GWOT 2 - Processing

Our detour had only taken us two days. And it is much easier to get a single vehicle around the Bay Area than any convoy.

The company fuel card continued to work. We were both in uniform, armed, with travel papers. And my travel papers were apparently Papers Of Great Respect +10, because reading the signature at the bottom of the first page seemed to galvanize Homeland sentries into immediate action. Gates opened, barriers raised, even salutes.

I almost felt relieved when we made it to Milpitas and the local police control point flipped us shit but passed us through.

I called in on radio now that we were in range. The acknowledgment was brief and crisp.

When we made it back to the South Gate, there had been some changes.

Most notably, concrete construction. We were now building concrete walls to take the place of the wire-and-ditch of our first attempt at a perimeter.

Also, the sacrificial tower at the gate was now manned with a single guard with binoculars. I had never expected us to post someone up there.

Then came the kicker. The Gate Captain was Sarah Stewart, and she was under orders to deny me access.

"Brooke, you're good. But [Echo 18] is explicitly listed as not cleared for access by order of Major Cartwright. I've called him. He knows you're at the gate. He will not permit you access."

I blinked. Hadn't expected that.

"Is the SLE still [so-and-so]?"

"Yes." Although properly she should not have answered any questions from an unauthorized person.

Let's push this just a little.

"I'd like to use the internal phone."

Sarah looked relieved as she passed the battered analog phone over and I dialed several digits from memory.

The Dragon Lady answered. She allowed that while the SLE was in a meeting, that she could interrupt him, and stay on the line please.

"[Echo 18], glad that you're back! Come up to my office and let's debrief."

"Yes, sir. I'd love to. But I can't get past the gate."

"Why not?"

"I'm not cleared for re-entry, sir."

"Not. Cleared," he said slowly, making each syllable last a second.

"Sir."

"By whom are you not cleared?"

"I am told that I am not cleared by Major Cartwright, sir."

Click. The phone was abruptly hung up, and I passed it back to Sarah.

"Under the circumstances, I think I'd like to inspect the outer perimeter defense - as that is a task I can do from outside the site. You're the Gate Captain, is that OK with you?"

Sarah thought about it.

"I would be OK with it, but I have a safety concern. There could be a horrible accident. You are not cleared; you cannot enter. But if you leave this area, you could be mistakenly taken under fire. I have had no instructions to disarm either of you. But I am thinking it might be best for all of us to stay here."

How tactfully put, Sarah. Very Captainly of you.

So we hung out and talked shop while waiting for something to happen.

About eight minutes later, the Reaction Team responded to the South Gate without contact or a PA notification.

The SLE and his protection specialist were in the lead vehicle. They walked briskly up, calling for the Gate Captain.

"The access list?" the SLE demanded.

She showed it to him. He reviewed it.

"Did you speak to Major Cartwright?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you tell him that [Echo 18] was at the gate?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you ask permission to allow him entry?"

"Yes, sir."

"Was that permission granted?"

"No, sir."

The SLE turned on his heel to meet the Security golf cart being driven up to the gate by Major Cartwright, alone. The SLE's bodyguard perforce followed.

Even though they were two hundred feet away, I could see by body language that their conversation became extremely heated.

As a subject matter expert, I could tell that the bodyguard was constantly within a half second of emptying a magazine into Major Cartwright.

This was rapidly developing into a big problem.

It was not a secret to anyone that Major Cartwright and I did not see eye to eye. But not allowing me in the South Gate was borderline delusional on his part. Persisting in this delusion with the SLE - Site Location Executive, the Client executive in charge of this little floating patch of sanity in the sea of madness - would normally be career ending. Usually for the lowly contractor, like me, but sometimes for everyone who witnessed it. Because this was the thing that should not be - a faction fight among the leadership, made embarrassingly public.

The three walked back. Major Cartwright wordlessly took the access list binder from a stock-still Sarah, scrawled in a name and date and time, the word APPROVED and his initials, and walked back to his cart. Only then did the SLE offer me his hand.

"Welcome back! You will allow me to give a ride to you _both_ to my office."

"Sir," I shook back as Brooke retrieved her rifle and slung it. As always, her shoulder weapon was her greeting to everyone. We then walked through the gate. Sarah was already on the phone.

To us _both_.

Sarah was saying quickly, "Final go-no go point for Operation Post It Note. Will advise," and hung up.

To us _both_.

Sarah handed both of us radios as we walked behind the SLE.

There was room in the pickup truck bed for Brooke, Stewart and myself. And we were very much in operating mode.

No bells, no PA announcements, but all over the site, Security personnel were shrugging on armor, checking weapons and radios, and getting ready.

The technical term is coup. As in coup de etat.


There was some question as to who was the lawful authority and who was the traitor. But isn't there always?


It is hard to conduct a complex political briefing in the back of a rumbling pickup truck. It was up to Sarah to talk loudly into my left ear, the one not wearing a radio earpiece.

"Cartwright basically went nuts after you left. Cancelled all your accesses. Put his people in as shift supervisors and busted the rest of us to support positions. He's been rewriting the SOP to take out the licensing and training requirements so he can fill Security positions with employee volunteers."

I nodded and said loudly over the road noise, "He can do all those things."

I can tell that Sarah heard me, because she flinched.

"Say again, sir?"

"He's the boss. He can do all those things. What else did he do?"

"Weapons audit, vehicle audit - no discrepancies. Fired Mo. Kicked him and his family outside the wire."

Now that was just not on. But again within his powers.

"What about the shed?"

"I don't think he knows about the shed. Mo gave his key to me."

That would help. "What else?"

"Says he has secret orders. When the other guards got back, he didn't want to let them in. Only when you weren't with them did he allow it. They are off duty status - under investigation - and not getting paid."

When I had left the site, I had carefully given my Company responsibilities to the only other person who had been a Company supervisor before the Firecracker.

"Where is Arturo?"

"He was fired too. But his wife is a contractor so he's a dependent, so he's still here."

"Who took over the Company hat?"

"No one. Well, we've been bringing food to Wyatt after Cartwright turned off his ration card with the rest of the Company ration cards."

I blinked. Now that was just stupid.

"Some of us have been offered jobs with the Client. But no one in the Group, and no supervisors. Last week's payroll wasn't processed so none of us have been paid."

"Anyone else fired? Or off property?"

"Just Mo and his family. I think they're OK though. They had backpacks and took off running as soon as they cleared the gate."

If I'd had to pick a guard to have this happen to, I'd have had to pick Mo. He and his family knew well how to survive in a war zone. But this was all so stupid and unnecessary.

The Reaction Force trucks pulled up to the H building loading dock.

"Gather around," the SLE called, and the Reaction Force - corporate militia - perforce did so. This drew in Sarah, Brooke and myself.

"I have made a decision to remove Alan Cartwright for gross misconduct. As he is the current Corporate Security representative, this is going to pose an interesting problem."

The corporate manager in charge of the Reaction Force blinked several times.

"Sir, could I speak to you privately?"

"No."

"Sir, Major Cartwright has orders from Corporate to do some of the things he is doing."

The SLE turned, like a gun barrel tracking.

"I have a copy of those orders and he has considerably exceeded them. Considerably. Now you don't work for Corporate Security. You work for me. Or you don't. Decide, right now."

This was going to get ugly no matter which way it turned out.

"I work for you, sir."

"Better. Now hear this. Mr. Alan Cartwright is an employee of this corporation. Under my executive authority, however, I am removing from him all supervisory authority at this location, all access privileges to restricted areas, and specifically he is not to possess any weapon, especially not a firearm. You are to implement this decision, effective immediately. I have discussed this with our Vice President of Corporate Security and he agrees. Do you need to give VP Damon a call to confirm?"

"No, sir," he said hastily.

Because if he had insisted on calling VP Damon, and been wrong, he would also be looking for a new work site if not a new job.

"[Echo 18], welcome back. I am told that there are some [Company] issues that you may need to address. I highly value the [Company] contractual arrangement and I would like you to invoice us for all the extra costs associated with these special services - both the Utah trip and the Cartwright issue. After he has been corralled please restore my Security department to proper functioning."

"Yes, sir," I said without enthusiasm. I stepped aside a short distance and keyed up.

"This is [Echo 18] to all stations. Alert One. I say again Alert One. This is not an exercise. This is not a drill. Alert One. I say again Alert One."

Alert One: draw your weapon, switch off the safety and prepare to defend yourself and your post from a superior attack. Secure all doors and gates. No person regardless of clearance or authority is permitted to pass your point, except on duty Reaction Team and Security Force personnel who are actually responding to a breach. Challenge as if during hours of darkness. Force is authorized up to and including deadly force. Report post status via radio every ten minutes or on demand of the Security Control Center. Report relevant observations as they are made.

Brooke and Stewart were already taking up positions to guard the SLE, who was swiftly headed upstairs.

The Reaction Team manager was calling Security Control by wifi cell and demanding Cartwright's location.

I knew he was not yet at H building because his cart was not here. But where had he gone?

I keyed the radio again.

"Echo 18, Security Control, disable Cart 3 immediately. Password Post It Note."

"Wilco," replied the dispatcher laconically.

"What is twenty on Cart 3?"

"Motor Pool."

Had he swapped vehicles? He'd been on site more than long enough to find out about the remote kill switches on all the electric vehicles.

"Control, Truck 2, what are you doing? Authenticate immediately!"

Oh shit.

We did not have remote kill on the armored trucks. They had originally had that capability, but when we had 'bought' them, we had disconnected the remote engine kill from the satellite radios. If I remembered correctly, re-enabling that feature had been on our to-do list but had kept being pushed down by other maintenance issues.

And I was willing to bet hard money that Truck 2 was being operated by Alan Cartwright, which put him in unauthorized possession of a weapon.

"Motor Pool, Control, emergency traffic. Officer down, Truck 2 hijacked. We have casualties, scene not secure, say again scene not secure."

The Reaction Team manager was getting in the truck when I pushed in to sit behind him. I needed to be in the same cab. The displaced Reaction Team member - corporate militiaman - got in the truck bed just as we peeled out.

"Sir, I can detonate a tear gas grenade inside that truck whenever you want," I said loudly.

"Do it!"

"Echo 18, Control, gas Truck 2, password is Post It Note. Gas gas gas."

We had not disabled the remote activation for the tear gas cartridges. We had hooked it up to a wi-fi cellular radio. The authorized armored truck drivers knew about putting a safety pin in each of the three cartridges - two in the cab, one in the back - before leaving on a convoy movement. But Cartwright was not authorized.

They also knew which of the unlabeled emergency bags contained the full face gas mask. I was willing to bet Cartwright did not.

"Motor Pool, scene secure, request stretcher bearers Code 3 for two casualties."

As we came around the corner, we saw that Truck 2 had come to a shuddering halt and a cloud of tear gas was coming out the open driver's door.

Cartwright was running, empty handed, wiping at his eyes. He had been headed to H building with the truck. Not out the gate, not to somewhere else.

Now he was just running. And he was armed.

The Reaction Team manager turned to his driver and gave an order.

I immediately dropped my radio mike, fastened my seat belt and held on tight to the seat in front of me, bending my knees.

The truck's bumper hit Alan Cartwright at 40 miles per hour.

The order had been three words, simple and direct.

"Run him down."

We came to a halt. I dismounted and drew my firearm, running back the way we had come.

I holstered. I did not reach for my handcuffs to run an approach.

There was no need. Not with Cartwright's body at the base of a light pole, and his head ... elsewhere. Off into the bushes like a necromancer's basketball.

"Echo 18, Control, secure from the Alert evolution. Password Post It Note. Password change."

All posts checked in. The stretcher bearers arrived at the Motor Pool. The ambulance - at the Motor Pool - soon rumbled towards the infirmary with two casualties. Then a blood page for O negative.

I started taking pictures and notes for the use of force report. We taped off the base of the light pole. I ruthlessly delegated the 'find the rest of him' task to the Fire Brigade - it was technically search and well... recovery - and Janine in turn brought in stretcher bearer teams to assist.

With a Reaction Force sergeant and Janine as witnesses, I searched the recently deceased Alan Cartwright. By the time I was finished, the bearers had found the head and brought it back to the body.

Then we searched the truck, just for completeness. Nothing found.

The body was transported - by stretcher bearers - to the morgue. The effects were bagged and taken to Security Control, where we booked them into our property room, this time with a different set of witnesses.

Only then could I start tackling the serious issues.

Like getting Mo and his family back, like getting Arturo back to post, like getting the shift supervisors back on schedule and interviewing the former Major's hand picked replacements for suitability for any purpose whatsoever.

Like getting my people paid.

GWOT 2 - Explanations

It took the rest of the afternoon and all of the evening to patch the security issues created in my absence.

It turned out that Mo's family was living in the bomb shed, and Mo had taken the opportunity to go plainclothes and make friends off campus. We'd sent out a convoy to pick him up, with two freshly disarmed devices.

It shows quite a bit of dedication to keep working after you are fired and you and your family are sent out to what the sender believes is certain death.

That's Mo for you.

We restored the guard tower at the South Gate to its properly unmanned status. I will cheerfully risk the lives of our personnel as needed, but that wasn't a risk ... it was a death trap.

We fixed the ration cards. We restored Arturo to duty. Cartwright's Cronies were removed from duty pending further evaluation. My meeting with them had been brief.

"You keep your rank. You keep your weapons. But if any of you want to follow your late boss to hell, bring it the fuck on."

No one had taken me up on it.

I had considered arresting them all on general principles. But I decided to follow the example set by the SLE. Keeping them out of restricted areas would have to do for now.

Then I discovered that my "lair" in the Data Center had not only been cleared, but filled with installed server racks, cheerfully whirring away.

You get home and find out you're homeless.

That's when I found out that the guards, who had been assigned barracks in unwanted first floor offices in D building, had been evicted to sleep in tents on the perimeter.

On. The. Perimeter.

Oh, bull SHIT.

I had gone to enormous effort to clear and empty the perimeter camp. As I'd instructed, the shacks and sheds had been struck or moved to other locations. But the guards protecting the site had been moved to the camp, under canvas.

That this put them several hundred yards from our defenses, their duties and their weapons had not been addressed.

Then I started thinking.

One thought ... another ... a logic chain. Then it came to me in a blinding flash.

Hopefully not too late.

I started to key my radio, then stopped. Instead I picked up a phone.

"Control, [Echo 18]. I need a wifi text page. All off duty officers to Security Control. Now. Nothing on radio or PA. At once and quickly."

Then I did key up my radio.

"Security Actual to Reaction Actual. Recommend Alert One. Say again, Recommend Alert One."

He was back on the radio in seconds.

"Why?" he said, devoid of protocol.

"Dusk," I replied, because it was. The time between late afternoon and early evening, when the sun is low in the sky and shadows hang over.

A good time for an attack. Which we had been thoughtfully stripped of our preparations for and defenses against.

"Approved. Alert One, all posts. Alert One."

I called the South Gate. Sharon answered.

"Lock it down. We're about to get smacked."

The back of my brain caught up to the front and informed me of the subtle changes I had seen but not noticed passing through the gate on the way in. The kick-out rollers under the barriers had been "made safe" and were no longer kick-out. There was now only one layer of sandbags around the main gate bunker, not three. The tower spoke for itself. None of the three armored trucks had been parked in the accustomed spot. The Hate Truck was getting an oil change and was not fitted with a machine gun on her hard point.

For that matter, I didn't know for sure that we had _any_ automatic weapons available. I knew we didn't have explosives - apparently the lockers at the South Gate and the Motor Pool had been emptied and disposed of by detonation.

I started walking briskly towards the Armory.

"Surprise inspection, now," I announced to the armorer in the cage - one of our firearms instructors, a Company rather than a Client employee.

In other words, I was his boss and I had every right to pull a surprise inspection.

He did not open the door. He put his hand to his holstered pistol.

"[Echo 18] to Security Control, emergency traffic, I need Corporate Reaction Team response to the Armory. React react react."

The armorer's hand turned white on his sidearm. Then he slowly removed it and held his hands stock-still at waist height.

"I am not attempting to enter the armory. But when React arrives you are going to open the door to our bosses. Do you understand?"

Running booted feet arrived, in bulk.

The armorer opened the door, and the inventory began.

Five of our six automatic weapons were missing. The sixth -- Brooke's rifle - missing its firing pin.

She matter of factly recovered it and took it apart on one of the armory tables, intended for that purpose. She installed a firing pin, either the original or a spare, and no time to ask.

There was also no time for camera review. A quick check of records showed that the last person to sign in the weapons was ... the on-duty armorer. He was promptly disarmed at gunpoint and arrested.

We were in grave danger of needing to find the other five weapons the hard way.

At this point the Reaction Team was standing to. Sixty corporate militia, a third of them in a compact reaction force centered on our vehicles, a third spread out among 2 and 3 person bunkers on the inner perimeter, and a third walking briskly to reinforce the south perimeter.

It was almost anticlimactic when the H5 Observation Post reported a vehicle movement towards the South Gate, mixed cars and trucks.

The gate would hold, or it wouldn't. Either way we had to deal with the internal threat, and quick. We now needed to arrest all of Cartwright's Cronies, we could sort them out later, but they needed to be disarmed and in restraints right the fuck now.

There were half a dozen vulnerable points on the campus they could pick. Security Control was the site's brain - but amply defended. The Armory we now held. The Motor Pool was on high alert, recently seeing your co-workers shot will do that.

Only one location gave me no time to be wrong. And it had been where Cartwright had headed for.

"H5, emergency procedure Castle," I ordered on radio.

That was safely ambiguous. That was a procedure I had trained all the H5 personnel on, but only by voice. It appeared nowhere in our procedures books or our general or post orders.

This situation was exactly why.

"Copy Castle," came the reply.

I started running. Brooke was with me. But Sarah had remained where I had posted her, with the Site Location Executive.

H4 offices.

The most valuable target not presently secured.

Splitting off three to cover the armory, the remainder of the mobile third of the Reaction Force followed. Their commander, with the third tasked as perimeter reinforcements, would have to run the gate and entrance fight.

The H perimeter doors were hard locked against keys and badges. We tried both. Cartwright had gotten to the locks and to the badge servers.
He'd set up his own office in H4 and been in the building a lot.

They were not locked against the precise application of a sledge and wedge by one of Janine's firefighters.
Another triumph of crude over technical.

We made entry. There was no initial resistance. But the elevators were on H4 level and disabled.

That meant the stairwells were death traps.

I motioned to the reaction team to break to cover each. Their shouts of "Reaction Team" were countered by shouts from above, "Keep clear! Executive orders! Stay out!"

As they shouted at each other, I assembled my team by eyeball.

One firefighter, four guards including Matt, one guard rifleman (Brooke) and one very angry guard manager.

We ran into one of the first floor classrooms, empty and unoccupied. I popped open the unlocked closet. Behold, a lowly server rack, bracketed to the wall and leading to the ceiling.

It made a handy ladder. The firefighter popped the dropped ceiling panels and slid the bolts of the newly installed hatch out of the way, and clambered up and through.

This put us in a 2nd floor HVAC space, normally empty in between the large ducts and fans and electrical transformers.

I took a small stepladder from its rack on the wall, set it up next to a head-height transformer, jumped up on the live transformer (completely ignoring the red line on the floor around it), and reached up for the coiled rope that had been prepositioned there.

Our Facilities electrician and I had gone over the grounding for this transformer three times. It was as safe as anything else we were doing lately.

With a good solid yank, the rope coiled down, dragging a chain ladder down after it. I climbed same, held on with one hand, and undogged the bolts of the next hatch. Then I dropped back down on the transformer and gave Brooke a leg up on the ladder. This allowed her to pop the hatch and point the rifle in one motion.

She did not fire, but disappeared into the third floor. I followed, as did the team.

We were standing in a printer-copy room with an unusually heavy table braced against (and bolted to) the far wall. This time Matt popped the dropped ceiling, made a reach, and leaned the aluminum single ladder down to contact with the table top.

This was from three to four.

It had been an enormous amount of work to prepare this escape route for the SLE. Damned if I would let him go down a stairwell or an elevator in an emergency.

Matt climbed the ladder and slowly lifted the hatch. It was under the desk of one of the executives who had his office near the SLE suite.

He leaned down briefly, held his index finger over his lips ("Shhhh!" without speaking), and slowly climbed up with his pistol in his right hand.

I followed, drawing my pistol as I cleared the hatch edge.

Then Brooke with her rifle, happy switch set to pure 600 rounds per minute happiness.

The firefighter passed up his axe to Matt while I covered the door.

This was just in time for a patrolling adversary - one of Cartwright's Cronies I had chastised - to stick his head in the door.

He should not have had the clearance to be in this _building_ let alone on this floor.

I brought my pistol up. I did not shoot. Gunfire would start a civil war. It would also sacrifice the element of surprise.

The axe left Matt's shoulders at blurring speed, in a two hand swing that crunched into the adversary's unprotected neck and sprayed blood into the office and the hallway.

We stepped over the body headed in a tactical clump for the SLE's office.

There had been no time to challenge or ask his intentions. We might have murdered an innocent man.

We would find out later. Meanwhile we had to get to the SLE.

I smelled recent cordite - burnt gunpowder, from gunfire - as we entered the SLE's suite.

There were two bodies on the floor. One was bleeding. One had stopped bleeding.

Sarah. The Dragon Lady.

I stepped over both with my pistol up.

Two of Cartwright's Cronies were on either side of the SLE; one held a pistol to his head.

I opened fire as one opened his mouth to speak.

Individual aimed shots. Head head, slight turn, head head, step, hasty execution shot, step, kick away handgun, careful execution shot.

On the trip home from Utah, I had been given a gift. In the desert of southern Oregon, a pillar of smoke by day and by night.

All flesh is grass. And I had seen the lawnmower.

Trimming these two blades had become utterly casual, a humdrum everyday task that required neither introspection nor hesitation.

I had gone far beyond "No Hostage Facility."

Perhaps we needed new signage at the gate.

"No Fucks Given."

Behind me Brooke fired a fully automatic burst to cover our rear.

The firefighter was already giving Sarah first aid, tying a tourniquet around her arm and tightening. She weakly moaned in agony.
The entire right side of her face was one huge reddish purple bruise, with a bloodshot eye staring out of it.

Matt shook his head briefly after lifting his hand from the Dragon Lady's neck. The pearls she liked to wear shone brightly against the dull dark gray of her lifeless skin. Dead.

I helped the SLE to his feet from where he had fallen. Unhurt, at least physically.

He reached into his desk and removed a pearl handled .45 pistol.

He was the boss. In fact, the Boss. He could do that.

He racked the slide, chambering a round.

"Where to?" he asked me.

Just then the ceiling panel in the main suite fell down and three figures in guard uniforms dropped into the midst of us.

"Blue on blue!" I shouted as I holstered. "Blue on blue! Blue on blue!"

Brooke heard my frantic call and did not turn. It takes enormous bravery to trust your ears over your eyes and brain and accept the risk of being shot in the back.

The SLE laid his pistol on the desk.

Matt held his pistol down low by his leg, pointed at the floor. If he holstered he would point it at one of the sudden entrants, and that would be . . . bad.

The firefighter continued with first aid, securing the tourniquet windlass to Sarah's upper right arm. Bravery equal to Brooke's, in my opinion.

"Castle!" one of the entry team shouted. "Sir!" he said with relief as he saw me.

Near tragedy averted, the entry team moved to reinforce Brooke at the door. This allowed Matt to follow.

I picked up the phone and keyed in a code. When I spoke, the building PA amplified my words, on every floor.

"This is Echo 18. The SLE is safe and unharmed and under my protection. Aggressors will lay down their weapons on my guarantee for their lives. Do this now."

I paused.

"Utah boys, you lost. It happens. But give up now. Anyone who keeps fighting will be hung for murder. Wire noose, slow drop. Save your lives, surrender now."

A hideous, agonizing death. But there was nothing left to fight over in this building.

Boots coming up the stairwells told me the offer had been accepted.

The SLE dug around in his desk, found his holster, clipped it in and holstered his pistol.

I keyed up on H5's frequency.

"Perimeter status?" I asked.

"Attackers beaten off. No friendly casualties."

I changed frequencies.

"I need a medic and two stretcher bearer teams to H4 Executive, immediately."

We would keep the SLE where he was; reinforce the site; and sweep to make sure we'd gotten all the Cronies.

"Sir, problem!" called one of my guards loudly from down the hall. "Homicide bomber!"

Brooke immediately rushed forward with her rifle, then stopped at the corner, stock still.

She didn't have the shot.

She saw something that caused her to do the unthinkable - to slowly lay down the rifle. Stalling.

Matt pushed the SLE towards the office with the floor hatch under the desk. The firefighter followed, closing the office door behind and kicking wedges under the frame edges. Half-conscious and groaning, Sarah dragged herself to lean against the door, drew her firearm with her off hand and weakly brought it up.

I advanced to talk to the threat. Between me and the SLE, I knew perfectly well who was more expendable.

GWOT 2 - Homicide Bomber

"The homicide bomber is a potentially devastating threat, combining the worst features of the IED and the active shooter." -- Company training materials

I had no choice but to advance. We had to buy time for the SLE to escape. He was not yet safe, even behind several doors and by this time at least one floor below. He was in the same building. A homicide bomber can carry enough explosive to drop a building, especially if he is near a support beam or column.

I knew the building we were in intimately. "H" building was of relatively modern and inexpensive construction, a primarily steel building with a hexagonal array of offices around a central reinforced core. The problem was that we were near the core. If the core collapsed, the structure would collapse.

A typical homicide vest packed with a powerful explosive such as RDX could generate a destruction radius of at least ten feet. This was far smaller than the blast radius (over fifty feet) or fragmentation radius (over three hundred feet).

Obviously it would be preferable that the vest not go off at all. That would save my life, Brooke's life, and that of numerous other persons on this floor and the floor below.

But it was mission essential that the vest not go off anywhere near the center core of the building. If it did, the odds that the SLE would be killed were far too high. Functionally, he _was_ the site. Over 3,000 lives depended on his individual survival.

I wondered what had happened to his dedicated bodyguard, a Client rather than Company employee. I hadn't seen his body, and the SLE should not have been taken into hostile custody except over his dead body.

I thought all of this in an instant as I advanced around the corner with my handgun up and at the ready.

I would under no circumstances whatsoever be putting it down.

Brooke was empty-handed, watching the homicide bomber carefully. She was a good draw, but not a quick-draw specialist.

I had that moment to look at him, a frozen instant of time in which to process a gestalt image, before he noticed me.

He was preternaturally calm. He was wearing a business suit over which he had put on the homicide vest. The homicide vest was a repurposed body armor carrier, with visible vertical serrations and wires not only over his shoulders, but across each side and a wire running down and into his groin. A handgun in his right hand and a thumb-plunger type detonator grasped firmly in his left hand. His thumb depressed on it. Holding it down. Deadman switch. If he lifted his thumb ...

I recognized him as one of Cartwright's Cronies. He had been present when I had invited them to bring it the fuck on. He had apparently chosen to take me up on it.

"Do it, asshole," I ordered him as I advanced at a walking pace with my handgun at the ready in my right hand, pointed directly at his right eyeball. "Kill us all. Do it now."

I had seen the one essential point on clearing the corner. He was in the middle of the corridor leading from the core to the wing that led to H4 Executive Offices. He was more than ten feet from the support beams.

I did not see any potential for getting him either to surrender or to disarm. Without putting down the handgun, he could not even safe the deadman switch he was holding. He would not do that while still alive.

The only victory I could see was denying him the SLE. That would have to do.

I kept walking. He brought his handgun up and turned his body so that the detonator was behind him, thumb still depressed, and started shooting.

I kept walking.

A sledgehammer blow struck me in the abdomen. A second sledgehammer blow struck me in the chest. A third sledgehammer whacked into my upper left arm and I could see blood spurt. A fourth sledgehammer gently kissed the right side of my cheek as it passed me by.

Yet I kept walking.

Security Officer Samir stepped around the far corner and seized the homicide bomber's left arm in an iron grip with both his empty hands, trapping his thumb on the detonator.

The homicide bomber turned to try to fight him, either to shoot him or to try to strike him with the barrel of the pistol.

This gave me the shot I needed. As the homicide bomber's head turned, I could see the back of his head for just a moment.

I shot him just where the skull joins the neck. It was a clap shot because I was within ten feet.

He dropped like his strings had been cut. Because they had. There are only three shots that promise the mythical "instant kill." They all involve the instant destruction of the homicide bomber's brain.

I dropped my own handgun, not bothering to try to holster, and helped seize the detonator arm.

Brooke ran straight up to me, fumbled at her belt, tore open her IFAK, and wrapped her tourniquet around my spurting left arm. Racked the strap tight, wound the windlass and kept winding.

Then she drew her knife and pithed what was left of the homicide bomber's brain.

Samir grimaced painfully. I put my one good hand over his, feeling his grip weaken.

He met my eyes. He said nothing. He wasn't breathing.

His skin color, normally brown, was gray. He blinked once, his hands relaxed, he let go, he fell down. Then he died.

Up close I could now see that his entire chest and torso was splotched with red and black. He had already been fatally wounded. But while fatally wounded, he had somehow gotten up and closed the gap and held the deadman switch.

Now it was my turn. I gripped it hard, my hand over the dead man's thumb where it rested on the plunger.

Brooke was on radio.

"EOD to H4 west corridor! Forthwith! Forthwith!"

That was our radio slang for "Right Fucking Now."

My gut and chest ached horribly. I drew a breath and my ribs screamed.

The front panel of my body armor was now useless and would need to be discarded. But it had done its job and saved my life.

For the moment.

GWOT 2 - Mo Better

So, no shit, there I was ... useless and dangling left arm that hurt like a blowtorch, gasping for breath, holding a dead man's thumb down hard on a plunger hooked up to a homicide vest full of explosive.

Not true. There was a strong hard stink of fecal matter as both Samir and the homicide bomber had lost bowel control in death.

Also not true. We had no way to know how else the homicide vest would detonate, aside from the plunger. Was it on a timer? Anti-tamper? Remote detonator held by a third party? All of the above?

I met Brooke's eyes, and gave a direct order.

"You shall evacuate to beyond safe radius now."

If I didn't live through this, my successor would sorely need her. And she was the only other one that knew the truth about the lawnmower.

Brooke is a soldier. Soldiers do not disobey orders. She did not waste seconds disputing me. She put the knife down and started running for the stairwell.

I wished I'd asked her to take an extra turn on the tourniquet first. I could feel blood trickling -- but not spurting. That merely meant it would take minutes rather than seconds for me to bleed out.

"Oh my God!" a hysterical employee screamed, coming around the corner and taking in the scene.

I did not flinch.

"Ma'am, I need your help. Please come here."

She did so, as if sleepwalking, stepping over Samir's body but stepping in the homicide bomber's spilled brains.

"I need you to pick up the radio mike on my shoulder. I need you to repeat into it for me."

Fumbling, she figured out how to remove the mike.

I recognized her. Stretcher bearer. Hadn't put on any equipment, no time. But she'd been taught how to use a radio.

She hadn't been taught that using a radio near an IED might detonate it. Under the circumstances I was willing to accept the risk.

"Echo 18 to Security Control, Emergency Traffic," I said, and she repeated.

"You're not Echo 18!" someone said briefly on radio before someone else took over.

"Control go," Wyatt said briskly.

"Emergency Traffic. Evacuate Hotel Building Now. Evacuate Hotel Building Now. Copy back."

"Copy evacuate H as in Hotel building now."

The building alarms went off - all of them, fire and intrusion and Master Alarm all at once with strobes and horns and bells - and a loud voice started speaking over the PA system, a recording of a female voice speaking calmly and forcefully.

"Attention! A decision has been made to evacuate the building! All employees must leave H as in Hotel building immediately! Walk calmly right now to the nearest stairwell! Evacuate the H as in Hotel building at once!"

The employee didn't go anywhere, which was good because I needed her.

"Ma'am, please repeat for me. Echo 18, Security Control, I need EOD for an armed homicide vest. I need one stretcher bearer."

She repeated it. Then she said, "I'm a stretcher bearer."

"Tighten my tourniquet please."

She did so. It hurt a lot. But the bleeding stopped.

"I want to go get my kit."

"OK," I said, thinking through the problem. I couldn't do anything with my left arm - it suddenly didn't work - and my right hand was busy keeping all of us, however temporarily, from being blown to bits that could be scraped up with a toothbrush and kept in a coffee can.

She returned, opened her kit - a child's backpack - and applied a second tourniquet above the first, properly applying it even tighter. Then and only then did she take out gauze and started to dress then bandage the gunshot wound.

It hurt a lot. But that was good.

"I can't take off the first tourniquet, I'm not a medic," she said. Then her training asserted itself and she started checking me head to toe for other injuries.

"Armor stopped it," I said painfully. She checked me over anyway.

Two people ran down the corridor towards us.

One was Mo. I have never been more relieved to see another human being in my life.

The other was a monster in the shape of a man. Seven feet tall if he was an inch. He wore a reflective vest and carried a radio. Seeing the homicide vest, he immediately reached down and turned it off.

I appreciated his caution but we were a little late for that.

Mo stopped his rush towards me and looked carefully,

"[Echo 18], is that a plunger? Are you deadman?"

"Yes and yes," I replied.

"Ma'am. I need you to go downstairs and out of the building. Leave your kit behind," he said, taking charge.

EOD is always in charge at the scene of an IED incident. I was his boss. Right now that didn't mean anything.

Mo opened the kit he wore on his right thigh. He removed a long nylon strap with a turn buckle.

"OK, boss, what I'm going to do is slide the edge of the strap between your ... shit."

He had seen the same thing I had - that the bottom of the plunger had nothing to brace against. He could not use a strap to tie down the button. This was a hand issue.

"Tiny, come here," he ordered to the stretcher bearer. "I need you to do what I tell you, exactly when I tell you to."

Tiny nodded.

"Put your thumb next to the dead man's thumb. As I start to slide his thumb over, you slide your thumb with his and take over the button. We have all the time in the world."

It wasn't exactly a lie.

We had, the three of us, all the time we would ever have.


The utterly simple task went well. Tiny - not _my_ Tiny, just a stretcher bearer I didn't happen to know - put his huge thumb next to the dead man's, slid over on command, and freed me up.

Then Mo floored me.

"Get out of here," he ordered. To me.

I blinked.

"In a moment."

I briefly folded and unfolded my right hand, reached into my pocket, pulled out my wi-fi cell. Took a photo of the dead man and his vest. No face shot because he didn't have one any more. Took another of Samir, dead.

Then, I left. As ordered.

If Mo needed another set of hands, he would get them. But he didn't need a one armed man to help. And if Brooke was useful to the defense, I was a lot more useful.

I didn't have to like it. But there was one more thing I could do.

I walked briskly back towards H4 Executive. I called out, "[Echo 18]" as I approached the outer door.

As I'd suspected, Sarah was still sitting with her back against the office door, protecting the SLE's escape route.

She had ignored the evacuation order. Just as I would have.

"Time to go," I ordered from the doorway.

She fumbled weakly, holstered her pistol, turned on her knees, and stood up, leaning against the door.

"We match," she groaned.

Yes, both of us were shot in the arm. But a little motion had told me that my own wound had been through and through. Missed the bone.

Sarah had not been so lucky. She had to cradle the bad arm with her good arm to move, but then had trouble keeping her feet.

So I wrapped the one good arm I had around her shoulders and we hobbled together to the nearest stairwell.

Getting the door open with two good arms between us was an ordeal. Going down the stairs was unpleasant. But we made it.

At least the door at the base of the stairwell was a push-out bar for fire safety.

That's when we encountered our next problem.

A Reaction Team member with a leveled rifle, about ten feet away from the stairwell door.

"Let me see your hands!" she shouted.

There were a few problems here. Let me count them off.

1) We couldn't comply. We had two good arms between us.

2) A Reaction Team member was by herself. Yeah, right, horseshit. Reaction Team has a strict two person rule, for exactly this kind of situation.

3) We were both in security uniform. She had no need to see our hands.

4) The bitch was muzzling us! How dare she!

5) The building had been evacuated. That especially included employees. She was still present, alone, in an evacuated building, and unless someone had deeply fucked up did not have a life safety task that justified staying.

6) Did I mention how much I dislike being muzzled?

So we bum rushed her. To be fair, it was more of a stumble bum rush. But we knocked her down and her rifle barrel clear before she could shoot. All three of us ended up in a bloody pile.

I went for a grip on her right wrist, got it, and wrenched her wrist off of the rifle. Sarah meanwhile went for her left wrist.

We rolled apart, racking the suspect between us.

"Security Force, stand down!" I roared at her.

This was merely a momentary verbal stun. She had no way to comply except to surrender verbally, not that we would believe her.

I knelt on her wrist to free up my hand to get my handcuffs. That must have hurt; I didn't care. Then I cuffed her right wrist, braced my shoulder against her back, and passed wrist and cuff off to Sarah, who deftly cuffed the other wrist. Almost as smoothly as if we had practiced it.

We left her rifle where it lay. But a glance at it told me what I needed to know.

The rifle had a happy switch. She wasn't Reaction Team - they weren't authorized for autofire, they didn't need it. She was a Cartwright's Crony.

"Suspect, you will get up on your knees. Then, when we tell you, you will stand. You will do what you are told, and therefore you will live.

"If you resist, we are not going to fuck around with you. We will briefly pause to kick you to death, and then leave the building which is about to explode. Do you understand?"

She became very compliant.

"Up!" was followed by "Stand!"

We supported ourselves using the arms of the handcuffed prisoner as we made our way out of the double doors to the loading dock.

It was clear, except for an abandoned Security truck. We couldn't drive and had no time to mess with it.

If the building went up, we needed to be outside fragmentation range. So we stumbled to F building.

I mentally rehearsed shouldering the prisoner down as I drew my handgun with my one working hand. I hadn't had time to reload, but I had at least nine rounds left in battery.

(I found out later that Sarah mentally rehearsed the same, with the added filip of putting a single round into the back of our prisoner's head on the way down.)

Fortunately, the lobby of F building was full of Security and Reaction Team personnel, who immediately took charge of our prisoner.

Janine and two of her medics were there.

"Passdown," she demanded.

"Homicide vest on H4. Mo is working the problem with one bearer. Not safe to sweep, scene not secure."

The medics moved forward and sat us down to start work.

"Immediate," declared one and encouraged Sarah to lie down on a stretcher, on her good side. An oxygen mask was fitted to her face. "Lift, on three, one, two three." And Sarah was on her way to the Infirmary.

It wasn't just her arm. It was her head injury from where she had most likely caught a rifle butt in the face. You can live without an arm. Living without brains is harder ... or is it?

I reached down with my good arm and keyed my radio. "Blood page, O negative, A positive," I transmitted. Universal donor, and Sarah.

"Copy."

Janine and the other medic fussed over my arm. Carefully Janine broke half the rules of emergency medicine and loosened the hastily applied lower tourniquet. Then removed it. Then she cut off the stretcher bearer's dressing and bandage to visualize the wound. Wiped the area clear of blood.

"OK, [Echo 18], this is going to hurt like a bastard."

I looked out the windows while she probed the wound, checking for cloth or other fragments. Then she poured saline into it. It ran reddish for a moment, then clear.

"You are one lucky son of a bitch," she said as she professionally applied fresh dressings to both entry and exit wound. Then wrapped tightly with multiple gauze rolls.

Then Janine broke the other half of the rules of emergency medicine. She carefully took one turn off the remaining tourniquet. A minute or so later, looking carefully at the wound, she loosened it again.

So far so good.

"Infirmary is jammed and we need you here," she explained as she played doctor.

Loosening a tourniquet was normally a hospital level task. But we didn't even have a hospital. We had an infirmary. And it was busy.

Either the clots would hold, and loosening the tourniquet would permit proper perfusion to the limb, especially veinous return - or they would not, and Janine would have to tighten them up again. And I would probably lose the arm.

She even took a moment to dab at the crease in my cheek where a bullet had said hello in passing. A quarter inch further in and my cheekbone would have been fragments on the ground. A quarter inch further in than that, and my own brains would have been a Halloween wall decoration.

Life tip: don't rush a man shooting at you. Unless you absolutely, positively have no choice.

"EOD to Control, Emergency Traffic. Device cannot be disarmed. Time to detonation unknown. Request permission to move device."

That was a pisser, and no mistake.

But I would back Mo's play.

"Echo 18 to EOD, permission granted. What resources do you need?"

"Three stretcher bearers. One Stokes litter. One litter rigging harness. One hundred feet of rescue rope. One hundred twenty feet of paracord. One wall anchor."

Janine left me, snapping her fingers as she assembled what was needed from her crew.

I had to assume that they could handle it.

"Fire Captain to EOD, sending you resources now. Assume you are using a Bravo side window on 4. Punch your chosen window and we will be standing by below to assist."

"Affirm."

I could visualize the evolution. Mo would punch the window, rig the anchor and drop the rope. The bomber's corpse, still wearing the vest, would be bundled into the Stokes enclosed litter. The litter would be secured to the harness, then to the rope. The friction release would be controlled from above with the paracord. The rope end would be walked out at an angle below and secured, most likely to a cart. Then the man-bomb would be slid down the rope to the ground, where it could be carried off at leisure.

Unless the anti-tamper went off from all this handling. Or something disturbed whatever work-around Mo had found to hold the plunger down.

Or some asshole with a remote detonator pressed the button.

That was something I could do something about.

"Echo 18, Security Control, Emergency Traffic. I need 100% accountability for all security personnel, especially Cartwright's former staff. Do this now and quickly."

Control called check in by roll. I responded three times: once for myself, once for Sarah, and once for the bomber, "Confirmed down and dead."

We were missing two names. Both Cartwright's Cronies.

The Reaction Team commander took note. His eyes and mine met. How many people could we risk on this task, and whose?

The problem with React is that it is made up of client employees. Coders. We can't risk their lives unless their lives are at risk anyway.

The H building was worth something to us. It was worth risking a bomb tech. It was worth risking a few employees, such as a stretcher bearer team. But Mo had already sent them away, opting to control the friction release himself from the top while two Fire Brigade personnel helped with the rope from below.

It was not worth risking enough Reaction Team personnel to sweep and clear the building.

But I couldn't leave these fuckers outstanding either. There was more harm they could do us.

This was a Security task.

I picked three guards by eye.

"Take a floor. H1, H2, H3," I directed. "Bomb sweep, hasty. Be careful. Detain anyone you meet. If they resist shoot first and a lot. Report on _phone_ to Control, not radio, when your floor is clear. Go."

H4 would be a special case. So i called H5 on phone.

"H5 Observation."

They hadn't evacuated. It was a security post, they couldn't. But they had depleted their staff dropping a would-be rescue party into the Executive Offices.

"Echo 18. Number of souls?"

"Two."

Minimum staff. Excellent.

"You are ordered to secure and abandon H5. Sweep H4 as a pair. Be aware, individual sweepers are on each floor below you. Bomb sweep, hasty, detain anyone you meet. Kill anyone who resists. When your floor is clear, report to Control by phone. Do not use your radio. Repeat back."

They repeated back. "Confirm, we are to abandon H5 Observation post?"

"Correct."

"Word of the day?"

We had used several. I had to remember which was next in sequence. Then I realized something far more important.

We don't use words of the day on the phone.

"The word of the day is duress, repeat duress."

"Copy valid word of the day," the guard said calmly and as calmly hung up.

Click.

Oh shit.

We didn't own H5 any more. The guard talking to me just now had a gun to his head.

I called Control.

"Echo 18, Emergency Traffic, keep this off radio. H5 Observation Post is compromised, say again, compromised. I need battlesight on H5 right now. Relay observations here."

The Reaction Team commander blinked. He then sent two teams to the F stairwells, headed up to the roof. Unfortunately F is a three story building and H5 overlooked it.

Fortunately, Observation Post 7 up on the ridge overlooked H5 in turn. And also had an infinite digizoom camera.

"Confirmed. We have three persons in the H5 working area. One is pointing a submachine gun at the other two."

That wasn't good. In my worst nightmares I hadn't imagined needing to conduct a hostage rescue inside the observation post at H5. Therefore we had no plan for it.

And Mo was about to push a bomb out the window one level below.

I had to assume the worst - that the terrorist who had taken over H5 also had a remote detonator. So he couldn't detonate _now_, he'd kill himself. He had to wait until the bomb was some distance away, killing ... at least two Fire Brigade folks, and possibly Mo.

Post 7 had visual on H5. But Post 7 did not have a sniper with a high enough quality rifle. A qualified marksman at H5 could certainly snipe out Post 7, but not the other way around. And it's awfully hard to hold a submachine gun on someone while aiming a rifle at someone else.

(I found out later that he'd tried to order one of the observers to snipe out Post 7 at gunpoint. The observers had point blank refused. "You can kill one of us, but that still doesn't get it done for you. You can kill us both, but then you don't have any hostages or any leverage. And do you think they'll notice gunfire up here?" The obvious counter would have been to tie them up and then snipe away, but fortunately for all of us, the terrorist hadn't thought of that.)

"Echo 18 to EOD. We have a second device in H1 Lobby. Respond _forthwith_," I lied on radio.

I hoped Mo was quick on the uptake. _Cut loose your current task and get out_ was the actual order, with a side helping of _Our radios are compromised_.

About forty seconds later, Mo _sprinted_ across the grass towards F lobby. He must have body-surfed the stairwell.

Two of my three H sweep guards followed. "When you see a bomb tech running, try to catch up."

The H2 guard was still out there. So were two hostages and one aggressor on H5.

I called H5 back on the phone.

"H5 Observation."

If they'd been able to obey my orders, they would not have answered. I did not want to give the terrorist time to think about that.

"Echo 18. The biggest sign at the front gate. Now."

I hung up. It didn't matter who answered, one way or another.

Control rang the lobby phone I'd been using.

"Control, Echo 18. Post 7 reports a fight in H5, time now. Hand to hand."

It had been one of my guards. Good.

The biggest sign at the gate read "NO HOSTAGE FACILITY."

I had told them it was up to them, because no one was going to save them but themselves.

I immediately broke squelch on radio.

"Fall on! Officers need help, H5! React, react, react!"

The Reaction Team commander held his men. This was our problem.

Six guards in full gear ran towards H5. Mo kept running to the lobby, then to me.

"What the fuck?" he asked.

"Duress situation in H5," I replied.

Our guards had just made it into the building when it happened.

A windmilling figure fell from the roof and slapped into the ground with a meaty thunk, like a steak on a chopping board. But this steak cracked when it hit, and bled profusely for a moment, and stopped moving.

The phone behind me rang.

"Echo 18."

"H5 Observation Post," a voice said breathlessly. "We are secure. Two souls. One suspect thrown off the roof."

"Password?"

They gave it. I called off the hounds on radio.

We started the process of consolidation. Mo's special talents were not needed to finish the vest removal from the building. He'd stepped back in to salvage the Stokes litter, then remove most of the remaining explosive. At last he'd chosen to controlled detonate it instead of messing with its wiring any further. Properly, in a blast pit in the parking lot.

A second, by the numbers guard sweep of H building found the one Crony still outstanding. He'd been hiding in a storage closet. He hadn't come out the first time he was ordered. So Facilities needed to do some plywood replacement and repainting after the body was removed.

We could have used a dog to force him out, but he wasn't worth risking the dog over.

We also discovered what had happened to the SLE's bodyguard. He was found seated on the executive men's washroom toilet, his pants down and his brains splattered on the far wall. Shot with a silenced handgun while taking his last shit, when the Cronies had started their countercoup.

What a way to go.

It beats defenestration any day, I supposed.

GWOT 2 - Lay My Head Down

GWOT 2 - Lay My Head Down

I'd had entirely a too exciting return to campus, rushing from critical incident to critical incident. Along the way I'd been hurt.

I had a weird moment of deja vu as I walked - with that slight limp I probably would never lose - into the infirmary and waited for the triage nurse to get to me.

Go to infirmary, get patched up. Go to Security Control, figure out what to do next. Go back to my cage, get some sleep. Then get up and do it all again. Louder.

But I had to remember that my cage was out of service. Thanks Cartwright. Even dead you're still an asshole.

The triage nurse (a dental assistant, if you'll recall) returned with the vet surgeon, and both walked me into the exam room.

Prior to the Firecracker, the vet surgeon had treated exactly one human - a victim of a car accident - and one gunshot wound - a dog struck by buckshot.

But vets are comprehensively trained, and a surgeon is a surgeon. We were incredibly lucky to have her. Hundreds of people were alive due to her care. Including me, more than once.

They helped me strip down to underwear. The doctor's first concern was for my ribcage and gut, not for the obvious congealing gunshot wound to my left arm.

Body armor is like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. It is not "bullet proof," it is "bullet resistant." The gap in between covered my aching ribs and bruised stomach quite nicely.

Fortunately for me, I hadn't had time to tighten my gut as one would for a punch. That helped the armor absorb the shock and spread it out. Still felt like being punched - hard, by a champion boxer - in the gut. Then in the chest.

She reluctantly agreed -- after listening to my lungs, palpation and examination - that I was merely bruised and winded. The bruise on my ribcage was already starting to purple nicely.

Then and only then did she turn her attention to the arm. They unwrapped the dressings carefully - to boil for reuse as training aids - and then she poked and prodded further.

She smiled. I knew that smile.

"I need to irrigate and clean out this wound. It's going to hurt a lot. In ordinary practice we'd give you lots of pain meds."

And nothing about post-Firecracker medical care was ordinary.

The trauma nurse handed me another boiled item. A mouthpiece. To keep me from damaging my teeth.

I put it in. The vet surgeon began her work.

When she was done, sweat ran down my face in rivulets. She dusted the wound with sulfa, as opposed to giving me a broad-spectrum antibiotic. We had them but had to save them for those for whom it would be life and death, not prevention.

As another assistant bound up the wound, the vet surgeon showed me a metal tray - repurposed ashtray - with some bits in it. Mostly fragments of cloth from my uniform.

"You're awfully glad I did that," she muttered.

Not my friend. In fact she purely hated my guts. From her perspective, I alternated between giving her more work and sticking my nose where it didn't belong, in the operation of her infirmary.

From my perspective, of course, I had to poke frequently at and in her infirmary so that it would actually be capable of saving lives. I had no criticisms of her medical or surgical skills. But there was a reason her pre-Firecracker practice had been on the rocks, and it was poor management. That was a skill the site could supply in abundance.

She had a third reason for hating me. Instead of letting enemy wounded die peacefully, I'd insisted that she make every effort to save their lives. Not only was this correct practice according to Geneva and the Hague conventions, but it was excellent practice. As in the other meaning of practice - do it over and over again until you get it right. She had a lot more experience treating major GSWs, blast injuries and major shock-trauma patients than she would have otherwise. And that experience had saved the lives of our folks.

She had required me, however, to assist. Personally and directly. My license said Emergency Medical Technician, but the last two months had been a crash course in combat casualty care.

So me getting care in the infirmary had a flavor of busman's holiday, combined with the cobbler's children go barefoot.

She looked briefly at my right cheek and sighed slightly. Clearly she was also calculating the effects of a quarter inch further inward.

"We're done. Have us check the arm wound daily. You can take ibuprofen for the ribs. No aspirin. Come back if it hurts when you breathe."

"Thank you, Doctor. Please let me know when you have a moment."

"I have a moment now." Her demeanor changed like flicking a switch, from dealing with problem patient to dealing with unpleasant peer.

"How are your logistics since I've been gone?"

She sighed.

"I am low on everything you brought. We badly need more antibiotics and general opiates. Bandages and dressings are good. Instruments are good. Semi consumables such as IV sets and syringes, if we could get them. Apparently, the War."

"I'll see what I can do. Touchy subject: training and drills."

"Cartwright told me that you'd had no business getting involved in my department, and that he would focus his attention strictly on real security issues."

"Cartwright is dead."

She blinked.

"Quick work. Why didn't I see him?"

"Decapitation."

"Well, [Echo 18], I hope you're listening because I'm only going to say this once. You were right about the fucking drills. You were right about the in service training. You were even right about me needing to use NATO Emergency War Surgery as my new bedtime reading. Do you ever get sick and tired of being right?"

I was so tired I replied honestly.

"I hate it."

"Fuck me what?"

"I hate being right all the time. It makes no friends and many enemies. But these are matters in which there is no room to be wrong, because wrong is dead."

"Something else you were right about." She lifted up her blouse to show the butt of a concealed snub-nose revolver, then dropped it again. "One of Cartwright's people came here. He's a patient now. I shot him.

"Are we good?"

"Yes, Doctor, we're good. Let me or Doctor Rize know if you want to talk about it. Glad you weren't hurt."

She did not say the obvious rejoinder, but turned away.

"Doctor, how is Sarah Stewart?"

"Stable. Out of danger. I've got someone sitting with her to keep her awake. Bad concussion, she'll be out for a few days. Anyone else you care about?"

I thought about replying, and walked out instead.

Just outside the doors, I found a very upset Shane Shreve standing in the corridor, shotgun slung.

"Sir! You should have told me you were back!"

Never mind I had no way to do that, and that I was running from crisis to crisis.

"What post were you at?"

"I've been learning Dispatch. Cartwright's idea."

I carefully did not shudder. The pain in my ribs helped. Shane is literally dumber than a post. Putting him in the tight knit camaraderie of a control center would destroy their ... oh, right. More sabotage.

"Copy that. You're assigned back to me for the moment."

"Yes, sir."

He fell into step behind me as we walked to Security Control.

Seated at the command table at the back, in pride of place, was our Site Location Executive. He had maps and binders spread out around him. He'd been busy.

"Sir," I saluted as I entered. He remained seated.

"I've taken the opportunity to dig through your little kingdom here. I've been considerably impressed. If I thought we could spare you from your present duties, I'd want you for Human Factors Engineering."

I blinked.

"Your lead guard - Matt - felt this would be the safest place for me to remain. They've kept me updated on current events. Would you believe that piece of shit Cartwright rigged an IED in my bed?"

I had been wondering where Mo was. In the SLE's bed had not appeared in the same universe -- but a bomb tech goes where the bombs are.

"Yes, sir," I said.

"I seem to be without a Corporate Security bodyguard."

And I had an excess bodyguard I didn't want. I almost suggested that he take Shreve. Something subtle in his body language told me 1) that would be a really, really bad idea and 2) I really needed to look at Shreve again, badly, and right now. Suppressed eagerness? From someone with a double digit IQ? Or from someone who worked really hard, constantly, to make it look like he had a double digit IQ?

"Yes, sir. I'd suggest we assign an entire security team, headed by one of my leads. I know all of them are reliable. Perhaps start with Sharon."

"Very well. Do it. Once they are ready, I'm going to the cafeteria to reassure everyone I'm still alive and in charge."

We made it happen. This segued into an after action review and planning session. Food and drink appeared on the table; I ate and drank.

I left the room to answer a call of nature. I gestured to Wyatt to join me.

"Sir?" he asked while I was addressing the urinal.

"Shane Shreve. Unreliable. Dig deep in his background. Report only to me. But warn all the leads. He needs to be watched."

"Copy."

About an hour later, after I'd casually slipped in a reassignment of Shane Shreve to security control's own security post - on the argument that he'd already started cross training in dispatch - Brooke came storming in.

"Sir. Respectfully. I'm dead on my feet and I've had a much better day than you have. Call it."

I nodded.

"Arturo, take over. I'm going offline for six hours."

"Eight," Brooke corrected.

"Copy, sir, I've got the duty for eight hours. Rest well."

Brooke took me by my good arm and led me out. Took me to the employee gym. Explained briefly to the restroom attendant - an adult dependent whose job it was to control both access and water usage - that we were both way behind on our one shower per week, and that she would cover the duty so he could go take a half hour break. He blinked, saw that it was me, blinked again, and appeared to teleport out the door.

Brooke flipped the CLOSED sign and threw the deadbolt.

"Strip," she ordered, as she began taking off her clothes.

This seemed like a good idea. I took a little care to fold the clothes I took off. Although they would have to be laundered. Or maybe burned.

Brooke made a neat pile of her items. Soldier. Of course. She did not stop until she was unclothed. But she didn't come off as naked. Just without clothing.

She then wrapped my arm's dressing with plastic-wrap from the roll available for that purpose. It really had been a rough two months for a lot of people.

Then she dragged me in the shower and washed me. After a moment, with one arm, I washed her back as well. She took care of all the rest for herself.

It wasn't sexually charged, the way it had been with Sharon. It was a necessary function, that felt really good after so long in the dust and mud.

But the blood stays with you. Not just today. The lawnmower. The bikers in Utah. Gerlach.

We both needed human reassurance and human touch.

She gestured to a pile of clean uniform items, in my size. Plain white underwear. I bagged the dirty clothes, to transfer pocket contents and insignia when opportunity permitted.

She'd staged all this, I realized. Thinking about it in advance.

She dressed from her own pile of clean clothes, picked up her own bag of effects. Unlocked the door, left the sign "CLOSED" in the absence of the attendant.

Then Brooke led me to one of the unwanted offices on the 1st floor of A building. Way too close to the front gate. The corner office had been made into an observation post, intermittently staffed. The other offices had had their windows boarded up and then sandbagged. Until Cartwright's idea of pushing everyone out to the perimeter in tents, this had been guard housing.

It was again. Everyone saw us, no one noticed us.

The little wood-burned sign that had hung on the wall of my cage, "E18 Lair," was now screwed to an office door. Brooke handed me a key, then opened the door with her own key.

I keyed in. A pallet with bedding on the floor. A desk. This desk had a Client standard computer on it, but three monitors. Two repeated Security Control camera views. One was an ordinary desktop currently displaying a quad-split of the approaches to A One. Underneath was a safe, presently closed. I recognized it as the safe I had left my laptop in before departing the site for Utah.

This hadn't been set up in five minutes. They'd been planning it ever since I'd departed, and been ready to assemble it all on a moment's notice once I returned.

The pallet was oversize. Clearly meant for two. Two pillows. Two blankets.

Brooke's rucksack and personal Betty Boop backpack were in the other corner.

I blinked. She took off her shirt, bra and pants, leaving only her men's style briefs on.

Not panties.

That was a level of thoughtful I'd never before experienced.

"You're my roommate, sir. Let's go to bed."

With that she stretched out on the bed, faced the wall and immediately fell asleep.

With the door still open, and a crowd of guards discreetly not-watching and not-listening just around the corner.

If I were more awake, I could quote the Company non-fraternization policies from memory. This arrangement violated basically all of them.

The phone on the desk buzzed. Note: not rang. Customized ring tone.

"E18," I answered.

"Mo here. Device disarmed, disabled, and disassembled. Fucking Cartwright. That's why he kicked me off campus. Didn't want anyone taking apart his amateur 'I went to Special Forces school and now I'm a bomb maker' crap. My turn for a shower, I'm going to bed. Tell Brooke I said welcome back."

Click.

What else could I do?

I closed the door, threw the deadbolt, and went to bed.

###

I dimly half-woke. I'd had three and a half hours of sleep, my body told me. Everything ached. That meant I was healing.

Brooke was curled up under my good arm. She was sleeping peacefully.

When I tried to move my arm, she snuggled it closer and growled a little.

I held still until I heard her breathing become more regular.

Then I slowly extracted my arm, got up, checked my E-mail, answered several hundred messages - mostly with one or two word answers - and came back to bed.

This time, Brooke put her arm over me.

###

The morning was surprisingly un-awkward. Brooke's bra and T-shirt were within reach, she put them on without comment.

I checked more E-mails while she stumbled out in search of burnt bread crumbs, our current coffee substitute. Then we split in different directions - me to check posts, and her to check in with Control for her duty assignments.

I didn't need a bodyguard. I needed a keeper. And she'd appointed the most qualified person she knew to the task. Herself.