"How do you check out an anonymous fax?" he retorted.
"You know," said Dieter Banning, flicking cigar ash onto a carpet that looked as if it had been pulled from a burning tenement, "I'm just going to pretend I never saw this. How's that?"
"It's your career," Doppler growled.
Banning smiled broadly. "Only if you have the balls to use it on Nightmare."
"It's Nightmirror and you know it."
"I was thinking of your next night's sleep," grinned Dieter Banning, striding from the room.
Ned Doppler stood watching him go. "Putz," he said softly. It was ten past eleven. He was on live in twenty minutes and he didn't have his lead written.
He fished into his pocket for his lucky quarter. It would not be the first time he was prepared to risk his career on the outcome of a coin toss . . .
Eventually, a producer at the fledgling Vox newsroom bit the bullet. He called his counterpart at BCN.
"Yeah, we got one," said the BCN producer. "Did you?"
"Yeah. Think it's legit?"
"Sonny, if you don't know by now, you ain't never gonna know." And the BCN producer slammed down the receiver and raced to his office TV. He turned on Vox, hoping they would break the story. That way, BCN could use it, falling back on the Vox report for credibility. If it went sour, Vox would take the heat. If not, it was a story BCN would dominate. Vox ran their newsroom as if it were a sitcom, complete with studio audience, orchestrated applause, and canned laughter for the human interest stories. They weren't even in BCN's class.
But Vox didn't break in with a bulletin.
Unhappily, the BCN producer pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and draped it across the mouthpiece of his office phone. He called his counterpart at MBC.
"This is your counterpart at another network," he said through the muffling handkerchief.
"BCN, right?"
"You can't prove that."
"Sure I can. I just got off the phone with both ANC and Vox. They got faxes signed Captain Audion, too."
"Damn. Are you cutting in with it?"
"Why don't you tune in and find out," said the MBC producer, hanging up.
For the BCN news producer, it was pressure beyond belief. All of his competition had the story now. It was just a matter of minutes-perhaps seconds-before someone broke in.
As the seconds crawled past and salty sweat oozed out of his forehead, he decided that the network that was dead last in the ratings could afford to give the one-armed bandit of destiny a hard pull.
"Is Cooder still in the building?" he snapped into his intercom.
"No, sir."
"Then get me Ching. I know she's still here. She's been circling the Chair like a shark, hoping to go into labor live."
"Miss Ching left fifteen minutes ago."
"Is there anybody still in the building who can read news?"
"I'd be happy to give it a shot," said the secretary in a hopeful voice.
"Forget it."
The BCN producer settled heavily into his executive chair. He turned on ANC. It was almost time for Nightmirror. That goofball Doppler was sure to run with the story. He had looked silly for years and it never seemed to hurt his career.
But Nightmirror made no mention of the fax. Neither did MBC or Vox.
Potentially it was the story of the decade. All four networks were on ground zero-and no one knew what to do with it.
Chapter 8
Harold Smith had his tiny portable black-and-white set perched on his Folcroft desk. The reception was snowy and one of the rabbit ears was bent. He was watching Nightmirror. Had he been a viewer of TV during the medium's infancy he could be forgiven for mistaking the blurry talking head on the screen for Howdy Doody or a Mad magazine cover.
The sonorous voice of Ned Doppler came through the static like an audio beacon.
"And so it remains, seven minutes of television time lost to mankind. That's 420 seconds to you and an estimated 40 million dollars in lost advertising revenue to the networks. Will it matter? Stay tuned. I'll be back in a minute."
Harold Smith switched off the set, knowing that Doppler always came back only to say, "That's tonight's report. I'm Ned Doppler." Sometimes he did a program update. But never came back with any statement of substance. The tag was simply a device to trick viewers into watching the final block of Nightmirror commercials-usually for a national retail chain that had a hundred-year reputation and was recently found to have engaged in a pattern of racketeering and fraud in their automotive repair and appliance divisions. Smith had personally exposed them after being overcharged seven dollars on a muffler patch job.
Smith gave the other networks a final scan and switched off the set. It was midnight. None of the networks had floated so much as a hint of the extortionary fax transmissions. Perhaps they had dismissed them as crank faxes. Possibly none of them understood they were not the only recipient. At any rate, the networks were unlikely to break programming with bulletins now, with much of the country asleep or preparing for bed. It was the flip side of the same cynicism that motivates political leaders to schedule their press conferences an hour before the midday or evening news.
Smith recalled a nonsense adage: If a tree falls where no one can hear it, does it make a sound? Wryly, he wondered was it news if no one reported it?
Harold Smith knew the faxes were real. He knew this because he had an excellent idea who had originated them. Not in the absolute sense. But all the signs pointed in one direction.
Clearing his throat, he reached for the dedicated line to Washington.
"Yes, Dr. Smith?"
The President's answer was slightly hoarse. He had picked up on the fifth ring. Smith did not apologize for waking him. That was not how CURE worked. Although ultimately answerable to the executive branch, the President could not mandate CURE operations. That would invite possible political abuse. The chief executive could only suggest missions. Or he could issue the ultimate directive-to shut down CURE forever.
In this case, Harold Smith was merely keeping his president informed.
"Mr. President," he said, "the four major networks have received extortionary faxes demanding twenty million dollars from each, or all broadcast television will be blacked for a seven-hour interval."
"Is that so bad?" was the President's first question.
"It could be catastrophic. The public would be cut off from their most immediate source of news, not to mention passive entertainment. And the advertising revenue loss would exceed . . ." Smith consulted his computer ". . . 600 million dollars."
"But there's still KNNN. This only affects on-air broadcasting, right?"
"Mr. President, I have traced the faxes to their transmission source. They all come from the Kable Newsworthy News Network headquarters in Atlanta."
"What?"
"I have confirmed this to my satisfaction. KNNN appears to have launched a campaign to demoralize if not destroy network television."
"Smith, I find this very hard to believe. Here at the White House, we could hardly get by without KNNN."
"Mr. President, any hoaxer with access to a KNNN telephone could have sent those faxes. But to knock coast-to-coast television off the air requires enormous money and extremely sophisticated equipment."
"I know the competition out there is pretty fierce, but isn't this taking it too far?" the President said weakly.
"There is reason to believe that KNNN head Jed Burner is directly culpable," Smith added. "This is no prank."
"You have proof?"
"I admit it is circumstantial, but it appears telling. The fax was signed Captain Audion."