Globall War of Terror: Hot Load
Apr. 25th, 2018 03:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGloball War Of Terror: Hot Load
My very first stop was the motor pool, and the very first person I needed to speak to was Buddy.
After we'd had to fire an incompetent Client manager who had mismanaged our vehicle fleet so badly that we'd nearly taken casualties, I had reluctantly accepted responsibility for our motor pool. ("You complain? Fine! You run it!") I'd immediately called a meeting of our mechanics and asked them to form a union and elect a shop steward to speak for them.
You see, wrench turning is a production skill. You can beat your mechanics into the ground, and then nothing gets done. Managing vehicle maintenance is easy, and Security took care of the car washes and oil changes. (Depending on the guard, it was either a reward or a punishment detail.) Managing vehicle _repairs_ is much harder - and we had far more vehicles than we would ever need, but were short on everything else - fuel, oil, tools, parts, hope, etc.
They elected Buddy, which is exactly what I'd been hoping for. He couldn't manage his way out of a wet paper bag with a crowbar, but he had a lot of common sense and street smarts. He hadn't been a recovery heavy tow truck driver (the elite of the tow truck world) for nothing.
The two of us picked a mild mannered Client manager who had volunteered to manage "whatever needs managing", knew nothing about cars but was willing to learn, and wanted to keep his wrists and hands clean for coding. I met with him weekly and gave him priorities based on what convoys had to go out, what Logistics was screaming for, and changes in our security posture. He delivered.
Last week's meeting I had told him, "Make sure the buses are running."
This would be a four vehicle convoy. The Crown Victoria had been made on prior runs - also, I had plans for her involving a remodel to photos. We had to take the ambulance; among other tidbits, it was our only vehicle already fitted for stretcher patients. Also ... somehow having an ambulance in your convoy makes you seem all pacifist and shit. Not that the big red crosses on all sides would keep anyone from blowing it up. The Geneva Conventions are so 20th century after all.
The interstate bus had forty six seats. But I was going to have to double pack that bus. That meant minimal hand luggage up deck - a purse or backpack only - and people literally sitting on each other's laps, and taking turns standing and squatting in the aisles. The same conditions would apply to our shuttle bus, which had been used to take 15 people in comfort with their luggage around campus and to the airport. I would be double packing that one too.
I needed a vehicle that could run ahead of the convoy if necessary. Something with authority. But not the Hate Truck. Too much barbed wire, and a machine gun that some idiot might actually grow the cojones to object to, further into civilized areas. The same objection applied to our two armored vehicles. Their license status and ownership was murky for values of purchased from an organized crime syndicate with fresh bloodstains from former owners.
That meant Buddy was going to get to drive his beloved heavy tow truck. But he wasn't going to like how we rigged it.
The Utah convoy had included two flatbed trailers. One had a bunker on the back that was heavily shot up. The other had had an RV lashed to it until it caught on fire between Sacramento and Fairfield and was cut loose to save the tow rig. Mr. Molotov will do that.
On my last run from Reno I'd brought back a medium duty pickup, a car carrier trailer and two decrepit cargo vans full of /cargo /stuff /junk /garbage.
I'd badly abused personal privilege by asking Buddy to assign mechanics to overhaul both vans. You see, these four vehicles were owned by [Echo 18] Sundries personally, i.e. me. Just like the ambulance. Long story.
Although both vans still looked like junk, they were now guaranteed to run, had full gas tanks, two spare tires and matching tools, and had been rigged with old mattresses across the back and a long, large locking metal storage cabinet behind the driver's seat. At a pinch I guessed I could cram at least a dozen people into the back of each. And we would.
One van would be the security and driver barracks, because we weren't stopping for shit and certainly not for sleep. The other van would be the nursery. The ambulance, rolling on its own wheels, would be the infirmary. But if the ambo broke down, we would unload and roll a van and load the broken ambo on the flatbed.
Failing to plan is planning to fail.
When I arrived (by cart) I found the motor pool a beehive of activity. Buddy had his head in the interstate bus engine compartment muttering over his shoulder to two other mechanics. The other vehicles were being staged.
I thought about it for a minute. Buddy noticed me, handed off the wrench and stretched as he walked over.
"Can we yank the seats in the big bus?"
"Not quickly."
"How about two rows?"
"About an hour."
"Yank the rows in front of the emergency exit rows. Like an aircraft cabin."
"Got it. Phase two?"
Buddy was not slow. He only looked slow. And he drove fast and hit hard.
"Phase two."
He turned right back to his work. Don't let anyone tell you a big man can't move fast.
My next stop was the Fire Brigade garage, which had been hacked together out of 40' containers with a fabric roof over the top.
"You're not going."
Janine's face fell.
"The ambulance is. And I need two medics and a firefighter. All with full gear. Firefighter needs forcible entry tools."
She snapped her fingers. Her crew had shown a tendency to hang out in the garage area during stressful times. The ... recovery of Doctor Alexander had certainly been stressful. She called out three names.
"Good luck," she called as I turned away.
I drove next to Security Operations. Telling Janine had been the warm up. Now I had to tell Shane.
"Sir. I'm your _bodyguard_."
"I need you here."
"Why?" His perennially puzzled face wrinkled. He was trying to think. Nothing good could come of this. But he had saved my life enough times that I owed him basic politeness.
The truth was that I didn't need him on the op. That in teams picked for quick thinking, he was dead last. That his mass wasn't worth the space. Merely having to constantly tell him what to do was a load on my decision making that I didn't need.
I would have to come up with a really good lie.
Instead I accidentally told the truth.
"I know you won't let anyone get murdered while I'm gone."
And that was true. He was too stupid to appreciate the horror of being captured by Homeland. Uniforms were just information to him. If someone tried to execute an Employee in front of him, they would have to kill him first - and despite his stupidity, Shane Shreve was very, very hard to kill.
He nodded.
That was too easy. I sat down with our current roster and called out seven names. Two drivers, four veteran guards I'd carefully trained for bus runs. And one utility infielder. Brooke.
I needed a rifleman. Disregard her gender ... Brooke is one of the two riflemen I've got. Soldiers. Not merely cursory training classes, but professionals trained in a hard school by the resources of a superpower. Marine.
I had another. George. Army. But he had ruth. The opposite of "ruthless."
The site adjusted coverage while those seven grabbed deployment bags and reported to the Motor Pool.
Then I went upstairs to talk to Wyatt. In the Room.
He wasn't going, not with one leg. But he'd been obsessively planning this ever since I'd tasked him to go work in the File Storage Room sorting boxes.
We briefly reviewed the master map. Route planning. We'd argued for weeks now. Unfortunately I could not tell him - or anyone else - which I had picked.
I loaded the accordion folder contained route intel for each of the six routes we'd worked up. The vehicles already had map packs. But my folder had additional maps from British Columbia to Maine to Florida. At one point I'd even considered Mexico, except that the paramilitaries were having a field day with the central government fallen and anything necessary to the Firecracker War secured by payoffs and occasional air strikes.
I met his eyes and extended my hand. He shook it.
"Thanks."
His lonely weeks locked in a room were about to pay off in lives. We hoped.
I slunk upstairs, took the pedestrian bridge one building over. I would have to do this smooth and fast.
"Dr. D. Alexander" read the nameplate on the locked corner office. I keyed it open with my master key and locked it behind me.
As with many brilliant minds, the desk was covered with papers. No laptop. But his desktop PC was there. I broke it open and removed the drive, placing it in the accordion file. I tossed the drawers.
As he had told me I would, I discovered the 'trinket' in his desk. A long brown leathern case, as for jewelry, containing a gold medallion with the head of a man on it. Doctor Nobel.
I also placed it in the accordion file, along with several flash sticks, family photos (after breaking them out of their frames), and - oddly enough - a military challenge coin.
On the way out I broke the lock.
Brooke - who'd had a key to my cage every since the Fire - met me as I parked the cart at the Motor Pool. She had my gear as well as her own.
She saluted, strictly improper as I was not commissioned.
I returned it. I took out a piece of paper and scribbled on it. Authorization.
"Draw full equipment from the armory. M-16. Grenades. Armor. A case of ammo. Meet us back here within the hour."
We had plenty of anemic AR rifles in .223
We had exactly five automatic weapons, and they were kept under lock and key in the armory when not actively in use by a reaction team or convoy.
I had just ordered her to go get one.
The rifle is not enough. An incompetent with an automatic weapon is as likely to hurt themselves - or their allies - as anybody else.
Brooke was far, far from incompetent. That one weapon was - according to a Department of Defense study - 270 times as deadly as a handgun.
We would need it.
A quick walk through the Motor Pool, stowing my equipment - in Buddy's cab, which he kept locked - and touching base with all the people I planned to lead on this madcap adventure. Checking each vehicle's loadout and necessary alterations.
Now for the hard part.
I took out my wi-fi cell and called the VP of Human Resources.
"Go."
"This is [Echo 18]. I need everyone on List C to assemble at the perimeter encampment. Now."
"I need authority."
"Sam Lincoln Edward."
I could hear the hesitation in the almost dead air of the connection.
Don't say it. Please don't say it.
If you even suggest that I'm assembling them for Homeland's convenience ... they might figure it out in time to send a convoy of their own. Or just two machine gun crews and a few cases of ammunition.
She disconnected.
A few minutes later, employees started walking out of their offices and buildings towards the perimeter encampment.
One last check. The convoy was ready.
I pulled myself up into the big rig tow truck, now hitched to a flatbed trailer with two cargo vans on top. The nursery van had formula and diapers, what we could spare. The barracks van was secured by Brooke and loaded ... appropriately.
I keyed up on Tactical. Hopefully the new encryption would help.
Hope is a feeble reed surrounded by madness.
"Perimeter raid," I announced crisply.
The convoy turned inward, as so often rehearsed, and headed for the perimeter camp.
We pulled up.
"Attention! All H1Bs, all H1B dependents, all uncleared persons! Get on the buses, right now! If you don't, the CLIENT and the COMPANY will no longer be responsible for your safety! One bag per person only! One bag, only!"
My team repeated the orders. The word had quietly spread among the affected people, from the previous runs. Have a bag packed. Be ready. None of us know the hour.
The hour was now.
"I need this camp _EMPTY_ of people! If you are a contractor or you are authorized, you need to return to main campus through the control point! If you are NOT authorized I need you on a bus! Mothers with children check in at the back of the flatbed truck!"
The control point was heavily overstaffed. This was not the day to miss anyone, either way.
The ambulance rumbled up to join us. It now contained three stretcher patients, including Doctor Alexander. I took a moment to stick my head in the back.
He was swathed in blankets. It must have hurt terribly. But he was smiling.
I handed him a plastic bag. He looked through it. He handed it back.
"Keep it safe until we get there. Or get it to my family."
I nodded and locked it back in the cab of the truck, with two care packages - one from the infirmary, and one from the armory. Either could get me twenty to life under the law.
Especially in combination.
Inter arma enim silent leges.
The accomodations were very crowded. We'd rigged nylon straps everywhere for people to hang on to. We'd loaded the last of the hoarded cases of bottled water whereever they could fit. We had bottles and funnels and dispensers too.
We didn't bother with food, beyond a couple cases of rations for the drivers and security force. This would be over in a week, or we'd be dead or worse.
A surprise last second visitor.
The accountant.
"SLE sent me. I've got some letters."
I'd set up a care package of fuel cards, credit cards, spares and a briefcase of bluebacks. But the accountant showed me his file folder, freshly printed.
Carefully forged documentation listing all these folks as transferred. "List C" indeed. Possibly not even forged given the circumstances.
An additional list, clearly from our Security files, of dependents and uncleared persons.
We were fully manifested.
Not even a drunk checkpoint guard would buy the story that all these refugees were Essential Site Personnel where they were going. But the Client pledged to provide their support during travel to their ultimate destination.
He handed over.
"I'd go if he let me. But I can't."
I nodded. It wasn't a question of courage. It was a question of need.
He had to stay for the same reason I had to go. And come back.
I shook his hand, climbed up into the cab. Called on Tactical for each vehicle's readiness.
All ready.
I waved a hand in a circle and pointed forward.
Roll out.
As we drove towards the South Gate defenses, I saw a curious thing.
Employees lined up on either side of the road. Waving. Watching.
Then a patch of Security personnel. On command, they -- again quite improperly -- saluted.
We displayed no flags. They certainly weren't saluting me.
Then the Fire Brigade team, with the brush truck. A hose stream in the air over the convoy. They neither saluted nor waved. But they had tools in their hands.
The gate crew passed us out. Like the FIre Brigade, they did not wave or salute. But they also had their tools in their hands.
"Where to, Boss?" Buddy asked.
"680 corridor. Livermore zone."
He looked at me. Hard. Then he hit the air horn and punched the pedal.
In the heart of danger, you will find safety.
Balls.
In the heart of danger, you find more danger. Like an onion. Layers. Or what happens when you break open Chuck Norris. A slightly smaller and much angrier Chuck. And so on.
What remained of government in the Bay Area was concentrated in the 680 / 580 corridor.
Choosing the east route instead of the south route might just kill us all.
Wyatt and I had argued furiously. He favored the east route. I favored the south route, for many reasons including our familiarity with it.
His arguments were absolutely compelling.
If we appeared to be running away, we would be pursued. Dogs and men.
So we were going to have to slam the wall. Get through the checkpoints separating the hell of San Jose from the purgatory of Pleasanton.
Or get very, very lucky.
Balls.
My very first stop was the motor pool, and the very first person I needed to speak to was Buddy.
After we'd had to fire an incompetent Client manager who had mismanaged our vehicle fleet so badly that we'd nearly taken casualties, I had reluctantly accepted responsibility for our motor pool. ("You complain? Fine! You run it!") I'd immediately called a meeting of our mechanics and asked them to form a union and elect a shop steward to speak for them.
You see, wrench turning is a production skill. You can beat your mechanics into the ground, and then nothing gets done. Managing vehicle maintenance is easy, and Security took care of the car washes and oil changes. (Depending on the guard, it was either a reward or a punishment detail.) Managing vehicle _repairs_ is much harder - and we had far more vehicles than we would ever need, but were short on everything else - fuel, oil, tools, parts, hope, etc.
They elected Buddy, which is exactly what I'd been hoping for. He couldn't manage his way out of a wet paper bag with a crowbar, but he had a lot of common sense and street smarts. He hadn't been a recovery heavy tow truck driver (the elite of the tow truck world) for nothing.
The two of us picked a mild mannered Client manager who had volunteered to manage "whatever needs managing", knew nothing about cars but was willing to learn, and wanted to keep his wrists and hands clean for coding. I met with him weekly and gave him priorities based on what convoys had to go out, what Logistics was screaming for, and changes in our security posture. He delivered.
Last week's meeting I had told him, "Make sure the buses are running."
This would be a four vehicle convoy. The Crown Victoria had been made on prior runs - also, I had plans for her involving a remodel to photos. We had to take the ambulance; among other tidbits, it was our only vehicle already fitted for stretcher patients. Also ... somehow having an ambulance in your convoy makes you seem all pacifist and shit. Not that the big red crosses on all sides would keep anyone from blowing it up. The Geneva Conventions are so 20th century after all.
The interstate bus had forty six seats. But I was going to have to double pack that bus. That meant minimal hand luggage up deck - a purse or backpack only - and people literally sitting on each other's laps, and taking turns standing and squatting in the aisles. The same conditions would apply to our shuttle bus, which had been used to take 15 people in comfort with their luggage around campus and to the airport. I would be double packing that one too.
I needed a vehicle that could run ahead of the convoy if necessary. Something with authority. But not the Hate Truck. Too much barbed wire, and a machine gun that some idiot might actually grow the cojones to object to, further into civilized areas. The same objection applied to our two armored vehicles. Their license status and ownership was murky for values of purchased from an organized crime syndicate with fresh bloodstains from former owners.
That meant Buddy was going to get to drive his beloved heavy tow truck. But he wasn't going to like how we rigged it.
The Utah convoy had included two flatbed trailers. One had a bunker on the back that was heavily shot up. The other had had an RV lashed to it until it caught on fire between Sacramento and Fairfield and was cut loose to save the tow rig. Mr. Molotov will do that.
On my last run from Reno I'd brought back a medium duty pickup, a car carrier trailer and two decrepit cargo vans full of /cargo /stuff /junk /garbage.
I'd badly abused personal privilege by asking Buddy to assign mechanics to overhaul both vans. You see, these four vehicles were owned by [Echo 18] Sundries personally, i.e. me. Just like the ambulance. Long story.
Although both vans still looked like junk, they were now guaranteed to run, had full gas tanks, two spare tires and matching tools, and had been rigged with old mattresses across the back and a long, large locking metal storage cabinet behind the driver's seat. At a pinch I guessed I could cram at least a dozen people into the back of each. And we would.
One van would be the security and driver barracks, because we weren't stopping for shit and certainly not for sleep. The other van would be the nursery. The ambulance, rolling on its own wheels, would be the infirmary. But if the ambo broke down, we would unload and roll a van and load the broken ambo on the flatbed.
Failing to plan is planning to fail.
When I arrived (by cart) I found the motor pool a beehive of activity. Buddy had his head in the interstate bus engine compartment muttering over his shoulder to two other mechanics. The other vehicles were being staged.
I thought about it for a minute. Buddy noticed me, handed off the wrench and stretched as he walked over.
"Can we yank the seats in the big bus?"
"Not quickly."
"How about two rows?"
"About an hour."
"Yank the rows in front of the emergency exit rows. Like an aircraft cabin."
"Got it. Phase two?"
Buddy was not slow. He only looked slow. And he drove fast and hit hard.
"Phase two."
He turned right back to his work. Don't let anyone tell you a big man can't move fast.
My next stop was the Fire Brigade garage, which had been hacked together out of 40' containers with a fabric roof over the top.
"You're not going."
Janine's face fell.
"The ambulance is. And I need two medics and a firefighter. All with full gear. Firefighter needs forcible entry tools."
She snapped her fingers. Her crew had shown a tendency to hang out in the garage area during stressful times. The ... recovery of Doctor Alexander had certainly been stressful. She called out three names.
"Good luck," she called as I turned away.
I drove next to Security Operations. Telling Janine had been the warm up. Now I had to tell Shane.
"Sir. I'm your _bodyguard_."
"I need you here."
"Why?" His perennially puzzled face wrinkled. He was trying to think. Nothing good could come of this. But he had saved my life enough times that I owed him basic politeness.
The truth was that I didn't need him on the op. That in teams picked for quick thinking, he was dead last. That his mass wasn't worth the space. Merely having to constantly tell him what to do was a load on my decision making that I didn't need.
I would have to come up with a really good lie.
Instead I accidentally told the truth.
"I know you won't let anyone get murdered while I'm gone."
And that was true. He was too stupid to appreciate the horror of being captured by Homeland. Uniforms were just information to him. If someone tried to execute an Employee in front of him, they would have to kill him first - and despite his stupidity, Shane Shreve was very, very hard to kill.
He nodded.
That was too easy. I sat down with our current roster and called out seven names. Two drivers, four veteran guards I'd carefully trained for bus runs. And one utility infielder. Brooke.
I needed a rifleman. Disregard her gender ... Brooke is one of the two riflemen I've got. Soldiers. Not merely cursory training classes, but professionals trained in a hard school by the resources of a superpower. Marine.
I had another. George. Army. But he had ruth. The opposite of "ruthless."
The site adjusted coverage while those seven grabbed deployment bags and reported to the Motor Pool.
Then I went upstairs to talk to Wyatt. In the Room.
He wasn't going, not with one leg. But he'd been obsessively planning this ever since I'd tasked him to go work in the File Storage Room sorting boxes.
We briefly reviewed the master map. Route planning. We'd argued for weeks now. Unfortunately I could not tell him - or anyone else - which I had picked.
I loaded the accordion folder contained route intel for each of the six routes we'd worked up. The vehicles already had map packs. But my folder had additional maps from British Columbia to Maine to Florida. At one point I'd even considered Mexico, except that the paramilitaries were having a field day with the central government fallen and anything necessary to the Firecracker War secured by payoffs and occasional air strikes.
I met his eyes and extended my hand. He shook it.
"Thanks."
His lonely weeks locked in a room were about to pay off in lives. We hoped.
I slunk upstairs, took the pedestrian bridge one building over. I would have to do this smooth and fast.
"Dr. D. Alexander" read the nameplate on the locked corner office. I keyed it open with my master key and locked it behind me.
As with many brilliant minds, the desk was covered with papers. No laptop. But his desktop PC was there. I broke it open and removed the drive, placing it in the accordion file. I tossed the drawers.
As he had told me I would, I discovered the 'trinket' in his desk. A long brown leathern case, as for jewelry, containing a gold medallion with the head of a man on it. Doctor Nobel.
I also placed it in the accordion file, along with several flash sticks, family photos (after breaking them out of their frames), and - oddly enough - a military challenge coin.
On the way out I broke the lock.
Brooke - who'd had a key to my cage every since the Fire - met me as I parked the cart at the Motor Pool. She had my gear as well as her own.
She saluted, strictly improper as I was not commissioned.
I returned it. I took out a piece of paper and scribbled on it. Authorization.
"Draw full equipment from the armory. M-16. Grenades. Armor. A case of ammo. Meet us back here within the hour."
We had plenty of anemic AR rifles in .223
We had exactly five automatic weapons, and they were kept under lock and key in the armory when not actively in use by a reaction team or convoy.
I had just ordered her to go get one.
The rifle is not enough. An incompetent with an automatic weapon is as likely to hurt themselves - or their allies - as anybody else.
Brooke was far, far from incompetent. That one weapon was - according to a Department of Defense study - 270 times as deadly as a handgun.
We would need it.
A quick walk through the Motor Pool, stowing my equipment - in Buddy's cab, which he kept locked - and touching base with all the people I planned to lead on this madcap adventure. Checking each vehicle's loadout and necessary alterations.
Now for the hard part.
I took out my wi-fi cell and called the VP of Human Resources.
"Go."
"This is [Echo 18]. I need everyone on List C to assemble at the perimeter encampment. Now."
"I need authority."
"Sam Lincoln Edward."
I could hear the hesitation in the almost dead air of the connection.
Don't say it. Please don't say it.
If you even suggest that I'm assembling them for Homeland's convenience ... they might figure it out in time to send a convoy of their own. Or just two machine gun crews and a few cases of ammunition.
She disconnected.
A few minutes later, employees started walking out of their offices and buildings towards the perimeter encampment.
One last check. The convoy was ready.
I pulled myself up into the big rig tow truck, now hitched to a flatbed trailer with two cargo vans on top. The nursery van had formula and diapers, what we could spare. The barracks van was secured by Brooke and loaded ... appropriately.
I keyed up on Tactical. Hopefully the new encryption would help.
Hope is a feeble reed surrounded by madness.
"Perimeter raid," I announced crisply.
The convoy turned inward, as so often rehearsed, and headed for the perimeter camp.
We pulled up.
"Attention! All H1Bs, all H1B dependents, all uncleared persons! Get on the buses, right now! If you don't, the CLIENT and the COMPANY will no longer be responsible for your safety! One bag per person only! One bag, only!"
My team repeated the orders. The word had quietly spread among the affected people, from the previous runs. Have a bag packed. Be ready. None of us know the hour.
The hour was now.
"I need this camp _EMPTY_ of people! If you are a contractor or you are authorized, you need to return to main campus through the control point! If you are NOT authorized I need you on a bus! Mothers with children check in at the back of the flatbed truck!"
The control point was heavily overstaffed. This was not the day to miss anyone, either way.
The ambulance rumbled up to join us. It now contained three stretcher patients, including Doctor Alexander. I took a moment to stick my head in the back.
He was swathed in blankets. It must have hurt terribly. But he was smiling.
I handed him a plastic bag. He looked through it. He handed it back.
"Keep it safe until we get there. Or get it to my family."
I nodded and locked it back in the cab of the truck, with two care packages - one from the infirmary, and one from the armory. Either could get me twenty to life under the law.
Especially in combination.
Inter arma enim silent leges.
The accomodations were very crowded. We'd rigged nylon straps everywhere for people to hang on to. We'd loaded the last of the hoarded cases of bottled water whereever they could fit. We had bottles and funnels and dispensers too.
We didn't bother with food, beyond a couple cases of rations for the drivers and security force. This would be over in a week, or we'd be dead or worse.
A surprise last second visitor.
The accountant.
"SLE sent me. I've got some letters."
I'd set up a care package of fuel cards, credit cards, spares and a briefcase of bluebacks. But the accountant showed me his file folder, freshly printed.
Carefully forged documentation listing all these folks as transferred. "List C" indeed. Possibly not even forged given the circumstances.
An additional list, clearly from our Security files, of dependents and uncleared persons.
We were fully manifested.
Not even a drunk checkpoint guard would buy the story that all these refugees were Essential Site Personnel where they were going. But the Client pledged to provide their support during travel to their ultimate destination.
He handed over.
"I'd go if he let me. But I can't."
I nodded. It wasn't a question of courage. It was a question of need.
He had to stay for the same reason I had to go. And come back.
I shook his hand, climbed up into the cab. Called on Tactical for each vehicle's readiness.
All ready.
I waved a hand in a circle and pointed forward.
Roll out.
As we drove towards the South Gate defenses, I saw a curious thing.
Employees lined up on either side of the road. Waving. Watching.
Then a patch of Security personnel. On command, they -- again quite improperly -- saluted.
We displayed no flags. They certainly weren't saluting me.
Then the Fire Brigade team, with the brush truck. A hose stream in the air over the convoy. They neither saluted nor waved. But they had tools in their hands.
The gate crew passed us out. Like the FIre Brigade, they did not wave or salute. But they also had their tools in their hands.
"Where to, Boss?" Buddy asked.
"680 corridor. Livermore zone."
He looked at me. Hard. Then he hit the air horn and punched the pedal.
In the heart of danger, you will find safety.
Balls.
In the heart of danger, you find more danger. Like an onion. Layers. Or what happens when you break open Chuck Norris. A slightly smaller and much angrier Chuck. And so on.
What remained of government in the Bay Area was concentrated in the 680 / 580 corridor.
Choosing the east route instead of the south route might just kill us all.
Wyatt and I had argued furiously. He favored the east route. I favored the south route, for many reasons including our familiarity with it.
His arguments were absolutely compelling.
If we appeared to be running away, we would be pursued. Dogs and men.
So we were going to have to slam the wall. Get through the checkpoints separating the hell of San Jose from the purgatory of Pleasanton.
Or get very, very lucky.
Balls.
