GWOT 2 - Mo Better
Mar. 3rd, 2019 03:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittySo, 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.
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.
