Warren Murphy: Terminal Transmission

"The charges will include extortion, interfering with the airwaves of a sovereign nation, espionage, and air piracy," said the RCMP sergeant, whose serge coat was a disappointing brown, not scarlet.

"Air piracy? Captain Audion didn't hijack any planes-did he?"

"Then you admit that you are Captain Audion?"

"That dog won't hunt and you know it," Cooder snapped.

The constables stared at him, eyes unreadable under their big yellow-banded hats.

"Would Don Cooder, if he were Captain Audion, telecast his own face to the world?" Don Cooder challenged.

"Whose own face?" he was asked.

"Don Cooder's."

The constables looked at one another.

"Yes, he would," they said in unison.

"Why would he-I mean I-do that? Were I not me, that is?"

"Ratings," said one.

"Ego," added the other.

"How can there be ratings when all TV is blacked out?" Cooder returned.

The sergeant said, "Perhaps the judge will have a theory."

"Look, I've entered your country to expose Captain Audion for who he is."

"And who is he, if not you?"

"I can't say."

The Mounties took him roughly by the elbows.

"Wait. Wait. I can't say publicly. It would be libel."

They continued along, despite Cooder's dragging heels.

"But I could broadcast it," he added.

The constables stopped.

"See," Cooder explained. "it's libel if I accuse him without proof, but if I unmask him on television, it will be news. A different kind of libel altogether. Legal libel."

"How can you do that with all television out of commission?"

"That's the tremendous part. I think I know where the transmitter is. We can go there with a remote uplink, knock out the transmitter, and broadcast the unmasking. It will be the ratings sensation of all time!"

"We will have to let the judge decide this."

The judge listened patiently.

"The man is mad!" he exploded.

"He has that reputation," one of the constables said dryly.

Frowning, the judge addressed Don Cooder.

"Your story is preposterous. I will ask you to divulge your suspicions and leave this matter to Federal troops."

Don Cooder pretended the judge was a camera lens and fixed him with unflinching eyes. "I stand on my first amendment rights."

"Well spoken. Except that you are standing on Canadian soil, and have no such rights. And please do not insult this court by suggesting that you are innocent until proven guilty, We subscribe to the Napoleonic code here. You are guilty until proven innocent."

"Then I stand on my principles as a journalist and a Texan-not necessarily in that order."

"Then I have no choice but to remand you into custody."

"You're a mean man in a knife fight, judge. But if you do like I say you're bound to land in tall cotton."

The judge looked to his constables. Everyone shrugged.

In the end, he relented. His country was at loggerheads with the United States of America, and everyone wanted the crisis to end. If only to restore good programming to the people of Canada.

"You will be shackled during every moment of the quest," he warned in his sternest voice.

Don Cooder grinned happily. "No problem. Just tell the cameraman not to shoot below my clavicle."

Chapter 34

Captain Roger Nodell understood the mission.

Fly from point A to point B, and drop off two passengers.

He just didn't understand what the hell he was doing in an FB-111 Stealth bomber violating Canadian airspace.

Oh, he could take a wild stab and guess it had something to do with the broadcast blackout that had the northern hemisphere tied in knots. That part was easy. But what the hell did it mean? The Canadians were blaming Washington. Some nut with a TV set for a head was taking all the credit, there was panic in the streets, the military was on the highest state of alert, and here he was flying across the Hudson Strait into Quebec.

As he passed south of Baffin Island, he turned on his radio.

Captain Audion was speaking in a voice that sounded like a synthesized version of Don Cooder's voice. If he wasn't going off the deep end, he was doing a great imitation.

"I know something I can't tell. Nah Nah Nah . . ."

Nodell turned off his radio. It was like this all over. Every frequency from the CB bands to the military channels was masked by the unauthorized transmission. It was screwing up the already jittery upper echelons.

So he flew on over the most godforsaken desolation he had ever seen. There was literally no place to land for miles around. It was all hard rock and frozen lake chains and some kind of swampy green stuff they told him was called muskeg.

After a while he asked his copilot to take over, and Captain Nodell went back to speak with his mysterious civilian passengers.

He found them arguing over, of all things, television personalities.

"Jed Burner is behind this," the Caucasian was saying. "I saw him kidnap Cheeta with my own eyes."

"Wrong!" the old Asian in black snapped back. "Don Cooder is the villain. He has revealed himself and so must die."

"Nobody famous is going to die. Those are our orders. One Dieter Banning is enough."

Then they noticed him and lapsed into a sullen silence.

"So far, we're doing okay," Nodell told them. "The Royal Canadian Air Force hasn't scrambled a single bird."

"The barbarians," snapped the old Oriental.

"Excuse me, sir?"

"It is bad enough to scramble the eggs of fowl. But to subject the poor mother birds to such torture is typical of Canadian cruelty."

Nodell chewed his cheek while trying to think of a proper response, but nothing came.

"The radio's still bollixed up," he said. "We're maintaining our assigned heading and keeping our eyes peeled."

"Good," said the Caucasian.

"So, where are we going?" Nodell asked.

"Look for a mountain with a nun in white standing on it."

"A what?"

The civilian passed him a folded newspaper clipping, and asked, "Think you can spot that from the air?"

"If I miss this," Nodell said, looking at the photograph, "I should be shot for dereliction of duty."

"That will never happen," said the Oriental.

"Glad to hear it."

"I will personally fling you from this aircraft if you embarrass us."

Nodell started to crack a grin, but the civilian added, "He means it."

Captain Nodell decided two pairs of eyes were needed in the cockpit. The casual manner in which the tiny little Asian man was using his long fingernails to score the titanium floor made him nervous.

Harold W. Smith monitored the steady stream of data flowing in from across the nation.

He was limited in what he could gather. Without broadcast television or radio, news traveled slowly. He had sent a security guard out for an extra. They were appearing every two hours, like clockwork, fat as the Manhattan Yellow Pages.

Meanwhile, Smith monitored computer bulletin boards. They were all choked with reports, some obviously spurious.

One interesting report came out of A. C. Neilson.

It seemed that in certain localities, people had begun to watch their TVs again. Some of it was the curiosity factor of the bizarre spectacle of Captain Audion. But in localities where reception consisted of snow, they were watching, too. Watching in numbers that were estimated to be greater than regular programming.

BCN, for example, was enjoying its best ratings in five years.

But that minor quirk paled before the magnitude of the growing crisis. The stock market had lost over a hundred points in anticipation of a long television siege and the resulting body blow to the national economy.

The word had gotten out that Alaska lay outside the interference zone, and airlines were so overbooked by citizens eager to relocate to the only state in the union still serviced by regular programming that they had quadrupled ticket prices.