by Fritz Galt
“They’re only two strong and currently waiting for an elevator.”
Tucker leaned back in his seat. “Let him go,” he said quietly.
“What’s that, sir?” his assistant turned to look at him.
“Don’t make me repeat myself. Let the bastard go.”
“Right, sir.” The assistant whispered into his microphone, “Joey, let the bastard go.”
“Whadd’ya mean, ‘Let him go’?” Joe Putter whispered harshly. “It’s not like we’re cornering him. He’s got the gun and he’s just sitting there catching his breath or something. We’re two floors below him.”
“Okay, I’ll alert the guards on the roof.”
A female voice announced mechanically over the headsets, “Fifteen seconds.”
“We’ll open with Joey on the suspect,” Tucker said. “Do we have a door opening or not?”
“Working on it.”
“Ten seconds.”
Andrea and Jim squared their shoulders, took deep breaths and exercised their facial muscles.
“Don’t open it yet,” Tucker whispered. “We need the intro first.”
“Five seconds.”
“The guard’s in position,” his assistant said.
“Keep your shirts on,” Tucker said. “I’ll cue him.”
The “Pursuit in Atlanta” music, a new theme song improvised over the commercial break, began as a spine tingling synthesized violin tremolo.
Tucker stood up. “Action.”
An overhead camera with a wide-angle lens moved in from an establishing shot of the semi-lit newsroom and captured the two silhouetted anchors at their preposterously large desk in the foreground.
“I want a whisper, Andrea,” Tucker ordered in a hushed tone. “Get ready Camera A. Bring the lights up. Okay, A.”
Studio lights heated up and a ground-level camera rolled up to Andrea, whose cheeks had begun to glisten from the lack of air conditioning. The TPT mounted on a two-way mirror over the camera lens began to scroll words for her to read.
“Welcome back to our continuing coverage of a breaking news story, that quite frankly, has all of us a bit jittery. An unidentified male Middle Eastern gunman is holding the entire CNN Center in Atlanta hostage, including us at this very moment. We now go live to somewhere near the roof of CNN Center. Jim, can you make out the image?”
“Joey, get ready,” Tucker cued. “Camera on Joey.”
The television screen blinked to near black.
“Get ready, guard,” Tucker said. “Okay guard, open the door.”
A door slowly opened at the top of what appeared to be an emergency stairwell.
For a moment, blinding circles of light swirled around two hundred million television screens around the world. A figure stood and sprinted out of sight. The camera wobbled, then followed.
“Jim, I see we have some movement in our story,” Andrea said. “Can you make out what’s happening?”
“Someone opened—” Jim clasped a hand to his ear piece. “The gunman has jimmied open the emergency exit onto the roof. There we have it. You can see our view from the CNN rooftop. That’s lovely downtown Atlanta and Olympic Centennial Park below the building.”
“Stop the travelogue,” Tucker said between his teeth.
The camera captured a fleeting image of the figure disappearing behind a satellite dish.
“It appears that the gunman is crossing the roof to another stairwell,” Jim’s voiceover intoned.
“Damn it,” Tucker shouted. “Get another camera up there quick. Get a helicopter, anything. We keep losing the action.”
“All we have are studio cameras, sir. And those are mostly robotic.”
“Well, rip out a manual studio camera. Studio A, Camera B, we need a close-up of Andrea. Pick up her sweat. That’s it. Okay Camera B.”
Andrea looked up from her desktop TV monitor, shuffled several sheets of blank paper, resisted the temptation to stem a trickle of sweat seeping from her hairline and flashed her alert blue eyes upward at the camera.
“We are currently attempting to bring you continuous live coverage of the pursuit,” she said, and suddenly shouted, “Hey, that’s my camera.”
The image of the anchorwoman rising to her feet tilted crazily and then swung around, revealing a room full of cameras and technicians with bulging headsets.
Like a dream sequence, the live image drifted out of the studio and captured a guard holding the door open.
“Okay, we’ve only got cameras A, C and D, now,” the assistant said.
“Take them off of Andrea,” Tucker said, sinking in his chair. “Cut to a friggin’ commercial.”
Bronson tore his horrified attention away from his office’s communal TV set long enough to ask his secretary to get Vic Padesco on the line.
“Vic, do you have CNN on?” he asked into the phone.
“No. Why?”
“Looks like a security situation in Atlanta. A terrorist has infiltrated CNN Center.”
“Holy anchorman.”
“I have a call in to the FBI, but they appear too busy right now trying to capture the guy.”
Vic took over the situation. “Soon as we have him captured, I want his identity, his nationality, his affiliations, his mission and an official statement for the White House spokesman. Then we want your report on it at our counter-terrorism staff meeting this afternoon.”
“Gee, sure, Vic.”
“I don’t see anything on CNN right now. Are you sure you’ve got the story right? They’re selling a magic cooking pan.”
“Let’s just wait and watch.”
Jim Rider gave one of his trademark cockeyed grins and blinked innocently at the camera. “We now take you live to our affiliate station in Atlanta, where Katie Templeton is standing by with the latest from police headquarters. Katie, what can you tell us so far?”
“Jim, we’ve just received word from police headquarters here in downtown Atlanta that the FBI has dispatched a special S.W.A.T. force to CNN Center in order to apprehend the suspect currently on the loose. In the meantime, police are advising citizens to leave the studio complex at once, as the suspect is considered armed and dangerous. Jim?”
“Thank you, Katie. You have just heard from Katie Templeton at—” His words were momentarily drowned out by the sound of pounding feet. “—that a S.W.A.T. team is on its way here to our studios.”
“Has Andrea gotten herself together yet?” Tucker asked.
“Yep, she’s still pissed off at us jerking her camera away, but she’ll survive.”
“Okay. Camera C close-up on Andrea.”
Jim looked off camera and returned to the television audience with his grin.
“Andrea, do you have any commentary on the terrorist situation here in our studios?”
“Okay, Camera C.”
Andrea smiled benignly at the camera and chewed her tongue as if mulling over a few choice words. At last, she tucked a loose strand of hair behind an ear and said evenly, “It, of course, is a desperate situation for all of us involved. Are you holding up, Jim?”
“Yes, Andrea. And we will continue to broadcast this breaking story as long as we can hold out.”
“That’s right, Jim. We now turn to the international division of CNN for thoughts from our commentators there. Puticha, I understand that the gunman who is at large in this very building where you and I both sit is thought to be Middle Eastern. Do you have any details on his nationality or his particular cause?”
“I hate this. I hate this. I hate this,” Tucker said, standing once again. “I want the damned fool on camera.”
“Wait,” his assistant said, cupping a hand over one earphone. “We’ve got him live in Weather.”
“Great. Switch to Weather. I don’t care what the camera’s pointing at.”
The control monitor switched from a banal, if strained conversation between the domestic and international anchors to a female figure leaping back and forth before a map showing cyclone clouds over
Australia.
Tucker tried to make out what the woman was trying to convey. She was a temporary meteorologist from Cincinnati that they were trying out, but her movements seemed too exaggerated, even for a weather anchor. Then he saw a face bobbing around Queensland and a gun thrust forward near Perth. The woman jumped across the map and the face swung behind her and reemerged just west of Darwin. The gun, held by a dark, disembodied fist poked into her ribs.
“Sound. Sound,” Tucker shouted.
A sound boom swung wildly over their heads and picked up her shrieking. “Let me go. I have a husband and kids. I didn’t do anything to harm you.”
For the first time, the world heard the gunman’s voice. “You have harmed the people of Kashmir,” he said in heavily accented English. “You have denied them their personal freedom.”
“Kashmir, Kashmir,” Tucker said. “Dig me up something on Kashmir.”
His assistant keyed a query into his BASYS terminal that was connected to news wire services, research databanks and interoffice e-mail. Then he sat back and waited for the results.
Tucker looked at the screen. “What is this? A farce?”
His assistant said, “He’s in front of the blue Chroma-Key background. He must be wearing a blue outfit. All we can see are his face and his hands and his gun.”
The meteorologist and the head and the pistol continued to jump back and forth across the screen.
“Nobody wears royal blue in the Weather Studio. This looks like Salvador Dali gone mad.”
“Here are some results, sir.”
“Good, speak into her ear piece. Feed her some lines.”
“Okay, here goes, sir. Holly, can you hear me? If so, nod your head.”
The two men watched Holly trying to arch away from the gun at her nose while she nodded her head.
“Tell him that you understand that Kashmir has been seeking its own autonomy.”
The words spilled naturally from her mouth. “I know that your people have been seeking their own autonomy. It’s a shame that the British Raj handed Kashmir over to the Hindu warlord Gulab Singh of Jammu in the year 1846. Upon India’s independence from Britain and Pakistan’s secession in 1947, it’s inexcusable that Lord Mountbatten allowed Kashmir to remain in India’s hands.”
The gun waved back and forth before her face. The floating head drew closer to her out of curiosity.
She continued, her voice squeaking out the words. “Thousands of civilians die each year in cross-border fighting and terrorist attacks in the beleaguered state.”
“Fraud,” the face accused her. “Where is your news show?”
She pointed across the room toward Headline News. The gunman turned and ran off stage.
A drained meteorologist stared at the camera. “Join us in half an hour for our next weather update.”
“Sign her up,” Tucker said. Then he looked across Studio A and saw the gunman run out of the Weather Studio. “He’s heading for Headline News,” he shouted into his microphone.
“I’ll pick up the story from here,” came a calm voice. It was the director of Headline News.
“Not on your life,” Tucker said. “This is my story.”
To his horror, he watched the control monitor switch to the Headline News studio where the anchor, a middle-aged man with stylized hair and a great physique waited patiently.
“We welcome you if you have just joined us. We are coming to you live from Headline News where we expect the lone gunman to join us at any moment. If he is interested, we are prepared to ask him a series of questions, on camera, in order for him to air his concerns publicly.”
He got no further in his text.
A team of men in blue uniforms dropped out of the overhead lights onto the stage around him. Combat boots smashed through the monitor just under the surface of his desk. Assault rifles pointed outward from a circle of soldiers who peered under blue visors into the studio lights.
Nothing happened.
“Jesus, where is this guy?” the Headline News director asked over the communications link with other studios.
“We’ve got him over here,” a pleased voice said from CNN International.
The monitor instantly switched to a live shot of the CNNI anchor, Puticha Krynzckova, flinching before an abstract blue and white world map as bullet holes suddenly riddled Alaska, Vietnam and Scotland.
“Damn it,” Tucker said, yanking off his headset. “This is a complete disaster.” He rushed out of the Studio A control room.
Moments later, his assistant raised an eyebrow as he watched the live camera broadcasting an image of Tucker around the world.
Tucker rushed on stage toward the CNN International anchor desk just as another shot rang out.
Before Tucker could jump on top of her, Puticha screamed and fell off her chair behind her desk.
Tucker landed on an empty desk.
The gunman heaved himself up on stage and pinned Tucker’s throat under his elbow.
Then he swung and pointed his gun at the camera. The image jerked temporarily, then stabilized on the young man’s flushed and perspiring face.
Puticha pulled on top of Tucker and threw a bloody thigh over his wrinkled pants.
“Lock the doors,” the big, clean-shaven gunman ordered.
Locks clicked around the inside of the studio.
“Am I live?” he shouted.
Lying on his back, Tucker pointed to the illuminated red light atop one of the cameras.
Puticha neatly unclipped her microphone and pinned it on Tucker’s collar. “He’s all yours, baby,” she said, and slipped from view once more.
The gunman grabbed Tucker by the tie and sat him up on the edge of the desk. Studio cameras jerkily pulled back to get a better angle on the two men.
“Now, tell me exactly what you’re demanding,” Tucker said, trying to take control of the situation.
“I’m demanding independence for the people of Kashmir,” he shouted defiantly.
“And how will holding CNN staff hostage advance your cause?” Tucker asked.
As if a puzzle piece suddenly locked into place, his eyes lit up with understanding. “This is CNN?”
“You’re at CNN International.”
A broad smile spread across the terrorist’s lips as he looked into the camera. He seemed just about to do a “Hi, Mom” thing.
“Who do you work for?” Tucker shot out. “Osama bin Laden?”
“Osama bin Laden,” the terrorist repeated under his breath.
“Please speak up. What is your mission here in the United States of America?”
The gunman turned to him with annoyance. Then he straightened up for a speech. “I cannot divulge that. However, for all your viewers out there in Television Land, if someone wishes to contact me, I can give them vital information about our cause. Can we set up a Q&A with Riz Khan right away?” The young man looked around the studio.
Tucker shook his head. “Not during this particular time slot,” he said. Grasping at a way to quickly dramatize the subject, he said, “Are you claiming political asylum?”
The gunman looked at him as if he were nuts. Then a final missing piece clicked into place. “Yes. That’s right. I am claiming asylum from political persecution in my homeland.”
Tucker reached out a hand, and the gunman reluctantly handed his pistol over to him.
Tucker beamed at some point behind the nearest camera, and said, “Okay boys, he’s all yours.”
Two men in blue S.W.A.T. uniforms grimly approached the terrorist, and a police officer slapped on the cuffs.
Tucker positioned the foursome to face the camera as the policeman mumbled the man’s Miranda rights.
Grinning obtusely at the wrong camera, the young man looked triumphant.
“Okay, Bronson, who is this guy?” Vic Padesco demanded, pacing the floor of his cramped office in the West Wing of the White House.
“I don’t know,” Bronson replied slowly. “But I might know someone who does.”
“The guy says he’s from Kashmir.”
“That’s right,” Bronson replied. “I’m suspicious that he’s part of the malaria thing in India.”
Vic came to an abrupt halt halfway across his office. “I don’t see how. He seemed on a suicide mission to me. Disrupt CNN and get some publicity. Let’s see what the FBI comes up with after an interrogation.” He resumed his restless stride.
“I’ll also look into it.”
“Yeah, use your international connections.” Vic began to organize his thoughts about the official Washington reaction to the incident. “What d’you think of that television director capturing the terrorist before the cameras?”
“Sign him up for the next State of the Union address. We could use a few more like him.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Vic said, stroking his chin. “I think we’ve only just seen the tip of the iceberg here. Our country’s in for a long, very ugly struggle. This is a new breed of enemy for us, and quite frankly, our country is vulnerable to attack from extremists, just like it is vulnerable to drugs. Our borders aren’t sealed tight. We have no systematic way of tracking people within our country. And our national assets are lined up like ducks in a shooting gallery.”
Bronson sounded weak on the end of the line. “Let’s just hope some people are doing what we pay them to do.”
From the CDC lounge, Natalie placed a call to the regional FBI headquarters in Atlanta. A harried female receptionist answered.
Natalie knew that getting an interview to discuss the missing malaria researcher Dr. Rajiv Khan would be tough. She needed to use an angle that was relevant to the day’s top story. She licked her lips and dove in with her pitch. “I might have valuable information about the terrorist you apprehended today.”
“Thank you, ma’am, but it may have to wait. We’ve had dozens of calls already.”
“I’m with the State Department.”
“And what state is that, honey?”
“The United States.”
“Oh, that state department,” the receptionist said uncertainly. “Well, I’ll pencil you in to meet with one of our investigators tomorrow morning at ten.”