In black jeans, a black long-sleeved T-shirt, black ankle boots, and a navy-and-white check scarf wrapped several times around her neck, she looked more like a guerilla fighter styled by Benetton than a camerawoman. She had unusually high cheekbones, a broad face, flaxen-toned skin, dark hair pulled severely back into a pony tail, and slate-gray phoenix eyes that were now scanning the room as if by instinct. She held out her hand.

“Great. You two met,” Matt said, appearing out of nowhere like the ghost of Christmas Unwanted. Looking at Natalie, he explained, “She’s our new camerawoman, most recently posted in Kabul where she shot for BBC and Sky News for the last decade and a half.” Then he added in a whisper, “She’s from Kazakhstan.”

Dasha gave a curt shake of her head. “Not Afghanistan since ’09. Yemen, then Damascus. Tripoli for nine months. I was embedded with Alawite forces fighting ISIS in Raqqa the last five months. I have gotten every crew out safely, not many people can say this.” She paused to let that sink in.

Natalie was searching for an impressive sounding reply—“I once helped an obese man get airlifted out of his house without him missing a turn on Xbox” was the best she had to offer—when Matt pointed insistently at the TV behind them. “Check out McGreasy.”

Natalie spun around to see Ryan McGreavy live outside the Colombian embassy with a First On ATN banner running above the Breaking News banner.

“Thank you, Nelly, I’m about to bring you an exclusive, only-see-it-here interview that no other network has. Just us. Exclusively.” A graphic reading ONLY ON ATN rolled across the screen and then shattered into a million little pieces over Star Wars-sounding music.

“Huh, do you think it’s an exclusive?” Matt said. None of them looked away from the screen.

“I’m here to bring you the first interview with Rigo Lystra from inside the embassy.”

Holy shit, Natalie thought. How the hell did he land this?

A still photo of Rigo Lystra appeared at the corner of the screen next to a symbol for a phone.

Into the camera Ryan said, “Folks, we’re on the phone now with Rigo Lystra, who is holed up inside the embassy behind me. ¡Rigo! ¿Estás bien, amigo?” Ryan winked into the camera. “For everyone at home, I’m asking, are you okay, my friend.”

A young man’s voice came over the line. “I’m okay! Let’s speak English, my friend. I’m so grateful to the United States of America for letting me keep my freedom. This is all baloney. I did nothing wrong and you will know it. Justice will win.”

“We believe you,” Ryan said. “And we’re sorry you are going through this.”

We do? We are?

“I think this McGreavy does not use your word ‘we’ correctly,” Dasha said and Natalie wanted to hug her.