The Last Handful of Clover - Book 3: The Stone in the Stream

3.02 Show Me the Fucking Truth

Larry pulled out a chair, and Morgan realized how exhausted she was the second her knees bent. She fell the last two inches onto the red cushion. "Well, we got your call to come in. But then, somehow, the radio feed crapped out. It might have been a power surge, or maybe something got wet. Anyway, we tried to call, but the phones have been hit-and-miss all night."

"It still shouldn't have taken you an hour! You were only a dozen blocks away." That was Levi Cannon, a colleague of Rhonda, and the producer for the morning talk hour. He was younger than Rhonda, but looked like he'd been left out in a rainstorm. Morgan didn't ask why.

"We had to hole up for a bit," Stan said, seriously underplaying the shit the two of them had just gone through.

"Hole up?" Rhonda asked.

"Somebody put a brick through our windshield about five blocks from here," Morgan said. "And then we heard gunshots, and military vehicles were blocking the road. A car was on fire in front of us. There was a group of National Guardsmen behind us, and they were shooting at somebody we couldn't see. We abandoned the car, took what we could carry, and ran into a 7-11, just to get off the street."

"To be honest, we kept our heads down behind the counter, so we didn't see much," Stan added, leaning heavily against the door frame. "They shot out all the windows, so we didn't dare look up."

"We stayed there for about a half hour," Morgan sighed, gripping the edge of the table. "When the streets were clear, we made a run for it. We um... didn't try to get back to the car, so we lost a lot of our gear."

Rhonda finally relaxed. "Fuck the gear, Morgan. We're just glad to get you here. Don't worry. You're not going back out. Nobody is. We've locked down the building."

"Yeah, we noticed. Where in the hell did you get that kind of security? They scared the shit out of us."

"Maybe you were too scared to notice that only about half were in uniform."

Morgan had noticed, actually. She'd even noted that one of the "guards" was a guy they called Petey, the janitor who cleaned the newsroom five nights a week. The fact that he didn't look like he knew what to do with the gun he was holding hadn't been comforting.

"The guards have shot three people already who tried to storm the building," Mia Everett said. She was head of the news division and was as tough as nails. Morgan wondered if she wouldn't rather be down there with a sidearm.

"Morgan, you probably don't know this," Rhonda said, her voice suddenly grave. "But at least three of our reporters are dead out there."

Morgan's face went pale. "Who died?"

"Jesse, Shane, and Willard Palmer." the producer replied, her voice somber.

Morgan immediately shot a look at Martha Gillespie. She had been Palmer's producer, and the rumor was that they were sleeping together. Her eyes were glazed. "Willard died on camera. During a live shot from the riots up in Sugarhouse."

"Oh my god," Morgan said, in shock. Willard had been a good friend and colleague. He was one of the station's most experienced reporters and he had always wanted to stay on the street. He'd turned down the anchor chair more times than she could count.

"How did it happen?" she asked.

"From what we saw, it was a guy with a length of pipe, or maybe it was a black metal bat," Martha said. "It was hard to tell, it happened so fast. The guy just came out of nowhere." The producer's eyes were wet, but her voice was steady.

"Oh, Martha, I'm so sorry..." Morgan whispered.

Rhonda stood up. "Come on, everybody. We need to pull ourselves together. Chances are Willard isn't going to be the last one we lose before this thing's over."