As he crawled ahead in his line, he fumbled in his wallet for money.
“Don’t try anything here,” Vic said into his ear. “We’re watching you, and you know what will happen.”
Dan let out a slow breath. The thought of them detonating his vest here sent a chill up his spine. It would end any chance to save Lori and Billy. And innocent people would die.
He was now one car from the booth. Gripping a folded ten-dollar bill in his hand, he prayed that his plates would come up as stolen, alerting police, helping them get closer.
Thud!
Dan’s head snapped back. His car had been rear-ended.
After taking a moment to assess that he wasn’t hurt, he got out.
“I’m so sorry! Are you okay?” A woman in her twenties came toward him gripping a cell phone, her face reddening. She stared at Dan, then at the area where her Toyota was pressed against the bumper of his Impala.
“Sir,” the toll officer said. “I’m going to need you to drive through.”
Dan noticed a baby in the rear of the woman’s car, strapped in its car seat.
“Get back in your car!” Vic ordered Dan.
“I guess, do you want my insurance and stuff?” The woman was now in tears. “It was my fault. I’m so sorry.”
Horns were sounding behind them.
“People—” the toll officer had stepped from his booth “—return to your cars. We need to keep this line moving. You can sort this out after going through the gate. Just move over to the right shoulder.”
“Get in your car, Dan!” Vic said. “We’ll kill everybody—you, her and her baby!”
“I don’t see any damage,” Dan said to the woman, wanting to get everyone out of danger as quickly as possible.
“Really? Are you sure? Let me pull my car back a bit, so you can have a better look.”
“Ma’am, do not back up,” the toll officer interrupted.
“I think we’re okay,” Dan said.
“Oh, thank you! Thank you! I’ve been having the worst morning!”
Dan handed the toll officer his cash.
“Keep the change,” he said, getting back in his car.
The officer returned to his booth, and the bar lifted for Dan to pass through.
“Good,” Vic said. “Now get on the Cross Bronx Expressway to the George Washington Bridge to New Jersey.”
Dan accelerated and merged with the traffic, his heart hammering.
“I’m cooperating, okay? You can see I won’t make trouble. Will you please let me talk to my family again?”
Vic didn’t respond.
Manhattan, New York
Newslead was located in one of the city’s largest skyscrapers, a modern glass structure rising over Penn Station in the Hudson Yards area of Manhattan.
Tenants in the recently renovated building included the head offices of a TV network, a cosmetics chain, a fashion house, a brokerage firm and an advertising agency.
Kate swiped her ID through one of the main floor security turnstiles and joined the flow of workers to the banks of elevators. She stepped out at Newslead’s world headquarters on the fortieth floor. Each time she walked through reception she was inspired. The walls displayed enlarged news photos captured by Newslead photographers of history’s most dramatic moments from the past half century.
Those powerful images stood as testament to the fact that even though Kate’s industry faced challenging times, Newslead remained a formidable force as one of the globe’s largest news operations.
It operated a bureau in every major US city and some one hundred fifty bureaus in one hundred countries around the world, supplying a continual flow of fast, accurate information to thousands of newspapers, radio, TV, corporate and online subscribers everywhere.
Its track record for reporting excellence had earned it countless awards, including twenty Pulitzers. It was highly regarded by its chief rivals across the country, including the Associated Press, Bloomberg, Reuters, the World Press Alliance and the new Signal Point Newswire. It also competed with those organizations globally, along with Agence France-Presse, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, China’s Xinhua News Agency and Russia’s Interfax News Agency.
Corporate offices took up half of the fortieth floor, and the newsroom occupied the rest with a grid of low-walled cubicles. Above them were flat-screen monitors tuned to 24/7 news networks around the world.
Kate looked fondly at the glass enclosure tucked in one corner—the scanner room, or what some called “the torture chamber.” It was where a news assistant, usually a journalism intern desperate to pay their dues, was assigned to listen to more than a dozen emergency radio scanners.
Kate, like most seasoned reporters, knew that scanners were the lifeblood of any news organization.
Students were trained on how to listen, decipher and translate the stream of coded transmissions and squawking cross talk blaring from the radios of police, fire, paramedic and other emergency services. They knew how to pluck a key piece of data that signaled a breaking story, how to detect the hint of stress in a dispatcher’s voice or the significance of a partial transmission, and how to follow it up instantly before alerting the news desk. Scanners were sacred. They alerted you to the first cries for help, pulling you into a story that could stop the heart of a city.
Or break it.
Kate had spent long hours listening to scanners. She smiled at the softened sound of chaos from the torture chamber as she walked through the newsroom, which was bordered by the glass-walled offices of senior editors. On her way to her desk she paid silent respect to those that were still empty, a cruel reminder that staff had been let go in recent years as the business struggled to stem the flow of revenue losses.
The plain truth was that people were now relying on other online sources for information. While much of it was inaccurate and lacked the quality of a credible, professional news organization, it came free, which seemed to be more important these days.
As Kate settled into her desk, she took stock of the newsroom with some apprehension. She’d sensed tension in the air. Some reporters and editors were huddled in small groups. A few people appeared concerned.
Kate did a quick survey of the suspended TVs. Nothing seemed to be breaking. Then a shadow crossed her computer monitor.
“There you are.” Reeka Beck had approached her from behind, head bowed over her phone as she typed.
“Good morning. How are you?”
“Fine.” A message popped up in Kate’s inbox—it was from Reeka. As discussed earlier, we’d like a story out of the security conference at the Grand Hyatt this afternoon. I suggest you get in touch with Professor Randall Rees-Goodman, who’s attending from Georgetown University. Reeka tapped Kate’s screen with her pen. “I just sent you his information. He’s an expert on current threats in the geopolitical context.”
“I know, but like I said before, I really think Hugh’s better for this. And besides, Chuck cleared me to enterprise. I need to put in some time following up some leads I’m working on.”
Reeka’s thumbs move furiously over her keyboard as she dispatched another text from her phone, then she lifted her head. She blinked and smiled her perfect smile at Kate.
“This is the assignment I’ve given you. Are