The Hammer of God

Brodenchy met his fellow political refugees at the Thames Coffee shop on 44th Street, just east of Madison Ave. Hellerman, who was always a sickly sort back in Europe, looked good and healthy. He was now a consultant for Fairchild Corporation working on missile guidance packages. To the degree that he could, Brodenchy explained the unexplainable to his compatriot. Hellerman agreed to lend his name, sight unseen, if Brodenchy thought it was legitimate enough. Brodenchy thanked him for the proxy and they discussed the issue of security. It was Hellerman’s feeling that if the committee was going to be dealing with top-secret matters, it should have a core of security to protect not only its findings but also its members. Only one name came up, only one person they had both trusted and would trust again with their lives. Kasiko Halman. Like Brodenchy, Hellerman had heard he was working in New York. He had an idea where.

There were three radio studios all behind glass. Peter and the man entered the one on the far end. He saw rows of tape recorders and racks of equipment. There was a huge console with big knobs and meters. Two huge record turntables and more tape machines book-ended a man working the controls, but that wasn’t what caught Peter’s attention and had him riveted. Behind two panes of tilted glass, wearing an open collared, white, short-sleeved shirt, looking down at a piece of paper in his hands through thick glasses, was Chet Huntley! The NBC microphone poised by the bridge of his nose wasn’t necessary for Peter to know that he was the anchorman for NBC. Well, half the anchorman. The other guy was David Brinkley. But here he was twenty feet away from Peter. The man operating the big console pointed his finger at Huntley as a light went on that read ON-AIR over the doorway and then Peter heard the famous voice.

“This is NBC Monitor News on the Hour. I’m Chet Huntley reporting.”

“Wow!” was all Peter could muster.

His host, not phased one iota by all this, said, “So you see we put every story on these carts.” The man held up a grey plastic Fidel-a-Pac cartridge that looked just like an eight-track tape. Only this one had a clear top and you could see the tape spooling around in a loop inside.

Peter caught on quickly. “Oh, so that’s actually Random Access. Much better than Sequential Access.”

There was a pause and Peter figured “the tour” was over.

“You hungry?” the man said.

“Me? Sure!”

“Okay, come back to my office for a second then we’ll go up to the commissary and grab a bite.”

Peter tried hard to remain cool, but the Commissary was the place that Johnny Carson made jokes about almost every night. Now Peter was going to have lunch there. First, he saw Chet Huntley, now he was going to have lunch with Johnny Carson! This was turning into one incredible day. He stole one last peek at Chet behind the glass as they left.

It was about to get even better.

It was a short walk down the hall to the place where the man worked. Peter noticed the room number 523 and another big glass window. In this room, there was no radio equipment, though. Instead, the room had rows of Teletype machines all noisily clattering and ka-chunking away.

The man who was taking him to lunch pointed at a chair next to the only desk at the front of the room. “Sit here for a minute; I’ll be right back.”

One thing struck Peter right away — some of the people working in this room were his age or a little older. Odd, he thought.

All of a sudden, red lights started flashing and the machines started ringing. A boy not much older than Peter went to one of the blue machines and tore off some paper. He then thrust it into Peter’s face and said, “Quick, take this to Hourlies.” Then he went off into the other room.

Peter, keying off the urgency of the boy’s voice, ran out into the hall but immediately stopped because he had no idea where he was going. Then his brain kicked in. “This is NBC Monitor News on the Hour. I’m Chet Huntley reporting” played back in his head. Hourlies? He took a shot and went back the way they came. He went through the glass door to the studio where he saw Chet Huntley. A bald-headed man was sitting at the desk reading a script, following along as Chet was broadcasting. Peter handed him the piece of paper. The man scanned it quickly and said, “Great! Bring me the ‘first lead.’”

Peter went back out into the hall, retraced his steps once again to 523, and found the blue machine that he thought he saw the kid tear the paper from. There before him, typing out at thirty-five characters per minute was: “1-s-t-L-D.” First lead.

Peter started to read:

UPI — Mexico City, Mexico. A Boeing 737 with 87 aboard crashed on takeoff from Mexico City Airport. All on board are presumed dead. The Aero Mexico airliner struggled…

“What are you doing?” asked the man who was taking him to lunch.

“I’m waiting for the first lead?”