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drewkittyGloball War of Terror - Meaningful Discussion
TS/SCI Blue Shirt
Audio Transcript
Blue Shirt SCIF-2
Utah Facility
UI: Unidentified Individual
E18: Investigative subject [Echo 18] in connection with Blue Shirt San Jose compromise.
UI: Now you are going to talk to me! This is a secure facility!
E18: I understand, sir. I know you feel this is a secure facility. Given my responsibilities I feel that I need to take every precaution to carry out my mission.
UI: Your mission is simply to escort ...
E18: [cough loudly, followed by scribbling of pencil on paper, and flapping of paper]
UI: Your mission is to ...
[A chair is picked up and dropped.]
UI: Your ... come back here!
E18: My mission is not yet completed. We have conflicting objectives. Your objective is the continuing safety of your employees on this site. My objective is to carry out my mission. But I have a duty to share your objective as well. That means we have to leave, and in no more than three days. [More paper rustling.]
UI: Three ... days. I see.
E18: You may have heard about the security compromise at Reno. I am concerned, with good reason, that all [Blue Shirt] facilities may be similarly compromised.
[More paper rustling. Pencil scratching on paper.]
UI: This room is swept three times a day!
E18: Who were the installers?
UI: We hired the best contractors! The very best! Recommended to us by ... oh.
E18: I've had a long day and night. But I cannot rest until we have a plan for me to accomplish my mission.
UI: I understand. I think I truly understand.
[Chairs move, two persons get up, door opens, door closes.]
[End Transcript]
###
From: Blue Shirt analyst
To: Supervising Analyst
Re: mandatory reporting of possible compromise
Reference above transcript for potential compromise of Blue Shirt monitoring at Utah, Nevada and California facilities.
###
Of course the Utah Site Location Executive had to be a jogger.
It did make things safer. His EP had searched me at his direction. Not for weapons. Then he had ordered his EP to stand down while I searched him.
This left me jogging next to him in uniform wearing a duty belt while he jogged in a T-shirt and shorts. And gasping out my report.
"You genuinely believe our employees are at grave risk of being massacred?"
"Absolutely. We think 'Homeward Bound' is a cover for something much more sinister. One: an employee at San Jose is an aviation hobbyist. He has been tracking flights using hardware and software from before the Firecracker and comparing it to public sites, where they are still up. He confirms that there have been NO international flights to four of the countries reported publicly as repatriating Homeward Bound detainees by air carrier. Two: not a single E-mail sent to a Homeward Bound detainee has been returned. Through proxies my intelligence analyst has sent over 10,000 such emails through a variety of methods and routes.
"When you add that to what we saw in Black Rock, there is only one conclusion."
He skips some steps and turns, hands on his sides. He would have smoked me easily, if it had not been for the content of our conversation.
"I'm going to say this out loud and plain. They're killing them," he said.
"I'm afraid so."
"We are a US company. We hold many millions of dollars in US defense contracts. Our country is at war. I recall another company ... in World War II she made rifles for America. But her German subsidiary crunched census data for the Holocaust."
I said nothing. This was his moral issue to wrestle with. Even if one fork of his decision tree had him calling Homeland and turning us all over.
"We have an obligation to our employees. We can't just fire them. But they're no safer in Colorado than in Utah, are they?"
That required an answer.
"No."
"I could put them to work here. But that would merely mean us getting a visit from Homeland, if I understand correctly."
"I was hoping for better news. Or at least better intel."
"People in Utah _hate_ Homeland. They operate in large, powerful convoys from bases inside Federal military bases. But they do operate. And the people they take away are not seen again. I ... cannot risk such a convoy coming here. But I think the Colorado SLE, given these facts, would come to the same conclusion. And you've already shipped 120 employees off to her.
"I see no benefit to concentrating the problem. Getting them out of San Jose, yes. Getting them to Colorado, no. I think I have one hundred and sixty new employees to find homes for. I have work for them. We will find housing for them. But you and your people need to go."
"I have no problem with that. But how can you keep them safe here?"
"The same way you did. And will when you go back."
He leaned forward and whispered in my ear. Two words.
I blinked.
"Do you have the skills and people to do that?"
"Yes. And if we don't, I will reach out to the Church."
I nodded.
"Best we leave then. Immediately after this conversation, unless you say otherwise."
"Go. Good luck."
We jogged back to site. He went up to his office, to think about the enormous new task I had presented himself with.
I felt light as a bird. I had only the crushing weight of my own soul to worry about, not one hundred and sixty others.
As I walked down the hallway to gather my people, the security supervisor ran up to me, almost running me down.
"There's a Homeland MRAP at the gate!"
I looked him in the eyes and said just one word.
"Stall."
###
"Folks, we have an issue. I need you to gather up your items quickly. Each of you is going to be assigned to an office. The office is _not_ I repeat _not_ yours, but you need to hide your bag and make it look like you are working in it. Follow us now."
The site guard used his master key to unlock each office that he reached. A refugee immediately took note of the name on the door, hid his bag inside, sat down at the computer and pretended to start doing work.
An IT tech ran shortly behind us with a stack of sticky notes on which a login and password had been scrawled.
Brooke had concealed herself in the dropped ceiling above the lactation room in full gear with her rifle. In the locked lactation room were crammed all four (4) of our nursing mothers. Awkward timing but the best we could do.
Buddy was hanging out with the Facilities techs, no doubt pumping them for info.
Matt had changed uniforms slightly to better blend in with the local guards. He was now shadowing the security supervisor as his assistant.
I was doing the final sweep of the cafeteria with the janitor, making sure tables were pushed in and wiped up.
When I came into Security Control, I saw that two more MRAPs had joined the first, and the new arrivals were dismounting to scream at the guards.
The gate went up and the MRAPs entered. They did a circle sweep around the site, twice. First looking outward at the perimeter. Then looking inward.
Two parked by the loading dock, one parked by the lobby. All dismounted their troopers.
Their officer stormed into Security Control shouting "Who is in charge here?"
"I am," volunteered the security supervisor. And promptly was slapped, open hand.
Everyone flinched but no one so much as moved a hand towards a weapon. To resist Homeland was to die. We all knew that.
"You tell your idiot gate guards, and ALL your guards, that when you have a Homeland MRAP at the gate, you LET IT IN. Got that? Oh, and who the fuck are you?" he asked, pointing at me.
"Firearms instructor," I said flatly. Only explanation I could come up with on the top of my head of the polo shirt and holstered handgun, without knowing the site at all.
"You tell your people too! Homeland has unlimited access everywhere, and none of you forget it! Now, two stolen buses were seen near this property about six hours ago. Did any of you see them?"
"Yes, sir," Matt said immediately. "A highway bus and a shuttle bus? They tried to come in and we told them to go away."
"WHAT?!? You knew there was a BOLO for them? And you didn't call us?"
"What BOLO?" one of the dispatchers put in on cue. "We don't get Homeland BOLOs, we're just security."
"We'll fix that. Send me an E-mail with your E-mail, phone and fax numbers." The dispatcher started typing. Apparently Mr. Shouty Pants was a known quantity, or the dispatcher didn't want to piss him off further by asking for an E-mail.
Another dispatcher queued up the video of the bus arriving and departing. Fortunately for all of us, he picked a long shot camera and the view of a guy in a polo shirt waving his arms angrily was grainy.
"If you see them again, you call us _immediately_. Meanwhile, we're going to conduct a search. You all stay here."
Perforce we stayed put.
Mr. Shouty Pants came back within twenty minutes. One of his troopers gave a business card to the dispatcher, who finished and sent the demanded E-mail.
"None of you tell anyone we came here. Any of you!"
And with that he left first Security Control, then the building, and ultimately the site.
That was the second near miss. We wouldn't get a third.
###
They had hidden the patients in the dish room of the cafeteria. Risky but there was no way to move them much further quickly. And they'd at least been around a corner behind a canvas cover.
I gave Doctor Alexander his bag and shook his hand.
"Good luck, sir."
"No," he said. I must have looked surprised, because he continued.
"Not luck. Faith. I knew if I made it back to work, the [CLIENT] would keep me safe. The luck I had... the [CLIENT] had ... was you."
I blinked and fought back an urge to salute, and left, knowing I would never see him again.
###
We walked across the parking lot for what would be the last time. As directed, the medics and firefighter had left their helmets and armbands behind. We looked like what we were - a loose gaggle of guards. The camera covering the area was carefully not recording.
Buddy had a roll of wire and fence pliers. He repaired the fence behind us and tossed the wire and pliers back over the top.
Including myself and Buddy, there were twelve of us.
Three vehicles pulled in. The third was for Buddy.
"I've arranged a ride back to your truck. Your rate is $125 per hour, correct?"
He looked at me, stunned. "Yes."
"Twelve weeks of eighty hour weeks at your rate is $14,400. I left $20K in bluebacks in your vehicle."
"Why?"
"I'm paying you off. You've done your work. You saved us all. Over and over again, you saved us all. And now one more person needs saving, sir. You."
"Couldn't you use me?"
"Probably. Maybe we could even afford you. But I need you and your truck to go I-15 south and fuzz the trail. Consider the extra $5K a bonus or a bribe for one last assignment, whichever."
He paused, brought his hefty frame to the position of attention, and crisply saluted.
Buddy. Crisply. Saluted.
I saluted him back. He turned and the driver took him away, back to his vehicle and to his life before the Firecracker had trapped him on our site.
Now there were eleven of us.
###
In the LDS warehouse, we carefully evaluated the three vans. The barracks van had a cracked frame. She'd given her all on that wild full throttle run through the gully. We stripped tools and tires, resting the axles on bits of concrete block. Someone else would have to dispose of the remains.
The ambulance was in the best shape, but far too conspicuous. Until I carefully pried up a corner of the wrap and peeled ... the prominent red crosses coming off as easily as a Twinkie wrapper. I crumpled them. Worthless.
The nursery van was also in good shape.
Two vans for eleven people, not bad.
Our hosts were very closed mouth people. I approved. They wordlessly provided us four Utah plates and plausible paperwork.
Just as we were about to leave, the oldest spoke.
"[E18], what is your favorite parable?"
I am not Christian. I am especially not Mormon. But I owed them common courtesy for hospitality.
"The parable of the Centurion and his servant." Lover, actually.
"A good choice for a fighting man. But consider Matthew 18:12."
We left.
###
I couldn't help myself. I looked it up in the Gideon BIble at the roadside motel that night.
“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?
What do I think?
If one of my guards left the ninety-and-nine to go to look for the one, I'd beat him senseless for abandoning his responsibilities.
But the parable was not about sheep.
The parable was about lives.
And as Lois McMaster Bujold said, "Lives don't add in integers. They add in infinities."
Later, I would realize.
That was the moment I joined the Resistance.
TS/SCI Blue Shirt
Audio Transcript
Blue Shirt SCIF-2
Utah Facility
UI: Unidentified Individual
E18: Investigative subject [Echo 18] in connection with Blue Shirt San Jose compromise.
UI: Now you are going to talk to me! This is a secure facility!
E18: I understand, sir. I know you feel this is a secure facility. Given my responsibilities I feel that I need to take every precaution to carry out my mission.
UI: Your mission is simply to escort ...
E18: [cough loudly, followed by scribbling of pencil on paper, and flapping of paper]
UI: Your mission is to ...
[A chair is picked up and dropped.]
UI: Your ... come back here!
E18: My mission is not yet completed. We have conflicting objectives. Your objective is the continuing safety of your employees on this site. My objective is to carry out my mission. But I have a duty to share your objective as well. That means we have to leave, and in no more than three days. [More paper rustling.]
UI: Three ... days. I see.
E18: You may have heard about the security compromise at Reno. I am concerned, with good reason, that all [Blue Shirt] facilities may be similarly compromised.
[More paper rustling. Pencil scratching on paper.]
UI: This room is swept three times a day!
E18: Who were the installers?
UI: We hired the best contractors! The very best! Recommended to us by ... oh.
E18: I've had a long day and night. But I cannot rest until we have a plan for me to accomplish my mission.
UI: I understand. I think I truly understand.
[Chairs move, two persons get up, door opens, door closes.]
[End Transcript]
###
From: Blue Shirt analyst
To: Supervising Analyst
Re: mandatory reporting of possible compromise
Reference above transcript for potential compromise of Blue Shirt monitoring at Utah, Nevada and California facilities.
###
Of course the Utah Site Location Executive had to be a jogger.
It did make things safer. His EP had searched me at his direction. Not for weapons. Then he had ordered his EP to stand down while I searched him.
This left me jogging next to him in uniform wearing a duty belt while he jogged in a T-shirt and shorts. And gasping out my report.
"You genuinely believe our employees are at grave risk of being massacred?"
"Absolutely. We think 'Homeward Bound' is a cover for something much more sinister. One: an employee at San Jose is an aviation hobbyist. He has been tracking flights using hardware and software from before the Firecracker and comparing it to public sites, where they are still up. He confirms that there have been NO international flights to four of the countries reported publicly as repatriating Homeward Bound detainees by air carrier. Two: not a single E-mail sent to a Homeward Bound detainee has been returned. Through proxies my intelligence analyst has sent over 10,000 such emails through a variety of methods and routes.
"When you add that to what we saw in Black Rock, there is only one conclusion."
He skips some steps and turns, hands on his sides. He would have smoked me easily, if it had not been for the content of our conversation.
"I'm going to say this out loud and plain. They're killing them," he said.
"I'm afraid so."
"We are a US company. We hold many millions of dollars in US defense contracts. Our country is at war. I recall another company ... in World War II she made rifles for America. But her German subsidiary crunched census data for the Holocaust."
I said nothing. This was his moral issue to wrestle with. Even if one fork of his decision tree had him calling Homeland and turning us all over.
"We have an obligation to our employees. We can't just fire them. But they're no safer in Colorado than in Utah, are they?"
That required an answer.
"No."
"I could put them to work here. But that would merely mean us getting a visit from Homeland, if I understand correctly."
"I was hoping for better news. Or at least better intel."
"People in Utah _hate_ Homeland. They operate in large, powerful convoys from bases inside Federal military bases. But they do operate. And the people they take away are not seen again. I ... cannot risk such a convoy coming here. But I think the Colorado SLE, given these facts, would come to the same conclusion. And you've already shipped 120 employees off to her.
"I see no benefit to concentrating the problem. Getting them out of San Jose, yes. Getting them to Colorado, no. I think I have one hundred and sixty new employees to find homes for. I have work for them. We will find housing for them. But you and your people need to go."
"I have no problem with that. But how can you keep them safe here?"
"The same way you did. And will when you go back."
He leaned forward and whispered in my ear. Two words.
I blinked.
"Do you have the skills and people to do that?"
"Yes. And if we don't, I will reach out to the Church."
I nodded.
"Best we leave then. Immediately after this conversation, unless you say otherwise."
"Go. Good luck."
We jogged back to site. He went up to his office, to think about the enormous new task I had presented himself with.
I felt light as a bird. I had only the crushing weight of my own soul to worry about, not one hundred and sixty others.
As I walked down the hallway to gather my people, the security supervisor ran up to me, almost running me down.
"There's a Homeland MRAP at the gate!"
I looked him in the eyes and said just one word.
"Stall."
###
"Folks, we have an issue. I need you to gather up your items quickly. Each of you is going to be assigned to an office. The office is _not_ I repeat _not_ yours, but you need to hide your bag and make it look like you are working in it. Follow us now."
The site guard used his master key to unlock each office that he reached. A refugee immediately took note of the name on the door, hid his bag inside, sat down at the computer and pretended to start doing work.
An IT tech ran shortly behind us with a stack of sticky notes on which a login and password had been scrawled.
Brooke had concealed herself in the dropped ceiling above the lactation room in full gear with her rifle. In the locked lactation room were crammed all four (4) of our nursing mothers. Awkward timing but the best we could do.
Buddy was hanging out with the Facilities techs, no doubt pumping them for info.
Matt had changed uniforms slightly to better blend in with the local guards. He was now shadowing the security supervisor as his assistant.
I was doing the final sweep of the cafeteria with the janitor, making sure tables were pushed in and wiped up.
When I came into Security Control, I saw that two more MRAPs had joined the first, and the new arrivals were dismounting to scream at the guards.
The gate went up and the MRAPs entered. They did a circle sweep around the site, twice. First looking outward at the perimeter. Then looking inward.
Two parked by the loading dock, one parked by the lobby. All dismounted their troopers.
Their officer stormed into Security Control shouting "Who is in charge here?"
"I am," volunteered the security supervisor. And promptly was slapped, open hand.
Everyone flinched but no one so much as moved a hand towards a weapon. To resist Homeland was to die. We all knew that.
"You tell your idiot gate guards, and ALL your guards, that when you have a Homeland MRAP at the gate, you LET IT IN. Got that? Oh, and who the fuck are you?" he asked, pointing at me.
"Firearms instructor," I said flatly. Only explanation I could come up with on the top of my head of the polo shirt and holstered handgun, without knowing the site at all.
"You tell your people too! Homeland has unlimited access everywhere, and none of you forget it! Now, two stolen buses were seen near this property about six hours ago. Did any of you see them?"
"Yes, sir," Matt said immediately. "A highway bus and a shuttle bus? They tried to come in and we told them to go away."
"WHAT?!? You knew there was a BOLO for them? And you didn't call us?"
"What BOLO?" one of the dispatchers put in on cue. "We don't get Homeland BOLOs, we're just security."
"We'll fix that. Send me an E-mail with your E-mail, phone and fax numbers." The dispatcher started typing. Apparently Mr. Shouty Pants was a known quantity, or the dispatcher didn't want to piss him off further by asking for an E-mail.
Another dispatcher queued up the video of the bus arriving and departing. Fortunately for all of us, he picked a long shot camera and the view of a guy in a polo shirt waving his arms angrily was grainy.
"If you see them again, you call us _immediately_. Meanwhile, we're going to conduct a search. You all stay here."
Perforce we stayed put.
Mr. Shouty Pants came back within twenty minutes. One of his troopers gave a business card to the dispatcher, who finished and sent the demanded E-mail.
"None of you tell anyone we came here. Any of you!"
And with that he left first Security Control, then the building, and ultimately the site.
That was the second near miss. We wouldn't get a third.
###
They had hidden the patients in the dish room of the cafeteria. Risky but there was no way to move them much further quickly. And they'd at least been around a corner behind a canvas cover.
I gave Doctor Alexander his bag and shook his hand.
"Good luck, sir."
"No," he said. I must have looked surprised, because he continued.
"Not luck. Faith. I knew if I made it back to work, the [CLIENT] would keep me safe. The luck I had... the [CLIENT] had ... was you."
I blinked and fought back an urge to salute, and left, knowing I would never see him again.
###
We walked across the parking lot for what would be the last time. As directed, the medics and firefighter had left their helmets and armbands behind. We looked like what we were - a loose gaggle of guards. The camera covering the area was carefully not recording.
Buddy had a roll of wire and fence pliers. He repaired the fence behind us and tossed the wire and pliers back over the top.
Including myself and Buddy, there were twelve of us.
Three vehicles pulled in. The third was for Buddy.
"I've arranged a ride back to your truck. Your rate is $125 per hour, correct?"
He looked at me, stunned. "Yes."
"Twelve weeks of eighty hour weeks at your rate is $14,400. I left $20K in bluebacks in your vehicle."
"Why?"
"I'm paying you off. You've done your work. You saved us all. Over and over again, you saved us all. And now one more person needs saving, sir. You."
"Couldn't you use me?"
"Probably. Maybe we could even afford you. But I need you and your truck to go I-15 south and fuzz the trail. Consider the extra $5K a bonus or a bribe for one last assignment, whichever."
He paused, brought his hefty frame to the position of attention, and crisply saluted.
Buddy. Crisply. Saluted.
I saluted him back. He turned and the driver took him away, back to his vehicle and to his life before the Firecracker had trapped him on our site.
Now there were eleven of us.
###
In the LDS warehouse, we carefully evaluated the three vans. The barracks van had a cracked frame. She'd given her all on that wild full throttle run through the gully. We stripped tools and tires, resting the axles on bits of concrete block. Someone else would have to dispose of the remains.
The ambulance was in the best shape, but far too conspicuous. Until I carefully pried up a corner of the wrap and peeled ... the prominent red crosses coming off as easily as a Twinkie wrapper. I crumpled them. Worthless.
The nursery van was also in good shape.
Two vans for eleven people, not bad.
Our hosts were very closed mouth people. I approved. They wordlessly provided us four Utah plates and plausible paperwork.
Just as we were about to leave, the oldest spoke.
"[E18], what is your favorite parable?"
I am not Christian. I am especially not Mormon. But I owed them common courtesy for hospitality.
"The parable of the Centurion and his servant." Lover, actually.
"A good choice for a fighting man. But consider Matthew 18:12."
We left.
###
I couldn't help myself. I looked it up in the Gideon BIble at the roadside motel that night.
“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?
What do I think?
If one of my guards left the ninety-and-nine to go to look for the one, I'd beat him senseless for abandoning his responsibilities.
But the parable was not about sheep.
The parable was about lives.
And as Lois McMaster Bujold said, "Lives don't add in integers. They add in infinities."
Later, I would realize.
That was the moment I joined the Resistance.
