Breaking Overnight

By Sean Van Damme

A massive storm, disgruntled commandos, troublesome live shots, a violent standoff, when things get ruff at the TV station overnight they get insane. Tyler Ford didn't know when he woke up in the middle of the night just how crazy today's breaking news was going to get.

Tyler Ford is working at the local TV station as he finishes college and just wants a nice quiet night. His grumpy over caffeinated producer Gabby Black on the other hand needs excitement to cut the boredom of working overnight, and the disappointment of being cut out of the newsroom action. Admiral William Jordan is a man with ax to grind against the establishment that has been cheating his dead soldiers out of what they have earned knows exactly where to go to get justice.

Jordan's plan is daring, and involves taking hostages as he tears apart the TV station looking for the key piece of information that he needs to bring justice to his men. What he wasn't counting on was Tyler Ford slipping away, and causing a whole heap of trouble for the retired Admiral.

At the same time Jordan has sent another group of men led my Nelson Stark to an office complex across town as a distraction, and to find a second piece to the puzzle behind the man, Swisher, who has been stealing from them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sean Van Damme
• Release date: Mar 24, 2015

Sean Van Damme

Sean Van Damme grew up all around the country as part of a military family, finally settling in the Richmond Virginia area. A love of stories and writing has been with him his entire life. A long fling with script writing and movies led Sean to try and major in film ending up instead with what turned out to be his second love, TV news. After graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University (go Rams) he started working at a local TV station as a video editor and photographer. Sean lives in a nice little house with his Fiancé Elizabeth their dog Gaius (Baltar not Creaser) and cat Gracie. Writing full time is his dream and hopefully this book will be the first step.

Book preview

Breaking Overnight

By Sean Van Damme

Breaking Overnight Copyright 2012 Sean Van Damme

SMASHWORDS EDITION

This is a work of Fiction. All characters, organizations and events portrayed are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

All Rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

Cover Art by: Karlin Lichtenberger

To all my coworkers who taught me everything I know about the news business and putting up with me over the years and probably for many more to come.

Prologue

7:35 a.m. Monday

This is such a bad idea, he thought looking down, the ground quickly disappearing as he worked his way up the tower. Tyler Ford gripped each rung with all his might, fighting not to slip off the soaking-wet metal as the storm continued to rage around him. Wind and water were lashing at Tyler’s face, like hundreds of little pins ripping across his flesh.

Each pull up the ladder was getting harder as his soaked shirt pressed and stuck to his body restricting the movement of Tyler’s shoulders. Pushing on, Ford climbed after the man in a wet three piece suit already well ahead of him in their climb up the massive red and white broadcast tower. Four-hundred feet up into the air the tower jutted out from the south end of the city, dwarfing the small building that sat at its base surrounded by the flashing blue lights of police cars and SWAT vans. In the distance he could hear the distinctive whoop, whoop of a helicopter, a sound that Tyler had deleted from so many stories over the last year and a half. He wondered if by five this afternoon there would be another video editor somewhere looking at him on the tower deleting the sound of a helicopter’s blades.

Could that be his plan? It has to be otherwise why would the old man be climbing up here in this mess? Tyler went up another rung, his foot slipping. Quickly he wrapped his arms around the rung they were on as his feet went flying; his loafers had no traction on the wet metal. Damn business casual. Hanging there for a second, the wet skin of his arms slipping off the smooth warn rungs, Tyler Ford saw everything flash before his eyes. Is this how it is going to end? Taking a deep breath, sucking in the warm wet air, Tyler got his feet back on the ladder bar and kept moving up the tower. His grip was far too precarious to risk pulling out the gun shoved into his waistband. He could feel the weight of the SIG Sauer 9mm pistol. Could picture the shot, the old man in the rumpled suit was only twenty feet above him. If he fired off a few rounds one was bound to hit, but the recoil would blow him off the slick tower. Forgetting the pistol he kept climbing as a crack of lightning illuminated the dark sky around him. Time slowed down. Far below the cop cars were clear as day with the flooded street behind them. Hundreds of officers from both the city and the county were everywhere in their black raincoats like ants swarming over a picnic. Another crack of lightning flashed across the early morning sky, the sound of thunder reverberating in Tyler’s skull. That one was close. The storm was only getting worse.

Looking up at his target, the man that he had doggedly and stupidly followed up this tower, had reached a small landing. Tyler didn’t need another flash of lighting to see the glimmer of the pistol. The light from one of the blinking red strobes that warned airplanes about the tower’s location was glinting off the gold plated Colt 1911 in his hand. It was one of those gaudy weapons that they sold in gun magazines to commemorate this event or that. His father had given him one when he came home from Iraq three years ago. The gun was still in the box with its silver-plated magazine and everything. Tyler had been afraid to go shooting with it. The man he had chased a few hundred feet up a wet steel tower in a thunderstorm though was not afraid to use his fancy weapon. So this is how it ends?

Chapter One

2:30 a.m.

Tyler Ford’s alarm clock went off, jerking him from the dream that he had been having. It was less a dream and more a nightmare. He was back in Iraq, pinned down behind a small wall, insurgents shooting at him. The memory started to fade as he rolled over in his bed putting the pillow over his head trying to drown out the constant buzzing of his clock.

I shouldn’t have gone drinking last night, he muttered groggily throwing off the comforter as he rolled across the queen-sized bed to the side that had the alarm clock. All his time in the military hadn’t prepared him for how hard it was to work nights. Putting both feet down on the carpeted floor he stood and rubbed his eyes, fighting back a yawn, stretching his arms out almost plunging both his hands into the ceiling fan which was going full speed over his head.

He hit the clock with a solid thwack stopping the insufferable buzzing. Tyler was greeted with wonderful silence, as much silence as there was to be had with his bedroom window overlooking the loading dock of a downtown hotel. 2:30 why does it have to be 2:30? Resigned to the fact that he was up and had to get ready, Tyler clomped off toward the bathroom to start his day. Each footfall was a chore, his feet still tired and heavy with sleep, fought him the entire ten feet that separated his bed from the bathroom.

Looking into the mirror, Tyler rubbed his brown eyes, and ran his hand through close cropped blond hair. Years in the Marine Corps had given him an affinity for the high and tight style of crew cut and he wasn’t about to give that up because he was a civilian again. The toothbrush was in his mouth, at the same time Tyler was patting down his face with pre-shave. The highly compressed schedule of his morning ritual had to be preserved or there was a chance he might be late for work. Work at the TV station. Work at the butt crack of dawn. A job that was threatening to destroy every good night of sleep he might ever have again. Switching to this shift was like salting the earth, nothing grew and sleep never came easily even on the nights he didn’t have to work in the morning. The persistent fear of the alarm clock kept popping him up even when he knew it wasn’t set. Tyler Ford had been a Marine Corps Sergeant, had served two tours in Iraq, had taken enemy fire, and that alarm clock scared him more than combat ever had.

Stumbling out into the main room he saw his clothes for the day laid out on the couch. Tyler didn’t turn on any lights, preferring to pretend that he was still asleep. There was enough light from the city around him pouring into his little apartment to get dressed by, and it would save his eyes from the pain of quickly adjusting to harsh artificial light. Khakis, a blue polo with NBC20 monogrammed on the breast, and a pair of black loafers. Tyler thanked God he was too tired every morning to get dressed, knowing that if left to his own devices he might end up looking like the rest of the tired hoboes that worked the morning shift. He wanted to move up in the world and that required looking the part. You had to look the part to be the part he always said.

Clothing and basic hygiene out of the way, it was time to start the long walk down to his car. Reaching into his pocket, digging past the phone, wallet, and pocket knife, he pulled out his keys. Tyler Ford walked out the door.

His apartment was in an old row house that had been subdivided into roach infested apartments back in the sixties or seventies. Hundreds of them were around the college where he was trying to get his degree so he could get a job or just a promotion at the job he currently had. Journalism was in his blood so it was no surprise that it was his career of choice after the Marines had so generously decided to pay for his schooling in exchange for his years on the battlefield.

His father had been a newspaper photographer and his mother a copy editor. Dad was fine with the fact that his son had decided to go into TV, but Mom felt like he had betrayed her, plunging a knife into her back. TV was where grammar and good reporting went to die she used to say. Dad understood that TV was the best medium for going back and showing the world what he had seen; they were both very picture oriented people.

The street was dark except for the hotel, and even then it didn’t detract from the gloom. This wasn’t the best part of town, but it was what he could afford. The curb was packed with cars all wedged in together tighter than a sardine can. Living here the last three years had taught him some important lessons; such as how to parallel park like a ninja and that sometimes you had to tap a car to get into a spot. It was the way of life and every vehicle had the battle scars to prove it. Most days he could find a spot on this block, but last night had been a real bitch and he was parked four blocks away. There was nothing he could do now but walk, and wonder how he had drunkenly stumbled this far last night and not passed out on the street like most young college kids did every night.

The air was thick with moisture; he could feel the rain coming lamenting that his wiper blades hadn’t been changed.

2:40 a.m.

The voice of the radio host said, "Tonight on Coast to Coast AM we’ll talk with a physicist who has invented a perpetual motion generator and says that the government, backed by aliens, is trying to shut him down." The driver of the truck, a well-built man in his thirties was enthralled by the program, his passenger, a slight red-haired man in his mid fifties with pockmarks across his face, far less so.

Billy, I don’t know how you manage to listen to this shit every night? It’s all crazy people calling in to a host who believes all their bullshit stories each and every night, said Pock face, crossing his arms and looking at the dark road. They had been having this fight for years every time they had a nighttime delivery to make. Because Billy was the driver he got to choose the radio station, and he always chose this supernatural talk radio.

O’Brian would have rather listened to anything else. It felt like his brain was going to melt as he listened to this man ramble on about a government conspiracy. Naturally the caller couldn’t give anything away, because that might lead the government right to him. So his story just sounded like the pile of horseshit that it was.

What do you want to listen to, country? Rock? I think there is a right-wing nut on the other AM station, Billy said not taking his eyes off the road but talking down to the older man, who never had anything positive to say. But that was OK; Billy was chipper, while O’Brian was gruff and taciturn. That difference made them a good team. Hardly a night when by that the two men were not working on something, tonight was no different from any other night.

I want to listen to something that doesn’t reek of stupidity, O’Brian said grumbling as the first drop of rain hit the windshield of the truck. The drops were the big fat kind that exploded like a water balloon when they hit the windshield.

You don’t think I actually buy into any of this do you? It’s just funny, Billy said flicking on the windshield whippier to its lowest setting, ready for the torrent that he knew was going to come. The smartphone sitting on the dashboard next to the GPS showed a huge band of red and yellow directly on top of them. The rain was tropical moisture and if the weather people could be trusted it promised to dump ten to twelve inches on the city over the next day or so. O’Brian had pleaded for this delivery to be pushed back, but the client wanted to go ahead with the plan. Being grunts they just did what they were told.

If you think it’s funny how come I never see you laugh? O’Brian asked contorting his pockmarked face into a scowl.

Just because I appreciate it for unintentional comedic value doesn’t mean I have to laugh at every single thing. It isn’t that kind of funny, Billy shot back, flicking the windshield wipers up another setting as the rain picked up in intensity. The sound of the drops hitting the roof nearly drowned out their conversation. Billy reached to turn up the dial only to have his fat fingers slapped away by O’Brian.

We’re almost there, he said reaching into the glove box and pulling out a pair of black latex gloves. Billy turned off the radio as the GPS chirped up in its computerized female voice that their destination was on the left in point one miles. O’Brian handed Billy a pair of gloves that he sat in his lap as he navigated the truck into the empty parking lot.

The office park was empty at this time of night, and the parking lot was quickly turning into a lake as heaven’s floodgate opened up on the world. Putting the truck in park the two shady men sat in silence except for the sound of the rain and the snapping of the latex gloves over Billy’s sausage fingers.

Fucking hate rain, Billy grumbled as he pulled the hood on his blue raincoat over his Yankees ball cap. Shoving the smartphone into his pocket, he took a deep breath and opened the door.

Outside greeted him with a torrent of water and heat. The temperature that night had been in the 80’s and it hadn’t started to drop with the onset of the rain. Quickly slamming the door he started toward the back of the truck, his feet splashing in the puddles, the water already seeping through his sneakers to soak his socks. On the other side of the truck he could hear O’Brian splashing through the water as well. The man didn’t know how to walk gracefully. Billy might be almost three hundred pounds but he had always been remarkably light on his feet.

They had parked at the back of the parking lot away from the building, as per instructions. Though given the nature of what they were about to do, Billy didn’t see why they had to park all the way back here and get wet. Being the good lackeys that they were though, Billy and O’Brian parked in the back.

Once at the rear of the truck, painted to look like a U-Haul, Billy pulled out the latch and threw up the door. The metal flew up spitting water everywhere with a thud as it crashed into its open and locked position. Inside, the truck was empty except for five men in trench coats and balaclavas. They were all standing at the back of the truck ready to get out. In the leader’s hand was a Beretta with an attached silencer.

Before Billy could react the man raised the gun and pulled the trigger. The 9mm round burst through Billy’s raincoat hood, Yankees hat and head, then out the other side. As he fell to the ground the river of rain washed the blood away from the body in a crimson stream. O’Brian, slower than his counterpart rounded the truck in time to see his friend hit the ground. He knew what was coming.

Turning he tried to run. Getting back in the truck wasn’t an option, he would just get killed in the cab; he had to run, needed to run. His clothing was getting heavy with water slowing him down. In the end it never matters how fast you run, bullets always run faster. The three rounds impacted his back sending him flying into the ground face-first with a splash and a thud.

2:45 a.m.

The clacking of the keyboard was music to her ears as she sat in the empty newsroom sipping on old burnt coffee listening to the police scanner and the rain beating down on the building’s flat roof. Gabby Black was in her element. Her ENPS was open displaying four rundowns. The two she was working on and the two that she was currently pulling content from. Putting together a morning show consisted of pulling the guts out of the 11p.m. show from the night before and mixing