Shit, he’ll probably come down on me for the way I read that piece about the damned cat.
“Sharon, I need to see you, also,” the producer said. A somber expression on his face, he looked down at his tennis shoes as if he wanted to avoid eye contact.
“Listen, I can explain about the cat story…” Brent said.
The producer peered up, looking distracted. “What are you talking about?”
Sharon padded across the concrete floor on her thick socks. “Has something happened?”
“There’s been a mass shooting.” The producer’s somber expression was replaced with a look of grim resolve.
“What?”
“Outside a town called Rostov. That’s about two hundred miles southeast of here. Our contact with the Highway Patrol says as many as twenty people were hit, most of them fatally. It happened at some kind of roadside tourist attraction they have down there.”
Brent stepped closer. Even in today’s weird world, a mass shooting with five or six victims was news. But twenty?
“Who did it?” Sharon asked.
“The gunman hasn’t been identified. Apparently a woman on the scene shot and killed him.”
“A woman?” The story’s sounding better by the minute, Brent thought.
“The details are still coming in, but I don’t want our viewers to get all their information about it from CNN or Fox. This is a west Texas story. We call ourselves ‘First-on-the-Scene,’ and by God, we’ll prove it. Sharon, go back on the air for ‘breaking news.’ Our contact with the Highway Patrol agreed to an on-air telephone interview. Brent, the chopper’s waiting for you. Fly to Rostov immediately. Find out what’s happening. Hopefully you’ll be up to speed when Sharon and the broadcast truck reach there in the morning.”
As Sharon hurried toward the news desk, the producer called after her, “Sharon, at Rostov you’ll give live updates throughout the day. Tomorrow evening, you’ll anchor the show with a view of the place where the shootings occurred. This’ll be a special broadcast, and we’ll make a big deal about it. Squeeze in as much rest as you can. I don’t want you looking tired.”
“So Sharon and I will be coanchoring there?” Brent asked, already imagining how impressive that would look on his resume.
“No, Sharon’s the anchor. You’ll contribute background. If you do research all night and all day tomorrow, by the time the broadcast starts tomorrow evening, you’ll look like something the cat dragged in.” The producer seemed to emphasize the word “cat,” but Brent hoped it was just his imagination. “Now, hurry out to the chopper.”
“But I need to go home and get some fresh clothes,” Brent said. “This suit’ll be a mess by tomorrow.”
“You don’t have time. I want you on the ground before those damned CNN reporters show up.” With that, the producer turned to- ward the three camera operators. “Who wants some serious overtime?”
“I do,” a woman said. “The brakes on my car need replacing.”
When she stepped from behind the equipment, Brent recognized the cute Hispanic camerawoman who’d recently joined the staff. Her name was Anita something. In her early twenties, she was short and trim, with shiny dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. She wore hiking boots and pants that had twice the usual number of pockets. Her shirt had ample pockets as well.
“Grab a camera and take one of the vans,” the producer responded. “Start for Rostov right away. This time of night, you can probably reach there in two and a half hours.”
“Less,” Anita said confidently.
“Whatever-I don’t care how many speeding tickets you get. Just don’t crash the van. By the time Brent’s done getting overhead shots of the crime scene and providing commentary, you’ll need to be close to the area.”
“Wait,” Brent said, “you want me to operate the chopper’s camera, too?”
The producer ignored him and kept talking to Anita.
“There’s a good possibility the bodies won’t have been removed yet. After the chopper sets Brent down, you and he will start interviewing the police and any witnesses you can find. Brent, I told you to get moving. If we cover this from enough angles, maybe CNN won’t bother sending their people. Maybe they’ll pay to have Sharon supply live updates. Our competition won’t stand a chance in the ratings.”
22
The eerie music drifted and dipped, hovered and sailed. Coming from instruments Halloway still couldn’t identify, the languid, sensuous melody settled into a lower register. He imagined that he was slow dancing with the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. He smelled cinnamon in her hair and tasted orange juice and vodka.
By now there were seven people in the room: Halloway and his partner, Taggard, another pair of guards who’d kept leaving the surveilance room to listen to the music, and the researcher-Gordon- who’d been joined by two others.
Transported by the sounds, no one spoke. Halloway imagined the woman he danced with pressing against him. She breathed softly into his ear.
Abruptly the music became silent. The woman disappeared.
“Hey, what happened?” Halloway demanded.
Static came from the speakers: harsh, crackly, loud, and aggravating.
“Gordon, what did you do?” he exclaimed. “Where’s the music?”
But Gordon looked as surprised-and annoyed-as everyone else.
“I didn’t do anything,” he protested, holding up his hands as if that would prove it.
“Then what happened? Why did the music stop?”
A researcher pressed buttons and twisted knobs on several of the consoles. “Maybe we have a phasing problem,” he offered.
The static’s brittle echo rebounded off the walls.
“Phasing, my ass.” Halloway clamped his hands to his ears. “Damn it, that hurts. Do something.”
Another researcher flicked a switch, disengaging the speakers. The static all but disappeared, coming only from headphones on a desk. When Gordon put them on, Halloway couldn’t hear the static at all.
What he did hear, though, was the hum of the many electronic devices that were crammed into the room-and the deeper vibration, almost undetectable, that the facility’s electrical generator or the huge dishes aboveground sent through the walls.
The music had distracted him from his increasing headache, but now the pain intensified through his skull.
“Where did it come from?”
The researchers gave each other guarded looks, as if hiding something.
“Bring it back!”
“We don’t know how we received it in the first place,” Gordon explained too quickly, “let alone how to find it again.”
“Just bring it back!” Halloway demanded.
“You’re not even supposed to be in here,” Gordon realized, now that the music no longer occupied his attention. “This area’s strictly off-limits. You belong in the surveillance room.”
“Like hell. My job’s to protect this place. I can go anywhere I want.”
“Well, how about protecting it by checking the security monitors? While you’ve been hanging around in here, a terrorist assault team might have surrounded us.”
Buddy, if you hear that music again and you don’t let me know, Halloway silently vowed, terrorists will be the least of your worries.
23
Dozens of emergency lights flashed in the darkness. Their chaos of orange, blue, and white contrasted starkly with the shimmering colors Page had thought he’d seen earlier. An engine rumbled as firefighters sprayed foam on what was left of the burning bus. Eight Highway Patrol cars were parked next to three police cars from Rostov. Law enforcement officers and medical personnel seemed everywhere. Page heard the wail of a departing ambulance and the roar of a medevac helicopter as it rose from a nearby field, its takeoff lights painfully intense.
From his vantage point a short distance down the road, he watched a patrolman interviewing Tori in her car next to the viewing platform. Page had already spoken to several officers and took for granted that they’d have more questions. Right now he was grateful for the chance to step back from the commotion and try to adjust to the trauma of what had happened.