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GWOT II - Executive Protection
Sep. 28th, 2019 03:34 pmGWOT II - Executive Protection
Now that the site was finally stable, for values of we had a food supply, Cartwrong's Cretins were neutralized, our invoices were getting paid and our guards had roofs over their heads again, we had other problems to work on.
The biggest one was the personal protection for the SLE.
The Site Location Executive (SLE) is the designated Big Man On Campus. His personal magnetism and driving force was the only reason we were all still alive.
Dr. Rize and I had had a brief conversation about him, consisting of three words.
"He's very suicidal."
Not a surprise. In addition to the killing levels of stress of his ordinary day job (I'd cheated and read his confidential medical file, in which acid reflux and heart palpitations featured prominently), his family had become plasma in the opening moments of the Firecracker.
Then, in Cartwright's attempted coup, both his executive secretary and his close in bodyguard had been callously murdered - the former in front of him, the latter while on the toilet.
I'd seen the .45 pistol he kept in his desk. At a moment he was otherwise occupied elsewhere on campus, I'd done a security check of the area and on a hunch, done a swab test of the barrel exterior. Positive for saliva.
As a stopgap I'd assigned Sharon as the replacement BG, which blew a big hole in our supervisory rota. But she reported that he was politely distant even when provoked. Checked out. Ready to depart this life for whatever might lay beyond the veil.
His new executive secretary was ... okay. Neither competent nor good emotional support. And much less able than the Dragon Lady to shield his boss from the avoidable pressures and stresses.
Added up, this meant that we needed a major intervention.
I added myself to the SLE's calendar for a 4 PM appointment. The executive secretary tried to cancel it; I didn't let him. At 3:49 exactly I escorted Dr. Betty Rize onto the H4 floor, which she was not cleared for access to.
I'd discreetly posted two guards. Mo, on the pretence (and reality!) of an anti-bomb sweep, to keep him from escaping via the men's restroom, which he used in preference to the nearby executive single user stall. (Despite all scrubbing and replaced tiles, it still smelled of arterial blood.) Shane Shreve, whose dumb-as-a-post quality would serve well to prevent interruptions during our appointment.
The executive secretary met our eyes. He showed no interest in Dr. Rize's assets above the waist, and discreetly ignored mine below the waist. This settled which team he was batting for, which fell in the category of good to know, but not immediately useful.
"I'm sorry, Echo 18, but..."
I pushed past him, reached close and pushed the Door Enter button by his knee (as opposed to the Panic button just next to it), and the two of us made entry.
Dr. Rize gasped.
I felt a certain sense of vicious satisfaction.
Not just that of a job well done. Not just that we were going to be able to get past the Denial phase so quickly.
But now that she knew what it felt like to walk into a room and find someone critical with a gun in their mouth.
Just as I had found her, ten weeks ago.
He tried to hide the gun and I held my hands open at waist height in front of me. Dr. Rize closed the door behind us. A heavy thump behind her told us that Shane Shreve as always had taken his instructions literally.
"Stand in front of the door with your ass cheeks touching it until you are told to do something else by me, by Dr. Rize, or by a Reaction Team leader."
"On the desk, sir," I stage whispered as he fumbled for the drawer. After a moment, he did so. Then he spun it until it no longer pointed at me.
"Cancel my next appointment," he said next, touching the intercom.
When he let go the button, Dr. Rize started talking to him. I tuned that part out.
I was here as a contingency and a witness. His personal problems were none of my business.
Except they were. If he died, or especially was killed, or double plus engaged in successful self murder, we were all fucked.
People who going to die soon go through processes of grief, as do those who are around them. Their interactions are fucked up by timing, most of all. The dying person is in Bargaining while their spouse is in Denial. The dying person has finally reached Acceptance while their son is in Jubilation ... I mean, Sorrow.
Dr. Rize knew all of this.
Where the SLE was, was a stage that doesn't have a name. Not really. But since all three of us were at that same stage, I'd coined a term.
Done.
Circling the loop over and over again. Not just ready to go, but annoyed that the train was late. Stuck on a roller coaster with no end.
Death is lighter than a feather. Duty is heavier than mountains.
The three of us were chained to the wheel of fate by links forged of Duty.
"Why?" the SLE raged, openly and honestly. It was like watching intestines spill out of a wound.
Why the Firecracker? Why his dead family? Why must he continue to endure the unendurable for the ungrateful, making the world a safer place for those who'd lit the fuse?
I didn't have an answer. That wasn't my job.
It was Betty's. And her answer was bullshit. Slathered on, with a trowel.
The SLE said as much. I nodded in agreement.
"The Birkenhead Drill," I said into the silence.
"What?" Betty said. The SLE's face also showed puzzlement.
"'But to stand an' be still to the Birken'ead drill is a damn tough bullet to chew,'" I recited.
"In 1852, troopship _HMS Birkenhead_ foundered with over six hundred souls on board. Most were soldiers, a few were sailors, but over one hundred were women and children. The surviving lifeboats were barely enough for them. Not enough for anyone else.
"Five hundred men drowned while standing at attention so that the women and children could go to safety in the boats."
"My God," Dr. Rize exclaimed.
"God had nothing to do with it," I retorted. "Every man stood fast. There was no punishment, no fear left, no way to make them obey. Only honor. Only duty. Only that which makes of men men, rather than monsters."
In sober fact, three men had broken ranks, and over a hundred of them had survived after the ship broke apart, swimming the two miles to shore without being sucked down by the wreck or eaten by sharks. But this was not about facts.
"We know what you are going through, sir. We know -exactly-. You have nothing to be ashamed of. We all know what gun metal tastes like here."
The SLE's eyes darted between our faces. He read truth for a living, and found it.
"Let us help. There is help. Perhaps Betty is offering bullshit. I know stoicism is bullshit too, just a different flavor. But I will eat a yard of shit to keep these people alive. Will you?"
This was the decisive moment. The rest would follow.
The SLE nodded, and he was a man of his word.
We played through the rest of the dance, but the outcome was no longer in doubt.
You eat what is set before you.
Now that the site was finally stable, for values of we had a food supply, Cartwrong's Cretins were neutralized, our invoices were getting paid and our guards had roofs over their heads again, we had other problems to work on.
The biggest one was the personal protection for the SLE.
The Site Location Executive (SLE) is the designated Big Man On Campus. His personal magnetism and driving force was the only reason we were all still alive.
Dr. Rize and I had had a brief conversation about him, consisting of three words.
"He's very suicidal."
Not a surprise. In addition to the killing levels of stress of his ordinary day job (I'd cheated and read his confidential medical file, in which acid reflux and heart palpitations featured prominently), his family had become plasma in the opening moments of the Firecracker.
Then, in Cartwright's attempted coup, both his executive secretary and his close in bodyguard had been callously murdered - the former in front of him, the latter while on the toilet.
I'd seen the .45 pistol he kept in his desk. At a moment he was otherwise occupied elsewhere on campus, I'd done a security check of the area and on a hunch, done a swab test of the barrel exterior. Positive for saliva.
As a stopgap I'd assigned Sharon as the replacement BG, which blew a big hole in our supervisory rota. But she reported that he was politely distant even when provoked. Checked out. Ready to depart this life for whatever might lay beyond the veil.
His new executive secretary was ... okay. Neither competent nor good emotional support. And much less able than the Dragon Lady to shield his boss from the avoidable pressures and stresses.
Added up, this meant that we needed a major intervention.
I added myself to the SLE's calendar for a 4 PM appointment. The executive secretary tried to cancel it; I didn't let him. At 3:49 exactly I escorted Dr. Betty Rize onto the H4 floor, which she was not cleared for access to.
I'd discreetly posted two guards. Mo, on the pretence (and reality!) of an anti-bomb sweep, to keep him from escaping via the men's restroom, which he used in preference to the nearby executive single user stall. (Despite all scrubbing and replaced tiles, it still smelled of arterial blood.) Shane Shreve, whose dumb-as-a-post quality would serve well to prevent interruptions during our appointment.
The executive secretary met our eyes. He showed no interest in Dr. Rize's assets above the waist, and discreetly ignored mine below the waist. This settled which team he was batting for, which fell in the category of good to know, but not immediately useful.
"I'm sorry, Echo 18, but..."
I pushed past him, reached close and pushed the Door Enter button by his knee (as opposed to the Panic button just next to it), and the two of us made entry.
Dr. Rize gasped.
I felt a certain sense of vicious satisfaction.
Not just that of a job well done. Not just that we were going to be able to get past the Denial phase so quickly.
But now that she knew what it felt like to walk into a room and find someone critical with a gun in their mouth.
Just as I had found her, ten weeks ago.
He tried to hide the gun and I held my hands open at waist height in front of me. Dr. Rize closed the door behind us. A heavy thump behind her told us that Shane Shreve as always had taken his instructions literally.
"Stand in front of the door with your ass cheeks touching it until you are told to do something else by me, by Dr. Rize, or by a Reaction Team leader."
"On the desk, sir," I stage whispered as he fumbled for the drawer. After a moment, he did so. Then he spun it until it no longer pointed at me.
"Cancel my next appointment," he said next, touching the intercom.
When he let go the button, Dr. Rize started talking to him. I tuned that part out.
I was here as a contingency and a witness. His personal problems were none of my business.
Except they were. If he died, or especially was killed, or double plus engaged in successful self murder, we were all fucked.
People who going to die soon go through processes of grief, as do those who are around them. Their interactions are fucked up by timing, most of all. The dying person is in Bargaining while their spouse is in Denial. The dying person has finally reached Acceptance while their son is in Jubilation ... I mean, Sorrow.
Dr. Rize knew all of this.
Where the SLE was, was a stage that doesn't have a name. Not really. But since all three of us were at that same stage, I'd coined a term.
Done.
Circling the loop over and over again. Not just ready to go, but annoyed that the train was late. Stuck on a roller coaster with no end.
Death is lighter than a feather. Duty is heavier than mountains.
The three of us were chained to the wheel of fate by links forged of Duty.
"Why?" the SLE raged, openly and honestly. It was like watching intestines spill out of a wound.
Why the Firecracker? Why his dead family? Why must he continue to endure the unendurable for the ungrateful, making the world a safer place for those who'd lit the fuse?
I didn't have an answer. That wasn't my job.
It was Betty's. And her answer was bullshit. Slathered on, with a trowel.
The SLE said as much. I nodded in agreement.
"The Birkenhead Drill," I said into the silence.
"What?" Betty said. The SLE's face also showed puzzlement.
"'But to stand an' be still to the Birken'ead drill is a damn tough bullet to chew,'" I recited.
"In 1852, troopship _HMS Birkenhead_ foundered with over six hundred souls on board. Most were soldiers, a few were sailors, but over one hundred were women and children. The surviving lifeboats were barely enough for them. Not enough for anyone else.
"Five hundred men drowned while standing at attention so that the women and children could go to safety in the boats."
"My God," Dr. Rize exclaimed.
"God had nothing to do with it," I retorted. "Every man stood fast. There was no punishment, no fear left, no way to make them obey. Only honor. Only duty. Only that which makes of men men, rather than monsters."
In sober fact, three men had broken ranks, and over a hundred of them had survived after the ship broke apart, swimming the two miles to shore without being sucked down by the wreck or eaten by sharks. But this was not about facts.
"We know what you are going through, sir. We know -exactly-. You have nothing to be ashamed of. We all know what gun metal tastes like here."
The SLE's eyes darted between our faces. He read truth for a living, and found it.
"Let us help. There is help. Perhaps Betty is offering bullshit. I know stoicism is bullshit too, just a different flavor. But I will eat a yard of shit to keep these people alive. Will you?"
This was the decisive moment. The rest would follow.
The SLE nodded, and he was a man of his word.
We played through the rest of the dance, but the outcome was no longer in doubt.
You eat what is set before you.
