Chapter 1

Come and Whisper in My Ear

A/N: The Winter Solstice is, astronomically speaking, the longest night of the year.

The event began near the end of the A block, at 8:07pm on 27 December 2012.

Everyone was in agreement with that, at least.

Detective James: Can I get you something to drink, some coffee or water? You look like you—

Jenna Johnson: No. I'm fine—

Det. James: How about a Coke?

Jenna Johnson: I'm all right. Just—let's do this, okay?

Det. James: If you're ready. [Long pause as he studies her.] Let's start at the beginning. What do you do here, Ms. Johnson?

On Mondays and Thursdays, Jenna stopped by the dry cleaner's on her way into work, picking up whatever suits and shirts had accumulated. Will McAvoy's suits had, at least since the return of MacKenzie McHale, moved exclusively to the blue to charcoal spectrum, in keeping with both Mac's personal preferences and the gravitas she wished the anchor to project. Slightly more leeway was accorded shirts, a quadrant that ranged from crisp white to shades of blue, always solids and never striped or window-paned. Ties were typically solid colors as well, although one or two regimental stripes were in the rotation, for variety's sake.

In any event, Jenna got to the AWM tower that morning with the laundry ration and placed the clothes on the rack with the others in Wardrobe. At some point, someone—and Jenna wasn't entirely sure who, whether it was Mac or a Senior Producer or even Will himself—would decide which suit would be needed and she would be dispatched to collect it and two complementary shirts (always two, for built-in redundancy) and bring them to Will's office.

But in between picking up fresh suits and reclaiming the worn ones following the broadcast, Jenna's day as Will's assistant veered between mundane errands (fetching Diet Dr. Peppers and the occasional sandwich) and the near-journalistic (researching whatever topic he assigned). Today, Jenna had been mining statistics associated with Congressional support for agribusiness, in anticipation of a possible series early in the new year. Perhaps owing to his own Nebraska background, Will was particularly interested in tax payer subsidized crop insurance and how it seemed to benefit corporate farms more than independent family farmers. He was, it seemed, ever on the look-out for a crusade.

But one thing was for certain, as far as Jenna was concerned, and that was that Will had mellowed a bit in seven weeks. He didn't seem as perpetually testy, as volatile as before. He even appeared to have grown into his self-appointed role of Director of Morale, coaching the staff through the interminable depositions and new filings associated with the monster labeled Genoa.

His change in disposition was just another reason in a long list for which Jenna was grateful to MacKenzie.

Immediately following the astonishing election night denouement, there had been idle office speculation of a quick elopement and Caribbean honeymoon. But days, then weeks, passed, and they were into late November sweeps and the December tragedy at Newtown. Will and Mac either never found the right moment to get away or else came to the realization that the central part of their lives was here, in New York, at ACN, with their coworkers, and desired no more.

Jenna herself subscribed to another theory, one that originated in inadvertently overhearing MacKenzie talking with Sloan. Mac had said, "Not right away. After all this time, we deserve a bit more of a love affair first."

They certainly did.

And even though Will was hardly the confiding type (particularly to someone of Jenna's youth and low-ranked position on the ACN food chain), she had heard him reveal to Charlie during an unguarded moment, "I feel like the luckiest man on earth. With the possible exception of Ringo." Followed by the hitch of a half-smile that made plain his knowing facetiousness.

Jenna overheard a lot of things. She kept confidences.

"Um—Will McAvoy? I'm looking for Will McAvoy." A DHL Express deliveryman stood in front of her, holding a package. "I was told you would know where I could find him."

Jenna didn't have to check the clock to know. "He's live right now," nodding at the glass wall of the studio, "but I can sign for that."

The delivery-man—who, she now noticed, was unshaven and generally more ill-kempt than the norm—casually slipped a handgun from his open jacket. "This really needs to be delivered personally." Then, turning, smiling, he added, "You're awfully young. You should leave now."

Later, as Jenna recounted the chronology to the detective taking her statement, she knew that there was simply no logic to picking up a suit from the cleaner's in the morning and holding it, bloodied, hours later.

oooo

Detective James: You're the president of the news division—that includes all the broadcasts that originate here in New York?

Charlie Skinner: [impatient] -and D.C., and sometimes L.A., but not very often from there because no one out there actually watches news and not very much of anything really important originates there. Orange juice and earthquakes, I guess.

Det. James: Mr. Skinner, I need your cooperation. There's been a shooting and we need information from you—

Charlie: Can you find out for me—how's MacKenzie? Someone's with her, right? I mean, there's been no word and I really can't imagine how she—

Det. James: When did you find out there was a problem?

The week between Christmas and New Year's was notoriously slow, news-wise. 2012 had been nothing if not spectacular to date—escalation of the Syrian civil war, a polarizing presidential election cycle, a heartbreaking slaughter of innocents. Not to mention the allegation of atrocities committed by U.S. military forces followed by a mortifying retraction. The lift given the newsroom staff by Will McAvoy's ridiculous romantic outburst on election night had been severely tempered by the latest horrific mass shooting. Charlie could second-guess himself and opine that he should have just put News Night on a holiday hiatus—he had in years past, when Will's moroseness would spike over holidays and spill into the mood of the broadcast.

But this year was so different. Because of MacKenzie, true, but also because Will's mood had lightened and with it, seemingly, the disposition of the entire newsroom. Disappointments and disasters weren't as dire. Even the friggin' Dantana spectacle seemed manageable now that Will and Mac were on the same page again.

So when Charlie Skinner came to Production Control on 27th December, his motives were purely social. This was a Thursday night, and he was of a weekend mind already. Although Charlie spent the week, Monday through Thursday, at his pied-a-terre on East 56th, sterile but convenient for the demands of his position as President of ACN, he looked forward to weekends at home in Stamford. He assumed this night would be a perfunctory broadcast. With the Sandy Hook tragedy and the national shaming it engendered now weeks behind them, there wasn't much new news for News Night to mull, and so the show tentatively commenced the obligatory year-end review.

Charlie intended to just poke his head into Control for a few moments then commence an early weekend. Millie had scheduled the car to pick him up at 8:30.

As he entered Control, Mac was leaning over the video switcher board, in close discussion with Herb. Jim Harper, polite kid that he was, immediately stood and offered his stool, but Charlie shook his head and leaned against the wall, arms crossed, surveying the well-oiled machinery that now was News Night. Mac finally glanced up and he waved at her to continue what she was doing; this was just a brief pop-in inspection before he trundled off to Connecticut. He looked at the entire crew with a certain measure of self-satisfaction. They were a good group and seemed to work well together. Much of that owed to MacKenzie and the recent changes to the formerly misanthropic anchor, but all of the personalities seemed to mesh satisfactorily.

What a pleasure to have these people in his—Charlie's exact thought the moment before things began to go wrong.

"What's that? Did somebody just—?" Kendra was first to verbalize the utter wrongness of a figure having entered the studio through the door leading from the bullpen. Apart from breaking Will's personal taboo, it simply couldn't be countenanced on live air.

At the CCU panel, Jake immediately switched camera feeds to isolate Will, in a head-and-shoulders shot, on the live monitor.

Voices clamored rhetorical questions—"What the fuck?" "Who is that?" "Is he lost?"—before someone finally made the most obvious declaration, "Get Security up here."

"Go to commercial, now," Mac commanded and Herb complied, the live feed suddenly thrown without introduction or explanation to a sultry model pitching an erectile dysfunction remedy.

"Quiet!" Charlie's mouth twisted and he seemed to sag with the weight of what he was seeing on the studio monitor. What they all saw.

The intruder brandished a handgun.

To a person, the room silenced. All attention was focused on Monitor One. Where Will McAvoy reacted, half-rising from his chair, moving briefly out of frame, before sinking back down.

Charlie pointed to Tess. "Call Security, make sure they know this guy is armed. We're going to need to shift the air to Transmission Control," he added, looking directly at Mac and Herb as the next most-experienced broadcasters in the room. He nodded at Kendra next. "Calmly—very calmly—I want you to call someone in the bullpen and have them begin—"

Kendra gestured at the heavily tinted glass wall that separated Production Control from the news desks. They could see Jenna Johnson, highly agitated, trying to make a point to Gary Cooper, prompting frantic turns-of-the-head from others to the studio glass. It seemed like a silent movie, with wildly obvious pantomimes. "I think they know."

There were indistinguishable murmurs in Control as people suddenly realized the import of an armed intruder on the other side of the wall. Charlie became particularly aware of an angry whispered exchange between Jim and MacKenzie, both silhouetted in front of the bank of monitors in the front of Control, but he felt compelled to resume his earlier chain of thought.

"Call them anyway. They need to get out. Quietly. We've got to go, too. There's no lock on that door," Charlie inclined his head to indicate Control's bi-directional doors. "Two by two. The dog-leg in the corridor should give us enough cover to get out without being seen—"

"If this guy is the only one," Joey muttered, earning a sharp look of annoyance from Charlie.

"Okay, you go first," Charlie smarted back. "That way, you can check my math while you're out there."

Contrary to the retort, however, Kendra and Jake went first, because Charlie knew that having young children at home was the bona fide justification for priority treatment. Tess and Joey after that, the predictable concession to their own relative youth. Herb waited a few moments before easing out on his own. As Charlie looked for the last of his lambs to shepherd from Control, Jim and Mac were still bent together, whispering urgently.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Charlie hoped he sounded angry enough to make them snap to action. "Security's on their way. We've got to get out of here."

Mac shook her head vehemently, her left hand cupping the mic of the headset she still wore. "He can still hear me. I've got to stay."

Leaving her in the booth was macabre beyond all imagination, so he reached for her elbow, prepared to physically eject her from the room if necessary. When she twisted away, Charlie looked to Jim for help in making his case.

He found none.

"Someone needs to be in his ear right now, Charlie. We can manage this." Jim noticed that even Mac was startled by his use of a plural pronoun.

Charlie shook his head. "You think you're going to, what?— produce? You're standing in a room with glass walls and there's a man with a gun next door. The cops'll order you out—"

"Negotiation is going to hinge on communication," Jim returned. "The cops won't know what the conversation is in the studio unless someone's here to relay it."

"The authorities will make us cut the transmission. No one's gonna risk—" Charlie stopped there, unwilling to give voice to the obvious possibilities in Mac's presence. Hell, he didn't want to consider all the prospects himself. A hostage scenario on live air, doubtless featuring some lunatic diatribe and ending, good god, ending in a probable shooting. In real time, on live air.

oooo

Detective James: James Harper—do you go by James or—

Jim Harper: Jim. Jim's fine.

Det. James: You're the senior producer for News Night. What does that mean?

Jim hadn't seen a Beretta M9 since Afghanistan but he recognized it instantly. It had been the go-to sidearm for the Marine unit with whom he and Mac had been embedded. The M9 was less blocky than a Glock or SIG Sauer, symmetrical, distinctively streamlined and swept. Readier to grip.

He tried to remember the capacity of the magazine, whether it was 13 or 15 rounds.

Of course, this guy might have a custom magazine. Perhaps even some nice hollow-point or soft-point rounds.

His eyes sought Mac, to gauge her reaction and try to get some sense of how to respond. She was rooted before Monitor One, eyes wide, as Will McAvoy reacted to an intruder holding what appeared to be a semi-automatic handgun. On the screen, Will's arms went to the arms of his chair, pushing himself up before doubtless realizing the risk of the effort. Then, sinking back into his chair, Will somehow managed to replace anxiety with cool. "What's this about?"

Jim saw her straighten and then turn. Towards the door.

"No. He's buying us time." Jim dodged chairs and people in the tiny room, working his way over to where she stood. He was dimly conscious of Charlie and others talking in the background. "Mac. We've all got to go—"

She shot him a withering, dismissive look. "I can't."

She stopped, more, Jim believed, from her own dawning realization of the futility of dashing to the studio than his own exhortation. After a moment, she blinked and seemed to come back to herself. Her eyes darted around to the faces of the staff, all of them seemingly turned to her, measuring her, despite Charlie's barking in the background.

Jim licked his lips. "We can't—he wouldn't want—I mean, there must be people, Security, first responders, that sort thing—coming any minute—they'll take care of this."

She stared at him as if he was plainly crazy. He felt crazy.

It can still end okay. He wanted to reassure her somehow. Pitch hope he didn't feel, invent an implausible rescue from blatant jeopardy. "Mac. We need to—"

"We need to clear Control—" she announced, voice low but steady, ironically echoing Charlie's brusque orders across the room.

"Waitlisten. This guy's saying something—" Joey announced, backing from the graphics panel and gesturing to the monitor. "I can't hear—he isn't miked—"

Jim pivoted to Jake's CCU panel. "Show me how to make the shotgun mic in the camera hot." He flipped the toggle Jake indicated, then adjusted the potentiometer for volume.

Mac was at his shoulder. "I still can't make it out."

"He said he wants Will to interview him. On air."

"What the fuck are you doing?" Charlie's voice, low for stealth, nonetheless cracked with anger and disbelief. "Security's on their way. This is going to be a story told in moments—you won't be able to—"

"Hey—look. Look. What's he doing now?"

At Herb's voice, they turned in unison. The intruder had produced a mini tablet computer and propped it on the anchor desk.

Jim and Mac both heard over their headsets. For the others in the room, Jim relayed the message. "He said he'll know if he isn't on the broadcast—"

"He's streaming the show."

Charlie swore, then grabbed Tess by the arm and Joey by the collar. "You two. Out. Now. Directly to the elevators. No waiting, go directly to ground."

"Did you throw to Transmission Control?" Mac asked Herb, who had risen and made his way back to where Charlie stood.

"Charlie told me to. They'll have it when the commercial package ends."

"Shit. Get it back."

Mac hesitated over the switches, anxiety making it difficult to visually isolate the one directing live feed.

"I'll call them to make sure," Jim added.

"MacKenzie," Charlie growled.

She made herself oblivious to him. Jim shook his head, knowing this decision was made.

Charlie wouldn't surrender, though. "You think you're going to, what?— produce? You're standing in a room with glass walls and there's a man with a gun next door. Security's going to order you out as soon as they get here—"

"No, they won't, because we're going to give them direct interface with this guy." Picking up the phone to call Transmission Control, Jim found himself articulating the only possible rationale for staying. "Negotiation will hinge on communication, and we're going to know what the conversation is in the studio."

"You're being fucking naïve. The authorities will make us cut the transmission. No one is going to risk—" Charlie stopped abruptly, as if not voicing the exact nature of the risks might offer some measure of protection from them. After a long pause, during which he looked from Jim to Mac to Monitor One and finally back to Jim, he sighed. "Waveguide. Find a piece of rigid waveguide and use it to bar the door. Keep the electronics cabinets between you and that wall. Stay down." He held up his cell phone. "And keep the fucking line open, I want to hear you breathing on the other end."

With a departing glance that seemed equal parts infuriation and regret, Charlie finally slipped out the door.

Jim dropped the phone back to the cradle. "You've got the air."

Mac toggled her mic on for the first time in five long minutes. "I'm here, Will." Mac said carefully into the mic, her hand on the video mixer's T-bar. "Stand by—roll in."

On Monitor One, Will's head suddenly snapped forward, eyes widened.

oooo

And so, at 8:12, News Night returned from an unusually protracted commercial break.