IT’S FIVE A.M. AND ERICA is running north through Central Park. She loves this time of day, just before sunrise, as the light grows stronger and the powerful beast awakens around her. She also loves the sense of momentum that she feels in the city—of fearlessly racing toward the future. To her, this intangible energy, verve, and promise define the city more than any of its touristy landmarks. Then there’s the sheer beauty of the park—rolling lawns, lakes, flower beds filled with bursts of color, swaying grasses, towering trees, promenades, and vistas.
She reaches Seventy-Second Street and Fifth and turns west, running past stately Bethesda Fountain with the lake beyond, crossed by a graceful arched footbridge, the boathouse anchoring its northern shore. Erica can hardly believe this is her home—it’s a million miles from bleak St. Albans, Maine, and a prefab house that sat on a concrete slab and welcomed the bitter winter winds with loose windows and hollow doors, and tall plastic glasses filled with generic soda and off-brand booze paid for by selling the family’s food stamps for fifty cents on the dollar.
Erica picks up her pace, even though she knows she can’t outrun her past. The best she can do is turn it into a source of strength and drive and compassion. The footage of the Staten Island ferry crash two days ago has been getting a lot of play, and her follow-up investigation into the cause is proceeding. She has interviewed an inspector from the NTSB and the pilot of the boat and is starting to pull the story together. The inspector wasn’t willing to go on record with a reason for the crash, but he did hint at a computer malfunction.
The words computer malfunction caught her attention. Erica closely followed the Sony hacking case, which the United States pinned on North Korea, and the cybertheft of customer information at Target. There can be no doubt: the world faces a growing threat from cyberterrorism—computer systems from Zappos to the Pentagon are at risk. When Erica asked the NTSB inspector if the crash could possibly have been an act of cyberterrorism, he grew very tight-lipped. Which only stoked her curiosity.
She loves having a story like this, one with real consequences, one that takes some searching, some groundwork, some reporting. It’s easy to forget, in the glamorous, supercharged world of cable news—where Megyn Kelly and Anderson Cooper and Rachel Maddow have become celebrities in their own right—that in the end journalism is about finding out the truth.
Erica reaches the west side of the park and runs past Strawberry Fields and its Imagine mosaic, donated by Yoko Ono in memory of John Lennon and his fallen idealism. She thinks of another idealist: Archie Hallowell, her professor and mentor at Yale. Rail-thin and patrician, wild-haired and vital, perpetually covered with a thin layer of chalk dust, bits of his breakfast stuck to his Harris tweeds—Hallowell looked like some relic of a long-gone age, as if he should be stuffed and displayed in a glass cabinet at the Smithsonian: Professorus americanus—extinct. But oh, what a passion for the truth burned in Archie’s heart! And he took Erica—the fish out of water, flopping around in the thin Ivy League air—under his wing. At least once a week he would invite her into his cluttered office where—in a voice urgent and impassioned—he impressed on her that journalism is a noble profession, an important profession, one that lies at the very beating heart of a functioning democracy. And Erica learned that if she kept her eye on that prize, all the pain in her life fell away. At least while she was working on assignment for the Yale Daily News.
In social situations with her prep-schooled peers, her anxiety remained. But then she found a magic elixir that assuaged it, smoothed out the edges, made her eyes sparkle and her wit sharpen: booze. And so began her bifurcated life: kick-ass journalist on the one hand, insecure girl with a secret blighted past and a growing dependence on alcohol on the other.
As Erica runs past the Tavern on the Green—where delivery trucks are unloading meat and produce—her cell phone rings: it’s Moira Connelly, a fellow newscaster, her best friend from the early years of her career in Boston. Moira stayed loyal through Erica’s troubles and drove her to rehab when the day of reckoning arrived. She lives in LA now, where she anchors the local evening news on NBC affiliate WPIX.
“Hey, Moy. You’re up early.”
“Haven’t been to bed yet. Your Battery Park report is at a hundred twenty thousand hits on YouTube.”
“And I’ve got eleven thousand new Twitter followers.”
“It’s a wonder you’re still talking to me.”
“What was your name again?”
“I’m so proud of you.”
“It’s a start.”
Moira’s tone grows serious. “Are you feeling solid?”
“Trying my best. And how are you?”
“I’m great. I covered an important story last night: a water main break in Tarzana.”
“How did you handle the pressure?”
“The water pressure? There was none.” The friends laugh.
“Actually, Moy, the vibe at GNN is a little weird. Uptight. Secretive. Two different people have basically warned me that Nylan Hastings is a little . . . weird.”
“Seriously?”
“They told me to be careful.”
“I’d heed those words. You’re in the big leagues now—the rules are different. I’m here for you 24/7.”
Erica feels a swell of emotion. “Thanks, Moira. The time may come . . .”
“. . . and when it does.”
Another call comes in. “Gotta go, Moy, this is my producer . . . Good morning, Greg.”
“Are you sitting down?”
“I’m running.”
“I just got a call from a producer at The View. They want you on the show tomorrow to talk about the ferry crash.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I’m serious as stone. This is a big break.”
Erica’s first thought is: I deserve a glass of champagne to celebrate. What she says is: “I’ll see you in about an hour.”