Be a team player. Increase your VOP, she told herself. Rate now, report later.

Working to sound coolheaded and in command, Natalie did as the voices in her ear advised. “Luques, is there any indication who is on board the yacht now?” she asked. “Any signs of DiCaprio, the First Lady, or the Secret Service?”

“We’ll get a closer look,” Luques declared, and to Natalie’s surprise the helicopter dropped twenty feet closer to the water as the camera zoomed into the ship’s tinted windows.

“I cannot see zee persons, but we know they are there!”

Someone in the control room yelped into Natalie’s ear, “We’ve got a photo of the First Lady receiving an award with DiCaprio. We have it ready to go whenever you want to toss to it.”

Natalie took a breath. “Luques,” she said, “I want to show our viewers this photograph. It was taken—”

“—two years ago,” the voice from the control room said in her ear.

“—at a charity function two years ago. Leonardo DiCaprio and the First Lady receiving an award together,” Natalie said.

The voice in her ear added, “For the environment!”

“In recognition of their work protecting the environment.”

“Natalie, have him get closer—zoom in,” the voice said.

“Luques, do you think you can get a closer look? Those windows are awfully dark.”

The camera zoomed closer until she could see the silhouettes of several people inside. It was impossible to make out their faces. Still, Natalie’s heartbeat started racing, like she’d just run a red light.

“Luques,” she said, “think we could try zooming in on the other side of the yacht?”

“Great, great direction,” someone said in Natalie’s ear. “Just keep it moving. More angles. More questions.”

As Luques started to answer, a figure in a crew uniform raced out from behind the smoky sliding glass doors onto the deck of the yacht. He was just below the chopper shaking his fist directly at the camera, screaming, his face nearly purple with rage. It was impossible to hear him over the roar of the propellers.

“What’s he saying?” the control room yelled.

“Luques, can you make out what he’s saying?”

The uniformed crew member stalked back into the boat and Luques launched into a disquisition about the maritime rights of photographers. He was in the middle of insisting “zee photographers have zee right to film zee boats” when another man, presumably the captain, emerged on the deck, brandishing a long black gun. It looked just like the ones Natalie had seen in the hands of the Big Horn survivalists when she’d covered their standoff with the Wyoming National Guard. That had ended badly for everyone involved, except ATN, which blessedly had time to black out the gory parts before the video made air.