GWOT Reverse Burglary
Nov. 23rd, 2018 08:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyThe client executive here - the SLE - has pinned me down in the corridor to ask me a few questions.
He can do that. He's the Big Boss. It doesn't help that my actual client contact was killed two days ago, so I've been running rampant ever since.
After some preliminaries - who the fuck am I and what the fuck I am doing - he asks a particularly cogent question.
"Why do you have to go out with each convoy? Can you delegate that to someone and focus on the security threats here?"
I blink twice. I take ten seconds and think about it.
"No," I reply. Amazingly enough, the SLE realizes that this is not an off-the-cuff answer - he's a speed thinker too. "Do you want me to unpack that?"
"Yes."
"As of this morning's count you have one thousand seven hundred twenty one souls on site, of whom one thousand four hundred eighty three are employees. That means you have a lot more of your people out there. In Hell. Some are dead, but some are alive - and I am most worried about those who might just be in between.
"If I don't go out with the convoy, it might not come back. The temptation to just fucking run for it has to be strong. I've warned all the drivers, if they bug out without orders I'll light them up.
"But it's not just that. What we are doing out there, you don't want to know. We are picking up your Employees and giving them rides back to site. When they refuse, we're documenting the location so we can come get them when they change their mind. We are salvaging. We are using pretexts and making excuses.
"Unless I keep personal control, there _will_ be looting. There may be murders. If I delegate this, I would have to spend time on investigations - if I run it personally, I know what happened, because I was there. And I can take the heat."
"What is your continuity plan?"
"Arturo, Sharon, Brooke, George in that order. Arturo is my designated replacement when I am killed. I only take two of the other three with me whenever possible, and am training them all to take over convoy operations as soon as I can delegate it."
"When?" he starts to ask, then stops himself.
"When," I reply. I gesture at the Hate Truck. "The barbed wire and spikes are not for show. The only reason we can move around at all is an instant willingness to use force. I am having to make moment by moment decisions out there. George and Brooke say it's like Iraq with fewer IEDs and no reaction force."
Unknown to myself, I had just named the corporate militia. But that would come later.
"What do you need?" the SLE asks.
"Armor. We need armored vehicles. I have a huge laundry list which I emailed to Site Ops last night, but that's the big one."
"What do you need for better security here, at the site?"
"Fencing materials, literally many truckloads. We get as much as we can on each convoy run. A bulldozer, but any earth mover could be made to work. Haven't found one yet. Laminate film for all the windows."
"Why the laminate film?"
"Explosions turn windows into fragmentation grenades." I gesture to the nearest building and the wide, sweeping views. "We don't have enough plywood even if we could spare the manpower to bolt it all up. Film just slaps on."
"I'll see what I can do." A pause. "My Finance department asked me why there's all this paper from Security on their desk. Some of it has stains on it, they say."
"I have taken the liberty of procuring any items immediately needed for the site's survival. I regret that I haven't been able to properly request and receive approval for Purchase Orders. The paperwork is our record of the items procured and who needs to be paid for them."
Reminded, I take out a sheaf of notes from the bottom of my clipboard.
"This one is for two photocopiers and sixty boxes of paper from a local copy shop. This one is for eight golf carts from the golf course. This one is for thirty two rolls of chain link fencing ..."
"I get the drift." He takes the paper from me. "And all this stuff is being turned in to Logistics."
"Absolutely. I will not tolerate theft under these conditions. Theft of lifesaving supplies is murder."
He blinks. Behind me, guards and Logistics personnel are unloading bags of dog food we salvaged from a half-empty grocery store. I hand him the receipt.
"Dog food." The SLE looks around. "I won't ask you to unpack that."
I interrupt my train of thought - the trained police dogs we rescued, the pets that can be fattened up for later slaughter once people get past their emotional attachments, the potential that our drafted vet surgeon can assess some of it for risks of human consumption.
He sees the interrupt and nods again.
"I have been on the satellite phone to our customers. They want us to stay in business. They need us to stay in business. But because of the War, they can't spare the logistics to send us the aid we need.
"You go buy us what we need. I'll work with Finance to pay for it all. I'm going to give you all the cash we have on the site."
I do a little math in my head. Three ATMs, one bank branch ... "About $300,000?" I ask.
"Closer to $500,000. I'm throwing in the emergency payroll reserve. Spend it all. Today. It's use it or lose it time."
I blink.
"I can do that. May I borrow your satellite phone for twenty minutes?"
Thus it is, that stinking of mud and blood, that the SLE walks me into his lush appointed office in H building on the fourth floor. His secretary glares at me until it is clear that I am the SLE's guest, and then she is all smiles.
He hands me the phone. I get out my own phone. I transfer a few numbers. I start calling.
Amazingly, some of the PSTN - the phone network - is still up. But I have a feeling where this is going.
Why do you spend half a million dollars _today_? Because it's going to be worthless tomorrow.
So you don't want to spend that money on someone you want to do business with ever again. Because you're about to burn them, hard.
Who has stuff we need, that I don't mind burning, because they'll never get a resupply anyway?
Put that way, it's all too obvious. Local businesses.
"Hi, Landscapeland? I need to buy some power equipment. Yes, today. Yes, cash. Yes, at the store. I know, that's why I'm calling first. I'll be in a white pickup truck covered with barbed wire... Hi, Saratoga Gun Exchange? I need to buy some ammo, in cash. Yeah, I understand, that's why I'm calling first ... I'll be in a white pickup truck covered with barbed wire ... yes, I understand about the ten day wait, but I don't need guns, I need ammo. You know what business I'm in... Hi? Campbell Surgical Supply? I need to restock our clinic, you know, the disaster and all. Of course I can pay cash... white pickup truck ..."
I hand the phone back to the SLE, who immediately gets back to using it to make his calls. The cash is waiting by the convoy when I get back to the truck.
"What's to keep someone from taking off with it?" one of my dumber guards, Shane Shreve asks.
"Kinetic persuasion," I reply callously and charge my rifle.
I mount up and wave my arm over my head through the roof hatch of the pickup.
"Let's roll!"
He can do that. He's the Big Boss. It doesn't help that my actual client contact was killed two days ago, so I've been running rampant ever since.
After some preliminaries - who the fuck am I and what the fuck I am doing - he asks a particularly cogent question.
"Why do you have to go out with each convoy? Can you delegate that to someone and focus on the security threats here?"
I blink twice. I take ten seconds and think about it.
"No," I reply. Amazingly enough, the SLE realizes that this is not an off-the-cuff answer - he's a speed thinker too. "Do you want me to unpack that?"
"Yes."
"As of this morning's count you have one thousand seven hundred twenty one souls on site, of whom one thousand four hundred eighty three are employees. That means you have a lot more of your people out there. In Hell. Some are dead, but some are alive - and I am most worried about those who might just be in between.
"If I don't go out with the convoy, it might not come back. The temptation to just fucking run for it has to be strong. I've warned all the drivers, if they bug out without orders I'll light them up.
"But it's not just that. What we are doing out there, you don't want to know. We are picking up your Employees and giving them rides back to site. When they refuse, we're documenting the location so we can come get them when they change their mind. We are salvaging. We are using pretexts and making excuses.
"Unless I keep personal control, there _will_ be looting. There may be murders. If I delegate this, I would have to spend time on investigations - if I run it personally, I know what happened, because I was there. And I can take the heat."
"What is your continuity plan?"
"Arturo, Sharon, Brooke, George in that order. Arturo is my designated replacement when I am killed. I only take two of the other three with me whenever possible, and am training them all to take over convoy operations as soon as I can delegate it."
"When?" he starts to ask, then stops himself.
"When," I reply. I gesture at the Hate Truck. "The barbed wire and spikes are not for show. The only reason we can move around at all is an instant willingness to use force. I am having to make moment by moment decisions out there. George and Brooke say it's like Iraq with fewer IEDs and no reaction force."
Unknown to myself, I had just named the corporate militia. But that would come later.
"What do you need?" the SLE asks.
"Armor. We need armored vehicles. I have a huge laundry list which I emailed to Site Ops last night, but that's the big one."
"What do you need for better security here, at the site?"
"Fencing materials, literally many truckloads. We get as much as we can on each convoy run. A bulldozer, but any earth mover could be made to work. Haven't found one yet. Laminate film for all the windows."
"Why the laminate film?"
"Explosions turn windows into fragmentation grenades." I gesture to the nearest building and the wide, sweeping views. "We don't have enough plywood even if we could spare the manpower to bolt it all up. Film just slaps on."
"I'll see what I can do." A pause. "My Finance department asked me why there's all this paper from Security on their desk. Some of it has stains on it, they say."
"I have taken the liberty of procuring any items immediately needed for the site's survival. I regret that I haven't been able to properly request and receive approval for Purchase Orders. The paperwork is our record of the items procured and who needs to be paid for them."
Reminded, I take out a sheaf of notes from the bottom of my clipboard.
"This one is for two photocopiers and sixty boxes of paper from a local copy shop. This one is for eight golf carts from the golf course. This one is for thirty two rolls of chain link fencing ..."
"I get the drift." He takes the paper from me. "And all this stuff is being turned in to Logistics."
"Absolutely. I will not tolerate theft under these conditions. Theft of lifesaving supplies is murder."
He blinks. Behind me, guards and Logistics personnel are unloading bags of dog food we salvaged from a half-empty grocery store. I hand him the receipt.
"Dog food." The SLE looks around. "I won't ask you to unpack that."
I interrupt my train of thought - the trained police dogs we rescued, the pets that can be fattened up for later slaughter once people get past their emotional attachments, the potential that our drafted vet surgeon can assess some of it for risks of human consumption.
He sees the interrupt and nods again.
"I have been on the satellite phone to our customers. They want us to stay in business. They need us to stay in business. But because of the War, they can't spare the logistics to send us the aid we need.
"You go buy us what we need. I'll work with Finance to pay for it all. I'm going to give you all the cash we have on the site."
I do a little math in my head. Three ATMs, one bank branch ... "About $300,000?" I ask.
"Closer to $500,000. I'm throwing in the emergency payroll reserve. Spend it all. Today. It's use it or lose it time."
I blink.
"I can do that. May I borrow your satellite phone for twenty minutes?"
Thus it is, that stinking of mud and blood, that the SLE walks me into his lush appointed office in H building on the fourth floor. His secretary glares at me until it is clear that I am the SLE's guest, and then she is all smiles.
He hands me the phone. I get out my own phone. I transfer a few numbers. I start calling.
Amazingly, some of the PSTN - the phone network - is still up. But I have a feeling where this is going.
Why do you spend half a million dollars _today_? Because it's going to be worthless tomorrow.
So you don't want to spend that money on someone you want to do business with ever again. Because you're about to burn them, hard.
Who has stuff we need, that I don't mind burning, because they'll never get a resupply anyway?
Put that way, it's all too obvious. Local businesses.
"Hi, Landscapeland? I need to buy some power equipment. Yes, today. Yes, cash. Yes, at the store. I know, that's why I'm calling first. I'll be in a white pickup truck covered with barbed wire... Hi, Saratoga Gun Exchange? I need to buy some ammo, in cash. Yeah, I understand, that's why I'm calling first ... I'll be in a white pickup truck covered with barbed wire ... yes, I understand about the ten day wait, but I don't need guns, I need ammo. You know what business I'm in... Hi? Campbell Surgical Supply? I need to restock our clinic, you know, the disaster and all. Of course I can pay cash... white pickup truck ..."
I hand the phone back to the SLE, who immediately gets back to using it to make his calls. The cash is waiting by the convoy when I get back to the truck.
"What's to keep someone from taking off with it?" one of my dumber guards, Shane Shreve asks.
"Kinetic persuasion," I reply callously and charge my rifle.
I mount up and wave my arm over my head through the roof hatch of the pickup.
"Let's roll!"
