Terminal Transmission td-93

by Warren Murphy

According to the masthead, today was Saturday. This simple confirmation lifted a great weight off Harold Smith's mind. If he had one fear as head of CURE, it was that his mental faculties might slip. He and he alone was responsible for the day-to-day running of CURE.

  The day would one day come, Smith knew, when he could no longer shoulder those responsibilities. Retirement was out of the question. He knew too much about how America kept its political head above the waters of anarchy and social chaos. Smith expected to die at his desk, serving his country. Or in the field.

  Upon his demise, CURE would either be shut down by the presiding President or a new head of CURE would be installed. That would not be Harold Smith's problem.

  But if Smith's mind showed any signs of failing, it was his responsibility to take his own life with a poison pill he kept in the watch pocket of his gray vest when awake and in his gray pajama pocket when sleeping.

  At a stoplight, Smith scanned the headlines.

  The entire front page was devoted to stories about the five-hour TV broadcast blackout.

  The lead story was long and told Smith little he hadn't known before.

  It was the sidebars and companion stories that held his attention even after the light changed and the honking of horns brought his head up and his foot to the gas.

  Buried in the human interest angles of video rentals surges, predictions of a mini-baby-boom nine months in the future, and a 3 percent increase in incidents of domestic violence, were scattered reports of riots in certain inner cities--Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, and Miami.

  In most cities, the riots had begun as protests over the loss of television signal. Police were theorizing that these incidents were the result of a frustration with useless TV sets. Smith understood there was more to it than that.

  Television had become a social sedative, without which certain elements, having too much time on its hands, got into more trouble than usual. But beyond that there was a deeper psychological warning. People had come to depend on TV as their chief source of news and main connection with the world beyond their neighborhoods. Deprived of the electronic window on the world, they quickly became uneasy, restless, disconnected, and worried. In these scattered events there was the shadow of a darker menace-widespread civil unrest, if not panic.

  Smith had foreseen this even before the President. What he had not foreseen he saw as he scanned the inner pages, was the international ramifications of the problem. Mexico and Canada had also ceased broadcasting over the air. In those countries, cable stations continued carrying signals. That told Smith that Captain Audion was targeting U.S. networks primarily, and the spillover was due to the enormous scope of the broadcast null zone.

  Still, the government of Mexico and Canada did not grasp this. They saw only that their airwaves were being disrupted. There was growing instability in Mexico. But the greater problem lay to the north. The Canadian government was threatening to close its borders with the U.S. if the interference did not cease.

  As Smith turned into the gates of Folcroft Sanitarium, he promised himself that he would hunt down Captain Audion before the situation could escalate further.

  But how to do that? Until Audion resumed jamming, there was no way to trace his transmitter. And Smith had seen to it that Audion would not dare to carry through on this threat.

  Remo Williams greeted him when Harold Smith, bent almost double by the weight of his morning newspaper, stepped off the elevator.

  "Here, let me get that," Remo said, taking the bundle of newsprint from Smith's thin arms. Seeing the size of the edition, Remo looked puzzled. "Is it Sunday already?"

  "No, the blackout has panicked advertisers into taking out newspaper ads in anticipation of Captain Audion's next attack."

  Remo's dark eyes lifted hopefully. "Does that mean they've doubled the size of the comics page, too?"

  "I have not looked."

  Smith unlocked his office, saying, "Where is Master Chiun?"

  "In his room. I don't think he slept. I could hear him pacing all night. He's worried sick about Cheeta, and he's not talking to me."

  Smith laid the newspaper and briefcase on his desk, took his seat, and touched the concealed stud that brought his CURE terminal humming out of its hidden desk reservoir. Smith logged on.

  Remo turned on the tiny TV and checked every channel. All stations were broadcasting normally, and he settled on KNNN.

  "When did KNNN come back on?" he asked Smith.

  "Last night," said Smith, not looking up from his scan of the morning news digests. Smith preferred to get his news in digest form. Commentators only diluted the facts with their personal prejudices, he felt. Smith's computers continually scanned wire services feeds, gathering and summarizing events according to a program Smith had long ago set up.

  Remo abruptly snapped his finger. "Hey! I just remembered something."

  "Yes?"

  "When we were at Cooder's office, Chiun impressed Cooder by quoting from the Bible."

  "How so?"

  "Chiun's name was in it."

  "Really? Do you recall the citation?"

  "No."

  Smith pulled up his Bible concordance, input the name Chiun, then depressed the Search key.

  "There is only one reference to a Biblical Chiun," he told Remo. "But in context, I do not understand it."

  "Neither do I. Chiun gave me a cock-and-bull story about one of his ancestors. Chiun the First. But he wasn't exactly generous with details."

  "According to this footnote," Smith added, "Chiun is a transliteration of the Hebrew Kaiwan, a name that goes back to the Babylonia word, Kayamanu, which has been identified with the planet Saturn, which in turn can be equated with certain obscure Babylonian deities, such as Ninurta and Rentham, whom the Hebrew people worshipped during their desert exile."

  "That tells me a lot," Remo said dryly. "Anything else?"

  "Kayamanu, or Saturn, was called 'the star of right and justice.' But we could be here days backtracking obscure references," said Smith, abruptly logging off his Bible database. "We must unmask Captain Audion before the deadline."

  "I don't see what the big deal is."

  "Read the front page," Smith suggested.

  Remo did. People had been killed over satellite dishes. Stores reported massive dropoffs in sales-apparently because without commercials to motivate the average citizen, he held onto his money. The economy was taking a further beating. "All this because of no TV for a crummy five hours?" he complained.

  "Try to imagine the consequences of the seven-day blackout-sports riots, domestic strife."

  "Maybe the networks will pay up."

  "They might. But it would not solve the basic problem."

  The red telephone rang and Smith said, "Excuse me. That is the President."

  "Give him a message for me."

  "What?"

  "Drown the Vice President."

  Smith frowned and put the receiver to his ear.

  "Yes, Mr. President?"

  "I have some news. I just spoke with the prime minister of Canada. His CRTC was tracing the pirate transmitter until the signal went off the air."

  "Did they get a fix?"

  "Not exactly. The prime minister tells me he has the longitude line."

  "And we have the latitude."

  "I offered to exchange data, organize a joint assault operation on the transmitter, but he refused and demanded I surrender the latitude coordinates as a good faith gesture to demonstrate U.S. noninvolvement."

  "You, of course, declined?"

  "Damn straight. I wasn't about to let them swoop down on this transmitter, grab the bad guys and phoney up a scenario implicating a U.S. citizen or his government."

  "You did right," said Smith, "We have to be prepared for the probability that U.S. citizens are behind this plot."

  "I know," sighed the President. "And here is something else: I've spoken with the heads of the major networks. They say they can't afford a seven-day blackout. It would break
them. They're losing millions in advertising money to newspapers and magazines already. You should see my Washington Post this morning. The Secret Service thought it was a bomb and detonated it."

  "Capitulation to terrorism is always a mistake."

  "I know. But I have no control over what the networks do. Civil unrest could explode if TV is blacked out again. And the economy is hurting. I had no idea how much spending was motivated by TV commercials."

  "Can you convince the networks to give us twenty-four hours?"

  "I can try. But they sound ready to wire the ransom into the numbered Swiss account today."

  "Do your best, Mr. President," said Smith, hanging up. He looked to Remo.

  "The networks are prepared to pay the ransom."

  "Damn. I couldn't care less about the networks, but I can't stand the idea of this nut getting away with this crap. Once he's paid off, he can vanish and we'll never find him."

  Smith was staring at the greenish field of commands on his terminal screen.

  "There must be some clue," he said, "some lead. We know that the transmitter is in Northern Canada. But where?"

  "Let's put our heads together."

  Smith's prim mouth tightened. "How do you mean?"

  "You work your computer . . ."

  "Yes?"

  "And I'll pull up a chair and watch KNNN."

  "Why KNNN?"

  Remo grinned. "Because they always break stuff first."

  "It is worth a try," Smith said without enthusiasm.

  Hours later, a bleary-eyed Harold Smith looked up from his screen and began polishing his glasses with a handkerchief.

  "Anything?" asked Remo, looking away from the TV. He had the newspaper spread out over his end of the desk.

  "The only anomaly I can find in scanning Canadian news feeds is a rash of car battery thefts in the area of upper Quebec called the Canadian Shield."

  "Car battery thefts?"

  "From parked cars and auto supply stores and gas stations."

  "What would that have to do with a pirate transmitter?"

  Smith frowned. "I do not know. . . ."

  The red telephone rang. Smith lifted the receiver.

  "The networks have just paid the ransom," the President said in a subdued voice. "I did what I could. They were looking at their economic survival."

  "The trail may end here, Mr. President."

  "But the crisis is over. Isn't it?"

  "For this month. Perhaps this year. But Captain Audion has just earned 100 million dollars by extortion. The combined ad revenues of the big three networks exceed five billion dollars annually. What is to stop this madman from asking for one of those billions next time?"

  "We can only hope he isn't that greedy."

  "I would not count on such a likelihood, Mr. President," said Smith wearily. "Now if you will excuse me, I intend to continue my search for the transmitter."

  Remo, having overheard every word, asked glumly, "Does that mean Cheeta's going to be released?"

  "We should know before long," said Smith.

  "Then our problems will really start," Remo muttered.

  They went back to work.

  Hours passed.

  In his sparsely furnished room in the private wing of Folcroft Sanitarium, the Master of Sinanju sat before a television set, his face stone, his eyes fixed unwaveringly on the screen.

  He was watching BCN, trusting that news of Cheeta, beloved Cheeta, the flower of Korean womanhood, would be given.

  Never had he felt so helpless. Never had been forced to endure such tortures. First, fair Cheeta is kidnapped and then his emperor refused to allow a reasonable ransom to be paid. Were all whites mad? What was mere paper money against the life of a mother and child? No doubt this was a subtle example of the virulent anti-Koreanism that infected the white mind.

  Now he was reduced to watching Bowling for Bucks, as if every fat white wheezing in victory or sobbing defeat was important. It was unendurable.

  But there was nothing he could do. His emperor had forbidden him from taking action.

  Then, abruptly, the screen went black and a sonorous voice said, "There is nothing wrong with your television set . . . "

  Remo was reading Calvin en the KNNN anchor said, "On a lighter note, Canadian authorities are unable to explain the discovery on a remote mountaintop in Quebec of a religious statue of a kind normally seen perched on South American hillsides."

  At the sound of the word "Quebec," both Remo and Harold Smith looked up from their reading.

  A Quantel graphic materialized beside the anchor's serious face-and the screen turned to snow and static.

  Remo changed the channel. And got blackness.

  "There is nothing wrong with your television set . . . " a voice began saying.

  "What's this crap?" Remo exploded.

  "I do not understand," Smith muttered. "The ransom has been paid."

  "Maybe the checks bounced."

  "Wire transfers do not bounce," said Smith as Remo changed channels. Not every channel was blacked out. A number of cable stations was in service. The networks were down. As was Nickelodeon and MTV, and a smattering of others.

  "Try KNNN again," Smith directed.

  Remo obliged. The KNNN transmission was just snow.

  "Think their dishes went down again?" Remo said.

  "Coincident with the new blackout? Not likely."

  Then KNNN came back on. With a technical difficulties graphic depicting a broken anchor. A voiceover said, "Please stand by while KNNN switches to its backup film library."

  "Must mean that robot-controlled room I saw," Remo said.

  The graphic went away. And filling the screen was a slab of unreflective basalt decorated by the words:

  NO SIGNAL.

  "Impossible," snapped Smith. "A cable transmission cannot be masked like that."

  Captain Audion began speaking. "There is nothing wrong with your television set . . ."

  Remo switched channels. On the network feeds, Captain Audion was already deep into his recitation.

  "It's not the same signal," Remo said.

  "You are right," said Smith.

  Just then, the office door burst in and the Master of Sinanju, eyes ablaze, leapt in.

  "Emperor Smith! The faceless fiend has struck again! You must do something. We must ransom Cheeta before it is too late."

  Smith picked up the red telephone and was soon speaking with the President.

  "If we move quickly, we may be able to trace the signal," Smith said.

  "So will the Canadians."

  "My people can move on instant notice."

  "The fiend will die with his very own anchor wrapped around his lying throat," Chiun shrieked.

  "What was that?" asked the President.

  "Later," said Smith. "Time is of the essence." He hung up.

  Remo asked, "Anything we can do?"

  Smith frowned at the black TV screen.

  "There must be some reason Audion went back on his word so quickly. But what?"

  "But that's good, isn't it?" said Remo. "He can be traced now, right?"

  "Yes. But it will take hours for the tracking planes to . . ." Smith's bloodless lips thinned.

  "What? What?" squeaked Chiun.

  "Perhaps there is another way."

  "Speak the words, O Emperor Smith, and your loyal assassins will wreak your holy vengeance on the Canadian pirates."

  Remo stared at the Master of Sinanju. "Holy?"

  Chiun glowered back.

  Smith winced, "Please, I must think."

  The Master of Sinanju came down off his toes and dropped his upflung arms. He squinted one eye thoughtfully at Harold Smith.

  "Captain Audion had a reason for restoring the blackout, despite being paid," Smith was saying. "A reason that overrode the danger of his signal being traced."

  "Not necessarily," said Chiun.

  Smith looked up from his thoughts. "Excuse me?"

  "Everyone knows that Canadia
ns are notoriously irrational."

  Smith's frowning mouth grew puzzled. "Why do you say that?"

  "The fiend swore to eradicate all television for seven hours, but ceased after only five. This is not how one strikes fear into an enemy nation. Therefore, he is irrational."

  "Sound like inescapable logic to me," Remo said dryly.

  "Thank you," said Chiun.

  Remo rolled his eyes.

  Smith said, "I find it difficult to believe this is a Canadian operation, even though all evidence points to a Canadian transmission site."

  "Do not forget the vile-tongued spy, Banning," Chiun added.

  "I have not. But I wonder if Banning were not a red herring?"

  "He was a Scot. A white Scot. They are a cunning race--cunning and stingy. Worse than Canadians."

  "Did we ever work for the Scots?" asked Remo.

  "Who do you mean we, white thing?"

  "Jed Burner is not Canadian," said Smith slowly. "Neither is Layne Fondue. Yet the finger of suspicion has pointed to them, to Dieter Banning, and via planted fax transmissions, to KNNN and MBC both."

  "You saying that Audion been throwing suspicion on everyone he could?"

  "It is obvious. And his targets might point to the identity of the terrorist."

  "Who does that leave . . ."

  Remo's voice trailed off. A light jumped into his deep-set eyes.

  Before his mouth could open, a voice jumped from the silent TV screen that was still broadcasting black.

  "This is a special report. Captain Audion speaking. "

  Remo and Chiun hurried to the set.

  The screen head was still black. Then, the blackness shrank and retreated, until the picture showed a television set perched on the broad shoulders of a figure wearing blue pinstripes.

  The TV screen was blacked out except for the NO SIGNAL.

  Then a hand reached up into the frame and turned a knob.

  The TV screen within the TV screen winked on, showing a rugged face that was known to millions of television watchers across the nation.

  "Hear ye! Hear ye! Cheeta Ching, broadcast anchorette, is about to have a cow. That's right, folks, her water has broken. Stay tuned."

  "Aiieee! The unmitigated fiend! He has shown his face and now must die!"

  Chapter 30

  Don Cooder had locked his office door against the constant demands of his staff. They were forever pestering him at all hours, the shameless syncophants. So he had established a locked-office period, usually around three in the afternoon. He called it Sanity Maintenance Time.