Terminal Transmission td-93

by Warren Murphy

  "Is there a problem?" he asked a passing clerk. People had been racing by him for the last last five minutes, howling and frantic, and Dieter Banning thought their stark faces looked more drained of blood than usual. They were often that way, these Americans. Temperamentally unable to handle the pressure of daily news gathering. Here it was nearly noon, and Dieter Banning had already written his five-line lead for the 6:30 feed. He was quite proud of it. The prose almost scanned.

  "We're under attack!"

  "Oh, don't be so bloody melodramatic," Banning rejoined. "So, Middle America is bereft of a few lame game shows and downmarket tabloid programs and soap operas. The world still spins on its axis, eh?"

  "You don't understand. Two security guards are dead! And an FBI SWAT team has been called in."

  Dieter Banning blinked, and stood up, his face paling. His legs, under his kilt, paled too.

  "Attack! By whom?"

  "No one knows."

  "We are a news gathering organization. Shouldn't someone know by now?"

  Then a voice shouted, "Here he comes!"

  ANC security was provided by Purolator guards. The marble lobby was usually thick with them, day and night. A nightly newscast was a convenient target for any desperate attention-seeking person with the firepower to bluff his way to the anchor desk. It had happened. Not at ANC, but at other networks and not a few local stations.

  There were contingency measures in place if a terrorist or other criminal attempted to hijack Worldly News Nitely.

  The first was simple: Shoot the terrorist dead. Dead terrorists don't commit much mischief, and rarely sued.

  Obviously, this terrorist was resisting being shot. Pity.

  The second line of defense was to go black. There was a master switch that would shut down all transmissions, both broadcast and cable, and replace it with a technical difficulties sign. This would buy time for negotiations, not to mention insuring that ANC got the exclusive footage.

  Here at least, luck was with ANC. They were already black.

  The third contingency plan was to go to the bunker. The ANC studios were a designated community fallout shelter, and the basement was well stocked with provisions in the now-unlikely event of a thermonuclear exchange. It boasted a door that could have been hung on a bank vault.

  It's clearly time, Dieter Banning decided as security guards began giving back, firing wildly, before the unseen intruder, to seek out the bunker.

  "Excuse me," he asked a cowering intern, "which way to the bunker?"

  The cowering intern said nothing. Possibly the gunfire was drowning out his inquiry, so Dieter Banning restated the question in his brand of perfectly enunciated Americanized English.

  "Excuse me you stupid bitch, but where the hell can I find the fucking bunker!"

  The woman burst into tears and pointed toward a fire door. "Follow the yellow arrow," she sobbed.

  "Thank you," said Banning, hurriedly exiting the newsroom. He found the yellow arrow, which led to another yellow arrow, which pointed down a seldom-used flight of steps. At the bottom of the steps there was another fire door.

  Dieter Banning almost lost his kilt at the door. The kilt pin snagged the latchbar. He pulled free and went on. It was one of the biggest secrets in the news industry that the ANC anchor desk hid the clan tartan worn by the male Bannings of Ottowa since they came to the New World in 1853.

  The bunker was around the first bend in the corridor, a yawning cavern of stainless steel and whitepainted brick.

  It was empty, so Banning stepped over the sill and pulled the ponderous door behind him.

  It was quite dark, but after a moment's fumbling he found a light switch.

  Outside, someone was pounding on the door.

  Banning gave the wheel a spin, securing the door from intruders. To be polite, Banning called through the door.

  "Yes. Who is it please?"

  "Ned Doppler. That you, Dieter?"

  "Do you have bunker privileges, Ned?"

  "It's in my contract."

  "Got it on you?"

  "No."

  "Then you cannot easily slip it under the door, can you?"

  "Dieter, you sissy prick! Open this door. It's a slaughterhouse up there."

  "If it becomes a slaughterhouse down here, you will give a yell, won't you?"

  Then another voice came through the door, high, ringing, angry.

  "I seek the fiend who calls himself Dieter Banning."

  "Here's in there," Ned Doppler said instantly.

  Banning snarled, "Traitor!"

  "Why don't I leave you two alone?" added Doppler, his footsteps going away.

  "I think it only fair to warn you," Dieter Banning called to the person outside the vault door, "I have no intentions of coming out."

  "In that case," the voice replied coldly, "I am coming in."

  Dieter Banning gave a little laugh. It sounded so hollow in the great vault he got a little worried in the silence that followed the last lingering echo.

  The next sound brought Banning's manicured hands clapping over his ears.

  They were shrieks, howls and other sounds. Metallic sounds. Human beings weren't making them. Machines were. They must be. But what kind of machine sounded like an ocean liner going through a Veg-o-matic?

  When the great door showed cracks of lights around the rounded seams where it met the door casing, Dieter Banning knew the sound was that of the bunker door being breached.

  Then the vault door fell and the gaping hole framed the sight of the person who wanted Dieter Banning so badly he had blown through ANC like a frenzied tornado.

  A tiny Asian man with fingernails like talons.

  "You will reveal the truth about Cheeta Ching," the attacker told Dieter Banning, "or you will die on the spot where you stand!"

  "Glad to. Cheeta Ching is in collusion with her husband to delay the baby until sweeps month. I plan on breaking the story the day she gives birth."

  The tiny Asian's facial wrinkles compressed in stages, like a mainspring being wound to the snapping point.

  Then, the mainspring sprung.

  "Oh, bugger," Dieter Banning muttered, "I'm fucked."

  And he felt a sudden hot weight in the seat of his pants that he couldn't explain unless-ridiculous thought he had lost all bowel control.

  Chapter 21

  Harold W. Smith returned to his office exactly thirty minutes after he left it.

  "He's still here, Dr. Smith," said Smith's secretary.

  "Thank you, Mrs. Mikulka."

  Frowning, Harold Smith entered his office. He disliked leaving it alone, but he felt confident that the cable installer would come across nothing untoward. The only unusual items in the entire office were the red telephone, safely locked in a drawer, and the CURE terminal, which Smith had sent slipping into its secret desktop reservoir.

  Smith stepped into the room to find it unoccupied.

  "My God!" he said hoarsely.

  A waving hand lifted a screwdriver above the level of his desk.

  "Be done in a second," a disembodied voice said.

  Smith came around the desk and peered into the foot well. There, the installer was on his hands and knees, tacking the cable down with a staple gun.

  "Is there a problem?" Smith asked.

  "Naw. Usually, people put their TVs against an outside wall and it's just a matter of plugging her in. I didn't think you'd want a loose cable at your feet so I'm tacking it down. That's okay, isn't it?"

  "That will be fine," said Smith. Hovering over the man, he felt awkward. His chair had been pushed off to one side. Unable to sit at his own desk, he stood with his gangling hands hanging loose-fingered out of his coat sleeves.

  Presently, the repairman stood up and reached for the tiny TV set on Harold Smith's desk.

  "Let's see how she fires up," he said, hitting the on switch of a cable box that perched atop the too-small set like a pit bull on a possum.

  The screen came on. It was black. Two words,
No SIGNAL, glowed in thin ivory letters.

  "Funny."

  "What?" Smith asked.

  "I got it turned to MBC."

  "MBC is blacked out," Smith pointed out.

  "Yeah, so I heard. But you're hooked up to cable now."

  "Yes?"

  "The signal the cable company transmits isn't picked off the air, you know. We'd have a piss-poor signal quality if we did it that way. We get it off a microwave transmission. New York Skypath. Direct." The man began switching channels. "Whatever's jamming the airwaves shouldn't affect you now that you're cabled up. But look at it. Everything network is black. Except KNNN. And they're broadcasting snow."

  "Can you explain how it is possible to intercept both broadcast and cable-fed network signals?" Smith asked.

  "It's not."

  "Yet it is happening."

  "No, it's not."

  Smith's lemony face quirked. "Excuse me?"

  "That 'No Signal'? Normally, you see that when a network isn't getting its signal from the affiliates. Usually it's a bad microwave path or something. Follow me so far?"

  "I believe so," said Smith, giving his rimless glass a thoughtful adjustment.

  "Okay. Let's say the networks are down. That still leaves the affiliate stations. It's their signal you receive. When an affiliate goes down, you don't get anything like this. Snow, sure. Color bars sometimes. Usually, they throw up a station ID card or a technical difficulties graphic."

  "What are you saying?"

  "What you're seeing isn't jamming. Can't be."

  "Then what is it?"

  The cable installer made faces at the screen.

  "The only way I can figure it," the cable installer said slowly, "is that somebody's broadcasting black."

  "Broadcasting black?"

  "We're not looking at a 'No Signal' here. We're looking at a signal that says 'No Signal.' "

  Smith's voice betrayed a growing excitement. "That means it could be traced?"

  "Sure."

  Harold Smith was a reserved New Englander. People thought him cold, aloof, and as warm as shaved ice. Expressions of emotion were rare with him, and limited to the occasional exclamation.

  On this occasion, Harold W. Smith took hold of the repairman's right hand in both of his and pumped it furiously.

  "You have been very helpful," he said. "I cannot thank you enough."

  The installer brightened. "Glad to help. Say, while I'm here, I could cable up this whole facility in jig time. We offer a bulk discount . . ."

  Smith abruptly released the man's hand. His voice temperature cooled audibly. "Thank you, no. Now if you will excuse me, I have some telephone calls to make."

  The cable installer hastily packed up his equipment. "Well, don't trip over the furniture in your hurry to give me the bum's rush. Cheeze . . ."

  Chapter 22

  A block from the ANC studio, Remo was forced to abandon the cab. The police had the area cordoned off with blue and white squad cars and NYPD sawhorses. A dozen ambulances waited in side streets their backs open and filled with body bags, which weren't full but not exactly empty either. There were sharpshooters on every roof, and a lone police helicopter orbited the scene nervously.

  News crews were crushing against the cordon. There were enough of them to cover a civil revolt, and Remo wondered how they had got the word so fast. Then he noticed the ANC logo on literally every camera. Obviously, the crews had evacuated the building and begun recording. Some lenses were trained unwaveringly on the studio entrance. Others were covering the cordon. Still others filmed the first two teams. There was enough coverage, Remo thought, to support a 3-D hologram of the event.

  Off to one side, Remo recognized Ned Doppler banging a handheld microphone against the hood of 5 police car, complaining, "The dip switch is gone on this thing!"

  "What's the big deal?" someone asked. "We're blacked out, and can't broadcast live."

  "We cares about a live standup? This is for Nightmirror!"

  "So what's the rush?"

  "I want to tape a standup on my brush with death while everything's fresh in my mind!"

  Remo moved on.

  A man in plainclothes tried to prevent him from entering the cordon. Remo flashed an FBI ID card and said, "Remo Reynolds, Special Agent."

  The man responded by flashing a similar card of his own and said, "John Bundish, Division Chief, and I never heard of you."

  "I'm up from Washington. Looking into the TV blackout."

  Division Chief Bundish looked him up and down. "They dress that casual down in D.C. now?"

  "Undercover. I'm pretending to be a makeup man. Listen, what's going on?"

  "Crazy man busted in and is demanding that Cheeta Ching be brought to him. Guess he got his networks mixed up, or something. We got a call into BCN, but they don't know where the woman is. Meanwhile, the bodies keep piling up."

  "Who's dead?"

  "Who isn't is the question. We've got dead security, wounded technical staff, you name it."

  "Damn!"

  Division Chief Bundish noticed Remo's Italian loafers.

  "Let me see that ID of yours again," he demanded.

  Remo put a friendly arm on his shoulder and propelled him away from the crowd. "Let's talk in that alley over there."

  Division Chief Bundish found his feet moving toward the alley despite his brain's attempt to resist.

  In the alley, Remo confided, "Listen, I know who's behind all this."

  "You do?"

  "Yeah. North Korean terrorist. Name's Wing Wang Wo. A killer. A cold assassin. They call him the Korean Dragon. Someone's going to have to talk him out of the building before more people get killed."

  "Hostage negotiation team is on the way."

  "Yeah, but I'm here now."

  "No chance. I'm in charge."

  "You sure that's your final answer?"

  "Positive. You see all those cameras out there? I can't have you representing the Bureau dressed for shooting pool. The least you could have done is thrown on a regulation windbreaker."

  The man had a point, so Remo dropped him where he stood in his brown wingtips. They were about the same height and weight, so Remo stripped the man of his outer clothes and put them on.

  Remo flashed his card at the first cop he came to and asked, "Who's in charge here?"

  "Lieutenant Rebello over there."

  Lieutenant Rebello scarcely looked at Remo's ID card. "We've got him barricaded in the basement fallout shelter. Everytime we send someone in-"

  "Let me guess," Remo interrupted. "They don't come out."

  A first-floor window broke and out sailed a riot-control helmet. It bounced upon impact, showing clearly that it still encapsulated its late owner's head.

  A SWAT team in flak jackets raced up and gathered up the head-helmet and all-into a fire retardant blanket and rushed it to a waiting ambulance.

  "They come back like that," the lieutenant said hoarsely.

  "Got a bullhorn?"

  A bullhorn was surrendered. Remo brought it up to his mouth, took a deep breath, and called, "You in there. This is FBI Special Agent Reynolds. Remo Reynolds."

  "Liar!" a squeaky voice called out.

  "You know who I am. The jig's up, Wo. I want you to surrender peacefully-or else."

  "Or else what?"

  "Or else, I'm coming in there after you."

  "Do your worst, O FBI lackey."

  A collective gasp went up. Assault rifles and sidearms were steadied over the hoods of the police-car cordon. Every trigger finger was white at the knuckles. The air filled with the simultaneous whir of video equipment.

  Remo turned to the lieutenant and said, "Watch my back."

  "You can't go in there. You saw what happened. And they were wearing full protective gear."

  "I've done this before. And I speak fluent Korean."

  And as the trigger-happy police watched, the FBI agent entered the marble ANC lobby and disappeared from sight.

  "That's o
ne brave agent," a cop remarked.

  "That's one brave dead agent," Lieutenant Rebello said.

  Ten minutes later, the well-dressed FBI agent emerged again, face grim.

  "He's willing to surrender," Remo said.

  "He is?"

  "There's one condition."

  "What's that?"

  "Absolutely, positively no cameras."

  The word went out. The cameramen were pushed back. A few news people cried out their first amendment rights and ended up in the backs of police cars, sitting on their handcuffed hands.

  When that was done, Agent Remo Reynolds went back in.

  Minutes ticked by. Huddling behind barricades, SWAT weapons pointed unwaveringly at the studio entrance.

  Then, a figure emerged-short, wispy, swathed in a blue-and-gold native costume, hands raised in abject surrender.

  "I am surrendering because I have met my match," he announced in a loud voice.

  "Amazing," Lieutenant Rebello croaked.

  The tiny Asian stepped out onto the sidewalk and said in a loud voice. "Fear not. I will harm no one because I have seen the error of my ways."

  "Okay, take him," Rebello called. The police moved in, weapons raised and cocked. They looked eager to shoot at the slightest provocation.

  "Don't," Remo said, stepping between the encircling gun muzzles and the Master of Sinanju. "I got him calmed down now. You'll only set him off again."

  "He's surrendered, right?"

  "He's agreed to surrender to the FBI," Remo corrected.

  "I have watched their television program and it has struck fear my fearless heart," cried the old Korean in a high voice.

  "Look," Remo said anxiously. "I gotta get him to FBI headquarters fast. I need to borrow a car."

  Rebello waved his men back and shouted, "Get an unmarked unit over here!"

  A nondescript sedan was brought up. Keys were surrendered.

  The old Asian went meekly into the back. The door was clapped shut and FBI Agent Reynolds took the wheel, saying, "Thanks. You'll get a full report."

  And as the way was cleared, the unmarked car disappeared from sight.

  Lieutenant Rebello took a deep breath. "All right, let's sweep the building."

  The FBI van arrived within fifteen minutes. The doors popped and slid open, and out came a team of agents in blue windbreakers with the letters FBI stenciled on the back.