Terminal Transmission td-93

by Warren Murphy

  His staff had other names: Nap Time, Fetal Position Hour, and Don's Thumb-sucking Break.

  The truth was that it was at three in the afternoon that Don Cooder touched up the gray in his hair. If the aphorism that TV news is about hair, not journalism, is true, Don Cooder had a take on it no one else in television ever dreamed of. Where other anchors used Grecian Formula to take the gray out of their hair, he had a special formula to salt his virile black locks with mature gray.

  Another anchor might have been proud of his luxurious helmet of jet-black hair. Not Don Cooder. He had inherited the Chair from the most distinguished anchor of the last two decades, Dalt Conklin, the affable and avuncular Uncle Dalt whose shoes Don Cooder had been trying to fill for ten years now.

  From day one, the critics had been merciless in their unfair comparisons. The public changed channels in droves. His own staff had a pool betting on the week he would be let go.

  After only two years in the Chair, Cooder had come to a ego-deflating realization. He would never, ever, no matter how low he pitched his voice or faked a catch in his voice, fill Dalt Conklin's shoes.

  So he decided to copy his hair instead. The gray was painted in slowly over the months until his hemorrhaging ratings stabilized. Another year was spent in perfecting the perfect salt-and-pepper mixture.

  Cooder had created a calendar chart for each week in the year. A photo of his black-to-gray hair ratio in the Sunday slot and his Nielson and Arbitron ratings scribbled over Saturday.

  When he found the perfect balance, it was just a matter of holding it stable.

  And so now, in his eleventh year anchoring the BCN Evening News, Don Cooder sat at his desk, an illuminated makeup mirror propped in front of him, touching up his artfully placed gray streaks with a slender brush.

  A knock brought a scowl to his craggy face.

  "Go way, I'm maintaining my sanity!"

  "Turn on the TV. Turn on your TV." It was his news director.

  Cooder reached for the instant-on button of his desk TV set and saw his own face staring back at him-framed in a TV set framed in his TV screen.

  "This is Captain Audion of the Video Rangers," a voice, very much like his own, was saying. "Greetings Earthlings!"

  Don Cooder shot bolt upright in his chair.

  "That's not me! That's not me! It's a frame! We've got to get the word out."

  "We can't," the BCN news director shouted through the locked door. "We're in black; everyone is in black."

  "There's gotta be a way. My whole career, my credibility, my reputation for honesty and sincerity is about to-"

  The clatter of his bottle of hair color dropping to the floor brought a question from the other side of the door.

  "You all right, Don?"

  "Knocked over a Diet Coke in my excitement. Nothing to worry about."

  "What are you going to do, Don?"

  Don Cooder strode over to his office window, looking down Seventh Avenue toward Times Square.

  "I know exactly what I'm going to do," he announced in a deep, manly voice as he yanked his office window open.

  Hearing this, the news director screamed, "Don! Don't do it! Don't jump!"

  "Too late," said Don Cooder, climbing out on the ledge.

  The news director of the Broadcast Corporation of North America was frantic.

  "Help me someone. Help me to break down this door."

  "We can't. There's trouble at the front door."

  "What kind of trouble?"

  "Press. They're clamoring for an interview with Don Cooder."

  "He's left the building!"

  "Then they're going to want an interview with you."

  "Somebody help with this door. I'm going out the window, too!"

  But there was no budging Don Cooder's reinforced door.

  The news director ducked into Cheeta Ching's office and waited for help. No one came. In fact, the shouting from the front of the building died down. After a few minutes, someone came for him.

  "It's okay," he was told by his floor manager. "They left."

  "They did?"

  "Yeah. They found Cooder."

  "Is he . . . dead?"

  "No, he's broadcasting from One Times Square."

  "How can he do that? We're off the air."

  "Remember at the last Democratic National Convention when we opened with a talking head shot of Cooder, then pulled back the camera to show that it was a simulcast with the screen up on One Times Square?"

  "Yeah, that was a spectacular shot. Cooder was his own Quantel graphic."

  "Well, it must have given him the idea. Because he's in that building doing a remote bulletin."

  "The man is a genius. A fucking genius. And worth every cent we overpay him." The news director blinked. "He is denying the story, isn't he?"

  "I guess."

  They ran out into Times Square.

  Traffic had stopped. Newspaper reporters were pushing through the gathering crowd as the giant face of Don Cooder, the bags under his eyes as fat as prize Holsteins and an inexplicable splash of gray in his well-combed hair, stared down at them as if from some electronic Mount Olympus.

  "I categorically deny being Captain Audion. I am not Captain Audion. This is a frame, a cheap frame. A conspiracy by my many enemies in the media. They're trying to kill me. But Don Cooder can't be killed. As long as there is news to report, Don Cooder will live on, unbowed, unbloodied, immortal-"

  "He's losing it," the floor manager said.

  "Yeah, he's no good without a script. Never was."

  "Good thing this isn't going out nationwide."

  "Yeah. Wait a minute." The news director shouted back toward the studio. "Hey, somebody get a camera on this for rebroadcast later."

  "Are you crazy? He's falling apart up there!"

  "Yeah," said the news director, "but it's great television."

  Chapter 31

  Harold W. Smith stared at the bizarre image on his tiny television screen and said, "That is not Don Cooder."

  "Are you blind!" shrieked the Master of Sinanju. "It is the fiend himself."

  "A minute ago you were blaming Dieter Banning and the Canadians," Remo pointed out.

  Chiun's voice grew frosty. "Who is to say this man is not in league with the wicked Canadians? Or a secret Canadian himself."

  "Not you, that's for sure," Remo retorted.

  "His mouth looks Canadian-thin and merciless," said Chiun, padding up to Harold Smith and facing him across his pathologically neat desk. "Emperor Smith, the villain has revealed himself for all to see. His motives are clear."

  "They are?" Smith said.

  "Yes, yes. Are you blind too? He is jealous of Cheeta. You yourself heard how he threatened her on television."

  Remo caught Smith's eyes. "He has a point there."

  "Perhaps. But that is not Don Cooder," Smith said flatly. "It is an animated graphic."

  Remo took a closer look at the TV screen. His eyes were so heightened by the discipline of Sinanju that he had to focus hard, otherwise all he saw were the changing pixels, like colorful amoebae living out some superfast life cycle. "Yeah, you're right," he said. "Does that mean Audion is trying to frame Cooder?"

  "It fits Audion's pattern to date. He has thrown suspicion on virtually every network and its news division."

  "But why the news divisions every time? I mean, if he's attacking the networks, why go after the news? Aren't they the least profitable?"

  "But the most visible for Audion's purposes. Each anchor functions as a kind of living symbol of his network. No, this is sound strategy."

  "So we're nowhere?"

  "No," said Smith. "We have an abundance of facts. There must be a way-"

  Chiun made clutching motions with his long-nailed fingers and said, "Emperor Smith, allow Remo and I to descend upon every television station and I promise you we will wring the truth out of the secret oppressors."

  "Like you wrung the truth out of Dieter Banning?" asked Remo.

&nbs
p; "Pah! He is but a tool of baser fiends."

  Smith raised his hands. "Please, Master Chiun. Reckless violence will not smoke out Captain Audion. We must attack this with logic."

  Chiun made a face. "I am a Korean, not a Greek. I do not practice logic."

  Harold Smith was staring at the TV screen on which the talking TV set with Don Cooder's face continually gestured and spoke. The sound was off.

  "There is a reason for this," Smith mused. "Just as there was a reason Audion prematurely terminated his earlier transmission."

  "Sure," said Remo. "Because he wanted everyone to think he was Banning."

  "Possible. But he is not Banning. Yet he has to be someone in the television industry, if not currently, then at one point in the past."

  "How do you figure that?"

  "It takes enormous technical skill to engineer a broadcast and cable interruption of this magnitude," Smith explained. "As well as sophisticated equipment and deep financial reserves."

  Chiun spoke up. "Those anchors are paid obscene amounts of money. Remo has said so."

  Remo snapped his fingers suddenly. "Hey! Maybe Cheeta's behind this!"

  The Master of Sinanju turned a slow crimson and stared at his pupil coldly.

  "Then again," Remo amended, "maybe not."

  "This person must have the contacts to plant his agents in many networks and TV stations for sabotage purposes," Smith continued as if speaking to himself. "He is powerful. He is wealthy. And he has a compelling reason for attacking television."

  "Comes back to Captain Audacious, Jed Burner," said Remo. "Both are captains and Burner's company symbol is an anchor. It all fits."

  "Emperor," Chiun said breathfully, "I will go to Atlanta this time, to atone for my previous mistake. I will tear through the evil tower of Jed and topple it into ruins, as the walls of Jericho fell. This will end the darkness that has blighted your kingdom, O Smith."

  Frowning, Smith changed the channel to KNNN. The bizarre computer image of Don Cooder was playing there too, but in what seemed to be a three-minute delay.

  "This is a cable signal," he said, "microwaved from the KNNN tower to a satellite and downlinked to an earth station. It should not-"

  Then, Harold Smith's TV screen gave out a hissy pop and the screen went dead.

  "What was that?" he gasped.

  "Looks like the tube blew, Smitty."

  Reaching for the selector knob, Smith changed channels by hand. The blackout signal returned.

  "Guess it's fine," muttered Remo.

  Smith switched back to cable. He got snow.

  "Then why am I not receiving the cable signal?" he mused.

  Lips thinning, Smith put in a call to his local cable company. He spoke for several minutes, then hung up.

  "The cable company has been knocked out of commission," he explained.

  "How?"

  "Captain Audion is very clever. He can mask broadcast signals for as long as he continues broadcasting, but his plants in the cable-only stations can get away with covering up their sabotage of the outgoing signals only so long. Audion has figured out a way to knock out cable companies, one by one."

  "Yeah? How?"

  "Because of the proliferation of nonauthorized cable boxes, the companies had developed the technology to remotely disable the boxes when they are illegal or illegally tampered with to obtain an unauthorized channel. It is called a magic bullet-a fanciful name for an electronic pulse sent through the cable itself and designed to short out the box. In practice, an illegal box owner would be forced to call the company for a service call, thus exposing himself to the company."

  "Yeah, I read about those. But your box isn't illegal-is it?"

  Smith looked pained. "Of course not. Someone at the local cable company has sent a magic bullet that has disabled every box, legal or not, in the system. The company tells me their phones are ringing off the hook."

  "Great. Audion keeps raising the ante. But why? He's got his money. Is he asking for more?"

  Smith turned up the sound.

  Captain Audion was saying, "What's the frequency, Kenneth? People say that to me a lot. They want to know what it means. The truth is it doesn't mean anything. It's just a lot of bull's wool. Like Cheeta Ching's hair. "

  Smith lowered the sound. "It does not sound as if he is doing anything more than dominating the airwaves for his own amusement."

  "Air hog," sniffed Chiun. "Why does he not let Cheeta speak?"

  "Why he is back on the air is what concerns us," Smith said. "It makes no sense. Unless . . ."

  "Yeah?"

  "Unless there is something he did not wish to go out over the air. Remo, do you recall what you were watching when KNNN went off the air?"

  "Nothing. I was reading Calvin and Hobbes."

  "Er, yes. I remember now. A report had just come on. Quebec was mentioned, was it not?"

  "Yeah, I remember now."

  "What did the report say?"

  "Search me. I wasn't looking at the TV. When I looked up, I saw snow."

  Smith smoothed his tie. "Snow . . . KNNN is not a broadcast station, yet it was knocked off the air. When it came back on, it was blacked out just like the others." He picked up the telephone with one hand and queried his computer with the other, stabbing out the phone number that appeared on the screen.

  "Let me speak with your program director," he told the person who answered. "This is Smith, with the Secret Service."

  Remo and Chiun crowded close to overhear.

  "This is Melcher," a harried voice said. "We're a little busy down here, Smith. What can I do for you?"

  "You went off the air at approximately 3:30."

  "Three twenty-eight. I know because that's when my heart stopped, too. We couldn't get out a signal no matter what we did, so we switched to our backup tape library to run the most recent feed. The master monitor showed a No Signal. We can't figure it out. We got so desperate we tried airing commercials only, and got the same damn thing."

  "You might enter your tape library, pull a tape at random and play it on a machine," Smith suggested.

  "What good would that do?"

  "Try it please."

  Smith held the line. A minute later, the program director came back on. "The fucking thing-excuse my Cajun-is coming up No Signal on the tape deck. It's prerecorded to go out black. And there are other tapes with that glory hound Cooder on it wearing a TV set for a helmet."

  "Your tape library has been sabotaged," said Smith.

  "I know that now."

  "Who is in charge of your prerecorded library?"

  "Duncan. Why?"

  "He may be the saboteur."

  "Duncan? He's one of the best. We got him from BCN. "

  "Excuse me. Did you say BCN?"

  "That's right. They laid him off and we snapped him right up. Good timing, too. A hit and run driver had just nailed the guy he replaced."

  Smith, Remo and Chiun exchanged silent glances.

  "One more question," said Smith. "Before you went off the air, you were about to air a taped segment."

  "We call them pieces and yeah, we never got it out."

  "What was the content of that piece?"

  "It was a sayonara piece, you know, a feel-good thing. We always end broadcasts with something light. This one was about a religious statue that just up and appeared on a mountain up in Canada. No one can explain it."

  "I see. Where did you get this information?"

  "Where else? It came off the wire and we put our Montreal correspondent on it."

  As Harold Smith had been listening, his thin fingers were picking apart the international section of his morning paper. He scanned the first page and turned to the second. When his eyes came to page three, they widened.

  "Holy Christ!" Remo exploded. "I know what that is!"

  "Who's that?" asked Melcher.

  "Thank you for your time," Smith said and hung up.

  Smith looked up from the paper. Remo and Chiun were staring at the phot
o over the headline: MYSTERY STATUE APPEARS ON MOUNTAINTOP.

  "That's St. Clare of Assisi," said Remo.

  "Yes," echoed Chiun. "It is definitely St. Clare."

  "Yes?" said Smith, face and voice equally blank.

  "She is the patron saint of television," intoned Chiun. "Pope Pius XII placed that odious burden on her frail shoulders in 1958, poor woman."

  "How do you both know this?" Smith asked.

  "Simple," said Remo. "Don Cooder had a statuette just like this on his desk."

  They looked to the TV screen where the computer-generated image of Don Cooder with a television set for a head continued gesturing animatedly.

  "So," Remo said. "Does this mean that Cooder is Captain Audion after all, or he isn't?"

  Chapter 32

  Don Cooder refused to vacate the tiny television studio in One Times Square.

  "Don Cooder is not leaving this studio," he shouted.

  "Please, Don," begged Tim Macaw in a wheedling voice.

  "Yeah, Don," added Ned Doppler. "You had your turn. Give us a shot."

  "Never. As of right now, Don Cooder owns broadcast news. My audience may be small, but it's the only audience there is. When this is all cleared up, I'll go down in anchor history."

  "You're already on the front pages of the newspaper," said Macaw. "Isn't that enough?"

  "Liar! I did that interview only two hours ago. The paper won't come out until tomorrow."

  "They put out an extra," Doppler explained.

  Don Cooder's voice grew suspicious. "An extra what?"

  "An extra afternoon edition. Just to cover breaking developments. You know, like a bulletin."

  "Can newspapers do bulletins?"

  "The News did," said Doppler.

  "So did the Times," added Macaw.

  "Care to slip it under the door?" asked Cooder.

  "Can't, Don. It's as thick as a telephone book."

  "Now I know you're lying. Nice try. Newspapers are dying."

  "Thanks to Captain Audion, they're coming back.

  "Even USA Today put out an extra. With today's news for a change."

  "Slip the front page under the door."

  "If we do," Macaw asked, "will you come out?"

  "No."