Warren Murphy: Terminal Transmission

"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.

"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?"