Globall War of Terror: Code Silver

Cartwright dealt with for now, I had Sarah wheel me to the South Gate. I'd done the wheelchair equivalent of a sprint and tired my arms.

At the gate, Brooke was just checking in the last of a dozen or so prisoners. To be specific, eleven stretcher cases, two walking wounded and one very embarrassed young man who smelt like shit. All were blindfolded, hands secured and legs hobbled. The six who could gave their names, real or fake did not matter. The eight who could not were assigned John F Doe, John G Doe, etc. Or for ease, John Does 6 through 13.

One was remarkably easy to carry because he was missing both legs and one arm. He'd lived for two reasons - wearing military torso armor, and one of his buddies had tied tourniquets on all three limbs during the chaos that was us wrecking the assault on our campus.

"Why are we bothering, sir?"

Patty was simple and direct. Amid the wreckage of everything she had once valued, she had reverted to her Marine training and battle experience. Left to her own judgment, all fourteen would be cooling corpses.

Marines do not murder or mistreat prisoners. No matter what bandits like them did to her wife.

And I forced her to think and act like a Marine at a time at a time when very little bound her to this mortal coil. Someday she would thank me properly.

I shivered slightly, which the team took for cold but ignored. Only Shane had the moral courage to take off his 5XL jacket and wrap it around my torso like a blanket.

As each prisoner - including the badly wounded and the helpless in agony - was photographed, finger printed, and issued a huge pink PRISONER badge, I waited. Then I spoke, the abbreviated version of my normal speech.

"You are all under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder, commercial burglary and cargo theft during a national emergency. You are alive at my discretion. If you resist lawful custody we will use force on you. If you attempt to hurt anyone, if you touch a weapon or you attempt to escape, my personnel are instructed to stop you at no risk to themselves and all danger to you. For these further crimes you can be shot dead at once with no appeal. So no hurting anyone, not even other prisoners. Never touch or pick up a weapon, we consider it attempted murder. This is a no hostage facility. Don't even think about escape. As you may have learned, we have snipers. We also have dogs.

"Unless you can find us a good reason, you will be turned over to Homeland for internment at the next opportunity. Think hard. Earn your keep. Give me a reason to spare your worthless lives, you miserable murderers and thieves.

"Right now you will be triaged by medical staff and given what medical care we can afford. If you missed what I said, prisoner rules are posted in your cells. Read them or we hurt you, maybe kill you. Get 'em moving."

As I expected, most of the stretcher cases were carried to the Red tent. The vet looked at me just once, horror stricken, then turned to her duty.

I rolled over to the Red tent to watch.

As I expected, the vet came to me with a clipboard as soon as she had personally checked each casualty.

"We cannot do this, [Echo 18]," she whispered fiercely in a contralto that carried. "Four expectant, five immediate. Each in peacetime would need a team of a dozen professionals: surgeon, ER doctor, two ER nurses, respiratory therapist, ICU nurses, radiologist, Xray tech, scan tech, blood tech..."

The unchanged look on my face caused her to change tactics.

"You forbade us to use short supply meds on prisoners. These people are all in horrible pain and we hardly have any opiates left. What we do have of opiates is drugs of abuse, poorly labeled and uncertain potency. This is medical torture."

"Doctor," I exaggerated, as she was our only highly qualified medical professional and one of two willing to attempt surgery, "You have lavish quantities of two painkillers. Both are drugs of abuse but that hardly matters. You have GHB for surgery and marijuana for pain control."

"GHB is unreliable, doubly so as an anesthetic. Do you really expect a man with a sucking chest wound to smoke pot?"

"GHB is what you have. Cut fast. Sublingual tincture of sativa in brandy. Give drops from time to time until you get the needed effect. In other words, titrate. You have a carboy in the drug box and gallons in the infirmary."

She looked at me. I'm accustomed to being underestimated.

I twisted.

"Think of it as practice."

Her face twisted in turn. Then she did.

"You help or I won't do it."

So I did. I pried open clenched teeth to put droplets on the tongues of crying and dying men. I closely watched their breathing. And their suffering.

But I was just as responsible for their condition as I was for their dead comrades.

You give mercy. Even in Apocalypse. No matter what you suffer.

One of the expectant died. Without type and cross match, no transfusion. We managed autologic transfusion for another one ... suction up spilled blood, put it back in and hope infection doesn't get him. Still expectant. Two of the immediates stabilized. Two needed surgery, stat.

I left the wheelchair behind and hobbled to the cart. We crashed the infirmary doors like a bad episode of ER.

One of the immediates died on the table, despite all that we tried. The other stabilized, with a sucking chest wound and surfaced bowel.

Shane Shreve had followed his standing orders. If I am in a secure area, be nearby but help out. So he was helping set up the prisoner ward on the loading dock when a non prisoner patient lurched up at me with a two shot Derringer type pistol in my face.

"Nobody moves or he dies!"

Behind him, the infirmary guard drew his pistol, assessed the situation.

"I mean..." he said as he started to turn and I sucked bloody tile floor.

The guard shot him eight times in the body. Then seeing that he still held the pistol, steadily shot him once in the head, between the right eye and the nose.

No. Hostage. Facility.

You have to be blind to miss the signs at the South Gate

My entire attention was on that small pistol the guard had missed. As he fell, his arm splayed forward and the pistol discharged.

Into the body of the dead prisoner we had failed to save.

I reached for my radio even though I heard running booted feet.

"React, infirmary. Search and detain all convoy patients immediately!"

I then drew my pistol and helped with overwatch until sufficient resources arrived.

We had missed a stitch. Unwounded convoy members Cartwright could not vouch for had been detained. Wounded had not.

After they had been body searched, blindfolded and hands zip tied to their beds, I pulled the infirmary guard aside.

"Sir, I'm sorry I..."

I overrode him.

"Good shoot. Saved me for certain, maybe others, good control of your backdrop. Good work. After this shift you are decertified on body search. Take the class again."

And you can't work Infirmary without body search certification. Which would also give him a day or two on a different post from the one where a man from Utah had forced him to cooperate in his suicide.

I then looked around for someplace to sit down, did not find it.

Shreve had my wheelchair. He sat me down in it and wheeled me to a cot at the end. I then was subjected to the ministrations of the medical staff, under the unblinking eyes of Shreve and the larger blinking eye of his loosely held shotgun.

Bayonet fixed.

My leg had resumed the white hot blowtorch sensation. But I had work to do and ibuprofen was one med we had crates full of.

I started to object that I was fine and passed out.