May 1
NBC News
Rockefeller Center
New York City
3:39 P.M. EDT
“… so I figured, what the hell? With the streets a damn parking lot, I might as well come back to the salt mines here and hang out,” Dennis Littrell said. “Nothing up yet on the cause of the traffic snafu, eh?”
“Nothing from NYPD,” Todd Lieberman said, and grimaced. “We’ll probably give it thirty seconds on the show, less if I can convince Brian not to use the thrilling footage of a freaking traffic jam.”
Littrell winked, quite aware of the New York-centric propensities of Big Apple-based journalists toiling under an anchorman’s managing editor prerogatives.
“Good luck with that; if it inconveniences Brian, it has to be a national crisis, right? Anyway … let me know if there’s any official statement about what caused it, okay? Soon as you hear, right? But, hey—I wanted to talk to you about something else anyway. You got a minute?”
Lieberman shot a significant glance at the three monitors on his desk. On the largest screen, an aggregation of breaking news bulletins glowed brightly, each accompanied by a digest of their content. Some were highlighted in yellow; most, on this day after THE ATTACK, screamed in a particularly demanding shade of “Look at me!” scarlet.
Early word of a shooting at a Kansas mall; confusing reports of an industrial accident down in Texas; a pending Presidential visit that might turn into an announcement of permanent residence. All breaking news, all still sparse in detail, all part of the never-ending grist that might—or might not, depending on more pressing items that made each day’s news judgment an exercise in oft-second-guessed triage—be milled into flour to bake the bread of a half-hour national news show.
All cried out for Lieberman’s immediate attention, particularly with The NBC Nightly News airtime looming ever more near.
Yeah: ‘got a minute?’ This is why the NBC Employee Handbook prohibits production staff from carrying guns, knives, or anything else that might be used as a weapon, Lieberman reminded himself. Even sharp pencils. Especially around ‘THE TALENT,’ and I guess after last night Denny is almost as big in the ‘talent’ category as Brokaw was.
As big a ‘what,’ I better not say…
“Sure, Denny,” the young producer said aloud. “What do you need?”
“Look—I want to say again how much I appreciate all you did last night,” Denny said. “You really stepped up when I—when we—needed you. Couldn’t have had the show we did without your help. Probably.”
“Appreciate it. Really. Okay, then. You know, I have to get back to—”
“I’ll tell you, Todd, it felt pretty good to get back into harness. Knew I hadn’t lost the touch, but it was nice to find out for sure, you know?”
“Yeah, Denny. You were great. Now, I better—”
“It hasn’t been announced yet, but I just signed a new contract.” Denny winked. “I’m going back on camera. Getting a new show. All my own, an hour a week.”
“Wow, that’s super. Congratulations. Maybe we could talk about it after—”
“I’m going to need a team—writers, producers, everything.” Denny paused a count. “I’m going to need a senior producer, a top-notch numero uno guy to be my showrunner. And I want you to be him.”
Lieberman’s brow furrowed. “You want to hire me?”
“Hell, I want to poach you.” Denny grinned hugely. “Don’t worry about Williams, either. Ol’ Brian’s a smart boy; he knows the score. Heck, after he gets used to the idea, I bet he’ll even be glad for you. Getting a big opportunity like this, you know?”
“For God’s sake—you haven’t talked to him about this, have you?”
“Stopped by his office upstairs, but he’s somewhere out of the building interviewing one of our fair city’s new residents. Secretary of Defense, I think. Heh … it’s like a ghost town up on that floor. Everybody’s out interviewing somebody or other, or waiting for the President to arrive at the Waldorf Astoria.” Denny waved away the distraction. “So what do you say? Salary-wise, you can write your own ticket. Within reason, of course.”
Todd Lieberman took a deep breath. Even at his relatively young age, he was no stranger to the concept of risk-and-reward; but he was also no virgin when it came to the internal politics of network television, and particularly of network television newsrooms. Jumping ship—even the innocent appearance of considering it—was akin to a hanging offense therein.
“Denny. I’m really flattered, but I just think that you maybe need to find a different—”
The shout came from a different desk, a console, on the far side of the newsroom.
“Todd! I’ve got Todd—I mean, it’s Chuck—on line two! You gotta talk to him, now!”
Lieberman spun snatched the phone from its cradle in a single swoop.
Denny’s skin began to prickle, and for the second time that day the same instinctive voice murmured ominously in his mind.
“Lieberman here, Chuck. What is … what? Was he aboard? Are you sure?” There was a momentary pause on the newsroom side of the line. “Can we say it’s confirmed by official—Chuck? Chuck? C’mon … are you there, man? Damn it to hell!”
Todd slammed down the phone, shouted. “Davey, try to get him back on the line. Listen up, everybody: Do we have anybody out in Newark? Who has a contact in the fucking airport tower there? Cop shop, fire department, whatever! C’mon, people—Newark, names and numbers, put ’em up on my screen, now.”
To Denny: “We have our guy in the Presidential press pool, flew in with the President from the Springs, he’s on one of the ’choppers out at the airport. Holy shit … Chuck says that—Susan! Your mom lives out in Newark, right? Call her, ask if she sees any smoke or anything out toward the airfield! Those names and numbers, people—move it!”
“Is he dead?” Denny asked, eerily calm.
“Chuck says his helicopter went down. Could see the fire and smoke from the other one, the helicopter he, Chuck, was on. That’s all he could fucking say, except that the Secret Service was trying to grab his cell phone … Davey! You get Chuck back? Well, keep on fucking trying…”
The producer twisted, scanned the computer monitor, scratched at the top of his head madly and reflexively. He blew out a hard, sibilant breath that might have been a word—to Denny it sounded much like a frustrated “shit!”—then spun back to Denny with a grim, if tentative, expression.
“Nothing from AP, no confirmation … but with an eyewitness, one of our guys actually seeing it…”
Denny heard the implicit question mark, recognized it as a plea for help.
He nodded once, without speaking.
“Okay. Yeah … yeah, we’re going to go with it, damn it.”
Lieberman spun again, scooped up the handset, hit an intercom switch.
“Who’s available in the Talent bullpen?” he demanded. “No, a breaking news bulletin … We’re going to cut into network programming, probably in the next few minutes … Son of a bitch, all of them? Well, who else do we have in the building—no, no, not him. Somebody else … oh, shit. No, I’d rather eat broken glass than—”
His eyes darted to Denny, and his mind made a decision—as it turned out, two decisions simultaneously.
“No, forget it. I’ve got the guy I want, right here … fuck make-up! We’ll be in the studio in two minutes…”
• • •
The camera’s red light flared into life, and an off-camera finger pointed imperiously and urgently.
“We interrupt regular programming to bring you this bulletin,” Dennis Littrell said. “NBC News has confirmed that a helicopter carrying the President of the United States has just crashed near Newark Airport. The fate of those aboard has not yet been confirmed, and it remains unclear as to the cause of…”
• • •
Like all newsrooms, NBC News is linked to the wires of the Associated Press; unlike many other news outlets, NBC continues a longstanding tradition of monitoring the audio-alert function used by AP—now electronically generated, rather than the archaic mechanical strike-and-ding of the older teletype machines.
Also traditionally, most AP stories are announced with a single bell tone; important stories get more bells—as many as half-a-dozen for really big news events.
In the studio control room, as Todd Lieberman heard the opening on-air words of Dennis Littrell, the AP monitor behind him began to sound.
Ten bells: the first time that had happened since an early afternoon, decades before, on an overcast day in Dallas, Texas.