drewkitty

The SLE wants to meet me in the SCIF.

This can't be good.

I should unpack the acronyms for you.

SLE = Site Level Executive. As in, The Man. The person in charge. As distinct from similar acronyms such as SLC or Service Level Commitment.

SCIF = Secure Compartmentalized Intelligence Facility. In short, 'secure room.' A place to talk that has been secured against eavesdropping.

Bullshit. Every SCIF I have ever encountered was extensively bugged, with the possible exception of The Room. I hoped... but had also spent hours crawling all over every nook and cranny.

So, the big boss wants to talk to me in the private room.

I put my radio and (now just wifi) phone on the shelf outside. Then I am wanded. Not by one of my own guards. By the SLE's new executive assistant, the recent replacement for the Dragon Lady.

He does not check the magazine well of my handgun for a listening device.

We had lost a lot as a site when she was murdered.

The SLE puts his phone on the shelf and is also wanded.

We close the door and sit at the table. It is transparent.

I cock an eyebrow.

"SIr, I don't know how secure this room is."

"That's OK. I do."

Gulp. Well, I can only hope he's right.

"This room is bugged by two agencies. 1) Me. 2) The Defense Intelligence Agency."

Part of the essential nature of the site I protect is that it does work for the Department of Defense. That work is essential to the Global War On (Of?) Terror. Especially now that China has managed, after several months of being aggressively nuked and invaded and starved and generally fucked over, a counterstrike into America's heartland.

I nod.

"We have two problems. One is security. One is HR. Do you remember the initial attack on the site, about a week into the War?"

How could I forget.

None of the attackers had survived. The one I'd taken prisoner had been killed seconds later in a blue on white by an Employee who didn't know any better.

"We now know it was organized and led by a cell of zhongui commandos."

Oh. Holy. Shit.

Think Navy SEALS. Commando troops specialized in underwater warfare. Only Chinese.

"Fortunately, bullets don't stop to ask how highly trained you are before they kill you."

That explained A Lot about what had happened that day.

"They are still interested in taking down this site. As part of the general air defense for the area, a battery of Patriots is being deployed on high spots overlooking the Valley. Low altitude AAA is not available, but we will be getting some manpack SAMs for the security force."

Fuck me what?

Pre War, the facilities that deployed manpack Surface To Air missiles were pretty much limited to the White House.

"Now that the War is going into extra innings, the security of this facility is becoming more important than ever. I have been asked to replace you with military veterans."

Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.

"I have refused. But I am bringing in some help for you. All military veterans. All disabled. At least one will be a trainer on heavy weapons systems. Put them to work. The zhongui will be back."

"Yes, sir."

"Now for the HR problem. You know of course that problems go up the chain until they reach someone who can solve them."

I nod warily.

"I have a very skilled coder, very productive, very useful. Not as a good a theorist as the dearly departed Doctor Alexander, but better at implementation. Not on Reaction Team. Office in H2.

"He's also a kiddie fucker. He's going to have a horrible accident."

I blink.

I want to be very careful what I say, even in a secure room.

There. Is. No. Statute. Of. Limitations. On. Murder.

"Did this alleged crime happen on campus?"

"Repeatedly. Recently."

And with that I now knew exactly who the SLE was talking about. Motive, Method, Opportunity. Under our current SOP, only a parent would have that access. And only one male parent fit the other parts of that description. Also matched bits and pieces that I'd observed. So called 'blue sky pieces.' Little things, what a poker player calls 'tells.'

"What a shame," I say flatly.

Conversation ended, and orders received, we go our separate ways.

###

"Medical emergency, H1. Medic and stretcher bearers will respond immediately to a man down in the H1 west stairwell. Scene is secure."

"505 to 521, we need a backboard for C-spine. Break, 505 to Infirmary, we have a trauma alert for a major mechanism, a fall from a height."

I waited, with my radio mike held low volume to my ear, in the H2 HVAC access.

Would not do to be seen too close too soon.

###

The man is lifted on the backboard to the infirmary's metal trauma table. He is wearing an oxygen mask. He has fouled himself. Incongruously, he has a rampant erection.

"Male in his forties, victim of a fall down a stairwell."

When he is turned on his side carefully by a team, the vet surgeon carefully examines and then very lightly touches his spine.

A neck vertebrae is pushed inward, as if by landing on a sharp edge.

###

"Do you want to see him?" Janine asked the little girl.

"No," she says mulishly.

I am watching from the doorway. I step out.

I look at Janine. Even this corridor is on camera. I can't say or do anything out of character.

"Don't insist," I say to Janine. "Just wait."

###

The sheet is over his face. No CPR. There is no point in pounding a corpse.

Now the little girl wants to see him.

To be sure.

I was sure when I felt the vertebrae crack under the point of my kubotan, just before I pushed him down the stairwell, then picked him up at the landing below and flung him down again.

But I knew exactly how she felt.

She wanted to be sure the monster was dead.

No courts, no juries, no prison. Certainly no therapy, no probation and no chance to do it again.

I felt no regrets. So many better people had died, so much more horribly.

OK, maybe one regret. The bastard didn't deserve to go so quick.