The guard came to a heavy steel door marked SET. There was a bulbous red light over a sign that said ON AIR. He put his back to the door, holding his pistol high in a two-handed grip. He closed his eyes and took a steadying breath.
"What is wrong?" Smith repeated.
The guard didn't reply. He slammed into the door, whirled, and legs spread apart, began firing into the news set.
Eight closely spaced shots came out. Gun smoke wafted back in Smith's horrified face.
Then, the guard stumbled back and said in a shaken voice, "I can't stop them! Bullets don't even faze them."
Smith grabbed the man by his jacket front.
"Get hold of yourself," he said tightly. "And tell me what is wrong."
"It's those damned Nishitsu robot cameras!" the guard said.
Smith scowled. "Robot cameras?"
Smith released the man and eased the door open. He saw the familiar MBC news set. There was the anchor desk that Tim Macaw usually sat behind.
Only now Macaw was up on the desktop cowering on his knees as a trio of wheeled unmanned cameras were blindly bumping into sets, backdrops, and live monitors and into the desk itself, their bullet-pocked teleprompters frozen on the words, THIS IS THE MBC NIGHTIME NEWS.
Macaw saw Smith and wailed, "Get security before these things kill-I mean terminally inconvenience-me!"
As if responding to his voice, the number two camera shifted away from breaking the world map that made up one wing of the background and joined the number one camera in banging into and retreating from the news desk. Big chunks began appearing in the thick formica top, threatening Macaw's shrinking perch.
Smith's gaze raked the set. Through a long glass panel, he could see control-room staff frantically throwing switches. One turned and threw his hands up in a helpless gesture of defeat.
Harold Smith strode in, stepped gingerly around the struggle over the news desk, and went up to the number three camera, which had jammed its square glass lens into the monitor array and was furiously spinning its smoking rubber wheels, trying to disengage.
Smith found a panel marked FUSE, popped it open, and unscrewed the fuse. The camera abruptly shut down.
Still clutching his briefcase, Smith went to the remaining cameras and, with more difficulty, pulled their fuses.
Tim Macaw climbed off the chewed-up island that had been his desk.
"Thanks," he said shakily. "I owe you. Wanna do a two-shot? We can take turns asking the questions."
"No," Smith said flatly. He flashed his Secret Service card. "I am investigating the Captain Audion threats. Earlier this evening, ANC and BCN both received a new demand fax from this terrorist."
"Yeah, I know."
"How do you know?"
"We got one, too."
"According to a search of your phone records, you did not. And it is impossible for you to have received one."
"What business of it of yours to look into network phone records?" Macaw demanded in a voice that shook with righteous indignation.
"You reporters do this sort of thing all the time," Smith snapped.
"But we're a news organization. We're above the law."
"And I represent the lawful United States government," Smith said, his voice going testy.
"Oh. You'd better talk to legal about that."
"I am talking to you," Smith pointed out.
"Uh, I don't know if I can talk on the record."
"Who has access to the fax machines in this building?"
"Actually I have the only one."
"A network this large and there is only one fax?"
"We lost so much money sponsoring the '92 Olympics we had to sell off a lot of stuff," Macaw admitted. "Why do you think our cameras are robot-controlled? We saved three camera operator salaries."
Smith glanced around the destroyed news set, calculating that the run-amok cameras had cost the network the equivalent of thirty cameraman's salaries.
"Who discovered the fax?" he asked Macaw.
"You mean who found it?"
"Yes."
"Guess I can tell you that. It was our technical director, Nealon." Tim Macaw pointed to the control room. "He's the one with the helpless expression."
"Could you be more specific?" Smith asked.
"In the red shirt."
"Thank you."
Harold Smith worked his way through the confusing maze of satellite rooms surrounding the MBC news set. Security guards challenged him at one point and, impressed by his falsified photo ID, allowed him to roam at will.
Smith entered the control room without knocking.
"Nealon?"
The horse-faced man in the red shirt looked up from an exposed control board. "Yes?"
"Smith. Secret Service. I understand you were the first to discover the latest extortionary fax."
Nealon licked a pasty upper lip and said, "Yeah, I was walking past the thing and it was coming off. I knew it was important so I gave it to Macaw."
"Do you recall what time that was?"
"Yeah. 7:31. I know because the 7:00 feed had just wrapped."
"You are lying."
Nealon blinked. "Say that again?"
"AT cords show that the demand faxes received by the other networks originated at an MBC faxphone. And there were no incoming calls received here at the time you state."
Nealon said nothing. His eyes lost their focus. They began to cross slightly.
Harold Smith had in his pre-CURE days been a CIA bureaucrat, a field operative, and before that an operative for the OSS. He understood how dangerous men behaved under stress. The telltale signs of a man reaching for a weapon were red flags to him.
Smith had his automatic out just as Nealon's fingers took hold of the butt of his own concealed weapon.
"Do not make a mistake you cannot survive," Smith warned without evident emotion.
Nealon looked down the barrel of Harold Smith's formidable handgun, looked up to Smith's gray patrician features and, balancing the threat of one against the resolve of the other, made a mistake that many men who had gone up against Harold W. Smith in his past had made.
He completed his draw, producing a flat .22 pistol. Harold Smith squeezed his trigger once. The bullet smashed the tiny .22 against the man's stomach before he could fire-and continued on into his ribcage.
The bullet richocheted off three ribs and exited Nealon's throat. He took hold of himself with his free hand and the flood of blood told the man all he would ever know. Eyes rolling up in his head, he crumpled to the control room floor.
Harold Smith went to the body, his gray features grim.
"How long has this man been working here?" he demanded, his voice sharp.
A technician croaked, "Six months. Came over from BCN after their last round of layoffs."
Smith became aware of a frantic pounding on the other side of the Plexiglas panel overlooking the newsroom.
It was Tim Macaw. He was banging with one fist and pointing at the dead technical director with the other. Someone flicked a switch, and Macaw's voice came through a intercom.
"-tures! Somebody get a camera in there. We can do a live cut-in. We'll own this story!"
"What is that man saying?" asked Smith.
"He wants this to go out live."
"Absolutely not," said Smith. "This is a Secret Service investigation. I hereby order this control room sealed pending the arrival of a federal coroner, and all camera equipment is excluded until further notice."
"Can you do that?" asked Tim Macaw from the other side of the glass.
"I am doing it," Smith said.
The news director was called in. He took one look at the dead man and asked, "Did anyone get the shooting on tape?"
When the answer came back no, he lost interest in the body and told Smith, "You can't suppress the news. This is news. I stand on the first amendment rights of the great peacock-proud MBC network news tradition."
"This is in your interest," Smith said.
&nbs
p; "It is never in the public's interest to suppress news."
"My investigation shows conclusively that the MBC technical director is responsible for transmitting the latest extortionary faxes from the terrorist who calls himself Captain Audion."
The news director took a sudden step backward as if hit by a blow.
"MBC is as much a victim of this nut as anyone else," he protested.
"The fax Nealon said he had received was falsified. Nealon is an operative of Captain Audion."
"Did I tell you we got him from BCN?"
"Immaterial. He is an MBC employee. Now."
"Look, what'll it take to put this on ice for a while?"
"Your complete cooperation," said Smith.
"I'll have to check with legal."
"Do so."
A representative from the legal department who came down from an upper floor threw up over the body when it was shown to him. Covering his mouth with his handkerchief, he retreated to the relative safety of his office.
"I guess we're cooperating, then," the news director said thickly.
Harold Smith was allowed access to MBC employee records and staff and was shielded from all news and camera crews, although Tim Macaw had to be locked in the film storage library until he stopped crying.
After twenty minutes, Smith had determined that Dennis Nealon had come from BCN less than four months ago.
"What happened to the previous technical director?" Smith asked.
"Cooke? Hit and run victim."
"Was the driver ever caught?"
"No. It was one of those drunk driver things."
"I see."
"See what?"
"That Dennis Nealon was a plant. Tell me, isn't there a redundancy system for putting out your signal?"
"You mean the microwave feed?"
"Yes."
"Sure."
"Why did the microwave feed not go out to the affiliates?"
"We don't know. Nealon was in charge of-" The news director paled.
"Could the feed have been disabled by Nealon?"
"Sure, but why would he-"
"Why would he attempt to assassinate Tim Macaw with robot cameras?" Smith countered.
"That was a short circuit. We get those from time to time. Back when Cheeta Ching was working here, one of them up and goosed her. She turned around and slapped us with sexual harassment suit. We had to settle out of court."
"Dennis Nealon just attempted to kill Tim Macaw."
"Why would he do that?"
Harold Smith said nothing. His mouth was a compressed, bloodless line.
A shout went up from the control room.
"Hey, KNNN is broadcasting again!"
"Hoorray!" came the muffled voice of Tim Macaw. The MBC anchor was liberated as staffers crowded into the cramped control room to watch the KNNN feed.
Two anonymous KNNN anchors were interviewing one another, interspersed with footage of the downed satellite dishes.
"At this hour," one said, "there has been no word of KNNN owner Jediah Burner and wife, Layne Fondue, missing since the outrageous attack on KNNN's broadcast signal by persons unknown."
"They don't know any more that we do," Macaw said unhappily. Smith noticed that he was standing on the stomach of the dead technical director, Dennis Nealon, in an attempt to see above the heads of the others. Everytime Macaw shifted his feet, blood gurgled from the dead man's open throat and mouth.
While the MBC news staff was fixated on the KNNN broadcast, Harold Smith slipped out a side door and hailed a Checker cab.
Half an hour later, Smith was seated on the bed in a corner room in an aging hotel near Madison Square Garden, his briefcase open on the drumhead-tight bedspread.
The TV was on and Smith was tuned to KNNN. The sound was off. Smith was speaking directly to the President of the United States, straining to be heard over the rock music playing in the background.
"Mr. President, I have made some progress."
"Good. We can use it."
"I have discovered Captain Audion had placed a mole in the MBC news organization."
"A mole?"
"An agent, whose job it was to facilitate the implementation of his blackouts. This man was responsible for the latest demands."
"Was?"
"He is dead. I was unable to interrogate him. It is unfortunate, but even in death he may be useful."
"How?"
"I would like the Secret Service to take possession of the dead man's body and throw a blanket of secrecy over the death."
"I kind of doubt that MBC will go along."
"They will go along, Mr. President. At least long enough for me to implement my plan."
"If you can do that Smith, you're a better man than I am. That MBC White House reporter all but jumped down my throat during my last press conference."
"Thank you for your cooperation," said Smith, hanging up before the President could ask questions that Harold Smith had no time to answer.
Smith logged into his computer and typed up a blind fax. It stated in bare-bones, journalistic sentences, that Dennis Nealon, technical director for MBC's news division, had been taken into custody by the Secret Service in connection with the Captain Audion threat.
Smith transmitted it to all news organizations except MBC.
Then, turning up the sound, he waited for something to happen.
KNNN broke the story first. ANC and Vox followed. Smith flipped between BCN and MBC to see who would jump on the story next. It turned out to be Don Cooder.
His stentorian voice broke in, saying, "This is a BCN Special Report. Good evening. Don Cooder reporting. The latest salvo in the struggle for the soul of broadcast television-if not human civilization-and the faceless monster calling himself Captain Audion has been fired. BCN has just learned that the Secret Service has taken into custody one Dennis Nealon, technical director for the Multinational Broadcasting Corporation, in connection with the Captain Audion terror transmission. Whether this implicates MBC management and we want to be extra, extra careful about this-no one is saying. Officially. The word from MBC is a tight-lipped 'No Comment.' There are no further details available at this time. As always, we here at BCN stand ready to break in with new developments as they happen in this, our continuing effort to stand vigil over your right to know. Now, back to Raven."
For its part, MBC news issued a terse written "no comment" nonrelease unstatement and did not break programming.
Smith smiled thinly. Captain Audion, wherever he was, was certain to panic over the reports. It was reasonable to assume that his agents, whom Smith was now convinced were planted in every broadcast news organization in the country, would hesitate to implement the threatened broadcast blackout set for three days hence.
In the game of high-stakes chess he was playing against an unknown opponent, Harold Smith was confident that he had checked his opposition. Perhaps irrevocably.
Chapter 28
Don Cooder's frozen smile stayed frozen until the tally light over the number one camera winked off. Then he reached under the desk for the producer phone and asked, "How was I?"
"Fantastic, Don," gushed his producer. "As always."
"So what's the latest?"
"Nothing, Don. Our sources have all dried up."
"Can't we get anything out of the Secret Service?"
"They're worse than the CIA. They refuse to talk off the record, never mind on."
"If we send a camera crew over to MBC, how do you think it would play?"
"That's a precedent I don't want to set, Don."
"What the hell's the matter with you? This is big. Maybe the biggest story of the last decade of the twentieth century. We can't just let it go rolling past like sagebrush ahead of a Texas twister."
"Upper management says hands off. They're hoping the Secret Secret rips the lid off this thing before the deadline."
Cooder lowered his voice. "They're not talking about paying, are they?"
"They're not talking. Period.
"
"Well, next time you talk to them, tell them they'll pay this blackmailer over Don Cooder's dead body."
"Don, you sure you want me to say that?"
"Why not? I'm a man of principal."
"You're also dead last in the news ratings. They're very sensitive about that."
"And if Don Cooder breaks this story, he'll be first in the ratings."
"Don, listen to me: Dieter Banning is dead. That automatically bumps you up a notch. Cheeta has been kidnapped. KNNN is reporting Jed Burner as missing, too. And MBC is hinting that there was an attempt on Tim Macaw tonight. You know what that means?"
"I'm number one?"
"No. It means Captain Audion is targeting news anchors by ratings and your low numbers are probably all that've saved you so far."
"Don Cooder is not afraid of high ratings. He will gladly lay down his life for a solid three share!"
"Fine, Don. But let's not encourage the brass. Don't forget they took a ten-million-dollar insurance policy out on you."
"Good thought. Let's keep this conversation between ourselves, shall we?"
"You got it, Don."
Don Cooder hung up, straightened his tie, and clumped on ostrich hide boots to his office, where he picked up the telephone and dialed a number.
"Frank, it's me again. I need a reality check on something . . ."
Chapter 29
Harold W. Smith left his Rye, New York home the next morning and almost broke his neck tripping over an obstruction on his front step.
Smith recovered his balance, and for a moment his mind refused to accept what his gray eyes told him was on the step.
It was his subscription copy of his morning paper. And it was twice the size of the usual Sunday edition.
Except that this was Saturday. Or Smith thought it was. Was his mind going? Smith stooped to pick up the paper, and a telephone book block of color advertising inserts popped out.
He was forced to set his briefcase down and use both hands to lift the paper. Even then, slippery inserts kept sliding out.
Groaning, Smith carried the paper to his waiting station wagon. He had to make two trips. Finally, briefcase holding down the pile of paper, he drove toward Folcroft.
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