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She flashed her badge at security, but they recognized her and didn’t even bother looking at it. When she was in Control room B, she found a competent team of associate producers already working with Gina who had just arrived on site at the Doll House, or rather a few blocks away.

Someone handed her a headset, and she slipped it on. When they gave her the signal that the mic was hot, she spoke to Gina. “I’m here. What do you need?”

“I need to fucking get closer but they have us pushed farther back than necessary.”

Carrie winced. “You’ve never been around a bomb before, have you? There’s no way for them to determine the full potential blast radius until it goes off or until they defuse it and can examine it closer. I appreciate you wanting to get the story, but it’s more important that you not get blown to bits. Everything I’m seeing from your camera guy is great.”

Gina rolled her eyes as she stared into the camera, knowing Carrie was looking right at her. “You should talk Tom into getting us some drone cameras for field reporting.”

“Why me?”

“Everyone knows you’re Tom’s favorite.”

Carrie opened her mouth to refute that when an associate producer came and tapped her shoulder. “We’ve got the go ahead to break in to the current programming. Three minute warning.”

“You hear that, Gina? We’re breaking into the network in three minutes. Who do we have in the editing bay?”

“Carol and Garreth, and they’re already prepping four packages depending on which direction this thing goes,” someone shouted from across the room. She threw a thumbs up in the direction of the voice.

“Glad I’m working with a solid team. We could be here a while so let’s strap in, folks.”

She stood in the center of the control room and looked around. It wasn’t her ideal job, but it wasn’t as bad as she expected. Then again, there was a rush of adrenaline coursing through her. That wouldn’t always be the case. Slow news days happened more often than not. A good thing for the public, but being trapped in the control room on too many of those days wouldn’t be great for Carrie.

They got a thirty second warning, and she became laser focused on helping Gina get through the first few minutes of the broadcast.

Ten minutes in to being on the air, Jack showed up.

“This is my control room for another week. I can take it from here.”

Carrie glanced between him and Gina on the monitors in front of her. They were in the middle of a sixty-second commercial break.

Gina gave her the thumbs up. “It’s fine. Let’s not make a scene. We’ll debrief later.”

Carrie grumbled about it but took the headset off and handed it to Jack and walked out of the control room. As she left, she heard Gina say, “I see an opening to get closer. Buy me some time with the in studio anchors in New York.”

She was tempted to stick around and see what Gina wanted to do, but the producer clearly didn’t want her there, so she kept walking.

Since she was in the building, she stopped at her desk to get some work done since Peter was going to be gone a while but after an hour of staring at her screen, she gave up and drove back to Peter’s place.

***

By the time Peter arrived on scene at the Doll House, the bomb squad had set up a wide perimeter. Director Upwood and everyone else were still inside the club, so Peter flashed his secret service badge. The FBI agent controlling the scene reluctantly let him past the barrier. There weren’t as many news vans as he’d expected, and the ones who were there had been pushed well behind the bomb squad’s perimeter. He’d spotted a UNN van and wondered if Carrie was at the studio yet. When she’d messaged to tell him she was being called in to work, he’d been relieved that she wasn’t being dispatched to the scene and was instead heading to the office.

A bomb tech holding what looked like the controller to a remote controlled car approached Peter, and he identified himself as the Secret Service Agent in charge. “We’ve determined that the radius of the bomb wouldn’t hit the club, so we’re keeping everyone inside until we can defuse. Just in case our bomber is nearby with a remote detonator.” It was odd not to evacuate, but Peter wasn’t going to argue with a bomb technician at this hour.

“I need to speak to Director Upwood and anyone else who may have seen who planted this device.”

The tech pointed to a side street. “Go around back, please.”

When he entered the Doll House, he spotted his men flanking a furious Corbit Upwood.

“Mercer. How the hell did this happen?” The old man stopped pacing and glared as Peter approached.

“We’re looking into that, sir. For now, we’re going to work on getting you out of here. I’m placing you in protective custody until we catch this guy. He’s getting way too close for comfort. You’ll be placed in a nice safe house with your wife and son.”

Peter knew even before he finished that the director would protest.

“Like hell I will. I’m the director of the God damned CIA. I will not cower in some safe house when I’ve got agents in the field putting their lives on the line.”

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