This is not breaking news, Natalie thought. A Happening Now banner would be just fine. In fact, if eyeballs are the goal, a #HeWoreWhat tag is probably the better way to go.

With every uncomfortable embrace, BamBam and Rigo edged closer to the president of Venezuela, Luis Gomez. Natalie could sense the tension rippling across the stage. Only Paraguay stood between the two adversaries when BamBam, already approaching President Gomez, arms outstretched, was blocked by four men in identical dark suits and mirrored glasses as they materialized onstage. Almost instantly, Rigo Lystra was surrounded by the men and then whisked away. Without the sound, it looked like an old-timey magic trick: Rigo there one minute, gone the next.

The camera, trained on the scene, caught it all.

Now BamBam was waving his arms frantically. Security details from every country swarmed onto the stage, hustling PanAmerican leaders off to safety this way and that way until only the president of Paraguay remained onstage, alone, dazed, and confused.

It had all taken less than sixty seconds and, best as Natalie could tell, none of the people running the ATN control room had noticed.

“Excuse me, Bibb? Did you see that?” Natalie called out. Even without a banner, this was news worth breaking.

The laconic producer she’d been talking to earlier gazed up at her. “Don’t bother. I used to try. They never pay attention to what’s happening on air.”

“But—”

“If you really want them to notice, tweet it. One of the websites will pick it up and then someone in the newsroom will spot it. Probably off Drudge. If it comes from one of us, they’ll just ignore it.”

As if on cue, three wild-eyed producers came racing into the control room, shouting.

“Rigo was kidnapped!”

“Drudge says he was shot!”

“Beltway thinks he might be dead!”

“Where?”

“Is there video?”

“Who is reporting this?”

Various mouths screamed at once.

Natalie looked at the producer and then back up at the monitors. She had been in enough control rooms in meltdown to know the wise choice would be to stay silent and make herself invisible. But conveying facts was her job.

“No one was shot,” Natalie shouted over the din, in her most just-trying-to-help tone.

The room didn’t notice that she’d emitted a sound. Producers were yelling, “Beltway says they were Venezuelan security forces.”

“Fox is calling it a foreign attack on US soil.”

“What do we want to go with?”

Bibb started barking orders like the commanding officer on a sinking submarine. “People, rerack the video! I want a Developing Now banner on air, and a headline. ‘Colombian Leader’s Son Abducted! Summit Attack!’”

The video started running in slow motion replay live on air with the banners Bibb requested. There was Rigo smiling and extending a hand when he was again surrounded by big men in earpieces and whisked away.

“Unlikely,” Natalie murmured to herself.

“What is?” the associate producer asked.