by Martha Carr
About ten yards away, Mia heard a voice she recognized. Anderson Cooper, the CNN anchor. But he wasn’t there. Someone was live-streaming CNN on their phone, projecting the sound through a large bluetooth speaker.
“And as of now we have no information how, or whether, the apparent suicide at Pike Place Market is connected to the letter received by the Seattle media a week ago today or the note found in Green Lake about an hour ago. It certainly seems to be, but CNN has not independently confirmed that at this time. Wait...CNN is now receiving confirmation that the body found at Pike Place Market is that of Richard Doggson of Q13 Fox News out of Seattle. Doggson, I’m being told, was a beloved local news anchor and former player for the Seattle Seahawks. And I’m also being told...I’m being told that there is a live broadcast occurring right now from someone claiming to be the man who sent the note. We’ll see if we can get you more on that...”
Mia tuned him out and let her eyes move slowly across the crowd. The scene was surreal. The sky was almost black, so the street lamps lining the path around Green Lake had come on, the only other light coming from the cell phones shining into people’s faces as they scrolled Twitter and Facebook for clues.
But nothing was happening.
Mia pulled out her phone and scrolled through Twitter. #GreenLakeBones was trending, and everyone seemed to be talking about a new video that was related to the case. Then she saw his name. Kamal Nassar. Then photos of him, notes about his background. Then she saw the video everyone was talking about. It was just a few seconds, a clip. She pressed play and leaned in so her eyes were just a few inches from the screen.
The shot was Nassar’s head, a closeup against a plain black background. He looked older than in the photos she’d just scrolled through online. He had large wrinkles under his eyes and his hair was speckled with grey.
“One journalist is dead already. One more will die if all local and national networks do not cease broadcasting by nine p.m. pacific time. I am—”
The clip ended and Mia scrolled until she found a link. She clicked and it led to MediaMistakes.Net, one of Nassar’s sites. On the homepage, a video stream began playing after a few seconds of buffering. Again, it was Nassar. The clip she’d just watched had clearly been pulled from the livestream.
Nassar spoke in a deep voice, like a tired old professor, with only a slight trace of the Egyptian accent of his youth. “In America, innocents are routinely executed by the media. Not their bodies, but their privacy, their reputations, their dignity. And it’s not just those with skin the same color as me, though these days we are quick to be targeted. I’ve been talking about this in public for over twenty years, and it’s only gotten worse.
“Three weeks ago, Richard Doggson referred to me in an offhand comment on the five o’clock news. When discussing a tragic double murder of two teenaged girls that took place in downtown Seattle, he said, ‘The killing has echoes of the 1993 triple murder in Bellevue, the Kamal Nassar incident.’ Even after twenty-five years, he couldn’t get the facts straight.
“Today, I take vengeance. Not just for myself, but for all others whose lives have been ruined by the false stories and outright lies perpetuated by a ravenous press only out for profit.”
The feed went black. Mia shook her phone, then held it above her head, trying to get a signal while walking away from the lake.
The video restarted suddenly as she neared the street.
“There are bones in Green Lake, but not those of D.B. Cooper. I used his name to get your attention. The bones you will find are those of Benny Doggson, the twelve-year-old son of your beloved Rich Dog. Why did I kill Benny? It was the only way I could convince Richard to jump. I told him I would spare his second son if he jumped, and I am a man of my word. Theo Doggson will be released when this is over. And, despite the fact that his body is being scraped off the sidewalk right now, you will hear from Rich Dog again.
“By nine p.m., which is seventeen minutes from now, every news station in the country must go black, or another body will emerge.”
The screen went black and Mia scrolled down the page, where she saw another live feed plus a bunch of clips. She desperately wanted to find out who the other journalist was. She clicked on one of the clips at random, and, right away, the air left her chest.
It was a shot of Green Lake, from high above, zooming in on the boat, on Gabriela Verduna. It was a shot from the drone, but the sound was coming from the voice of Nassar.
“Look at this. Your disgusting reporters fly from story to story, looking for the next body, the next scandal, the next human being to turn into a villain. And when he turns out not to be a villain, you issue a quiet retraction and move on. Look at her, a woman raised with dignity by her parents, water soaking her thousand-dollar pantsuit, splashing around for the bones of a guy who stole $200,000 forty years ago. By the way, did you know that you only call him D.B. Cooper because a journalist made a mistake and it stuck?”
The clip ended, and Mia was about to go to the next one when she heard it.
The drone, coming from the east.
Before she thought about what she was doing, she took off, shoving through the crowd that was now blocking the street. By the time she made it to the edge of the crowd, she was in a full sprint toward the faint buzzing.
As she ran, the drone passed over her head and she refreshed the page. The livestream was no longer loading, but, as she scrolled down, she could see at least a dozen more videos, some of which she recognized from the thumbnails: a shot from above the crowd at Pike Place Market. A shot of Richard Doggson, standing on the balcony of the building. One of a black boy of eleven or twelve. One of Doggson’s sons, she assumed.
She dialed Alex, who picked up after one ring.
“Mia, what’s going on? Where are you?”
“I’m back at Green Lake. What are they saying on TV?”
“That Nassar has issued an ultimatum. All the news networks go black at nine p.m. or he kills his hostage?”
“Who is it?”
“You didn’t hear yet. Oh, hell.”
“Alex, what?”
“It’s Wendy Chen.”
The phone dropped from Mia’s ear. Wendy Chen was an old friend. In fact, Mia had gotten her a job blogging for The Barker four years earlier. She’d since moved on to The Stranger, Seattle’s legendary free weekly newspaper, where she was a senior editor.
“Mia, are you there?” Alex was shouting.
“Barely. What else are they saying?” Mia managed, pulling the phone away from her face and looking at the time. It was 8:50.
“They say that Wendy disappeared this morning on her way to work, and they have confirmed that Nassar has her. Took her this morning, just after taking Doggson’s kids.”
“Are they going off air? He will kill her. Are they going to do it?”
“They don’t know. CNN and Fox News have both announced that their owners are on a conference call with the FBI. That was just a few minutes ago. Bird also got it from a source in the SPD that they’re already at Nassar’s apartment and there’s no sign of him.”
“Text me every two minutes until nine o’clock, okay?”
“Fine, but what are you going to do?”
Mia didn’t reply because she was already stowing her phone in the back pocket of her jeans. She scanned the streets, which were illuminated by neighborhood street lamps.
She figured that Nassar was still controlling the drone, which meant that he was somewhere in the area. When she’d first seen the drone, she hadn’t noticed him. But then again, that didn’t mean much as he could have been anywhere within a few blocks. At Pike Place Market, he’d had to get closer to the scene because of all the buildings.
But now he was broadcasting live, and the sound quality, plus the unmoving black background, made her think he was either in an apartment or a vehicle. If he was in an apartment, she had no chance of finding him. A car was more likely, and, if he had hostages, a van was most likely.
Sh
e took off down Chapin Place, ran for a block, then turned left twice, sprinting back toward the lake on Sunnyside. She repeated this on Second Avenue, Latona Avenue, all the way to Fifth Avenue. Nothing.
It was hopeless, and she didn’t even know what she was looking for.
She checked the clock on her phone. 8:58 p.m.. She was out of breath and out of time.
Either the networks would go black in two minutes, or Wendy would be killed. She walked slowly along East Green Lake Avenue as she opened her CNN App. After a minute or so of buffering, Anderson Cooper appeared on her screen.
“At the request of the FBI, CNN has decided to suspend programming. This decision was not made lightly, and it was made in conjunction with the owners of the other major news networks, as well as the chairman of ABC, NBC, and Fox, who will compel their affiliates to suspend local programming. This is an unprecedented event in American history, and one we take part in reluctantly. But the life of a colleague, Wendy Chen, is at stake. And, possibly that of a young boy, the son of ‘Rich Dog’ Doggson. I assure, you, we will—”
The feed went black suddenly. It was nine o’clock.
From where she was, Mia could still hear the drone. She followed the sound with her eyes to the center of the lake, where it was hovering just about fifty feet off the water. The crowd had tripled in size while she was away. Thousands of people now surrounded the lake, watching as three small police boats searched the water.
Not knowing what else to do, she opened Nassar’s page again. The live stream was back on.
“Now,” Nassar was saying, “all TV news will remain dark until apologies have been prepared for the following people. Jacob Horowitz, who was accused of killing his wife and destroyed by the media before the case against him was dropped. Yolanda Pue, who was accused of drowning her three-year-old son. Eventually, the babysitter confessed. Stanley—”
Nassar stopped speaking suddenly as a high-pitched scream broke through the feed. He turned around and swung violently. “Shut up,” he barked, then turned back to the camera.
The scream was still echoing in Mia’s ears when she realized she hadn’t just heard it through her phone. She’d heard from behind her, in the real world. Mia lowered the phone, eyes darting from from car to car.
Nassar started speaking again. “Yes, that was Wendy Chen. She is still alive, because the TV stations did as I demanded. And, she’ll remain alive if they follow the rest of my demands. Next on the list: Stanley McGuire, a dentist accused of collecting child pornography, whose reputation and career were destroyed before his ex-wife admitted to framing him.”
Mia spotted a dark van half a block away, on the opposite side of the street, and put the phone in her back pocket as she approached. She’d left the stream running, so she could still hear Nassar’s voice, faintly.
“Jamal Mohammed, a Kirkland High School senior who committed suicide six months after being falsely identified as the perpetrator of the tragic shooting at the school last year.”
The front window of the van faced the lake, and Mia assumed that, if he was inside, Nassar was in the front seat, controlling the drone. Still on the opposite side of the street, she passed the van, glancing casually through the window. All she could see was shadow.
She walked about a hundred feet past the van, then ducked behind a tree and texted Alex.
Mia: I think I’ve found Kamal Nassar. Corliss Ave. 2 blocks south of NE 65th. Call the police right now.
Full of fear, she crossed the street and crept up behind the van, listening intently. But she heard nothing.
The van was unmarked and, though it had appeared black from far away, now looked maroon in the light of a streetlamp about ten feet away. The lamp lit the back half of the van, and Mia moved through it quickly and crept into a shadow by the street-side back tire.
Her phone chirped. A new text.
Mia cursed under her breath as she reached into her pocket. She thought she’d silenced it.
The screen was still bright with a new message.
Alex: Bird calling police now. CBS affiliate in Tacoma just broke the blackout. They’re live.
Still kneeling by the tire, she texted back.
Mia: How long ago?
Alex: 3 minutes.
If Nassar was in the van, and if he heard, he’d kill Wendy. Mia was sure of it.
She figured that police would be there within minutes, since they were all over Green Lake.
She glanced around the van, and saw that the best view of the lake from the van would be from the driver side. Assuming Nassar was there, she slithered around the passenger side on her belly, right up to the large sliding door. Next, she pulled out her phone and opened Nassar’s live stream, silencing the phone before the audio kicked on. He was still speaking, so Mia figured he’d be at least somewhat distracted.
Figuring it was locked, or possibly even bolted, from the inside, she gave the door a tiny tap, quiet enough, she hoped, to be heard from the back section of the van only.
She waited, staring at her phone to see if Nassar reacted.
When he didn’t, she tapped again, slightly louder this time.
On her phone, Nassar tilted his head back slightly, but kept speaking.
She turned up the volume a couple notches and pressed the phone to her ear.
“It never should have come to this,” Nassar was saying. “If the media would just act more responsibly—”
He stopped speaking suddenly, and looked into the back seat. “What was that?”
Suddenly, he disappeared from view and Mia heard the driver’s side door open. Still crouching on the opposite side of the van, Mia put her phone in her back pocket. Had he seen her? The van was large and she didn’t think he could have, but maybe he’d heard the phone, or the tapping. Or both.
“Who’s there?” he barked.
Mia dropped onto her belly and peered under the van. All she could see were the tips of his brown oxford shoes.
She heard sirens in the distance, growing louder.
Nassar stepped toward the front of the van, and Mia slithered underneath it. As he made his way around the front, she slid to the center of the van, then out the other side. By the time Nassar was on the passenger side, she’d sprung up and gotten into the open driver’s side door.
“Hey!”
Nassar had seen her, but she was already slamming the door and locking it. After a quick look into the back, where Wendy Chen and Theo Doggson were tied to their seats, she turned the key, which was in the ignition. The van sputtered for a second, but started.
Nassar tried to open the back door, then banged on it, then ran to the front in front of the van, attempting to get to Mia’s side. Just as he passed in front of the van, she floored it, clipping his leg and knocking him back. That’s when she saw the gun fly out of his hand and into the road.
He crawled after it as Mia threw the van into reverse.
He was in the middle of the narrow street now, reaching for the gun. She’d have to run him over to get away.
Then she saw the lights. Two police cars had turned onto the street and were speeding straight at Nassar.
He reached for the gun, and Mia dropped to the floor and crawled into the back seat. She threw her body between Wendy and Theo, covering them as much as she could, just as a booming voice came through a megaphone. “Stay on the ground. Hands up.”
Two hours later—after Kamal Nassar had been arrested and the paramedics had taken Theo Doggson and Wendy Chen to the hospital to treat superficial injuries—Mia walked home.
The pre-death video of ‘Rich Dog’ Doggson was going viral, and Mia opened it as soon as she stepped into her apartment. The video started with Doggson’s face, shaking and glancing to his left. He looked terrified, and Mia assumed that Nassar had been just off camera, likely pointing a gun at his head and threatening him with the impossible choice. Record this video, or your only remaining son dies.
Kill yourself, or your son dies.
Just as Do
ggson began speaking, she closed the video. She wasn’t going to watch it, not ever.
She knew that Alex and Bird would be up half the night, creating a multi-media story and pushing millions of ad views based on Doggson’s video, along with all of Nassar’s videos. They’d dive into his story, just as he predicted they would. And it made her sick.
She wouldn’t be responding to any of the reporters calling and texting her. At least not tonight. She wouldn’t be texting Alex any more photos, or answering his requests to do a Facebook Live chat about her ordeal. Not tonight, anyway. And maybe never.
Even though his actions had been wicked, and she felt no sympathy for him, Nassar had made a few good points about the media. For now, she was going to go quiet, maybe take a few days off work.
Mia powered down her phone. She had a lot to think about but, for the moment, she had macaroni and cheese to heat up.
About A.C. Fuller
Want more Mia Rhodes? She now has her own series: Ameritocracy. Start the series here: My Book
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Who is A.C. Fuller?
Once a journalist in New York, A.C. Fuller now writes stories at the intersection of media, politics, and technology. Before he began writing full time, he was an adjunct professor of journalism at NYU and an English teacher at Northwest Indian College. He now lives with his wife, two children, and two dogs near Seattle.