“Let me get through these two newscasts,” is what she prayed. “Let it be smooth.”
The call for Brian Rafferty, the helicopter pilot from Across the Street, came at three o’clock. She would remember that. She looked up at the clock thinking it was time to start rewriting the wire copy when she heard his name on the scanner. The Department of Public Safety wanted him.
DPS called him first for the rescues and the searches. Rafferty would fly upside down to get a story or a body. Reporters at The Best said Rafferty should wear a badge. That’s how tight he was with the cops. The Best’s pilot, Ken Davis, was lucky to be second on the scene, if at all.
The two-way on her desk buzzed.
“Nan, heard a call for Rafferty. Might want to check it out.” Cappy’s voice was emotionless.
“Yeah, I heard it. What’s your ETA?”
“Ten minutes. Rodriguez is on his way in. He got his own car. Over and out.”
“Ten-four,” she said to the dead mike. Crap. If DPS wanted Rafferty there was a problem and that meant she might have to find someone to cover it.
“Some problem up on Padre Peak,” the DPS dispatcher told her.
“Somebody lost or fell? What?”
“That’s all we got.”
“Come on,” Nancy insisted.
“We don’t have any information. Call back in a few minutes. We might have more then.”
Damn it. Rafferty was already up. She heard him clicking his own messages across the scanners while she was talking with the dispatcher. She would have to find Ken Davis.
She tried his pager and his home phone. No answer.
“News Base to Sky Eye. Base to Sky Eye. Ken?” she called on the helicopter radio.
Oh Lord, this would blow the whole day.
Cappy was back on the two-way.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Something on Padre Peak.”
“Want me to swing by? I’m right there.”
“Yes, do that. I can’t find Ken. Let me know what’s happening.”
Charles Adkins and Steve slammed into the newsroom. Adkins carried bags of hamburgers and French fries.
“What’s up?” he asked. “We heard a call for Rafferty.”
“Something on Padre.”
“Ken up?”
“Can’t find him.”
“Shit,” Adkins said before turning to his hamburger and the sports section, “that guy is unbelievable.”
“This is News Base to Sky Eye. Base to Eye,” she tried again.
“Any problem?” asked Jim Brown over the two-way. His voice was soft, disinterested.
“Some sort of rescue or something on Padre. Trying to reach Ken.”
“Rafferty up?”
“Yup.”
“Have you tried Ken at home?”
“Yup.”
“Try the airport. You’ve got the number for the hangar?”
She flipped through the first of the Rolodexes. Cards fell out, yellow with age and blue and black with penned notations.
“Let me know what goes on.” Brown clicked off.
Adkins stood over her, his fingers spinning through another Rolodex.
“Here, here,” he tossed a card at her. “Try this.”
“Unit Eight to Base. Eight to base.”
“Go ahead, Cappy,” she answered.
“Got some cops out here. Some hikers spotted something.” She could hear the excitement in his voice.
“What?”
“Don’t know. Ambulance here. Rafferty’s been called to do a flyover. Where’s Davis?”
“News Base, this is …” The call letters were lost in static.
“Sky Eye to Base,” it came again.
“Hold on,” she told Cappy. “He’s on now.”
“Talk to him,” she ordered Adkins as she turned to the speaker that gave her Ken Davis.
“What’s up?”
“Something up on Padre.”
“I’m there.”
“Hey, tell him to come here first and get me,” Adkins ordered
“You got a story ready?” she asked.
“Nothing out there,” he said. “Nothing to it.”
“I need whatever you have.”
“From a fucking puppet show?” he demanded. “Come on, Nancy.” Steve walked toward them with Mark Cunningham a few paces behind.
“He can pick me up,” said Steve. “Charles can drive out there and meet Cappy. That will give us someone on the ground and I can be shooting from the copter.”
“Hey, what’s going on?” Ken shouted on the speaker.
“Okay. Steve, get your equipment and get up to the pad. Charles, take a van and go out to Cappy,” she ordered.
“Ken,” she called over the radio, “get in here and pick up Steve.”
“Everything under control?” Brown was talking again.
“Should I take the live unit?” Charles Adkins shouted from the newsroom door. “We might need it.”
“Take it,” she yelled back. “Everything is fine,” she told Brown.
“What have you got?”
“Don’t know. Ken is up and is going to pick up Steve. Adkins is on his way out to meet Cappy.”
“Okay. I’ll be at home if you need me.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she mumbled. She had to build the newscast.
“What can I do?” asked Mark Cunningham.
“Edit when we’ve got something to edit,” she told him.
Tommy Rodriguez ambled into the room, a friendly smile on his face.
“Where have you been?” she demanded.
“I’ve been on my way here,” he said, the smile gone.
“What have you got? What stories?”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I’ve got everybody and their brother out on a rescue or something and I don’t have a newscast. What have you got?”
“What kind of rescue?”
“Just tell me what you have!” she shouted.
“A couple of nothing pieces. I want to kill that day-in-the-dog-park thing.”
“We’re not killing anything. Get it together and give me the times.”
“Okay, but what’s going on?” He followed her to the wire machine.
“Get the stuff to Mark,” she ordered. She ripped the paper and marched back to the desk, a long stream of wire copy trailing behind her.
Tommy was right on her heels.
“Somebody dead or what?” he asked.
“This is Cappy to Base. Cappy to Base.”
Tommy beat her to the desk.
“Go ahead,” he said.
“Looks like somebody fell. We’ve got some witnesses here. Who is this?”
“Tommy.”
“Can I get a reporter out here?” Cappy asked.
“He wants a reporter,” he told Nancy. “Says he has witnesses or something.”
Nancy looked up from her typewriter. She frowned. Those witnesses would stay there until hell froze over if they thought they were going to be on television.
“Tell him Adkins is on his way.”
She turned to the sound of the helicopter beating the air above the building.
“Adkins’s on his way,” Tommy told Cappy.
“Tell
