这些。

但不要再像那样开快车了。

不能开快车！

朱厄尔：我不会的，妈妈。

我不会的，母亲。

博比：因为什么？

朱厄尔：因为无论我要去哪里，晚十分钟那个地方也不会消失。

博比：对了。

给妈妈一个吻。

他照做。

博比微笑着。

然后，在片刻的犹疑后——朱厄尔：这也是执法工作，不是吗？

即使我只是看管一堆音响设备。

博比：当然是！

你依然是对抗坏人的好人，不是吗？

理查德：好的，妈妈，我们公园见。

朱厄尔笑了，博比是他的精神支柱。

他往外走去。

火焰几乎刺得人睁不开眼睛……画面显现：美国全国广播公司的电视节目——拳王阿里点燃奥运火炬，整个体育场一片欢腾。

画面交切壮丽的俯拍镜头。

隆重的庆典。

1996年亚特兰大奥运会开幕了。

外景，百年公园（亚特兰大），夜晚烟花照亮了公园的夜空。

这是庆祝的地方——在比赛期间的每个晚上。

8万多平方米的土地上聚集了6万人，周围被市中心的高楼大厦环绕。

一个巨大的可口可乐霓虹灯招牌高耸于所有建筑之上。

喷泉将水花喷向空中；孩子们跑来跑去。

一派欢乐、自豪的景象。

还有肯尼·罗杰斯的演唱会！

人们跳舞，唱歌，摆姿势拍照。

男人打赤膊，女孩穿吊带衫。

这是一个激情的夜晚，美国是全世界的东道主。

一个男人喊道——男人：世纪派对，宝贝！

博比笑容满面地和舞台上的人一起唱着《赌徒》。

鼓掌欢呼。

太开心了。

舞台由30米外的声光塔控制——那是一个5层楼高的钢结构建筑，外面用白色塑料板包裹。

孩子们聚集在此，坐在长凳上，互相交换奥运徽章。

但目之所及处保安并不多。

大门无人看守。

入口检查松懈。

到处是不设防的攻击目标。

汤姆·肖也来了。

他深感无聊。

并且很生气。

他注意到同样无聊的凯西·斯克鲁格斯。

走过去。

肖：你好，凯西。

凯西：欢迎来到世界上最欢乐的地方！

真是噩梦。

有没有哪里发生罪案了？

肖：我怎么知道。

我在这里。

凯西：天啊。

想跳舞吗？

肖：我也很想，但我在值勤。

凯西：去他的值勤。

她开始贴着他跳舞。

他露出笑容。

内景，美国电话电报公司声光塔，楼梯间/3楼，同一时间朱厄尔身穿保安服，拎着录像设备上楼梯，跟在一个美国全国广播公司的摄影师后面，进入——摄影师：随便放哪儿。

谢谢你，老兄。

朱厄尔：不客气。

还有什么要搬上来吗？

几个技术人员在忙碌地工作。

他们摆摆手：不用了，谢谢。

内景，美国电话电报公司声光塔，楼梯间朱厄尔下楼梯，他发现另外两个保安（罗伯和隆尼）在台阶上涂鸦。

朱厄尔：你们在干什么？

罗伯：留下我们的印记。

他们是这样写的：“欢迎参加可口可乐奥运会！

”“生为美国人，托上帝洪福是南方人。

”朱厄尔：这是南方举办的第一届奥运会，你们居然这么做？

爸妈没有教你们点好的吗？

（他们耸耸肩）人生艰难。

犯蠢的时候就更艰难了。

外景，美国电话电报公司展厅，声光塔，夜晚音乐声震耳欲聋。

朱厄尔在值勤，他时刻保持警惕。

一个孕妇走过。

朱厄尔立刻做出反应——朱厄尔：女士，需要水吗？

孕妇：嗯？

朱厄尔：水？

今晚有点热。

他把手伸到长凳下面，那里放着他的冷藏箱。

里面有冰的瓶装水和可乐。

他各拿出一瓶。

孕妇：你就这么把它们送人吗？

朱厄尔：我给孕妇和警察留的。

她接过瓶装水，对他的助人为乐行为略感疑惑。

孕妇：谢谢。

朱厄尔：祝你有个愉快的夜晚。

外景，百年公园，舞台附近，同一时间音乐劲爆。

凯西舞动着，酒意微醺，很性感。

肖就在一两米外，努力扫描人群。

凯西：干吗阴着脸，大个子？

肖：因为我很无聊。

凯西：我们都很无聊。

肖：是啊，但我是为了活得更好而生。

凯西大笑，继续跳舞。

外景，百年公园，同一时间亚特兰大警察局的三个警官（马克斯·格林、迈克·西尔弗和威尔·琼斯）在和乔治亚州调查局的比尔·米勒发牢骚。

朱厄尔走过来，给他们每人递了一瓶可乐。

他们点头致意。

西尔弗：所有的运动员都抱怨说，因为交通原因他们到比赛场馆晚了。

我在想，警察又怎么样？

我们也哪儿都去不了。

琼斯：昨晚我为了去超市差点要拉响警笛，太拥堵了。

人们漫步从旁走过——警察们几乎毫不关注。

米勒：全都是因为奥组委计划不周。

一群酒囊饭袋，没有一个人了解交通运行状况。

格林（深以为然）：你觉得呢，理查德？

你认为奥组委都是一群酒囊饭袋吗？

朱厄尔：我不知道。

他们有大量的工作要做，要协调这一切。

还有亚特兰大捷运，别忘了。

我很庆幸自己不必做这个。

（警察们嗤笑）怎么了？

要从始至终把所有后勤工作都做好是很难的。

格林：去你的，理查德，他们没在监听我们。

他们大笑。

然后有什么状况让朱厄尔转过头去——一个背着双肩包的白人男子从镜头前走过，他留着长发，背心下露出文身，戴着墨镜。

这个人不太对劲——还有那个背包。

朱厄尔：嘿，你们以前见过那个人吗？

警察们摇头，并没有警觉起来。

朱厄尔思索着。

朱厄尔：你们觉得那个背包滑稽吗？

格林：怎么滑稽了？

朱厄尔没有回答，只是朝那个白人男子走去。

警察们笑了。

镜头和朱厄尔一起穿过——外景，百年公园，人群，连续动作舞台上没人了；扬声器里播放着《玛卡雷娜》，音乐会观众们随之舞动。

但朱厄尔没有。

他的眼睛盯着那个背着背包、穿过拥挤人群的白人男子。

他恰好从凯西面前经过。

还有肖。

朱厄尔越走越近。

白人男子到达舞台附近的栅栏旁。

现在朱厄尔十分确定情况有点不对劲。

白人男子拿下背包，开始拉开拉链。

该行动了。

就现在。

朱厄尔挤过人群。

白人男子从背包里拿出了一瓶啤酒。

接着又拿出一瓶，再拿出两瓶。

哦。

朱厄尔僵住了。

白人男子转向他的朋友们，啤酒是给他们的惊喜。

朱厄尔意识到自己搞错了，感到很尴尬。

（叠化）内景，博比的公寓，朱厄尔的房间/客厅，下午朱厄尔坐在床上，身上穿着美国电话电报公司的保安服，他今天生病了——感觉恶心，面色苍白，冷汗涔涔。

博比依旧在观看美国全国广播公司的电视节目：汤姆·布罗考在做奥运报道。

博比：天哪，他真帅。

你不想吃个三明治什么的吗，宝贝？

朱厄尔：不，我不舒服，妈妈。

肚子。

博比：吃坏什么东西了？

朱厄尔：我想也是。

博比：你干吗要到那些地方吃饭……他注视着狭小的公寓，也对自己感到气恼。

博比：怎么了，宝贝？

朱厄尔：没什么。

只是……你应该得到比这更好的，妈妈。

博比：世界对我们俩都有亏欠。

但这就是我们的现状。

现在干你的工作去吧。

博比拥抱他。

外景，百年公园，美国电话电报公司，声光塔，夜晚又一场6万人的派对，公园俨然已成奥林匹克城市广场。

舞台上，杰克·麦克乐队在演出。

朱厄尔站在声光塔旁自己的岗位上，因为腹绞痛几乎直不起腰来。

警官格林跟他开玩笑。

格林：这可能是件好事。

朱厄尔：是吗？

为什么？

格林：我们可以把你带到比赛场馆去，让你用响屁奏国歌。

（朱厄尔面无表情）你为什么不和别人换班呢？

回家去？

朱厄尔：这是我最喜欢的乐队。

我没事。

格林：杰克·麦克是你最喜欢的乐队？

朱厄尔：我没事的。

喧闹的人群在喝彩。

全世界仿佛都在庆祝。

朱厄尔疼痛难忍，跑开了。

一家人从镜头前走过：布雷登一家——妈妈、爸爸、杰罗德（8岁）和玛丽亚（6岁）。

对他们来说这是一个甜蜜的梦幻之夜。

玛丽亚（做了一个体操跳跃动作）：看，妈妈！

我是克里·斯特鲁格！

布雷登先生（爸爸）：等等！

再做一次。

他举起摄像机。

玛丽亚开心地表演。

妈妈和爸爸笑容满面，几米之外就是朱厄尔的长凳。

我们看到了他们拍摄的视频——画面很黑，模糊不清。

外景，美国电话电报公司展厅，片刻之后朱厄尔肚子绞痛，跑向乔治亚州调查局探员比尔·米勒——朱厄尔：我马上就回来。

米勒：去吧！

米勒呵呵笑。

朱厄尔跑向洗手间——正好从汤姆·肖身旁经过，后者一直保持着警惕。

声光塔外，玛丽亚在镜头前摆出夸张的姿势。

她的哥哥杰罗德也在做鹿跳动作。

杰罗德：看，爸爸！

我是米奇·盖洛德！

爸爸此时就站在朱厄尔的长凳前，把这些都拍摄下来。

外景，百年公园，广场，同一时间朱厄尔匆匆穿过人群。

一个参加派对的人喝醉了，甚至都没注意到他把啤酒洒到了朱厄尔身上。

朱厄尔僵了一下，继续往前走，消失在音乐、欢欣和喧闹中。

外景，美国电话电报公司声光塔，几分钟后小杰罗德又在妹妹身旁做了个鹿跳动作。

布雷登先生：好了。

体操表演够了吧？

他朝孩子们走去，此时一个无人看管的背包引起了我们的注意——朱厄尔的长凳下放着一个军用背包。

背包很大，橄榄绿色。

（在军队它被称为爱丽丝背包。

）玛丽亚也注意到了。

她好奇地朝背包走去，伸出手——朱厄尔（画外）：抱歉。

朱厄尔回到了他的岗位上。

布雷登太太抬头看去——布雷登太太（妈妈）：玛丽亚！

别动。

那不是你的东西，不能玩！

玛丽亚动作顿住。

朱厄尔朝她微笑。

朱厄尔：最好是听你妈妈的。

玛丽亚听从。

现在朱厄尔离那个爱丽丝背包只有一步之遥，这时——有声音从声光塔后面的栅栏处传来：醉醺醺的笑声，玻璃瓶的碎裂声。

朱厄尔绕过声光塔。

镜头跟随，只见——十个喝醉的少年在声光塔后面砸空啤酒瓶。

边砸边笑。

朱厄尔：喂，住手。

他们打量他：一个穿美国电话电报公司保安服的大胖子。

醉酒少年甲：你想怎么样，取消我的电话服务？

他的伙伴们大笑。

一个电视台摄制组经过。

醉鬼们大喊大叫，试图引起摄制组的注意。

醉酒少年乙：我们要上电视！

摄制组不答理他们。

朱厄尔继续自己的工作。

朱厄尔：警察来了可不会这么客气。

他们会因酗酒和扰乱治安把你们铐起来，然后在拘留所关上一晚。

醉酒少年乙：他们得先抓住我，而这是不可能发生的。

朱厄尔：哦，是吗？

醉酒少年丙：我是迈克尔·约翰逊，世界上跑得最快的人。

想看看我的奖牌吗？

笑声更大了。

劝说无效。

朱厄尔转身——绕过声光塔朝乔治亚州调查局探员比尔·米勒走去。

朱厄尔：嘿，后面有几个醉鬼在朝声光塔砸酒瓶子。

也许他们会听你的。

（见米勒不满地嘟囔）人们尊敬警徽。

米勒提步走去，这时朱厄尔停下了脚步，注意到——放在他的长凳下面的爱丽丝背包。

一个大包。

非常大。

他绷着脸细看一下，然后向米勒喊道：朱厄尔：看看他们有没有谁把背包落在我的长凳下了。

米勒：你和背包是什么缘分？

朱厄尔耸了耸肩，注视着爱丽丝背包。

米勒走开。

内景，911呼叫中心，夜晚这是一个漫长的夜晚。

911接线员甲接起电话——911接线员甲（对着耳麦）：911。

她听到一个经过变声器变声的男子声音。

男子（画外，在耳机里）：你能听懂我的话吗？

911接线员甲（对着耳麦）：是的。

男子（画外，在耳机里）：你们公然违抗国民卫队的命令。

911接线员甲（对着耳麦）：什么？

啪嗒。

接线员耸耸肩，感到恼火。

然后继续工作。

外景，百年公园，美国电话电报公司，声光塔，夜晚朱厄尔盯着爱丽丝背包。

这会儿音乐会只是背景噪声了。

米勒回来时，他看了看手表。

米勒：背包不是他们的。

朱厄尔：不是？

米勒摇了摇头。

他们环顾四周：这里有成千上万的人在舞动。

但近处没有谁像是背包主人。

朱厄尔：好吧。

我们发现了一个可疑包裹。

最好是呼叫支援。

米勒看着背包，没有引起警惕。

但朱厄尔似乎很肯定。

米勒：可能只是有人喝醉了，忘记落下了包。

朱厄尔：是的。

不管怎样，我们还是呼叫支援吧。

米勒：我们是不是应该先打开看看里面有什么？

朱厄尔：我不可以。

有规定的。

米勒朝背包走去。

但他离爱丽丝背包越近，越发觉得它看起来硕大。

于是他烦躁地停下脚步。

米勒：这鬼东西非得落在你的凳子下面，是不是啊。

他拿起对讲机。

朱厄尔走近亚特兰大警察局的格林。

朱厄尔：我们发现一个可疑包裹，需要把这些人疏散。

格林：等等，等等。

什么包裹？

朱厄尔朝爱丽丝背包摆头示意。

格林注视背包。

格林：也许什么都没有。

朱厄尔：是的，但是……还是需要设一道警戒线。

格林：见鬼，理查德。

也许里面只是装满啤酒呢？

朱厄尔：不是啤酒。

我知道。

朱厄尔注视声光塔——爱丽丝背包靠近塔的底部，于是他朝里面走去。

格林叹气。

内景，声光塔，1楼，稍后朱厄尔跑进音控室，里面的四个技术人员几乎没有从调音台抬起头。

朱厄尔：下面出了点状况。

我们需要你们离开这里。

调音师甲：什么状况？

朱厄尔：塔前面有一个可疑包裹。

执法部门已经知晓，并已经在现场。

调音师乙：如果警察让我们走，我们就走。

（见朱厄尔盯着他们）乐队正在演出当中。

我们不能就这么走人。

朱厄尔：我会回来，到时不要质疑，不要犹豫。

直接离开，好吗？

大家都点了点头。

他数了数房间里的人数。

四个。

外景，声光塔，长凳，同一时间那十个醉酒少年看着爱丽丝背包，不知道警察们正在因它而设立警戒线。

醉酒少年甲：我认为我们应该拿走它。

醉酒少年乙：去你的。

醉酒少年甲：我觉得我们应该把它带到蓝调之屋去，看看里面有什么可以卖钱。

醉酒少年丙：好主意。

醉酒少年甲向下探手抓住爱丽丝背包。

西尔弗（画外）：嘿！

别动它，滚开！

醉酒少年松开手。

但在这个过程中他不小心挪动了背包，它不再处于立置状态。

内景，声光塔，3楼，同一时间摄影师和一个十几岁的实习生在里面。

朱厄尔进来。

朱厄尔：我们需要你们离开。

塔前面有炸弹威胁。

这句话立刻就引起了少年的注意。

他站起来。

摄影师：在华盛顿，我们整天收到炸弹威胁。

从来没有发生过什么事。

少年实习生：对你来说没什么。

但我要离开这里。

少年离开。

摄影师拿起摄像机，随后而出。

外景，《亚特兰大宪法报》大楼，公交车站，同一时间凯西坐在围墙上等班车。

一脸厌倦。

罗恩·马茨（前海军陆战队队员，凯西的记者同事）从旁走过。

马茨：当地警察昨天发现他和一个波兰体操运动员其实是远房表亲。

这里有故事吗？

凯西：对我没什么挑战性。

马茨：我知道。

我也是。

凯西摇了摇头。

外景，美国电话电报公司声光塔，片刻之后朱厄尔走出来，看见亚特兰大警察局的西尔弗。

演唱会成为背景音乐。

朱厄尔：里面还有11个人。

西尔弗：你知道这只是虚惊一场。

朱厄尔淡淡地笑了笑，这时炸弹检测小组到达了。

两个穿着短裤的男人——策勒和福赛思。

与此同时——内景，911呼叫中心，同一时间，凌晨00：58又有一通电话打进来。

911接线员乙（对着耳麦）：911。

还是那个男人的声音，这次他捏着鼻子。

男子声音（画外，在耳机里）：百年公园里有一颗炸弹。

你们有30分钟时间。

啪嗒。

他挂断了电话。

嗯？

接线员乙在她的电脑里输入了什么，然后困惑地转向接线员丙——911接线员乙：你知道百年公园的地址吗？

我刚听到一个人说百年公园有颗炸弹将在30分钟后爆炸。

但是计算机无法处理。

911接线员丙：什么？

天啊，孩子。

你拼错了。

是C-E-N-T-E-N……外景，贝克街，同一时间一个戴着渔夫帽的男人背对镜头站在一排十个公用电话亭的其中一部电话旁，挂上听筒，离开……外景，百年公园，美国电话电报公司，声光塔，同一时间艾丽斯·霍索恩和她的女儿法伦（14岁）站在声光塔旁边，法伦在摆姿势照相。

朱厄尔走过来，冷静而坚决地——朱厄尔：各位，请离开塔的周围……嗯？

艾丽斯环顾四周，看到格林、西尔弗、琼斯和米勒几位警官在不动声色地疏散人群。

奇怪。

法伦：我累了，妈妈。

艾丽斯·霍索恩：我也是。

我们拍完最后一张，然后回家吧。

她们不慌不忙地走着。

周围没有人惊慌。

朱厄尔走向塔后一个土墩上的聚会者们。

朱厄尔：请所有人撤出这片区域。

这里要设警戒线。

格林：你也走，理查德！

朱厄尔仍坚守岗位。

镜头转向长凳——炸弹小组的策勒仰躺在地，拿着笔形电筒查看爱丽丝背包。

他打开翻盖，动作极其缓慢。

里面有三根管子。

还有电线。

是一颗炸弹。

哦，见鬼。

策勒僵住了，然后慢慢挪动身体离开炸弹，手臂一直保持同一姿势。

他急步走向自己的搭档。

朱厄尔注意到了。

所有人都注意到了。

朱厄尔：训练的时候他们对我们说：“要是看到炸弹专家脸色变得苍白，赶紧跑。

”格林：阿门，兄弟。

策勒和福赛思低声商量着。

朱厄尔和警察们凑到一起。

然后策勒转过身——策勒：包里有三个管状炸弹，我从没见过这么大的。

我要求立刻设置30米范围的警戒线。

噢。

警察们面面相觑。

米勒：你们有没有防爆毯或者——福赛思：拆弹小组20分钟后就能赶到。

他走到一旁用对讲机报告情况。

所有人僵立着。

米勒：理查德，我再也不会因为任何事笑话你了。

格林：你算说对了，老弟。

西尔弗：我们赶快行动起来吧。

这会儿警察们的效率已经截然不同，他们迅速散开。

朱厄尔想到的是：声光塔里的人。

内景，声光塔，1楼，稍后朱厄尔冲进来。

还是那几个技术人员在调音台旁。

朱厄尔：你们得离开这里。

马上。

（见大家都不动）我们发现了一个炸弹。

马上离开。

三个人往外走。

第四个家伙还试图把一堆录像带收起来。

朱厄尔拉着他离开。

朱厄尔：听到了吗？

下楼！

快走！

第四个人走向楼梯。

镜头回到——内景，声光塔，5楼，稍后朱厄尔冲进来，看见一个人在操控聚光灯。

朱厄尔：我们在疏散人群。

快走。

灯光师开始关闭设备电源，但朱厄尔一把拉住他，将他推到门口。

朱厄尔：快走！

连续镜头：朱厄尔把他推到楼梯间，从楼梯间往下看，数了数有11个人下楼。

外景，百年公园，雕像，同一时间艾丽斯·霍索恩在一尊黄铜雕像前摆姿势。

她的女儿法伦为她拍照。

法伦：笑一个！

艾丽斯微笑。

法伦拍下了照片。

艾丽斯·霍索恩：我眨眼睛了。

再拍一张！

法伦再次举起相机……外景，百年公园，人群，同一时间人们舞动，尽情欢乐。

外景，美国电话电报公司声光塔/展厅，片刻之后警察们紧急行动起来。

随着他们喊话，人们往后退。

汤姆·肖也参与其中。

朱厄尔从声光塔里出来。

他找到格林：朱厄尔：塔里清空了。

格林：你应该离开这里，理查德。

朱厄尔：啊哈。

你也是。

他们俩开始把人群往后推，但人们反应迟缓。

派对时有推挤很正常，不是吗？

在声光塔后面，朱厄尔遇到一对正在亲热的夫妇。

朱厄尔：请你们离开这里。

他们继续接吻。

镜头回到——长凳。

爱丽丝背包放在下面。

雕像。

法伦给妈妈拍了最后一张照片。

广场。

肖和米勒敦促人们离开，此时——内景，博比的公寓，卧室，同一时间博比在熟睡中。

突然，她猛地睁开眼睛——似乎被一个紧急可怕的梦惊醒。

她喘着气。

博比：理查德……外景，百年公园，声光塔，接前景朱厄尔在声光塔后面，一边看表，一边走向那对夫妇。

朱厄尔：我不是在开玩笑。

你们要——就在这时，砰！

剧烈的爆炸。

犹如死神降临。

然后整个世界静止了。

朱厄尔和那对夫妇被震倒在地。

（但声光塔保护了他们。

）（切至黑屏）黑暗。

持续片刻——给人一种超现实的感觉。

弹片从身边嗖嗖飞过的声音，像步枪在发射，诡异极了……然后我们听到——尖叫。

惊恐。

我们什么也看不见，直到——朱厄尔蒙蒙眬眬睁开眼。

慢镜头，他转身，看到一幅恐怖的场景：警察们飞在空中——米勒、格林、西尔弗、琼斯、肖……朱厄尔的长凳弹上了高空。

烟雾漫开。

声光塔的墙板被撕裂，最糟糕的是，艾丽斯·霍索恩在空中360度旋转，然后坠落。

然后，一阵令人毛骨悚然的静默。

慢镜头结束，更多的尖叫、慌乱、惊恐、混乱向我们袭来。

老天！

钉子开始像雨点一样落到地上。

叮。

当。

叮叮当当。

朱厄尔身旁那对接吻的情侣陷入木僵状态，几乎不能呼吸。

朱厄尔：你们两个还好吗？

没事吧？

他们似乎点了点头。

他爬着走开，绕过声光塔，只见一片极度血腥的大屠杀场面，犹如在战场上——到处是伤者。

警察们倒在地上。

许多人失去意识。

艾丽斯·霍索恩死了。

法伦意识模糊，手臂在流血。

烟雾弥漫，难以描绘的可怕景象。

有一百多人受伤——他们神智不清，淌着血，倒在地上。

然后声音骤然炸响——许多人：我需要医生！

我需要帮助！

来人啊！

救命！

呼唤亲友——许多人：爸爸？

妈妈？

朱厄尔转过身：一些路人和更多的警察此时正向事发现场奔来。

人们纷纷掏出手机。

一名土耳其摄影师冲了过来，准备拍摄。

然而心脏病突发，当场倒地身亡。

更多的人在尖叫。

镜头快速后移——朱厄尔瞪大眼睛。

倒地的警察中有格林。

朱厄尔摇摇晃晃站起来。

从肖身旁经过，跌跌撞撞地走向格林。

朱厄尔来到了格林身边，格林脸朝下趴着，衣服和皮肉被弹片割开。

朱厄尔：严重吗？

格林：我没事，我没事。

你去吧！

更多的呻吟、尖叫、哭泣。

朱厄尔的身后是破烂的声光塔——仍矗立着，但前面的墙板已经被炸飞。

朱厄尔：坚持住，兄弟。

救援马上就到。

格林点了点头。

遍地血迹……接着传来第一声警笛声。

朱厄尔走向西尔弗，这时——简直令人难以置信，他看到几个技术师在一片混乱中向被炸毁的声光塔里奔去。

他急忙过去。

朱厄尔：你们到底在干什么？

技术师甲：我把笔记本电脑落在里面了。

朱厄尔：你可以早上再去拿。

技术师甲：我所有的工作资料都在里面！

技术师乙：我也有东西在里面！

朱厄尔：在我们确定建筑结构完好之前，任何人不得进入这栋建筑。

说不定还有第二颗炸弹！

技术师们转身走开。

朱厄尔急忙奔向流血不止的西尔弗，经过神色恍惚的比尔·米勒身边时——米勒机械地从后兜里掏出钱包，发现上面扎着一块弹片。

他的警徽救了他的屁股。

而此时肖已经回过神来。

摄影机上升，拍下整个混乱场景。

惊慌，鲜血，恐惧，奔走的人，救护车向着镜头疾驰而来。

一场噩梦。

朱厄尔身陷其中。

（叠化）外景，百年公园，声光塔，夜晚一小时后——艾丽斯·霍索恩摆姿势拍照的铜像上现在扎入了不少钉子。

另一颗钉子嵌入了地上一个无人认领的柯达相机里。

一个新闻摄制组将这一幕拍了下来。

路障已经设置起来。

急救人员在忙碌。

救护车四处可见。

有一群人却聚在声光塔旁争论不休——乔治亚州调查局的、亚特兰大警察局的、烟酒枪炮及爆炸物管理局的，还有美国奥委会的。

肖也在其中，额头流着血。

亚特兰大警察局警察：这是谋杀案。

归我们管。

乔治亚州调查局探员：这个公园是国家财产。

所以案子归我们！

烟酒枪炮及爆炸物管理局探员：你们两个都可以滚蛋了。

我们是烟酒枪炮及爆炸物管理局。

肖：不，你才该滚蛋！

这是我们的罪案现场！

朱厄尔从旁边走过，拨打手机。

朱厄尔（对手机）：妈妈，是我。

有人在这里引爆了炸弹，不过我没事。

打开电视。

爱你。

外景，街道（亚特兰大），不同地点，夜晚（深夜）亚特兰大被封锁。

路障。

军车。

街垒。

家家户户的电视上亮起了红色的CNN（美国有线电视新闻网）台标。

《亚特兰大宪法报》的罗恩·马茨震惊地站在百年公园门口，他身旁不断有伤者被匆匆运送走。

对他来说，这就像伊拉克战场的复现。

突然，有人把手覆在他的手上——是面带温暖笑容的凯西。

马茨很感动。

她闭上眼睛，低头。

凯西：亲爱的上帝……不管是谁干的……祈祷。

很好。

马茨也闭上眼睛。

凯西：请让我们先人一步找到他。

马茨猛地睁开眼睛。

他不要继续进行这样的祈祷。

凯西：求你了，不管是谁……请让他有趣一点。

阿门。

她松开了马茨的手。

后者摇了摇头。

外景，百年公园，美国电话电报公司，展厅，早上6点朱厄尔站在破烂的声光塔外。

救护车都开走了。

伤员也已被转移。

但路障还在，被执法人员层层围住。

令人惶恐。

他们收集证据，询问路人，朱厄尔在一旁看着。

他的脚边是一块曾经属于他的长凳的碎片。

他看看四周，然后把它收进了口袋。

做个纪念。

巴克（画外）：你是朱厄尔吗？

朱厄尔霍然转身，被发现了。

哦，见鬼。

来人是美国电话电报公司的蒂姆·巴克，一副公事公办的样子。

朱厄尔：是的，先生，我只是……巴克：我是蒂姆·巴克，电话电报公司媒体关系部的。

我听到的消息没错吧？

是你发现了炸弹？

哦。

朱厄尔高兴地松了口。

朱厄尔：是的，先生。

巴克：所以你是个英雄了。

知道吗？

朱厄尔：我只是做了自己的本职工作，先生。

巴克：说得真好，理查德。

不过我们收到了很多人的请求，他们想和你谈谈。

可以吗？

（见朱厄尔只顾盯着他看）有线电视新闻网。

凯蒂·库里克。

这之类的。

你的主管同意了。

朱厄尔：当时这里有很多警察在疏散人群，先生。

不只是我。

巴克：是你发现了那个包裹。

大家想听你说。

内景，“化妆”棚，白天（稍后）朱厄尔坐在化妆椅上。

化妆师给他打扮妥当了。

化妆师：好了，他们一会儿就来接你。

朱厄尔：谢谢。

化妆师离开了。

他打量镜子里的自己——就要上《今日秀》节目了。

他使劲咽了口唾沫，抬头看天：朱厄尔：上帝。

我知道你现在忙着考虑别的事情，比如抓住那个干这件事的家伙。

但是，因为这是电视直播，我感觉自己要吐了……您能不能保佑我到时候不要说蠢话？

阿门。

内景，博比的公寓，白天博比在看电视，笑容满面，因为朱厄尔正在直播节目里接受凯蒂·库里克的采访。

凯蒂·库里克（画外，在电视上）：你觉得自己是英雄吗？

朱厄尔（画外，在电视上）：不，女士。

我只是按照训练要求做了自己的工作……博比（深感骄傲）：我的孩子……内景，布赖恩特的私人办公室，早上布赖恩特坐在办公桌旁，通过隔壁房间娜佳桌上的小电视机听着朱厄尔的采访——他几乎难以置信，又感觉有点激动。

布赖恩特：祝贺你，“雷达”……外景，百年公园，《今日秀》摄影棚，早上朱厄尔和巴克离开摄影棚，从两个亚特兰大警察身旁经过。

致谢的亚特兰大警察甲：干得好，理查德。

致谢的亚特兰大警察乙：加油，兄弟。

这是来自真正的警察的认同。

令人欣慰。

朱厄尔：嘿，有几个和我一起工作的人受伤了：格林、西尔弗、米勒，他们还好吗？

致谢的亚特兰大警察甲：消息说所有警察都有望完全康复。

朱厄尔：噢，太好了。

谢谢。

随后一个穿西装的男人走过来。

巴克露出笑容。

巴克：理查德，我想让你见见这位。

这是伯恩斯坦和克兰公司的布伦纳先生。

你知道这家公司吗？

出版书籍的。

朱厄尔：很高兴见到你，先生。

布伦纳（精英西装男）：你好，理查德。

我想跟你聊聊你的故事。

有空吗？

朱厄尔感觉有点飘飘然。

内景，博比的公寓，厨房，白天博比烘焙了更多的蛋糕。

电视开着，在播放当地新闻，是朱厄尔的另一个采访。

客厅的电视也开着——美国全国广播公司节目，还是朱厄尔的采访。

朱厄尔走进来。

博比：每个台都是你！

电话也响个不停。

我需要一个秘书！

朱厄尔：妈妈，一个纽约来的人刚刚问我想不想写本书！

博比：哦，太夸张了！

朱厄尔：我什么都不用做。

他们有人构思、录入等等，我只要说“是”或“不是”。

为了钱！

博比：你是摇滚巨星了！

连汤姆·布罗考都在说你！

朱厄尔笑了，瞥了一眼镜子里的自己。

这是他人生中第一次——如此自豪，一个英雄在向他回眸。

感觉太棒了。

然而……内景，联邦调查局外勤局（亚特兰大），办公室，白天调兵遣将。

紧急行动。

这些是应对真正危机的特工。

外勤局特工主管布鲁斯·休斯走到汤姆·肖跟前。

布鲁斯·休斯：肖。

你还好吗？

肖：不太好，长官，该死的炸弹在我值勤时爆炸了。

我的公园。

布鲁斯·休斯：我们没有派足够的人手过去。

是我们的责任。

我们尽快抓住那狗娘养的，好吗？

汤姆·肖感激地点点头。

他感觉好受些了。

布鲁斯·休斯：我要你去哈伯沙姆县——查一个前副警长的背景。

可能和爆炸案有关。

肖：哦？

他是谁？

布鲁斯·休斯停顿了一下，知道这可不是一条小新闻。

布鲁斯·休斯：那个保安。

犹如醍醐灌顶，汤姆·肖当即找到了他要的人。

是朱厄尔。

外景，百年公园，街道，黄昏朱厄尔从他的皮卡车上下来，准备去上班。

人们立刻注意到了他。

爸爸妈妈们把他指给孩子看。

这感觉太棒了。

像获得新生一样。

他从一个美国游泳运动员身边经过（我们可以看到这个人身上的汗珠）；运动员尊敬地点头——无名运动员：干得好，老兄。

我们都为你感到骄傲。

来自运动员的尊重。

朱厄尔绽开笑容，兴奋不已。

然而……内景，皮德蒙特大学，克利尔的办公室，白天W.雷·克利尔博士（不久前他就是在这间办公室里解雇了朱厄尔）在细看朱厄尔的旧档案。

坐在克利尔对面的是——汤姆·肖。

克利尔：我想澄清一下，我没有指控他任何事。

肖：我明白了。

克利尔：我只是……我知道他现在备受关注；这正是当初他骚扰学生、在高速公路上拦截车辆时一直寻求的那种关注。

疯狂的行径。

所以我想，如果我的担心是对的呢——他事实上并不是人们要塑造的那个英雄，而我已经得到了与事实相关的信息，我却没能把它揭露出来？

这可能危及他人生命。

肖：克利尔博士，你打电话给我们是对的。

我们会仔细调查。

克利尔点点头。

我们看到了一张朱厄尔的照片，照片变成——内景，联邦调查局外勤局（亚特兰大），会议室，白天朱厄尔的照片满屏显示在一个屏幕上。

布鲁斯·休斯呼了口气。

布鲁斯·休斯：亚特兰大奥组委为什么要重新开放公园？

我们什么都还没查到。

会议室里还有另外十名联邦调查局资深探员（以及汤姆·肖）。

一块擦写板上写着“百年炸弹”。

紧张、压力……布鲁斯·休斯：好吧。

我想知道更多关于朱厄尔的事。

帕特里克？

所有目光都集中到行为科学组的帕特里克·威廉姆斯身上。

威廉姆斯：看到朱厄尔，我想起了1984年洛杉矶奥运会上的炸弹袭击威胁。

一个警察把一个包放在公交车上，然后声称发现了它。

以及今年夏天爱达荷州的火灾——一个消防员为了领功而放的火。

由此我们可以勾勒出一个罪犯侧写——伪英雄。

汤姆·肖打心底相信这是真的。

房间里的人都是。

威廉姆斯：在采访中，朱厄尔对爆炸事件的描述显得含糊不清，谈到受害者时他似乎感到不安。

我还发现他在电视上有点不合时宜地提到他希望重返执法行业。

这里有很多令人不安的地方。

肖探员了解到的他的所有信息都与这一侧写吻合。

布鲁斯·休斯：你同意吗，汤姆？

肖：是的，长官。

布鲁斯·休斯权衡一番，然后——布鲁斯·休斯：我们密切注意他。

内景，布赖恩特的办公室，白天布赖恩特在看报纸，社会版的内容让他感到恼怒。

布赖恩特：愚蠢的名字，愚蠢的脸。

娜佳探身进来，神情有点惊奇——娜佳：沃森？

（布赖恩特静待她的后话）有你的电话。

布赖恩特：是比尔·盖茨随口问我是否需要一百万美元吗？

如果是的话，需要。

娜佳：是理查德·朱厄尔。

布赖恩特笑了，以为她在开玩笑。

她并没有。

布赖恩特：“理查德·朱厄尔”，那个理查德·朱厄尔？

娜佳：是的。

布赖恩特：我明白了。

呃，好的。

她消失在自己的办公桌后。

然后1号线电话亮灯了。

布赖恩特（对电话）：喂？

（交切镜头）内景，博比的公寓，同一时间朱厄尔在打电话。

朱厄尔（对电话）：布赖恩特先生吗？

很抱歉打扰你，我刚从查号台查到你的电话号码。

希望你还记得我。

布赖恩特（对电话）：理查德，你现在是国民英雄了！

你可以叫我沃森。

朱厄尔（对电话）：哦。

谢谢，先生。

你好吗？

你的家人怎么样？

布赖恩特（对电话）：我们都很好。

我看你已经从电子游戏里升级了！

朱厄尔（对电话）：我也没想到，但是没错，确实是的。

布赖恩特（对电话）：干得好，这是值得骄傲的事。

有什么我能帮忙的吗？

朱厄尔（对电话）：先生，你做过书籍方面的业务吗？

你做那方面的业务吗？

布赖恩特（对电话）：合同嘛都差不多。

怎么了？

朱厄尔（对电话）：这个炸弹事件。

有几个纽约人让我写本书，我对此一无所知，所以我想也许你能帮我。

布赖恩特（对电话）：我很乐意。

朱厄尔（对电话）：你现在不在美国小企业管理局工作了吗？

我先往那边打的电话。

布赖恩特（对电话）：是的。

我从那里离职了。

朱厄尔（对电话）：哦。

为什么？

布赖恩特（对电话）：生活方式决定的。

你就确保给我看之前不要签任何东西。

好吗？

我们从这一点开始做起。

朱厄尔：好的。

谢谢你，沃森。

布赖恩特结束了通话。

脸上是略带震惊的微笑。

娜佳探身进来，很兴奋，此时——内景，酒吧，夜晚肖面前有一杯酒，他示意侍者再斟满，这时——凯西（画外）：你们一定压力很大吧。

肖转身。

是凯西，她穿着超短裙，衬衫几乎没扣扣子。

肖笑了笑。

肖：和平常差不多。

凯西：没错，不过是奥运会期间在美国本土发生的普通致命爆炸。

这是常有的事。

肖：你们也有压力。

有线电视新闻网已经方方面面都报道过了。

这可能是你的裙子比平常更短、衬衫袒胸的原因。

凯西：我承认。

我热得冒烟了！

实话实说？

是的，他觉得她的确很热辣。

凯西：汤姆，给我爆点料吧。

我会好好回报你的。

肖：抱歉。

凯西：我知道局里在调查某个人。

肖：你为什么这样想？

凯西：有来源。

朋友。

那人是谁？

肖：如果你从他们那里打听不出来，凭什么认为你能撬开我的嘴？

她微笑着，舔了舔嘴唇。

肖呼了口气，然后——肖：你知道人们没有意识到哪点吗，凯西？

办一个案子要做多少工作。

每周7天每天24小时的努力。

凯西：你说得对。

受教了。

肖犹豫了一下。

凯西把手放在他的腿上。

肖：我不会把事情搞砸的。

外面发生了屠杀案。

没有更多人遇难已经是奇迹。

凯西：除非我从另一个消息来源得到确证，否则我不会报道。

这样我们不会有交集，你知道的。

（她的手在他身上游弋）汤姆。

你快要炸了。

她俯身——衬衫领口大开。

他硬得像烙铁。

肖：我这辈子第一次希望自己对异性没感觉。

凯西微笑……然后肖认输了。

肖：局里在调查那个保安。

朱厄尔。

哇。

凯西僵住了。

我听错了吗？

不。

她竭力冷静下来，拿出记事本。

肖：人们总是怀疑那个发现炸弹的人，就像人们总是怀疑那个发现尸体的人。

但朱厄尔过去的经历很糟糕。

十分符合英雄炸弹袭击者的形象。

凯西：是的，是的，见鬼！

那个和妈妈一起住的胖子和失败者！

那么明显！

我怎么没想到？！

（她的脑子飞快地转着）这样事情就一目了然了。

要开个房间吗？

还是直接去我的车里？

内景/外景，博比的公寓，前门，夜晚博比打开门，看见——比尔·米勒——朱厄尔的乔治亚州调查局探员朋友——站在门口。

博比很激动。

博比：比尔，见到你真高兴！

好久不见了。

米勒：很高兴见到你，博比！

英雄在哪儿呢？

博比：他在里面。

进来吧！

博比感到十分骄傲，欢迎他进屋……内景，博比的公寓，餐厅，夜晚这会儿他们开始吃第二份意大利千层面了——米勒：你认为炸药量是多少？

朱厄尔：不确定那家伙用的是哪种炸药——黑火药，火柴头，也许还有一些氯酸盐，塞满钉子。

有意思的是，那些醉鬼移动了包裹，从而救了一群人的命，因为它本来应该横向爆炸，向人群冲击，最大限度造成伤亡。

他们把包打倒了，于是炸弹就向上爆炸了，大部分弹药都飞向了天空。

市中心的屋顶上到处都是它射出的钉子。

这通常需要一个电池和一个计时设备，甚至可能是一个简单的时钟。

内景，联邦调查局的面包车，夜晚米勒坐在一辆行驶的面包车的后座上，脸色很差。

当他解开衬衫扣子，我们知道是为什么了——吃饭的时候他戴着窃听器。

一名联邦调查局探员小心地将它取下来。

内景，《亚特兰大宪法报》，8楼，新闻编辑室，早上凯西穿行而过，停在马茨的办公桌前。

凯西：亲爱的，我需要你做一次你擅长的文字工作。

马茨：你是说给你改写稿子？

凯西：是的。

你知道我写起来硬邦邦的。

这次报道有点特别。

马茨：是什么？

凯西：哦，没什么。

只是联邦调查局怀疑理查德·朱厄尔是炸弹袭击者……马茨睁大了眼睛。

（切至）内景，《亚特兰大宪法报》，8楼，新闻编辑室，早上执行主编约翰·沃尔特聆听凯西的游说。

几个同事在旁观。

凯西：“第一个就百年奥运公园爆炸的管状炸弹向警方发出警报的保安目前是联邦调查局调查的目标，这起事件导致两人死亡，一百多人受伤。

”她朗读的声音持续至下面的画面——内景，博比的公寓，白天博比在烘焙蛋糕。

朱厄尔在玩电子游戏。

凯西（画外）：“33岁的朱厄尔曾是一名执法人员，他符合独行炸弹袭击者的特点。

这些人通常是遭遇挫折的白人男子，当过警察、军人，或者是自封警察、渴望成为英雄的人。

”内景，《亚特兰大宪法报》，8楼，新闻编辑室，早上，稍后凯西继续向沃尔特推销她的文章：凯西：“爆炸发生后，朱厄尔成了名人，上了《今日秀》和——”沃尔特：调查局知道你有这些资料吗？

凯西：我的朋友说现在所有人都有了——广播电视网有，有线电视新闻网也有。

马茨：有个乔治亚州调查局的人跟我说了同样的话。

局里在调查朱厄尔。

沃尔特：那为什么没有人报道呢？

有没有人觉得我们被骗了？

凯西：该死，约翰，这是我们的奥运会！

如果我们不抢先报道，我们究竟在这里忙什么？

沃尔特艰难地呼了口气，然后做出决定。

沃尔特：好吧。

撤回下午版，头版重新制版。

我们报道它。

外景，室外露台/酒吧，白天顾客们看着大屏幕电视上的爆炸性新闻。

有线电视新闻网的突发新闻——主持人拿着一份《亚特兰大宪法报》在电视上逐字读着一篇文章。

有线电视新闻网主持人（画外，对着摄像机）：“第一个就百年奥运公园爆炸的管状炸弹向警方发出警报的保安……”所有人都很震惊。

人们拿起手机……内景，《亚特兰大宪法报》，8楼，新闻编辑室，白天凯西走进来。

几台电视上都传来有线电视新闻网的响亮声音。

办公室里面的人纷纷转过身……向她鼓掌欢呼。

逾百同事，甚至包括那些曾经对她的短裙嗤之以鼻的女人。

这是新闻工作者的高光时刻。

她终于得到了同行的尊敬。

凯西露出谦虚和感激的笑容。

内景，联邦调查局外勤局（亚特兰大），会议室新闻爆出来时汤姆·肖正在上班。

周围的人都面色铁青。

汤姆·肖知道自己死定了。

布鲁斯·休斯怒气冲冲地走进来。

大家转过身。

布鲁斯·休斯：是谁把调查情况泄露给《亚特兰大宪法报》的？！

当然，没有人承认。

汤姆·肖盯着自己的鞋尖。

布鲁斯·休斯：肖！

汤姆·肖睁大了眼睛。

瞬间感到惊恐。

他们是怎么知道的？

肖：长官？

布鲁斯·休斯：把朱厄尔叫过来。

非对抗性问询。

就今天。

贝内特知道战术。

汤姆·肖的心脏恢复了跳动。

他看向丹·贝内特。

镜头回到——内景/外景，博比的公寓，下午电视机没有打开，朱厄尔睡着了。

博比在烘焙更多的蛋糕……大门口传来一阵强有力的敲门声。

朱厄尔醒了，起身走到门口，打开——朱厄尔：你们好？

肖和贝内特站在门口。

奇怪的是，我们听到停车场传来许多人的叫喊声。

声音（画外）：理查德！

理查德！

但是朱厄尔所在的地方看不到人。

贝内特：理查德·朱厄尔？

朱厄尔：什么事？

贝内特：联邦调查局探员丹·贝内特和汤姆·肖。

你有时间吗？

朱厄尔：当然！

有什么我可以帮你们的吗？

联邦调查局！

哇！

博比在儿子身后缓缓走近……肖：局里正在制作一个关于如何处理可疑包裹的教学视频。

我们希望你能参加。

你觉得怎么样？

朱厄尔：我觉得太棒了！

博比：看到了吗，理查德？

你做到了！

你让他们看到了你能成为什么样的警察。

瞧瞧！

停车场里那些看不见人影的声音又喊叫了起来。

朱厄尔没有在意。

贝内特看着肖。

肖：唯一的问题是，我们今天就要拍了。

你能跟我们回外勤局吗？

时间有点紧。

朱厄尔：我还有工作要做。

轮到我当班。

肖：不会花很长时间的。

朱厄尔：当然。

我想尽我所能帮助你们。

我也是执法人员。

肖：我们知道。

可以走了吗？

朱厄尔穿着他的保安服，和博比亲吻道别。

博比：真为你骄傲，宝贝！

朱厄尔走了出来，跟在肖和班内特后面下台阶，他完全不知道等待他的将是什么。

然后——外景，摩纳哥公寓，停车场，连续动作朱厄尔愣住了，十分震惊：200名媒体工作者出现在眼前，大队人马——带着摄像机、麦克风和嘈杂声——向他扑来。

大队人马：理查德，联邦调查局指控你了吗？

你请律师了吗？

联邦调查局在调查你吗？

他很惊讶但并不害怕——从人群中挤过，微笑着。

朱厄尔：我想他们会调查那天晚上在公园的所有人。

这也包括你们所有人。

他只当笑谈；周围人却不这么认为。

肖和贝内特上了自己的车。

朱厄尔来到他的丰田皮卡旁。

大队人马：你是疑犯吗？

朱厄尔：当然不是。

他上了自己的皮卡车。

内景，朱厄尔的皮卡车，白天（稍后）朱厄尔在开车。

他从后视镜里看到四辆车跟在他后面。

奇怪。

他向左转。

他们也向左转。

外景，联邦调查局外勤局（亚特兰大），停车场，白天他把车开进联邦调查局外勤局的停车场，停好车。

他后面的四辆车也停了下来。

他下了皮卡车。

贝内特和肖从车上下来招呼他。

朱厄尔：对不起。

我想有媒体跟踪我。

肖：不。

那是我们的人。

哦。

朱厄尔点点头，在消化这一信息。

内景，博比的公寓，同一时间博比打开电视……然后愣住了——一张朱厄尔——她的儿子——的照片，脸上打上了“爆炸嫌疑人”的字样。

她盯着画面，如遭雷击……然后伸手拿起电话……内景，联邦调查局外勤局，问询室，白天密闭的房间，没有窗户。

朱厄尔对面是贝内特和肖。

有个摄影师在将问询过程摄录下来。

贝内特：你回到塔旁边，发现包裹无人理会。

朱厄尔：是的，长官。

贝内特：你看见有人从长凳旁走开吗？

朱厄尔：没有，长官。

肖：所以你不知道是谁把包裹放在那里的？

朱厄尔：是的，长官，但不管是谁干的，都应该被判处死刑。

肖：我们也这么认为，理查德。

（稍顿）我们想要把视频拍得真实些——有些部分涉及如何对待嫌疑犯。

所以，在这一部分，我们就假装你是我们带来的人，好吗？

我们刚才向你宣读了米兰达权利，你已经同意放弃。

这是弃权书，这样的话一切看起来会很真实。

贝内特将一份真的弃权书放在朱厄尔面前。

贝内特：你签了字，然后我们继续询问。

朱厄尔：好吧。

他们递给他一支钢笔。

他假装签字，拿着笔隔空划拉，没在纸上写。

他们示意暂停。

肖：抱歉，我没说清楚，理查德。

我们需要你真的在弃权书上签字。

嗯？

朱厄尔心里警铃大作。

朱厄尔：但是……这是一份真的文件。

贝内特：当然。

我们要的就是真实感。

朱厄尔捏着文件。

细看。

心里的恐慌在加剧……朱厄尔：对不起，长官，签这样的文件我会感觉不对劲。

贝内特：理查德，我们——肖对贝内特耳语了几句，贝内特点点头。

肖：我们稍事休息。

把摄像机停了。

摄影师停止摄像。

这种感觉很古怪，令人毛骨悚然。

贝内特和肖离开了房间。

朱厄尔紧张而沉默地坐着，尽量不让自己坐立不安或者显出心虚的样子。

太难了。

朱厄尔：我当过副警长。

哈伯沙姆县的。

摄影师无动于衷。

朱厄尔委顿下来。

时间仿佛停止了。

这时肖笑着回来了。

肖：好吧！

我们假装之前的一切都没发生过。

（对摄影师）请换一盘新带子。

摄影师从摄像机里取出录像带，递给肖，肖把录像带扔进了废纸篓里，与此同时摄影师装上了一盘新带子。

他向肖点点头，示意“准备好了”，然后……肖：那么，我们现在要做的是，贝内特探员会走进来重新自我介绍，给你看他的证件，好比我们在做专业访谈一样。

然后他会给你宣读米兰达权利，然后——朱厄尔：嗯……你们为什么要这么做？

肖：让视频更真实。

肖打开了门。

贝内特再次走进来。

感觉就像“过家家”，我们在拍“戏中戏”。

然后——朱厄尔终于明白过来——他们认为是我干的！

朱厄尔：嗯……我想或许我应该联系我的律师。

肖：为什么要找律师？

我以为你是英雄。

你有什么想告诉我们的吗？

朱厄尔：不。

我只是，最好给他打个电话。

外景，奇利维斯大厦（巴克黑德区），白天一条不起眼的小巷旁的独栋两层楼建筑。

布赖恩特对周围的世界浑然不在意，将他的丰田奔跑者开到自己的停车位。

内景，奇利维斯大厦，大堂/楼梯间，连续动作布赖恩特爬上楼梯。

脚下地毯灰扑扑的，墙壁也是灰扑扑的。

内景，奇利维斯大厦，2楼/走廊，连续动作布赖恩特走到了死气沉沉的走廊上。

一扇门上写着“G.沃森·布赖恩特律师事务所”。

他走进——内景，奇利维斯大厦，布赖恩特的“套房”，连续动作娜佳坐在她的办公桌旁，神色十分恼怒。

娜佳：你不能关手机，沃森！

我需要联系你！

布赖恩特：怎么了？

她举起当天下午的《亚特兰大宪法报》：“联邦调查局怀疑放置炸弹的人或为‘英雄’保安”。

哇。

布赖恩特抓过报纸，把头版从头看到尾。

娜佳：他在联邦调查局外勤局的审讯室给你打了三次电话！

吓坏了。

布赖恩特：天哪。

那家伙只认识我一个律师吗？

娜佳：为了你好，我希望如此。

布赖恩特翻到第二版。

更多相关文章：“保安素有‘狂热分子’之名”“动机？

可能是反社会人格，渴望关注”，以及“保安犯罪困扰安全行业”。

布赖恩特：报纸上说局里已经对他进行了调查。

娜佳：在我的老家，当政府说某人有罪时，你就该知道他是无辜的。

这里有什么不同吗？

她的声音里听不出一丝怀疑。

但是布赖恩特在犹豫。

娜佳：我这就撕掉这些留言。

我敢肯定，在精彩的明天我们还会接到三四个案子。

而且你有那么多事情要做……布赖恩特：娜佳，请帮我联系外勤局好吗？

娜佳：马上……她拨打电话。

他等待着。

她把电话递给他。

娜佳（画外）：联邦调查局外勤局。

布赖恩特（接过电话）：我是沃森·布赖恩特，理查德·朱厄尔的律师。

我想和我的当事人通话。

联邦调查局接线员（画外，在电话里）：对不起，先生，我们这儿没有这个人。

布赖恩特（对电话）：不，你们有。

请让我的当事人接电话。

马上。

联邦调查局接线员（画外，在电话里）：先生，请稍后再打过来，也许我们能有更多的信息。

啪嗒。

布赖恩特对联邦调查局的仇恨之火瞬间被熊熊点燃。

简直怒不可遏。

布赖恩特：该死。

娜佳再次拨打电话。

布赖恩特听到——联邦调查局话务员（画外，在电话里）：联邦调查局外勤局。

布赖恩特（对电话）：我是沃森·布赖恩特，理查德·朱厄尔的律师。

我的下一通电话将会打给《60分钟》节目的迈克·华莱士，问问他为什么联邦调查局要剥夺公民获得法律帮助的宪法权利。

请问你的名字怎么拼？

联邦调查局话务员（画外，在电话里）：先生，我帮您接过去。

（交切镜头）内景，联邦调查局外勤局，问询室朱厄尔坐着。

贝内特走进来，递给朱厄尔一部电话。

贝内特：你的电话。

朱厄尔迫不及待地接过电话。

朱厄尔（对电话）：喂？

布赖恩特（对电话）：理查德，我是沃森。

你在那里干什么？

朱厄尔（对电话）：他们说需要我拍一部教学电影。

布赖恩特（对电话）：他们不是！

你是嫌疑犯。

你签了什么东西吗？

有没有承认什么？

朱厄尔（对电话）：当然没有。

不是我干的，沃森。

布赖恩特（对电话）：不要对任何人说任何话。

让我和负责的探员说话。

朱厄尔把电话递给肖。

朱厄尔：他想和你说话。

肖（对电话）：我是肖探员。

布赖恩特（对电话）：不可以再问话。

一个字都不可以。

肖（对电话）：他一直在全力配合。

布赖恩特（对电话）：一个字都不可以！

他砰地挂断电话。

交切镜头结束。

外景/内景，摩纳哥公寓，停车场/博比的公寓，夜晚朱厄尔的蓝色丰田皮卡车开进了停车场。

乌泱泱的人群转过身，一窝蜂地向他拥来。

博比站在窗前，透过百叶窗无助地看着。

画面回到朱厄尔。

他走下车，立即被人群淹没。

人群：理查德，你被起诉了吗？

你是联邦调查局的头号嫌疑犯吗？

理查德，有人跟你说过什么了吗？

朱厄尔：我不是嫌疑犯。

我不是嫌疑犯。

记者：理查德，炸弹是你放的吗？

朱厄尔：不，先生，不是我干的。

他被团团围住，走到了楼梯，然后——他筋疲力尽地走进门。

博比看起来十分震惊。

电话铃响了。

朱厄尔：妈妈，他们现在都在跟踪我。

博比点点头。

电话再度响起。

朱厄尔看向电视——汤姆·布罗考和鲍勃·科斯塔斯在做报道。

布罗考（画外，在电视上）：他们可能已经有足够的证据现在就逮捕他，可能有足够的证据来起诉他，但你总想有足够的证据给他定罪。

这个案子还有漏洞。

博比脸色变得苍白。

眼泪掉了下来。

博比：理查德，他在说什么？

为什么汤姆·布罗考要这么说你？

朱厄尔没有回答。

电话铃声再度响起。

仿佛永远不会停止。

内景/外景，肖的别克车，停车场，同一时间肖独自坐在车里，车窗摇了起来，他愤怒地捶打着仪表板。

肖：该死！

他妈的，他妈的，他妈的凯西！

外景，摩纳哥公寓，停车场/楼梯，夜晚（稍后）布赖恩特驾驶他的丰田奔跑者经过新闻采访车。

人群没有注意他。

穿着休闲短裤的他停好车，奋力穿过如饥似渴的人群。

布赖恩特：请让让……他们意识到他正在踏上通往博比家公寓的台阶。

这是个人物！

赶紧，摄像机被打开，麦克风递了出来。

但是布赖恩特已经走到了门口。

敲门。

门打开了。

时隔十年，布赖恩特和朱厄尔再次注视对方。

布赖恩特寻思：“我面前的是一个疯狂的炸弹袭击者吗？

”朱厄尔在想：“休闲短裤？

秃顶？

”真令人失望……于是布赖恩特尝试缓和紧张气氛。

布赖恩特：你有欠我的一百块吗？

朱厄尔皱眉，感到羞愧。

他让布赖恩特进屋。

人群在抛出更多的疑问。

门关上了，将声音隔绝在外。

内景，博比的公寓屋内。

朱厄尔和博比打量布赖恩特。

电话响个不停。

布赖恩特从墙上拔掉电话线。

布赖恩特：在接下来的一段时间里，你唯一需要对话的人就是我。

朱厄尔：妈妈，这是沃森。

沃森，这是我妈妈芭芭拉。

博比。

布赖恩特：在警察、联邦调查局探员、乔治亚州调查局探员或者交警面前，他不可以再开口。

明白了吗？

朱厄尔：我被教育要尊重官方当局，先生。

布赖恩特：“当局”就在窗外，要把你生吞活剥了。

（朱厄尔还没反应过来）我们开始工作吧。

内景，博比的公寓，凌晨2点博比在睡觉。

朱厄尔看着窗外的人群。

布赖恩特：理查德，你加入了任何极端组织吗？

朱厄尔：没有。

布赖恩特：地方民团，“雅利安国”，诸如此类的？

朱厄尔：我讨厌那些东西。

布赖恩特：任何反政府组织，或者宗教崇拜，或者……朱厄尔：没有，没有。

我不是那种人。

布赖恩特：你的朋友有加入任何边缘组织吗？

朱厄尔：没有。

布赖恩特：步枪协会呢？

朱厄尔：步枪协会是边缘组织？

布赖恩特没有回答，在确认博比睡着了之后——布赖恩特：理查德，这是死罪。

要判死刑的。

我可以帮助你，但前提是我要知道真相。

是你干的吗？

这个问题让朱厄尔露出了受伤的神情。

他打起精神。

朱厄尔：不是。

布赖恩特直视他……做出决定——布赖恩特：那就让我们一起把那些混蛋打得屁滚尿流吧。

外景，摩纳哥公寓，停车场，夜晚（稍后）布赖恩特走出来。

人群将他淹没。

人群：你是理查德的律师吗？

先生，你叫什么名字？

联邦调查局跟你说了什么吗？

炸弹是他放的吗？

内景，博比的公寓，同一时间朱厄尔把电话线插回去。

铃声当即响起。

朱厄尔（对电话）：喂？

无名来电人（画外，在电话里）：你干了件好事，那个炸弹。

不久犹太复国主义政府组织就会加入并开始——朱厄尔挂断电话，再次拔掉电话线。

内景，布赖恩特的丰田奔跑者，停放着布赖恩特上了车，呼一口气：我刚刚给自己招惹了什么事？

布赖恩特准备驾车离开，然后——凯西（画外）：这可不同于不动产案子，是吗，布赖恩特先生？

老天。

凯西在他的后座上，像条蛇一样蜷曲着。

布赖恩特：你到底是谁？

凯西：我可以成为你最好的朋友。

凯西·斯克鲁格斯。

《亚特兰大宪法报》的。

布赖恩特：当然是你。

下车。

凯西：你为理查德找到真正的辩护律师了吗？

布赖恩特：无可奉告。

凯西：瞧，“无可奉告”帮不了我。

也就意味着我帮不了你。

布赖恩特：你在这里就为这个？

帮我？

凯西：我不确定你是否明白自己惹了什么麻烦。

这是美国政府——布赖恩特：要我叫警察吗？

凯西：警察爱我。

我整天讲他们的故事。

让我讲讲你的故事吧。

布赖恩特：下车。

凯西注视着他。

（切至）外景，《今日秀》摄影棚，早上现场直播：布赖恩特接受冈贝尔的采访。

（与真实画面混合剪辑。

）冈贝尔：你怎么看待联邦调查局对待你的当事人的方式？

布赖恩特：我认为，不管是谁泄露了理查德·朱厄尔是这次调查的焦点，他都应该被起诉或者受到其他严肃处理。

我认为这次调查不应该，唔，像现在这样在全世界的聚光灯下进行。

冈贝尔：你为什么那么相信他是无辜的？

布赖恩特：因为我认识理查德有一段时间了。

我看着他的眼睛，问了他这个问题。

冈贝尔：你知道他曾因冒充警察而被逮捕过吗？

哇。

真是令人措手不及的一刻。

布赖恩特回过神来。

布赖恩特：我认识很多人，不可能对每个人都事无巨细地了解。

冈贝尔：他还犯过一些轻罪。

而且他好像有一间林中小屋，警察现在正急于去搜查。

布赖恩特：我，呃，我还没有对理查德和他的过去进行彻底的调查。

我没有理查德的违警记录。

而你可以有。

冈贝尔：你知道哈伯沙姆县警察局曾让他去寻求心理辅导吗？

布赖恩特：我还没有，呃，有些事情我还没有跟上进度，就这些。

冈贝尔：我再问你一遍——你为什么那么相信他是无辜的？

布赖恩特：我相信他。

冈贝尔：简单而纯粹。

（对着镜头）时间过了23分钟。

我们马上回来。

布赖恩特淡然一笑。

他知道情况糟透了。

内景，博比的公寓，同一时间博比和朱厄尔刚看完节目。

电话铃响了。

朱厄尔（对电话）：喂？

布赖恩特（画外，在电话里）：你他妈的因为冒充警察而被捕过？！

朱厄尔（对电话）：有过一次。

情况很复杂。

布赖恩特（画外，在电话里）：你有打算告诉我吗？！

朱厄尔（对电话）：是的，当然，只是，昨天太忙乱我忘记了。

布赖恩特（画外，在电话）：见鬼，理查德！

外景，奥运体育场，赛道，夜晚（美国全国广播公司的原始画面）迈克尔·约翰逊在起跑线上，即将开始200米跑比赛，此时——外景，百年公园，声光塔，同一时间布赖恩特站在声光塔旁边——现在这里是犯罪现场，周围被栅栏、金属探测器和安保人员围绕。

他注视着破烂的声光塔，娜佳站在他身旁。

布赖恩特：走。

外景，奥运体育场，赛道，接前景（美国全国广播公司的原始画面）砰。

迈克尔·约翰逊冲出起跑线。

外景，百年公园，声光塔，接前景布赖恩特开始步行。

这是去哪里？

娜佳看着她的手表。

外景，奥运体育场，赛道，接前景（美国全国广播公司的原始画面）迈克尔·约翰逊在跑道上飞奔，来到了弯道处。

外景，百年公园，广场，移动摄影布赖恩特继续走着，看着他的手表。

外景，奥运体育场，赛道，接前景（美国全国广播公司的原始画面）迈克尔·约翰逊接近终点线。

外景，百年公园，贝克街出口，接前景布赖恩特快步走出公园，娜佳在他身旁。

他又看了看表。

他要去哪里？

外景，奥运体育场，赛道，接前景（美国全国广播公司的原始画面）迈克尔·约翰逊打破了纪录。

人群在欢呼。

外景，贝克街，夜晚布赖恩特和娜佳来到了有九部公用电话的电话亭。

（第十部已被联邦调查局拆走了。

）布赖恩特：时间。

娜佳：6分钟。

外景，奥运体育场，赛道，接前景（美国全国广播公司的原始画面）200米跑比赛成绩公布出来。

新的世界纪录诞生了。

如雷的欢呼声。

外景，贝克街，接前景布赖恩特看着他的手表。

布赖恩特：好吧。

我们知道，第二通911电话是在0点58分，从原本在这个位置的公用电话打出的。

我们还知道，0点57分时理查德在公园的声光塔附近，比尔在那个时候报告发现背包。

他必须在2分钟内走完这段距离。

娜佳：那他不可能打电话。

布赖恩特：没准是骑自行车，我觉得。

娜佳：骑车往返？

没人注意到这一点吗？

布赖恩特不情不愿地得出结论——布赖恩特：真的不是他干的。

见鬼。

他们环顾四周——亚特兰大人轻快地走在人行道上，确信炸弹袭击者已被抓获。

但事实上并没有。

外景，房车停车场（北卡罗来纳州），早上那个拨打了炸弹预告电话的戴渔夫帽的男人从他的房车里走出来，关上门。

我们看不到他的脸。

内景，博比的公寓，早上布赖恩特手里拿着一张搜查证，望向窗外。

他的主观视点镜头——40个探员带着警犬在外面。

一个物证小组，一个炸弹小组，还有烟酒枪炮及爆炸物管理局的——每组人分别穿着不同颜色的衣服。

他们走近门口。

镜头切回至布赖恩特。

他很生气。

朱厄尔站在他旁边，目瞪口呆。

布赖恩特：你不要说话。

我来说。

他们只是到处看看。

你家里有枪吗？

（朱厄尔点头）去把它们拿出来，放到你的床上。

我们不需要任何惊喜。

朱厄尔走开了。

布赖恩特看向博比。

她在颤抖。

内景，博比的公寓，朱厄尔的卧室，稍后武器都放到了床上。

各式猎枪、步枪。

布赖恩特：你是在期待僵尸入侵还是怎么的？

朱厄尔：猎鹿用的。

我打猎。

这些只是标配。

布赖恩特：理查德，我想跟你解释一件事。

好吗？

你现在的罪过只是看起来像那种可能引爆炸弹的人。

但是如果你做出任何提升这一形象的事都会害死我们。

所以……他自己停了下来。

因为看到了博比眼中流露出极度的恐惧。

布赖恩特：对不起。

用词不当。

我只是，今天我还会发现什么古怪的、离奇的事吗？

朱厄尔：有一点。

我已经两年没交税了。

布赖恩特叹了口气。

为了打破沉默，博比神经质地说道：博比：我讨厌枪。

不知道为什么。

我爸爸喜欢枪；我从来就不喜欢。

每次理查德去打猎，我都告诉他，“别把死鹿拖回家来。

我才不吃鹿呢！

”可是理查德擅长射击。

他在哈伯沙姆县做副警长的时候，射击考核时100环他能打中98环。

就在这时，门口传来重重的敲门声。

布赖恩特：你不要说话。

我来说。

重复一遍。

朱厄尔：我不要说话……但我想让那些人知道我也是执法人员。

和他们一样。

布赖恩特：看，这就是在多嘴。

这是我们不想要的。

博比：你选对了律师，理查德。

朱厄尔点点头。

布赖恩特走到门口，打开门。

内景，博比的公寓，门厅/客厅，连续动作贝内特、肖和穿着不同颜色上衣的40名探员挤在楼梯口。

他们鱼贯而入，像一条色彩鲜艳的长幡，还带着狗。

布赖恩特：好像“全色彩的贝纳通”（注1）。

朱厄尔：把东西都拿去吧，地毯也拿走。

我也是执法人员，和你们一样。

所以，你们想拿什么就拿什么，因为它们都会证明我什么都没做过。

布赖恩特看了他一眼，示意他别说话了。

朱厄尔点点头。

肖：你要当他的法律顾问吗，布赖恩特先生？

布赖恩特：对。

布赖恩特递给肖一张名片，上面写着“G.沃森·布赖恩特律师事务所”。

肖看了一眼，不以为然。

贝内特递给布赖恩特一个袋子。

布赖恩特生气地接过去。

贝内特：如果你们想留在这里，就得穿戴上它们。

内景，博比的公寓，白天（稍后）朱厄尔、博比和布赖恩特戴着蓝色橡胶手套、穿着蓝色橡胶袜套坐在沙发上，看着探员们将衣物、洗漱用品和食物翻得乱七八糟。

布赖恩特怒火中烧。

一名探员在查看仅有的几本书，看到一本文森特·布廖西写的关于辛普森杀妻案审判的书，他停下来仔细翻阅。

朱厄尔：那是一本伟大的书。

里面有很多关于警方办案程序的细节。

探员把它装进密封袋里。

朱厄尔委顿下来。

探员乙（迪亚德·罗萨里奥）抱着个大纸箱从旁走过，里面装满从朱厄尔的卧室里搜集的东西，他费力地走向门口。

朱厄尔：需要帮忙吗？

没有回答。

朱厄尔起身向门口走去——尽管布赖恩特在瞪着他。

但是贝内特已先行打开了门。

探员丙（唐·约翰逊）看着一箱迪士尼电影录像带。

博比：那些是我当临时保姆的时候用的。

很好。

每盘录像带都被装进了密封袋里。

博比绷紧了身体。

肖：我想最好你们都出去，让我们做自己的工作。

布赖恩特扯掉橡胶手套和袜套，站了起来。

布赖恩特：走吧，理查德。

肖（叫嚷）：约翰逊。

罗萨里奥。

你们找到什么了吗？

外景，摩纳哥公寓，楼梯/停车场，数小时后朱厄尔和布赖恩特坐在门外的台阶上。

一个个纸箱被搬出来装上卡车。

肖全程监督。

每一步行动都有一众媒体在播报。

朱厄尔：你从没告诉过我你跳槽的公司的名字，沃森。

布赖恩特：我自己开了公司。

朱厄尔：哦。

为什么？

布赖恩特：公司就意味着合伙人，而合伙人认为他们可以教你做人。

我不太喜欢别人对我发号施令。

这时他们听到博比在朝两个抱着箱子下台阶的探员大喊大叫。

博比气疯了。

朱厄尔：怎么了，妈妈？

博比：他们翻我的内衣裤。

他们还想让我们受多少羞辱？

她颤抖着。

布赖恩特站在那里，面色铁青，跟在探员后面。

布赖恩特：等等，伙计们！

探员们朝联邦调查局的卡车走去。

布赖恩特跳下台阶，向停车场追去，但是——人群将他淹没，他瞬间被围成了一个密不透风的蚕茧，难以通行。

布赖恩特：请让让。

请让让。

我要——根本没有挪动的空间。

许多问题迎头砸来。

人群：沃森，他们在找什么？

他被起诉了吗？

是他干的吗，沃森？

布赖恩特：不，他没有。

他是无辜的。

理查德·朱厄尔是个英雄。

凯西：如果他是无辜的，为什么联邦调查局的人会在这里？

布赖恩特：我们希望他们过来。

我们很欢迎。

凯西：不，你们不希望。

她的话就像一记响亮的耳光。

人群不断推挤。

布赖恩特寸步难行，拥挤的人潮令人窒息。

就在这时，肖从公寓单元里出来，看见朱厄尔独自坐在那里。

这是一个好机会。

肖：嘿，理查德。

能进来一下吗？

朱厄尔：当然。

内景，博比的公寓，客厅，稍后肖坐在茶几的边缘，旁边是贝内特。

朱厄尔坐在沙发上。

肖拿起电话，拨了个号码。

这正是最开始出现的那一幕——肖：好的，理查德。

我现在要把这部电话递给你。

肖把电话递给朱厄尔。

肖：当你听见那端响起“哔”的一声，我要你对着电话说：“百年公园里有颗炸弹，你们有30分钟时间”。

朱厄尔：抱歉，什么？

贝内特：我们需要一份声音样本。

希望你能重复几次。

肖：“百年公园里有颗炸弹，你们有30分钟时间。

”这或许是你洗脱嫌疑的唯一办法，理查德。

朱厄尔并不想照做，但是他们代表着法律。

电话“哔”一声响。

朱厄尔接过电话，做了一下心理准备。

然后——朱厄尔（对电话）：百年公园里有颗炸弹，你们有30分钟时间。

肖：很好。

请再说一次。

大点声。

朱厄尔（对电话）：百年公园里有颗炸弹，你们有30分钟时间。

肖：再来一次。

确切地说，我们一连串地说吧。

朱厄尔：百年公园里有颗炸弹，你们有30分钟时间。

百年公园里有颗炸弹，你们有30分钟时间。

百年公园里有颗炸弹，你们有30分钟时间。

百年公园里有颗炸弹，你们有30分钟时间。

百年公园里……正在这时，布赖恩特推门而入，勃然大怒——布赖恩特：你们开什么玩笑！

朱厄尔：沃森，这是标准程序。

布赖恩特（劈手夺走电话）：见鬼去吧！

肖：布赖恩特先生，我们——布赖恩特：也许你们可以这么做，也许不可以。

但今天绝对不可以。

我们走，理查德。

朱厄尔：我真的不介意。

这样我就清白了。

布赖恩特：我们走。

布赖恩特干脆拽着他走开。

外景，摩纳哥公寓，楼梯/不同地点，白天时间过去了六个多小时。

朱厄尔坐在台阶上。

布赖恩特站着。

戴夫·达切斯此时也在这里。

外面的大队人马还在原地。

与此同时——探员们和邻居交谈。

探员们翻查大楼的垃圾箱和洗衣房。

他们把朱厄尔曾经整洁的房间弄得像垃圾场。

镜头回到朱厄尔身上。

枯坐，等待，悲伤的身影。

达切斯很气愤。

达切斯：该死的。

外景，摩纳哥公寓，楼梯，午夜朱厄尔、布赖恩特、达切斯和博比还待在楼梯处，这时探员们抱着箱子鱼贯而出。

肖也出来了。

肖：我们完事了。

朱厄尔站起来，转身。

他看向停车场，几辆面包车和卡车已经装载完毕。

布赖恩特往屋里走。

博比也往回走。

朱厄尔紧随其后，但是——他停下脚步。

突然觉得胸口发闷。

布赖恩特转过身。

博比：理查德？

朱厄尔勉强点点头。

他往屋里走去。

内景，博比的公寓，客厅/厨房，片刻之后他们四个人呆坐着。

整个房子像被洗劫过。

朱厄尔的房间更是一片狼藉。

博比走到窗前。

咔嚓的快门声从外面传来。

我们仿佛被困笼中。

她注视着联邦调查局的货车开走。

走到厨房。

所有东西都装在密封塑料袋里。

面粉、糖，都在袋子里。

博比：他们拿走了我所有的保鲜盒。

他们要我的保鲜盒做什么？

朱厄尔：炸弹袭击者用保鲜盒装钉子。

那是常规做法。

博比：这和你有什么关系？

他们为什么要拿走我照看小孩时用的录像带？

我的迪士尼电影？

门口传来敲门声。

布赖恩特走过去。

朱厄尔：他们可能想看看我们有没有在带子上录什么东西——你知道，政治声明之类的。

博比：你为什么要为这些人辩护？

朱厄尔：我没有。

我只是解释情况。

博比：那就闭嘴！

她用力拍桌子。

朱厄尔没有回嘴。

娜佳（画外）：嗨。

他们转过头。

来人是娜佳，拿着一袋吃的。

布赖恩特：这是娜佳。

她和我一起工作。

娜佳：我想你们可能想要吃晚饭。

博比：上帝保佑你。

谢谢！

朱厄尔：你好。

我是理查德。

娜佳微笑，大方得体。

外景，树林（北卡罗来纳州），夜晚（深夜）一个戴兜帽的身影消失在北卡罗来纳州的树林中。

外景，摩纳哥公寓后面的树林/停车场，夜晚（深夜）小狗布兰迪蹲下撒尿，朱厄尔在旁等待。

本该是万籁俱寂的时刻，却有50个记者在盯着他。

多么离奇、怪诞。

狗尿完了。

朱厄尔往回走。

人群：理查德，联邦调查局指控你了吗？

他们对你说了什么？

是你把那些人炸飞的吗？

朱厄尔：不是我干的。

我没有做那种可怕的事！

然后他停了下来。

胸口再度突然发闷。

症状缓解了，他继续往前走。

内景，联邦调查局外勤局（亚特兰大），物证室，白天朱厄尔的东西装在袋子里，贴了标签，塞满了整个房间。

证据组在检查两枚空壳手雷。

内景，博比的公寓，白天布赖恩特手里拿着一份清单，盯着朱厄尔。

布赖恩特：还有手雷，理查德？

朱厄尔：是旅游纪念品。

我在一家军用品商店买的。

布赖恩特：天哪……联邦调查局外勤局（亚特兰大），物证室，接前景探员们在分析朱厄尔的剪贴簿。

里面用胶带粘着公园里被炸飞的长凳的一块碎片。

内景，博比的公寓，接前景布赖恩特盯着清单——布赖恩特：长凳的碎片？

朱厄尔：留作纪念的。

博比受够了，站到沙发上去取那幅朱厄尔身穿哈伯沙姆县副警长制服的肖像照。

布赖恩特：让它挂那儿吧，博比。

博比：我现在很痛心，一想到他们对一个自己人做这种事。

她把电视的音量调大。

我们沉浸到——一组新闻报道的蒙太奇镜头杰·雷诺（在视频中）称朱厄尔为“蠢蛋”。

杰·雷诺（画外）：与袭击南希·克里根的人惊人地相似。

是什么令奥运会招徕了这些又肥又蠢的家伙？

人群爆笑。

一份《纽约邮报》的超近摄镜头，文章称朱厄尔是“一个痴肥、失败的前副警长”“乡下的兰博”。

更多视频，更多出版物。

如海啸般袭来。

朱厄尔成了全民的笑柄。

我们从他脸上看到了这对他的影响，蒙太奇变成……内景，《亚特兰大宪法报》大楼，新闻编辑室，不同地点，白天在编辑室的那一头，凯西和罗恩·马茨在疯狂地打字，宛然是“水门事件”时的伍德沃德和伯恩斯坦……然后——插入镜头：一则接一则的头条新闻——“埋葬朱厄尔”“联邦调查局已立案但没有任何证据”。

一页又一页的报纸头版页“啪啪”甩到我们面前，然后——内景，博比的公寓，客厅，夜晚布赖恩特、朱厄尔和博比坐在那里，沮丧而沉默。

房间里有股难闻的气味。

感觉像监狱。

布赖恩特望向窗外。

外面是一如既往的大队人马。

还有五辆联邦调查局的车子。

朱厄尔把棒球比赛的音量开到最大。

气氛感觉有点儿疯狂。

内景，甜甜圈店，白天朱厄尔在柜台付款。

排在他后面的两个人盯着他！

朱厄尔能感觉到他们的兴奋。

买甜甜圈的人：这会儿你不会把我们炸飞吧？

朱厄尔没有回答，只是露出伤感的微笑。

他接过找零，拿着两袋东西往外走。

朱厄尔：谢谢！

外景，甜甜圈店，停车场，连续动作朱厄尔走出来。

布赖恩特在朱厄尔的皮卡车里等着。

同时等待着的还有五辆联邦调查局的车子。

奇怪的是，朱厄尔向其中一辆走去——肖所在的那辆。

布赖恩特紧张起来。

朱厄尔敲了敲窗玻璃。

肖摇下车窗。

朱厄尔把两袋甜甜圈中的一袋递过去。

朱厄尔：我想你们可能饿了。

肖：嗯……我们不能接受。

街对面有100个摄影师拍下了这一幕。

朱厄尔：这不是贿赂什么的。

我只是知道监视很辛苦。

肖：请你收回去好吗？

朱厄尔失望地收回袋子，走开。

内景，朱厄尔的皮卡车，连续动作朱厄尔上车。

布赖恩特非常生气。

布赖恩特：到底怎么回事？

朱厄尔：这是警察的事。

布赖恩特：首先，你不要再吃甜甜圈了。

我讨厌大家说你胖。

其次，你也不需要获得更多的关注。

朱厄尔：你从来没监视过人。

布赖恩特：理查德，你刚刚给全世界制造了一则头条新闻：“朱厄尔试图用甜甜圈收买警察！

”如果你希望他们拿你开玩笑，那我帮不了你。

朱厄尔：我以为如果警察多喜欢我一些，他们可能就不会对我们这么苛刻了。

布赖恩特愣住了。

感觉如此悲哀和心酸。

布赖恩特：他们不会喜欢你的。

那就让他们尊重你，好吗？

他打开朱厄尔的杂物箱，把袋子塞进去——就在这时布赖恩特看到里面有一只毛绒熊。

嗯？

布赖恩特盯着看了看，取出毛绒熊。

布赖恩特：这是什么？

朱厄尔：哦。

我在县警察局工作的时候经常处理撞车事故。

现场有时会有孩子，他们往往受到了惊吓。

所以，我在杂物箱里放一个毛绒熊，用来安抚他们。

后来就成了一种习惯。

这就是朱厄尔的纯朴、天真和善良。

再一次让布赖恩特感到羞愧，觉得自己像个大混蛋。

布赖恩特：说不准什么时候会偶然遇见车祸，我想。

朱厄尔：是的，先生。

布赖恩特把熊收起来，关上杂物箱。

布赖恩特：这事就我们俩知道，免得他们又指控你是儿童性骚扰者。

朱厄尔发动汽车，驶离——正好从肖面前经过。

布赖恩特把甜甜圈扔进肖的车窗。

布赖恩特：享受一下。

他们离开停车场，五辆联邦调查局的车子跟在后面。

真令人窝火。

内景，博比的公寓，客厅，黄昏（数分钟后）博比在看电视。

布赖恩特没有敲门，径直走进来，态度坚决。

布赖恩特：起来，博比。

我要带你们两个去吃晚饭。

博比：理查德在哪儿？

布赖恩特：在车上。

我不能再干坐在这公寓里了。

我们走。

内景，布赖恩特的丰田奔跑者（行驶中），傍晚布赖恩特驾车。

博比坐在前座，朱厄尔在后座。

五辆联邦调查局的车子跟在他们后面。

布赖恩特把车开进——外景，停车场，连续动作五辆轿车不得不跟在后面。

博比环顾四周。

博比：沃森，我们去哪？

布赖恩特：你就坐稳了，博比。

她耸了耸肩。

布赖恩特向左急转弯。

咦？

联邦调查局的车子跟了上来。

他又向右急转弯。

博比和朱厄尔被搞糊涂了。

但所有的车子仍然紧随其后……现在我们明白了：他在耍他们玩。

布赖恩特加快车速。

他们也不得不跟着加速。

博比：哦，我的天……布赖恩特兜了一个大圈，现在他驶到了五辆车子的后面。

博比笑了起来，向那些车子挥手——试图实施监视的特工们现在只能眼睁睁看着行动被打乱。

博比：看到了吗，理查德？！

朱厄尔笑了，这是他这段时间以来难得的轻松一刻。

布赖恩特笑容满面，驾着车兜圈子。

内景，盲眼威利酒吧，夜晚（晚些时候）一个日本男人拿着麦克风站在小舞台上，唱着卡拉OK版的《反叛之声》。

相当难听。

但是朱厄尔、博比和布赖恩特终于找到了一个不被人认出的地方。

朱厄尔：我喜欢这里，沃森。

博比：我喜欢你的为人处事，沃森。

你不怕那些特工，这是肯定的。

服务员给布赖恩特端来了一杯鸡尾酒。

端给博比的是啤酒。

朱厄尔的是可口可乐。

他们举杯……布赖恩特：我们运气不错，卡拉OK之夜。

博比：知道吗，理查德会唱歌。

布赖恩特：真的吗？

博比：当然。

朱厄尔：妈妈……博比：怎么了？

他年轻的时候整天唱歌。

他唱得很好。

《反叛之声》唱完了。

一阵礼貌的掌声。

舞台空了出来。

博比：干吗不给他表演一下，理查德？

朱厄尔：我觉得没必要。

博比：为什么不？

对于这个酒吧来说你唱得足够好了。

朱厄尔：我最近已经受到了够多关注。

舆论法庭什么的。

博比：我没看到摄像头，你看到了吗？

拜托？

为了我？

朱厄尔：妈妈……博比：你就不能上去为你白发苍苍的母亲唱首歌吗，像以前上学时那样？

朱厄尔身体绷紧了，掂量着。

布赖恩特看着他，然后——布赖恩特：让我们听听吧，孩子。

这让朱厄尔感到吃惊，布赖恩特自己也有点吃惊。

朱厄尔：真的吗？

（见布赖恩特点头）好吧。

他站起来，没有发觉——凯西慢悠悠地走进来。

她在酒吧里溜达，走到了朱厄尔的视线之外，此时——朱厄尔站到了舞台上。

肯定会很糟糕，对吧？

他选了一首歌，拿起麦克风。

没有人认出他来。

歌曲开始了。

邦乔维乐队的。

朱厄尔做出弹吉他的样子。

歌曲《亡命天涯》的第一段。

朱厄尔：“一切还是老样子，只是名号更替……”你猜怎么着？

他唱得棒极了。

布赖恩特简直不敢相信。

他兴奋不已。

凯西也有点震惊。

博比有点得意。

周围的人开始注意到舞台上声情并茂演唱的人。

理查德·朱厄尔在廉价酒吧为众人演唱邦乔维乐队的歌。

大家随着节拍摇头晃脑。

凯西不由自主地开始重新思考。

邻桌的一个人（日裔美国人，穿西装，名字叫肯）靠过来对布赖恩特说——肯：这人唱得真好。

布赖恩特：我知道。

肯：他和理查德·朱厄尔长得一模一样！

博比差点倒抽一口气。

布赖恩特：是的。

他是很像。

肯更大声地喝彩。

朱厄尔：“因为我是个牛仔，骑着我的摩托车。

我亡命天涯，亡命天涯……”内景/外景，布赖恩特的汽车/摩纳哥公寓，停车场，夜晚布赖恩特将车停在楼前。

大队人马在这里守候着，像嗜血鲨鱼。

朱厄尔：谢谢你，沃森。

布赖恩特：晚安，你们俩。

稍顿。

朱厄尔不想下车。

事实是，今晚有些事情发生了变化。

博比能感觉得到。

博比：幸好我们有你，沃森。

我说的不仅仅是法律方面。

朱厄尔：妈妈——博比：不。

我要说。

理查德身边从来没有过一个男人照顾他。

他爸爸不值一提，这是肯定的。

直接抛弃了我们。

布赖恩特：听着，我只是想把我的一百块拿回来。

博比：后来我给他找了个继父，原以为他是个好男人、好父亲，但他也离开了我们。

从来没有人关心他。

这就是为什么理查德想当警察——照顾别人，因为他知道被遗忘的滋味。

现在你出现了，为他承担这一切。

我很感动，沃森。

布赖恩特点点头，看着外面的大队人马，说了他一直想说的话——布赖恩特：理查德……我们得给你找个合适的辩护律师。

什么？

这句话在理查德耳边回响。

他看着博比。

朱厄尔：我不想那样做。

布赖恩特：这超出了我的能力范围。

你知道的。

一个月前我还在做房产交易案。

朱厄尔：我只信任你。

布赖恩特：我不一定相信警察，但有时我也需要警察。

而现在你需要一个擅长办理死刑案件的辩护律师。

最好是来自调查局尊敬的小公司。

而那不是我。

朱厄尔：也不是我。

布赖恩特：听着，见鬼——朱厄尔：我才不要像辛普森那样身后跟着一群律师走进法庭。

那会让人觉得事情就是你干的！

说到这里他的声音变调了。

他蓦地停住。

他不允许自己哭泣。

尽管眼泪几乎要夺眶而出。

布赖恩特愣住了。

争论就此打住。

博比：我们该进去了。

布赖恩特：晚安，你们俩。

他们下车。

布赖恩特目视他们离开。

大队人马冲下来，朱厄尔和博比瞬间被围得密不透风。

朱厄尔抓住她的手，穿过人墙。

布赖恩特感到很厌恶。

他从车上下来，喊道——布赖恩特：你们这是在害死他！

你们每个人——都在杀人。

你们不感到羞耻吗？

没有人回答。

但是朱厄尔和博比很感激。

他们安全地回到了自己的公寓。

关上门。

人群退散。

布赖恩特回到他的车里，驶离停车场，然后上了布福德高速公路。

外景，百年公园，早上凯西盯着手表，开始从爆炸现场疾步往外走。

外景，角落（贝克街），公用电话，稍后凯西走到了公用电话前，看着手表。

她这才意识到布赖恩特已经认识到的一点——时间对不上。

事情不可能是朱厄尔干的。

天哪。

内景，博比的公寓，前门，白天门开了。

门外是布赖恩特，他带来了更多坏消息。

布赖恩特：他们现在要采集你的头发。

还有掌纹，混蛋。

朱厄尔垂头丧气。

博比不在家。

（切至）内景，博比的公寓，白天（晚些时候）朱厄尔坐着，一名身穿制服、戴着手套的法医从他头上拔下发丝。

一次拔一根。

布赖恩特在旁看着，满面怒容。

贝内特和肖负责监督。

电视开着。

肖：拔25根，要采集25根。

法医点头。

布赖恩特看起来像要杀人。

布赖恩特：我希望你们知道，你们也许有搜查令——但你们要是想这么对我的话，就得跟我打一场。

还得打到我爬不起来为止。

肖：这可不像律师干的事，法律顾问。

桌上放着当天的《亚特兰大宪法报》。

头条标题是：“朱厄尔将爆炸纪念品保存在母亲的公寓里”。

打开的电视上画面是朱厄尔的照片，伴随声音——记者（画外，在电视上）：几天前，有人看到此人在家里拿着自制炸弹！

布赖恩特气愤地关掉电视。

朱厄尔：我们赶在我妈回来之前把这事搞定吧。

我不想让她看见。

布赖恩特走到朱厄尔身穿哈伯沙姆县副警长制服的肖像照前。

为了引起他们的注意，他装模作样调整了一下相框的位置。

布赖恩特：告诉我，理查德，你还以身为执法人员为荣吗？

朱厄尔：我但愿那天晚上自己能把工作做得更好。

但愿我能让每个人撤得足够远。

要是我做到了，现在就不用坐在这里了。

布赖恩特注视着肖和贝内特。

布赖恩特：你们是对的。

他是一个怪物。

你们这些笨蛋有没有考虑过从公用电话亭那儿打电话的时间？

肖：去他的公用电话。

我的当事人是当时在公园里的人。

他们不该被炸掉脑袋。

布赖恩特：我真为你们感到难过。

当真正的炸弹袭击者再次作案时，全国人都会问：“联邦调查局在干什么呢？

”你们要说“我们正忙着从理查德·朱厄尔那里取头发样本”吗？

肖没有回答。

法医：我完事了。

肖：很好。

（稍顿）谢谢你提供方便，理查德。

你知道，警察同行之间的相互理解。

布赖恩特：好走不送。

他们离开。

布赖恩特怒气冲冲。

布赖恩特：我们对这些混蛋要少一些殷勤，多一点理直气壮。

朱厄尔：只是头发而已。

还会长出来。

布赖恩特：为什么你不像我一样生气？！

老天！

朱厄尔：有些人不大喊大叫，但并不意味着他们不生气。

布赖恩特：你生气？

朱厄尔：当然。

布赖恩特：那就别当受气包了！

不要试图做他们最好的朋友！

我受够了。

朱厄尔：我也受够了！

布赖恩特：是吗？

受够了什么？

（朱厄尔沉默）受够了什么？

朱厄尔走进厨房，留下布赖恩特一个人。

橱柜门打开的声音传来。

布赖恩特（喊道）：你现在拿饼干吃的话我就要杀人了！

橱柜门关上的声音。

内景，博比的公寓，厨房，连续动作门铃响了。

布赖恩特走过去，打开门。

布赖恩特：怎么了？

娜佳站在门口。

神色十分严峻。

布赖恩特：怎么回——她急忙一把捂住他的嘴。

娜佳：嘘。

她走进门。

布赖恩特困惑不解。

朱厄尔走了出来。

娜佳关上门，举起一张纸条——“我们办公室的房顶上安装了窃听器。

我们的电话也被窃听了。

这里可能也装了窃听器。

”布赖恩特和朱厄尔盯着看。

朱厄尔（低语）：他们怎么可以一直这样，沃森？

布赖恩特：很简单。

他们敢这么做是因为不把你当回事。

话糙理不糙，这就是赤裸裸的现实。

（切至）外景，奥运体育场，夜晚（美国全国广播公司的原始画面）闭幕式。

美国告别奥运会。

外景，奥运体育场，白天巨大的空间现在空荡荡的。

只余少量的清洁人员。

内景，奥运游泳馆，白天空荡荡的。

奥运会已成为记忆。

外景，百年公园，白天空荡荡的。

声光塔不复存在。

罪案也已了无痕迹。

但是，一块空地正在被隔出来建造雕塑以纪念这场悲剧。

内景，酒吧，夜晚肖独自坐着，醉眼蒙眬。

然后——凯西出现了，坐到他旁边的高脚凳上。

肖的表情立刻变得冷漠而轻蔑。

凯西示意酒吧侍者把肖的酒再加满。

肖没有反应。

肖：我真不敢相信你还敢坐在这里。

凯西：电话不可能是朱厄尔打的。

（肖怒视她）时间对不上。

我试着走了一下事发地点和公用电话之间的距离，他不可能——肖：我们知道。

凯西：你们知道？

肖：这只说明他有共犯。

凯西：共犯。

肖：当然。

有什么不行的？

凯西：“独行炸弹袭击者”的侧写。

自封警察。

有共犯？

肖：首先，侧写只是一个切入点。

俄克拉荷马的案子有两个炸弹袭击者，记得吗？

凯西：那会是谁呢？

肖：对。

我会告诉你。

在你那样陷害我之后。

凯西：好吧。

我就这么写，诉朱厄尔的案由开始减弱了。

证据不足，等等等等。

肖：你怎么会以为我是在为你工作？

或者我们在合作？

事实上，我都不知道自己为什么还要和你说话。

凯西（了然地笑）：我知道为什么。

他起身离开，把他的苏格兰威士忌留在了吧台上。

凯西：哇。

以前从来没有见你剩过酒。

肖：这是你的。

呛死你。

外景，百年公园，声光塔，夜晚画面朦胧，不知是回忆还是梦境——声光塔外，爱丽丝背包爆炸前一分钟。

警察在疏散人群。

混乱、紧迫。

声音时断时续。

朱厄尔的反拍镜头——他看着警察和旁观者们，他们马上要受伤了。

还有艾丽斯·霍索恩，即将殒命。

朱厄尔知道这一点，所以——他爬到长凳下，把爱丽丝背包拖到自己怀里，紧紧抱住，把自己当成一条人肉防爆毯。

他知道接下来会发生什么——一个英雄的死亡。

他闭上眼睛，能听到背包里滴答作响……五，四，三，二，一。

然后——炸弹爆炸。

一道白色电光。

朱厄尔在爆炸冲击力和巨响中支离破碎，这时——内景，博比的公寓，朱厄尔的卧室，夜晚（现实）朱厄尔猛地睁开眼睛。

内景，快餐店，白天戴夫·达切斯一个人在吃汉堡。

不久后，贝内特和肖站到他对面，出示警徽。

真是相当令人讨厌的意外。

达切斯全身紧绷。

贝内特：达切斯先生。

你有时间吗？

达切斯叹了口气。

我们听到直升机启动的声音，然后画面与声音匹配——内景，博比的公寓，夜晚（深夜）电视上在播放一部二战电影。

约翰·韦恩主演。

电视开启了静音。

外面传来直升机盘旋的声音。

达切斯在屋内，坐在朱厄尔、博比和布赖恩特的对面。

房间里笼罩着震惊和悲伤的气氛。

他们窃窃低语。

达切斯：他们觉得既然你没有打911，那你一定有个搭档。

他们认为那个搭档肯定是你的同性男友……他们认为那很可能是我。

每个人神色都为之一变。

达切斯：他们还让我戴上窃听器。

朱厄尔：上帝……博比：理查德。

朱厄尔：对不起，妈妈。

达切斯：我告诉他们没门儿。

我说你是个英雄。

他们说，“如果他真的是英雄，那么他就没有什么好担心的，你也一样。

”还说你的一个乔治亚州调查局的朋友也戴了窃听器，他来的时候你们给他做了千层面。

他们已经查到了你很多东西。

这让朱厄尔感到十分受伤。

他沉默不语。

达切斯继续说道——达切斯（无奈地）：嗯…还有一件事，他们问我是否接触过管状炸弹……我不得不告诉他们真相。

布赖恩特下意识地闭上了眼睛。

达切斯：你知道的，小型的那种。

小时候我在西弗吉尼亚州，我们经常把它们扔到土拨鼠洞里。

博比：戴维。

我的天哪。

达切斯：我告诉他们这是我认识理查德之前很多年的事。

我说了好几次。

但还是……很抱歉。

朱厄尔：没关系。

然而这有关系。

他们都知道。

外面，直升机的声音越来越大，越来越近。

博比十分沮丧，回头看电视，把静音关掉。

房间里立刻充斥着电影里的战斗声：二战的炮声、枪声齐发。

但是马上——朱厄尔：妈妈！

朱厄尔夺过遥控器，关掉了电视。

朱厄尔：我们在这里看有爆炸的电影，他们会怎么想？！

你不知道他们在听着吗？

博比已经到了承受极限。

她哭着跑回自己的房间，砰的一声关上门。

朱厄尔急忙过去，到了门口，敲门。

试试门把手。

门锁上了。

直升机在盘旋。

朱厄尔：妈妈？

对不起，出来吧。

你想看什么节目都行。

博比的啜泣声透过房门传来。

朱厄尔的心一沉。

朱厄尔：妈妈，拜托？

别待在里面。

出来吧。

我不会再说什么了。

求你了。

布赖恩特和娜佳坐在沙发上看着。

朱厄尔一直在敲博比的门。

朱厄尔：妈妈，拜托。

无论你想要什么——博比打开门，眼睛湿润。

房间里安静下来，只有头顶上那该死的直升机的声音。

博比：理查德，我很害怕。

朱厄尔：我也是，妈妈。

博比：我不知道如何保护你不受这些人的伤害。

他抱住她，一直抱着。

博比哭泣。

布赖恩特和娜佳在房间的另一边。

朱厄尔看着他们，拥抱着妈妈。

朱厄尔：三天，沃森。

她一辈子只为她的儿子骄傲了三天。

现在这样。

是不对的。

布赖恩特：那你准备好反击了吗？

朱厄尔点点头。

是的，他准备好了。

这是一个重要时刻。

外景/内景，奇利维斯大厦/布赖恩特的丰田奔跑者，早上这条平常死气沉沉的街道上今天挤满了媒体。

布赖恩特驾车把朱厄尔带到这栋建筑的专用车道上/小巷里，他的大车将人群挤到路旁，与此同时他对着镜头微笑。

娜佳（在她的车里）和戴夫·达切斯（在他的车里）立刻在巷口车头对车头停好车，挡住了布赖恩特的车。

内景，奇利维斯大厦，会议室，稍后这里给人一种奇怪的陈腐感。

墙上挂着仿中世纪的挂毯。

因为大队人马就在外面的巷子里，百叶窗都关上了，所以房间里很阴暗。

朱厄尔惶恐地坐着，理查德·拉克利夫（50多岁，身材敦实，曾是联邦调查局的军职人员，现在在私营单位）。

朱厄尔：我不明白为什么我们不能让联邦调查局来做这件事。

布赖恩特：你会相信他们的结果吗？

布赖恩特打开百叶窗，向外挥手。

朱厄尔：你在向谁挥手？

布赖恩特：我的新朋友们。

一辆车窗装着气泡玻璃的联邦调查局面包车停在街对面。

朱厄尔：哦……朱厄尔愈发焦虑了。

拉克利夫示意布赖恩特：出去。

布赖恩特看看朱厄尔，然后离开。

（切至）内景，奇利维斯大厦，会议室，稍后测谎仪。

血压袖带。

针。

拉克利夫：理查德，你来做测谎是谁的主意？

朱厄尔：沃森的。

朱厄尔直冒汗。

拉克里夫盯着读数。

拉克利夫：你觉得结果会怎么样？

朱厄尔：很好。

拉克利夫：你知道是谁在奥运公园放的炸弹吗？

他们的目光相遇。

朱厄尔咽了口唾沫。

内景，布赖恩特的办公室，一小时后娜佳在沙发上休息。

布赖恩特望向窗外的气泡玻璃窗面包车和徘徊的媒体记者。

布赖恩特：你能再做一些那种小馅饼吗？

很好吃。

娜佳：小心，沃森。

在俄罗斯，如果一个女人给一个男人做了两次小馅饼，那就意味着他们订婚了。

他笑了。

拉克利夫走了进来，表情严肃。

布赖恩特跳起来，打手势让他小声，指着天花板示意：有窃听器。

拉克利夫点点头，凑近布赖恩特。

拉克利夫（低语）：你那孩子表现很糟。

有困难。

布赖恩特瞪大了眼睛。

娜佳也是。

布赖恩特同样低语。

布赖恩特：这是什么意思？

拉克利夫：他的心率、呼吸和皮肤电阻都超出了正常水平——指向严重的欺骗行为，以及愧疚。

布赖恩特（“哦，见鬼”）：我，呃……拉克利夫：他似乎受到焦虑症发作的困扰。

你可以让他冷静下来吗？

内景，奇利维斯大厦，会议室，稍后盘子里放着一个甜甜圈。

朱厄尔仍然戴着电子设备，看着甜甜圈。

布赖恩特在他身旁。

朱厄尔：那意味着我做得不好？

布赖恩特：你做得很好。

他认为你血糖低。

吃吧。

朱厄尔咬了一口甜甜圈，闭上眼睛。

布赖恩特：理查德，我能告诉你件事吗？

（朱厄尔耸了耸肩）我小时候上的圣公会学校。

上一年级时，两个修女指责我在课桌上写了一些亵渎神明的东西……朱厄尔感到诧异——他为什么要告诉我这个？

布赖恩特：我没有做过，但是她们确信是我做的。

所以她们把我送回幼儿园待了一星期——只是为了羞辱我；然后她们问我是否受到了教训。

我说没有，因为最开始我就没有在桌子上写字。

她们问我是不是想在幼儿园待两个星期。

我说：“你们可以把我扔在那儿一年，但我仍然不会因为在桌子上写字而道歉，因为我没有做过。

”朱厄尔：你对修女这么说了？

布赖恩特：是的。

然后她们放弃了。

（示意联邦调查局特工）权力并不会让一个人明辨是非。

说出你的故事就行，好吗？

朱厄尔点点头，他准备好了。

内景，布赖恩特的办公室，四小时后，白天布赖恩特和娜佳在沙发上睡着了。

拉克利夫走进来，经过四小时的测试后他已经筋疲力尽。

娜佳跳了起来。

布赖恩特屏住呼吸等待着。

布赖恩特（示意天花板上的窃听器）：也许我们应该去别的地方说……拉克利夫：他通过了，最高级别的“无欺骗显示”。

布赖恩特想大声喊叫或者上蹦下跳。

我们可以赢得胜利了。

但他还是保持了镇静。

布赖恩特：谢谢。

朱厄尔出现在拉克利夫的身后。

同样筋疲力尽。

布赖恩特看着他。

他们分享着这一刻。

内景，《亚特兰大宪法报》大楼，8楼，新闻编辑室，白天人声嗡嗡。

凯西在她的办公桌旁。

马茨走过来。

马茨：有什么有意思的事吗？

凯西：黑帮谋杀案。

乏味至极。

马茨微笑，继续往前走。

凯西打字，这时——布赖恩特（画外）：嗨，凯西。

她抬头。

眼睛睁大了。

布赖恩特和朱厄尔出现在眼前。

这是深入虎穴啊。

周围突然陷入停顿。

一片寂静。

凯西抱胸。

布赖恩特：那是爆炸的纪念品。

不是炸弹。

你询问我的时候我是这么说的。

凯西：我知道。

抱歉。

布赖恩特：你又算老几，凭什么取笑一个和妈妈一起住的人？

她要做手术了，他想照顾她。

这有什么奇怪的？

你跟他说说。

（她没有回答）顺便你再跟他说说，他是如何“找到本报，希望借此宣传自己的行为”。

事实是他并没有这么做过。

凯西：那是编辑加的。

布赖恩特：或者说说他怎么就十分符合独行炸弹袭击者的侧写，是“自封”英雄、渴望成为英雄的人，而事实是他所做的就是拯救了生命。

来说说吧。

我们有一整天的时间。

凯西：这是误会。

我只是个凡人。

布赖恩特：理查德也是。

说完，布赖恩特和朱厄尔往外走去。

凯西沉默不语。

内景，酒店宴会厅，白天宴会厅里满是记者和摄像机，博比站在一排麦克风前，布赖恩特就在几米之外。

博比：我太累了。

我希望并向上帝祈祷不要让这种事发生在其他人身上。

我想你们甚至无法想象我们的生活是什么样子。

快门咔嚓响，磁带在转动。

博比：他们剥夺了我们所有的隐私。

他们夺走了所有的安宁。

他们监视和拍摄我们所做的一切。

为什么？

因为我儿子做了分内的工作，因为他救了人。

博比看向一旁，布赖恩特在为她鼓劲。

博比：我今天要向总统求助。

总统先生，我的儿子是个英雄。

我想联邦调查局现在已经知道了；证据说明了一切。

如果他们不打算控告我的儿子，请告诉我们。

请告诉全世界……博比还有一句话要讲，那就是——博比：总统先生，请替我儿子洗脱罪名……她难以自制，对着镜头失声痛哭。

布赖恩特走上去，温柔地引导她走下讲台。

内景，酒店，厨房，片刻之后博比浑身像散了架似的。

布赖恩特带着她走进一个大厨房。

朱厄尔已经在餐馆工和厨师中间等着了。

博比倒进他的怀里，哭泣。

朱厄尔：妈妈，没事了……博比：我不知道怎么回事。

我以为我的眼泪已经流干了。

会不会有影响，沃森？

朱厄尔和博比转过身，令他们大为惊诧的是，布赖恩特的眼睛也湿润了。

他自己也和他们一样感到震惊。

餐馆员工们都在看着。

于是他打起精神。

布赖恩特：这一切必须结束了，理查德。

我的意思是真正结束。

你知道的。

（朱厄尔点点头）我要打电话给联邦调查局。

博比：看到了吗？

这就是我要说的。

他谁也不怕。

朱厄尔：你应该听听他对修女说的话，妈妈。

布赖恩特打量了一会儿朱厄尔。

然后——布赖恩特：我们去让他们瞧瞧你是什么人。

外景，联邦调查局外勤局（亚特兰大），早上美国国旗，美国权力机关。

1996年10月6日。

内景，博比的公寓，同一时间，早上朱厄尔站在镜子前，系上领带。

这是个重要的日子。

内景，布赖恩特的办公室，同一时间，早上布赖恩特也在系领带。

这绝对是我们见过的他的最帅着装。

很有律师风范。

娜佳在办公桌前，有条不紊地帮他把所有文件装进公文包。

神色严峻但充满自信。

他们的目光相遇——布赖恩特眼中是由衷的感激之情。

外景，联邦调查局外勤局（亚特兰大），白天布赖恩特的丰田奔跑者停下来。

朱厄尔和布赖恩特穿着西装从车里出来。

外景，联邦调查局外勤局（亚特兰大），大厅，白天朱厄尔登记进入，布赖恩特在他身后。

一名保安（年老的黑人）示意他们通过金属探测器。

内景，联邦调查局外勤局（亚特兰大），走廊，白天朱厄尔和布赖恩特在贝内特探员的引导下走出电梯，沿着走廊来到会议室门外的椅子旁。

贝内特：我们马上回来。

贝内特探员走进会议室，留下朱厄尔和布赖恩特俩人在安静的走廊上。

一阵沉默。

布赖恩特：他们会要求先见我。

确立基本规则。

朱厄尔：我想让他们知道我不是那种人。

布赖恩特：相信我，你有机会告诉他们。

肖从他们旁边经过，目不斜视地消失在会议室里。

朱厄尔盯着地板。

突然听见声响。

他转身：是一个办公室职员，推着一辆物料推车从镜头前走过。

推车上是钢笔、透明胶带等等。

朱厄尔看着他离去，记忆流转。

布赖恩特也是。

布赖恩特：看看他有没有士力架，好吗？

朱厄尔差点要笑出来。

只是差点。

布赖恩特：你知道违章号码1001是什么吗，理查德？

朱厄尔：对联邦探员撒谎。

布赖恩特：这是重罪。

你到里面说了任何不属实的话，他们就可以把你关进监狱，而不需要证明你是爆炸犯。

所以如果你不知道该说什么，那就什么也别说。

你要求休息五分钟，来和我商量一下。

但你不能即兴发挥。

明白了吗？

朱厄尔点点头。

贝内特从会议室里探出身——贝内特：布赖恩特先生？

布赖恩特看着朱厄尔——我们准备好了。

然后头一低走了进去。

内景，外勤局（亚特兰大），会议室，同一时间房间没有窗户，物证沿墙放置着：一条真正的长凳——从声光塔外搬来的；一部真正的公用电话——曾经呼叫了911的那部；百年公园的航拍照片。

肖、贝内特和布鲁斯·休斯坐在桌子旁。

布赖恩特：谁给你们装修的？

特德·卡钦斯基吗？

只是小小地刺激对手一下，但这让布赖恩特感觉好多了。

镜头回到——内景，联邦调查局外勤局（亚特兰大），走廊，接前景朱厄尔坐着，看着推物料车的那个人。

推物料车的人来到一扇门前，打开门，消失在里面，推车留在走廊上。

朱厄尔站了起来，自己也不知道为什么，顺着走廊朝推车走去……正要触及推车时……门打开了。

推物料车的人走出来。

他们对视一眼。

推物料车的人：需要帮忙吗？

朱厄尔：不，我只是……那人推着物料车消失在走廊上。

朱厄尔回到他的座位上，这时——会议室的门打开了。

布赖恩特走出来。

布赖恩特：你准备好了吗？

朱厄尔：我想是的。

布赖恩特：我的意思是你准备好了——不是作为嫌犯面对特工，而是一个警察面对另一个警察。

理查德，别对他们毕恭毕敬，他们不配。

不要总是叫他们“长官”。

朱厄尔：可他们代表美国政府。

布赖恩特：不。

他们不是美国政府。

他们只是为美国政府工作的三个笨蛋。

明白其中的差别吗？

理查德，那个房间里没有人比你更好。

相信我。

（见自己的话起到了效果）你没事的。

这是亲如父子的一刻。

温馨时刻结束。

朱厄尔起身。

内景，外勤局（亚特兰大），会议室，连续动作朱厄尔走进来。

原告们等待着。

（切至）内景，联邦调查局外勤局（亚特兰大），会议室，白天（晚些时候）朱厄尔已经在里面待了好几个小时，布赖恩特伴在他身侧。

肖：理查德，你是否曾经访问过一个名为“糖果人的糖果乐园”的网站，以获取关于《无政府主义手册》的信息？

朱厄尔：不，我没有。

肖：但你接受过处置爆炸物的警察培训。

布赖恩特：这个问题我们已经讨论过。

肖：在百年公园施工的时候，你有没有拿走过管件？

朱厄尔：不，我没有。

肖：你有没有在公园里跟谁说过，“现在给我拍张照，因为有一天我会很出名”？

朱厄尔：没有，长官。

（布赖恩特看向他）不，我没有。

肖：确定？

朱厄尔：百分之百确定。

肖：你有没有跟谁说过，你在去亚特兰大的路上，“那里将会一团糟”？

朱厄尔：我指的是交通堵塞。

肖：你要求被派驻在声光塔旁边有什么特别的原因吗？

朱厄尔：我喜欢听音乐。

头一天晚上我还让妈妈去听了肯尼·罗杰斯的演唱会。

而且，那也是看女孩子的好地方。

肖：你和戴维·达切斯不是恋人吗？

布赖恩特：问题已作答。

肖：理查德，你之前说过，爆炸当晚，当你从声光塔走到舞台然后再回去的时候，你不能确定时间。

是这样吗？

朱厄尔：当你拉肚子的时候——不好意思——你不会去想现在几点了。

你只想赶快去洗手间。

肖：所以你不能准确地说出你是在什么时间看到那些醉鬼向声光塔砸啤酒瓶的。

朱厄尔：不能。

肖：以及你最初看到背包是什么时间？

朱厄尔：对。

肖：你以前见过那样的背包吗？

朱厄尔：我想是的。

肖：你以前见过那个背包吗？

布赖恩特：问题已作答。

我们可以继续往下吗？

肖：理查德，你有没有和戴维·达切斯或其他人合谋在百年公园放置炸弹？

朱厄尔垂头。

镜头对准他，推进，他闭上眼睛，这时——闪回，外景，百年公园，声光塔，夜晚他的回忆：爆炸的那一刻。

慢镜头的死亡场景。

格林倒下。

其他警察倒下。

艾丽斯·霍索恩死了。

法伦在尖叫。

鲜血，烟雾……然后——（切回至）内景，联邦调查局外勤局（亚特兰大），会议室，接前景（现在）朱厄尔睁开眼睛。

布赖恩特正要代他回答——朱厄尔：没有。

肖：那你到底是怎么知道要掐着时间到声光塔的后面去以免被爆炸波及的？

朱厄尔被压制得毫无还手之力。

肖恶狠狠地盯着他。

肖：警察都被炸飞了。

我也是其中之一。

你却能毫发无伤地走出来。

这是为什么？

为什么？

如果朱厄尔要崩溃，就该是在这一刻了，然而——朱厄尔：我能问你们一件事吗？

你们有什么对我不利的事实吗？

这让包括布赖恩特和联邦调查局探员在内的所有人都大吃一惊。

但是，是时候向他们说出真相了——朱厄尔：我指的是证据。

我妈妈的保鲜盒里有什么东西吗？

她公寓里有任何制造炸弹的材料吗？

布赖恩特：理查德，你不需要主动说任何事。

让他们提问。

朱厄尔：我曾经认为，联邦执法部门几乎是一个人能够追求的最高目标。

但我不得不说，我不再这么认为了。

在经历了这一切之后。

布赖恩特决定让朱厄尔说下去。

朱厄尔：那天晚上我做了自己的本职工作。

因此有些人现在还活着。

但是下次当有保安在某处看到可疑包裹时，你认为他还会报告吗？

我对此表示怀疑。

他会对自己说，“我不想成为另一个理查德·朱厄尔。

所以我还是逃吧。

”那怎么能让大家更安全呢？

（没有人回答）你们可以一直跟踪我，我想我能忍受。

但你们在我身上花的每一秒都是你们本该花在那个真正做这件事的人身上的时间。

就像沃森说的，如果他再次作案怎么办？

（还是没有人回答）所以，你们打算指控我什么吗？

你们能吗？

事实是什么？

不能。

他们不能。

他们什么证据都没有。

朱厄尔：那我现在要走了。

他站起来，朝门口走去。

布赖恩特露出自豪的微笑。

内景，联邦调查局，电梯，稍后朱厄尔和布赖恩特走进电梯。

门关上了。

布赖恩特充满自豪，几欲流泪。

朱厄尔也是。

内景，联邦调查局外勤局（亚特兰大），会议室，同一时间肖独自坐在那儿。

结束了。

他意识到了这一点。

外景，摩纳哥公寓，博比家的门口，白天（晚些时候）布赖恩特陪朱厄尔走到门口。

敲门。

博比打开门，打量他们的脸色想瞧出点什么迹象。

博比：怎么样？

布赖恩特欲要回答，但是话语却哽在喉间——在言语背后隐藏着一些令人措手不及的情感。

布赖恩特：他做得很好。

博比紧紧拥抱儿子。

布赖恩特露出微笑。

（叠化）内景，咖啡店，早上朱厄尔和布赖恩特坐着，没有吃东西，俩人都很紧张。

大家认出了朱厄尔，但没有人直视他的眼睛。

肖走进咖啡店，目光找到他们，朝他们走来。

肖：先生们。

布赖恩特：肖探员。

肖没有和朱厄尔打招呼致意，他从公文包里取出一封信，递给布赖恩特——布赖恩特：这是什么？

肖点了点头，示意“自己看”。

布赖恩特打开来看。

两段话，开头是：“你的当事人不再是案件调查的嫌疑犯……”布赖恩特：我认为你们应该向所有的主流媒体宣布这个消息——比如汤姆·布罗考之类。

肖：布赖恩特先生，我仍然认为你的当事人有罪。

没有人回答他。

肖离开了。

朱厄尔沉默片刻。

朱厄尔：所以……结束了吗？

真的结束了吗？

布赖恩特：结束了。

你赢了，理查德。

各种滋味一起袭上心头——沉甸甸的。

数月以来的伤害、紧张和忧虑。

朱厄尔竭力忍住不哭，但做不到——他垂下了头。

失控地大声啜泣。

布赖恩特握住他的手。

朱厄尔一直哭泣。

他抓住那封信，把它拽到跟前。

内景，博比的公寓，同一时间博比打开门，看到20个联邦调查局的人站在外面，手里抱着纸箱。

博比：哦。

他们进屋，带着归还给她的东西。

箱子都放到了房间中央。

博比打开一个箱子。

里面都是她的保鲜盒。

每一个上面都用黑色记号笔写着数字。

她叹了口气。

我们看到了挂在墙上的那张肖像照，朱厄尔穿着哈伯沙姆县副警长制服。

（叠化）内景，卢瑟斯维尔警察局，总部，白天（2003年）朱厄尔又穿上了制服——现在是乔治亚州卢瑟斯维尔市的一名警察。

他在桌子旁整理证据。

另一个警察走过来。

另一个警察：我要去吃饭了，理查德。

你要吃什么吗？

朱厄尔：不用。

我带饭了。

谢谢。

另一个警察微笑着走了。

朱厄尔是这里的“一员”。

受人尊重。

这种感觉很好。

他继续工作。

字幕：“理查德·朱厄尔在乔治亚州卢瑟斯维尔警察局任职时表现优异。

“他对皮德蒙特学院、美国全国广播公司、《纽约邮报》和美国有线电视新闻网提起了诉讼——均以庭外和解方式获得了赔偿。

”这时，他抬头看到布赖恩特站在了面前。

朱厄尔：嗨，沃森！

你好吗？

娜佳怎么样？

布赖恩特：他们找到他了，理查德。

（朱厄尔一脸茫然）埃里克·鲁道夫——他刚刚承认在百年公园放置了炸弹。

一阵静默。

大家过了一瞬才有了反应——现在这里每个警察都在看着朱厄尔。

但是朱厄尔没有反应。

一时反应不过来。

朱厄尔：他什么时候被提审？

布赖恩特：我不知道。

朱厄尔：查一下，好吗？

布赖恩特点头。

内景，法院，走廊，白天（2005年）朱厄尔和布赖恩特走出法庭。

透过他们身后的门可以看到一个穿着桔色连体服的男人（埃里克·鲁道夫）正被押走。

字幕：“真正的爆炸犯埃里克·鲁道夫被捕，并因国内恐怖活动罪被判四次终身监禁，其中包括在百年纪念公园制造爆炸事件。

”法庭的门关上了。

布赖恩特和朱厄尔沿着走廊朝出口走去。

字幕：“凯西·斯克鲁格斯死于42岁。

法医无法确认原因是人为还是意外。

一年半后探员汤姆·肖死于心脏病发作，他至死仍然深信理查德·朱厄尔有罪。

”朱厄尔和布赖恩特进了电梯。

内景，联邦法院，电梯，片刻之后朱厄尔和布赖恩特静静地下行，直到——朱厄尔：哦。

差点忘了。

这是给你的。

朱厄尔递给布赖恩特一个信封。

布赖恩特：是什么？

朱厄尔耸了耸肩，示意“打开吧”。

布赖恩特打开信封。

里面是一张100美元的钞票。

布赖恩特笑了。

朱厄尔：还清了吧？

布赖恩特点点头，欢喜之情溢于言表。

但就在这时——电梯在8楼停了下来，一个男人走进电梯。

姑且叫他乔吧。

电梯门关闭。

电梯静静地下行。

但是——乔皱着眉头。

他确认自己在哪儿见过朱厄尔。

只是不知道究竟在哪里。

这让他感到困扰。

朱厄尔和布赖恩特已经有过无数次这样的经历了。

一如既往令人厌烦。

但他们没有理会。

我们可以感觉到乔在绞尽脑汁回忆——我以前在哪里见过这家伙的脸？

但他想不起来。

电梯停在2楼。

乔终于出了电梯。

然后，正当门要关上时，他眼睛一亮。

想起来了。

他转向朱厄尔，兴奋不已。

乔：我想起来了！

你是那个奥运炸弹袭击者。

这句话让朱厄尔和布赖恩特脸色一变——感觉到这事永远不会结束，至少不会真正地结束。

朱厄尔深深知道这一点。

门关上的时候，只听——沃森：不，他是英雄。

仿佛他要永远为他辩护下去。

尾声字幕：“2007年，在理查德·朱厄尔对《亚特兰大宪法报》提起诉讼的第11年，他死于心脏衰竭，终年44岁。

“5个月后，诉讼被驳回。

”（淡出，完）注释：注1：贝纳通为意大利服饰品牌，以鲜艳、丰富的色彩为特点。

“全色彩的贝纳通”是其广告语。

——译者PS：该剧本根据玛丽·布伦纳的《美国噩梦：理查德·朱厄尔的哀歌》一文和肯特·亚历山大、凯文·萨尔文合著之《嫌疑犯》一书改编而成。

——编者