Chapter 3
I Was Just Producing
MacKenzie watched as Will tapped his pen in the customary salute upon returning from break.
Routine was something to cling to right now.
But she couldn't help notice the expression he wore. Will's blue eyes were paler than usual, wider than usual. Over-exposed in the bright lights of Studio 1A.
Vulnerable.
"Welcome back to News Night. Tonight, we have a guest in the studio—"
Jim deliberately squeaked the chair he had eased into in Joey's customary place at the graphics board. He was reluctant to break the implicit moratorium on words but wanted to let her know he was standing by for whatever she might require.
Finally, he wet his lips. "Do you want a banner at the bottom of the screen?"
She shook her head. "No. I don't want to rush to characterize this. Will's quite good at the extemporaneous—he can walk this guy back without—"
"—and I just couldn't take your misrepresenting things anymore."
Hearing this, she flinched and thought, Or maybe not.
There was a beat before she resumed. "No banner." As long as the intruder kept the handgun out of frame, they might be able to disguise the event, downplay it for the viewers. Maintain the calm. Simply listen to the man until he could be convinced to surrender.
"Roger that." Jim leaned two seats over and picked up the phone, punched the flashing line. "Hold on. I'm putting you on speaker."
"Mac." Though at a lower-than-usual decibel level, obviously a concession to the circumstances, Charlie's voice nonetheless boomed through the nearly-empty Control room. "We're monitoring this downstairs in Transmission Control. Reese is here, and Lieutenant Hodges with the tactical response team. They're used to these barricaded hostage scenarios."
Hostage. That was the correct term, no doubt, but not a concept on which she wished to linger.
"How do they usually handle these scenarios, Charlie?" She couldn't keep archness from her voice.
Charlie did not respond. Perhaps he had his own conscience to deal with. He'd allowed Will to pressure him into discontinuing Blue North's security shadow. Charlie had felt the radioactive notoriety of Genoa necessitated, as he put it, bridge-building rather than bridge-burning stories, so he bought into anything to lower antipathy with the American Taliban faction of loonies. MacKenzie's input had not been sought, which at the time was something of a relief, because she, too, was suddenly ambivalent about picking new fights when it seemed that they had their hands full. So the anchor/managing editor had prevailed. No Blue North security detail. No scouring Twitter and emails for threats, veiled or open. No looking over his shoulder.
From the monitor, during her reverie, "Dwight Kirby."
"Okay, we've got a name now," a voice exulted in the background of the open phone line.
Jim exchanged a quick glance with Mac before commencing a search for Kirby, Dwight, on the open notebook computer at the next work station. Whatever there might be to find, he wanted to get to it first, before the voices with Charlie.
But Mac's attention was focused on Will's image on the monitor.
"This is not the customary News Night interview and this show did not solicit your participation tonight." Will the prosecutor was speaking now. "In fact, you engineered an actual takeover of this studio—"
"Yeah, I've gotta gun."
"Don't antagonize him, Billy," she said into the mic, needing to remind him to tread carefully. This was not the moment for the elitist prick anchor.
Bring back the affability, Leno.
Will's eyes darted briefly to the camera, indicating he'd heard her warning.
"This man just wants his say," Mac announced to Jim and the open phone line. She had toggled off the mic so that Will didn't have to follow two conversations at once; it was better that he have undivided attention for the man with the gun. "All we have to do is give him a platform, give him a sympathetic ear, let him—" She had been waiting for Charlie to interrupt with assurance that she was right and when he didn't her voice trailed off.
Seconds passed with a low murmur of voices over the speaker. Finally, Charlie's voice registered.
"Mac, we're talking through some options here—let me give you a call back when we've nailed things down." There was a click as Charlie disconnected.
"Well, we're not going anywhere," Jim muttered sardonically.
Mac wasn't sure what options Charlie meant, except that the studied impreciseness of his words served to spike her fears. The anxiety was making her hands icy so she began to rub them on her upper arms.
"And you performed this work for—?"
"ILIXCO. In Secaucus. Well, used to be. Everything moved to India. Now what do I do? How am I gonna support my kids?"
Jim switched the mic feeding Will's interruptible feedback unit. "Will, about 66,800 New Jersey workers filed unemployment claims last year, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics—"
Mac grimaced and made a slashing motion to Jim. This wasn't a Deepwater Horizon event, where every arcane statistic had to be trotted out to fill time in an unfolding story. Will needed specific, targeted information. "We'll get you something salient," she intervened.
Turning to Jim, who slumped with his chagrin, she reeled off what she had in mind. "ILIXCO closure, number of employees, type of products, owner or parent company, any push-back to the closure from local governmental or union officials—"
Jim gave an exaggerated nod, chastened. He knew this. But the search, admittedly cursory, on Kirby's name had turned up zilch. An address, that was all. He'd been so over-anxious to deliver something, anything, that he had overlooked the negligible value of what he had provided.
She looked up at the front wall and took a step back, still rubbing her hands in an ineffectual attempt to warm them. Because Jim had locked down the crane camera, all six monitors on Control's front wall carried the same image of Will and Kirby, carefully framed so that the handgun was out of sight (unless Kirby began waving it again).
"You've had some bad breaks recently, Mr. Kirby. I can't deny that."
"Are you going to tell me you feel my pain?"
"No—I was just—"
"What do you make a day? Do you make $5,000.00 a day?"
"In a free market economy, I make what the market will bear."
This discussion was trouble, Mac knew instinctively. Will was on thin ice.
"Billy." Pleading always started with the familiar. "You're sounding adversarial. Find a way to connect with him. This is about power, not money. Be his friend."
That last comment earned her an exasperated if discreet hoist of his eyebrows. He tugged at his necktie, a gesture she instantly recognized as phenomenally uncharacteristic. Will was always confident and poised before the camera. If he pulled at his collar on air, it clearly indicated his discomfort.
"—and I'm, what, not even worth $600 every two weeks in unemployment benefits?"
Kirby raised the gun for emphasis, causing a sharp intake of air from both Mac and Jim, riveted to the monitors.
"How does threatening my life balance the scales?"
Mac recognized the umbrage in Will's tone and knew this conversation between Will and Kirby was beginning to spiral out of control. She held her breath as her mind raced for any helpful stage direction she could offer.
The phone to Jim's right flashed again and he put it to his ear briefly before connecting it to speaker again. "Charlie."
"You're going to see something," Charlie began, obviously in the unenviable role of go-between with the authorities. "I just want you to know to expect it. We're going to hack the broadcast—essentially, replace the signal going to his device with a point-to-point feed—"
"You're going closed circuit? What will that solve?" Mac erupted. "That's simply allowing this to go on as private theatre—except that the actors in it don't know it."
In an effort to ease the tension, Jim spoke up. "But you can still negotiate—"
"We won't be negotiating," a new voice advised flatly.
"Charlie—Charlie." On the second word, Mac's voice wavered and dropped, registering her incredulity, anguish, and sense of betrayal.
There was a pause while voices on the other end made harsh, indistinguishable noises. Finally, Charlie returned to the line.
"Mac. We both knew that at some point the authorities would have to—"
"This is a little man. He's scared. He's desperate. As long as Will can allow him his dignity, and keep him talking—"
"Listen to yourself, Mac. Scared and desperate—does anything about that phrase conjure a positive outcome? The banality of this situation in no way diminishes the desperation of it." He paused. "Look, Reese and I both have argued since this began, but the bottom line is they don't think they can negotiate with this guy. Nothing he's said has been right, everything's just a bit off kilter. He used to live in Secaucus but has no current address. Can't find a record of any kids. ILIXCO moved to India two years ago not last summer. Nothing he's told Will can be verified."
"Brilliant," she murmured, irony plain. "What do the authorities propose? A little Grand Guignol voyeurism? It's ghoulish. This is Will, Charlie. Will. There has got to be another way—"
Suddenly, five of the six monitors on the wall shifted to color bars for brief seconds before flashing to the image of Terry Smith at the ACN desk in Washington D.C., where a banner reading Live Hostage Incident ACN N.Y. displayed across the bottom of the screen.
Mac and Jim traded dismayed glances.
The sixth monitor alone, bottom right, remained trained on Will and Kirby.
"Kirby's still seeing himself with Will. He won't know the difference." Charlie talked quickly, wanting to get through this as fast as possible. "Sampat had the idea of colluding with the data provider to hijack the feed."
"Wait one—"
They all saw what had alerted Jim. Kirby seemed to have regained control of both his weapon and temper. He stared at Will with an expression of what appeared to be bemusement, and then visibly relaxed.
"Are you married?"
"No."
Mac's head dropped back, eyes closed, and a gasp escaped. She instantly grasped the implicit malevolence of the exchange.
"Good. I know I'm never gonna leave here alive. All we've been negotiating is whether you will."
Charlie exhaled heavily. "They have people in place, or will have very soon. When they can get a clean shot they're going to take him down. They want you out of there."
"He needs me here."
"You can't do anything for him—"
Jim cleared his throat. "We're—uh—we're not leaving anyone on the field, Charlie."
Mac put a hand on Jim's shoulder and squeezed gratefully. He might be reluctant but he was always loyal to a fault.
"Fuck." With that vulgarity Charlie seemed to acknowledge either their combined intractability or just Mac's moral rightness. "Get on the floor, both of you. Now. Get away from glass, behind something heavy." Pause. "These guys know what they're doing, Mac. This can still end okay."
Wordless and completely contrary to Charlie's instruction, she edged nearer the single monitor with Will's image. Behind her, Jim took the call off speaker and brought the receiver to his ear.
Running through her mind was that she had done such a poor job of articulating why it seemed important to her to wait. Not jump into the formalities and legalities of marriage without a period of decompression. She had meant it when she'd told him yes. But she wanted to use judgment this time, not just emotion.
And, of course, she wanted agency in this decision. After three years of emotional Siberia, after three more of mostly insurgent combat, she deserved a voice, at least. Not to mention that a little wooing was overdue in this reconstituted relationship.
Had she undermined love for—scheduling?
"Will—I bungled it earlier and—" She swallowed, her throat constricting. "I'm so sorry for not—"
As she should have guessed, it was the change in her tone, rather than her words, that made him turn and look up into the camera, blue eyes flashing. "I'm all in, Billy—" She felt Jim's hands on her shoulders, beginning to move her back, away from the array of monitors that she only now recognized as all having the ILIXCO unique X-in-an-oval logo on them.
"Love you," she managed just as the tether of the headset was released.
On screen, Will blinked. For a brief moment the inner conflict the anchor was undoubtedly experiencing shadowed his face. That he wanted to prolong the contact with Mac, but understood the dark part of using her as an emotional lifeline.
This wasn't fair, even by the crazy cosmic justice that meted out two years exile in a war zone for the crime of a broken romance.
More unjust still was the fact that Will never entered the warzone. It came to him.
Jim was still inching MacKenzie back when the first blast discharged.
"Get down," she ordered but Jim pushed her down first. Briefly stumbling over a wheeled chair, he followed her into a crouch on the floor.
Three seconds later (had they been counting), a second detonation shook Control, immediately followed by bursts of popping sounds. Slugs, some ricochets and some wild shots, exploded through the wall of monitors, causing circuits to arc and spraying the space with splinters of glass and plastic.
Jim had not disconnected the line with Charlie, so through the phone's speaker they heard muffled shouts followed by, "Extracting HVT—okay, we've got him." She recognized the voice as the one that had interrupted Charlie to say there would be no negotiation with Kirby; presumably, that of Lieutenant Hodges, leader of the tactical response team.
Rising, Mac braced herself on the video switcher panel. She looked as Jim uncoiled himself and did similarly a few feet distant. An acrid odor and slight haze filled the room. Probably the result of frying electronics, she realized.
Suddenly, two individuals in helmets and body armor burst through the doors. "Keep your hands at your side—don't touch your face!"
A/N: Crazies looking to take over a broadcast station are nothing new. It happened in 2015 in New Orleans and in the Netherlands; it happened in 1999 at the BBC London; and in 1982 in Phoenix, Arizona. But the most spectacular episode occurred in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1980, when a murderer, armed with a handgun, took nine hostages in the WCPO-TV newsroom and forced a female reporter to interview him for 12 hours before he finally committed suicide. The station's male anchor produced the live telecast from a mobile unit outside. Interestingly, the reporter and the anchor married the following year.