GWOT V - A State of Desperation - Arrival
Jun. 22nd, 2022 08:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGWOT V - A State of Desperation - Arrival
We had our three seats together. I deferred the window seat to my camera operator.
He constantly shot snippets of video at every opportunity. The bored but alert guard with the submachine gun who sat in the flight attendant rear facing seat. No drink service. Out the windows. Establishing shots of the plane interior.
Then he shot some video out the window and gestured to me.
"Fires. Lots of fires."
I looked. There were indeed columns of smoke rising in the air from the forests north of Redding.
On a normal flight, I would ask the flight attendant. There weren't any. The red line on the floor separated us from the guard. We had been warned; he could shoot us for crossing it.
Nonetheless, the cockpit door behind him was locked. He had demonstrated this slightly after takeoff, by pulling on it.
I felt there was a clue to this new state of California there. The locked cockpit door would be enough. The armed guard would be enough. But they felt they needed both. Belt and also suspenders.
We turned over Redding. After some more video, I leaned past the camera operator to see for myself.
My one impression was very little moving traffic on the streets.
Then my stomach dropped out of my torso as the plane power-dove.
I flinched and grasped the armrests.
Someone behind me said, "They always do that, no need to worry."
My bodyguard shook his head and whispered.
"If they always fly a hostile approach to dodge manpack SAMs, someone is shooting at their aircraft over their own cities."
"How do you know that?"
"Iraq."
"Oh."
We leveled out and landed. A long low approach, gentle braking and a prolonged landing.
We did not approach the terminal building. Vehicles came out to us. Dismount stairs and airport buses. And two vans full of armed guards. All of this in the middle of empty tarmac.
The intercom pinged.
"We are now landed in the state of California. This aircraft is now under civilian law. You are authorized to cross the red line and deplane the aircraft in good order. Please do not load your weapons on board. Thank you."
The cockpit door remained locked, although the guard stepped out of our way, helped secure the boarding stairs, then was the first down.
I saw him hand something to one of the guards who had been on the ground.
My own guard jabbed me in the ribs. It was his signal to me, not to notice something.
The guard who had been at the back of the plane walked up to our seat.
"Please remain seated until everyone else has left the aircraft."
I wondered what would happen if we didn't. I supposed that we wouldn't be shot now.
Both buses left by the time the guard signaled us to deboard.
We were met at the bottom of the stairs.
"Good morning, welcome to California. I am Colonel Vasquez and I am in charge of the airport security and screening operation here at Redding International. I have been directed by the Governor of California to extend to the three of you every courtesy."
He did not extend a hand.
"If you are not tired from your travels, would you like to start your reporting by seeing how we process these passengers?"
I nodded. "Thank you, Colonel..." and trailed off as he turned his back and headed to the nearest van.
The driver was an Army private. The Colonel had the front right seat. We were seated in the back. No one else was with us.
The Colonel fastened his seat belt. So did my camera operator and my guard. The camera operator even had time to keep recording.
"With respect, it is requested that the passenger put on her seat belt," the driver intoned.
The Colonel did not seem to think anything unusual about this, that his honored guest was being told by a soldier to put on her seat belt. So I did.
Only after I did clip the belt in, the van slowly drove towards one of the buildings in the middle distance.
None of us spoke. The van pulled into a marked space at what the large sign said was the Security Control. It was marked with the van's vehicle number.
Californians apparently like things orderly.
The driver did not come around and open anyone else's door. He waited for us to get out, then closed all the doors, made sure the doors were locked, and went into the Security Control building ahead of us.
The Colonel gestured us forward. "Please follow me."
He had a security badge card. It got us through three different sets of doors to a set of stairs. We climbed them to a long, narrow corridor lined with windows. One way windows, looking down on a open area. And across to what looked like a choir loft. If the singers had yoga mats, and also rifles.
"There's a dividing line below. To the right, immigrants and first time visitors. To the left, California residents and returning travelers." The Colonel gestured to a machine that took a thumb print and scanned an ID.
We could read the sign from here. It was in several languages, but I recognized English, Spanish and French.
"CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS AND RETURNING VISAS ONLY. IF YOU ARE NOT SURE USE THE OTHER LINE. IMPERSONATION IS A FELONY. UNLAWFUL ENTRY IS A FELONY. FORCE AUTHORIZED."
There was no search and no interview. Just passengers swiping their own ID and pressing their own thumbs to the pad. There was a box of tissues in case the pad needed to be cleaned. No guard anywhere nearby. But many, many cameras.
The traffic followed a green line with arrows on the ground to CUSTOMS.
On the right, there was a waiting lounge with many seats and even a few tables. The passengers collected and milled. Each had been assigned a number by a guard. The service windows called the numbers. Each was a narrow interview booth, where the immigration officer was separated from the immigrant by a clear barrier. There was no pass through for papers or documents, only a clear marked window to hold them up to.
"A trick we picked up from Homeland. We don't need to touch documents to scan and verify them."
To the right rear of each interview booth, there was a separate smaller door. It led to a corridor that branched off far to the right.
I gestured.
"Apprehension," the Colonel said, which did not explain anything to me.
My bodyguard nodded grimly.
"Every airport in the world has a jail," he murmured.
There was a larger room, with the immigration officer still separated by a transparent window, that contained tables and benches.
"family processing," said the cheerful sign without capital letters.
There was movement in one of the booths. The door from behind had opened suddenly and two men in heavy black armor grabbed the arms of the immigrant and dragged him. It was practiced, clearly something they did every day.
The Colonel took us down a branch of the observation corridor, past a man wearing a leather jacket and jeans and cheap sneakers. He was the first non-uniformed man we had seen in the secure area.
He had around his neck a credential on a chain, a snarling bear.
"No," he stopped us. The Colonel flinched.
"Delete the video and show me that you have. Do it now."
I decided not to protest. The camera operator complied.
"Thank you for your cooperation." The man gestured us forward past him.
As we did, the Colonel said quietly, "Be very sure that you do not have a still capture of the credential. This is normally a no cameras area. Do we need to search the camera?"
The camera operator shook his head, a little defiantly.
"Unauthorized images of a Collections Agent's credentials are the death penalty to possess."
That seemed... extreme. I heard the capitals. Collections Agent. Sounded like an accountant. But the Colonel, who had told us he was in charge here, was deferential to the Agent.
The detained immigrant was placed against the wall and rudely searched. They then cut off his clothing. A person wearing a MEDIC vest put on a glove and used a flashlight, and a finger, to search the one hiding place all people have.
"Lube," my bodyguard muttered. "How considerate."
I hardly expected that within an hour of landing, I would see California agents openly sodomize someone. But that's what I saw.
Someone wearing a blue uniform approached next.
We could hear what was said in the room due to a speaker and microphone setup in line above.
"You are under felony arrest for unlawful entry and for impersonation. You have the right to identify yourself. You have the right to refuse to identify yourself, when you are not yet in California territory. When the plane pushed back, you commited unlawful entry. When you gave the fake name, you committed impersonation. Do you choose to identify yourself at this time? If so, leniency is possible."
It clearly did not seem very lenient to the naked, shivering man surrounded by the guards and police officers. He protested that there was a mistake, he gave his name.
His arms were held still and his hands were pressed to a portable device. A more complex version of the thumbprint reader.
The Colonel motioned us over to a computer screen.
I noticed that the Agent had also followed, without us noticing.
The detainee's face was compared to a file photo. The fingerprints were matched to a file. There was a name, a different name from the one the detainee had claimed. There was a dossier. Across the bottom there was a scrolling warning in BRIGHT RED. "Red Flag - Red Flag - Red Flag."
"We knew who he was in Portland," the Agent murmured. "It is so convenient when they turn themselves in."
"Your identity has been verified electronically. We will now verify your identity by confession."
My stomach dropped again for the second time that day as he was strapped to a chair.
What was this?
A pair of guards gently held his head facing forward, facing the array of cameras. Some of them were video cameras. Others I did not recognize.
"We tried using a head clamp but it was bruising people," the Colonel said and was hushed by the Agent.
The police officer began a recitation.
"Your name is ____. You were born in ____ on ____ __, ____. You attended _____ primary school in ____, ___. Your mother's maiden name is _____."
It was an exhaustive list. A dossier in itself. It took about ten minutes to read but it was all biographical information.
The guards released his head.
The Agent picked up a phone, said a few words, listened, and hung up.
"We have confession. Transfer to criminal custody."
He turned.
"Do you reporters want to witness the execution?"
###
I was numb as they walked us down to the post-interview floor, where all the other immigrants - the legal immigrants - were being welcomed to California. It was somewhere between a conga line and greeting long-lost relatives.
The technical term is love bombing. California was happy that they came.
I'd seen enough to want to get right back on the next plane out. It was all such a big lie.
We were not love bombed. We were treated respectfully. There was a palpable difference.
My bodyguard excused himself to use the toilet. He came back a short time later.
The portable reader we had seen earlier was brought to us and read our prints.
"Would you like to sit in the chair?" the Colonel offered next, after the buses with the immigrants left for their Welcome Center.
"Excuse me?" I snapped.
"The confession chair. I've been directed to provide some information about how it works."
He handed me a tablet on which there was a script. My name, the town and date of my birth ... my biographical information.
"You sit in the chair and face forward. I read this to you. Then we go in the next room."
I shrugged. It seemed harmless enough, so I went through the farce.
In the next room, there were several large monitors and three people. The second, third and fourth Californian we'd seen not wearing a uniform. They looked like college students. They asked not to be identified and that we take no pictures in the room.
"This is your pulse. This is a millimeter wave scan of your abdomen. This, however, is the magic."
The cameras were zoomed in on my eyeballs. They made slight motions.
"We read you a script of your life, which you are of course familiar with. Notice that you could not help but make certain motions with your eyes."
"Now let's go back and read another script. It will be slightly harder because you have seen some of this, but an enemy agent can be expected to know some of how this might work too."
They read me a script of yet another person. All I had in common with them was gender.
"Now look at the differences. As unique as a thumbprint. More, really, because prints can be sculpted if you have the patience and resources - which America does. But people who can lie with their saccarides, 'lie with the eyes' are incredibly uncommon."
He gestured to another screen.
"This is a muscle tremor analysis of your facial muscles. See the differences. Here, here, here. The conclusion is that you are over 90% certain to be suspect #1 - your script - and less than 3% likely to be suspect #2 - the other script. In the prior case, it was just confirmation of"
"Stop," the Agent ordered, and the psychometrics technician - according to his badge around his neck - fell silent instantly.
"When people who are Red Flag war criminals return to California, we have to decide what to do with them. This costs money and effort. So tell your readers. If California kicked you out, don't come back. If you want to kill yourself, do it somewhere else."
The Agent stalked out.
The Colonel held up a hand. "The sentence is normally commuted to twenty years at hard labor. In this case, however, this suspect narrowly avoided a Black Flag. That's a different matter altogether. In the interests of justice, I would like you to know what crimes this person was convicted of."
He handed across the tablet again. I realized that this was a paperless environment, except for the travelers documents.
Murder. Homeland operative. Of course, I could only read it all and take their word for it.
"May I image this?"
"Yes, and research it. Report his crimes, please do not glorify them. You are not California journalists so the Some Asshole policy does not apply to you. However, please consider whether you are willing to adopt it."
"I'm sorry," I said, honestly confused.
"Our Public Information Officer will do a better job explaining it. Notorious criminals are not identified by name on the first page of any article, or on video at any time. Their picture is not shown. They are generally referred to as Some Asshole or SA for short. We don't choose to compound their crimes by making them famous."
He surfed the Internet on his tablet, found a cartoon, showed it to us. The 'Some Asshole' policy, explained in cartoon form by some person named Wonderella.
"Let's claim your luggage and get you to your hotel. You can make other arrangements once you've settled in."
That same van, and driver, drove us out of the airport to a nearby hotel. It was just like any other check in. The Colonel did not accompany us.
"What's to stop me from getting out the van?" asked my bodyguard idly.
"Go ahead," shrugged the driver. "I'll have to call it in. The three of you will probably get PNG'd, but that's not my business."
Persona Non Grata. Kicked out of a foreign country for misbehavior.
We were met at the hotel driveway by three apparently civilian Californians. One wore a reflective vest labeled PIO over her dress; the other two, business suits.
"You got the short version from the officer in Portland. This is the long version."
Don't be rude guests. Tell the truth. Ask questions. Don't evade security regulations.
"How much is the hotel costing us?"
"The first three days are compliments of the State. After that, let's see." A calculator, a conversion from Euros.
About a third the price of an equivalent hotel room in London. But London is expensive.
The third man held out his hand.
"The object," he said to my guard, very firmly.
I knew Jay well. Well enough to see him flinch, for the first time that day.
He handed over something wrapped in a piece of toilet paper.
The third man bagged it, pocketed it, and got up to go wash his hands.
"You don't know us very well yet. So that will be overlooked. But the decision was the Governor's and GovCal is a very busy person. So don't misbehave again."
With that we were walked up to our rooms.
In the hallway, two guards with the same odd submachine gun we had seen on the plane.
I approached one.
"With respect, I am not permitted to speak with you. If you wish to leave the floor, I will call you an escort."
So much for that interview.
Lunch was room service, and served with a card.
"The pleasure of your company is requested in the hotel penthouse suite at 7 PM tonight. No regrets please."
The card had the logo of a snarling bear.
But this bear was throwing a spear.
We had our three seats together. I deferred the window seat to my camera operator.
He constantly shot snippets of video at every opportunity. The bored but alert guard with the submachine gun who sat in the flight attendant rear facing seat. No drink service. Out the windows. Establishing shots of the plane interior.
Then he shot some video out the window and gestured to me.
"Fires. Lots of fires."
I looked. There were indeed columns of smoke rising in the air from the forests north of Redding.
On a normal flight, I would ask the flight attendant. There weren't any. The red line on the floor separated us from the guard. We had been warned; he could shoot us for crossing it.
Nonetheless, the cockpit door behind him was locked. He had demonstrated this slightly after takeoff, by pulling on it.
I felt there was a clue to this new state of California there. The locked cockpit door would be enough. The armed guard would be enough. But they felt they needed both. Belt and also suspenders.
We turned over Redding. After some more video, I leaned past the camera operator to see for myself.
My one impression was very little moving traffic on the streets.
Then my stomach dropped out of my torso as the plane power-dove.
I flinched and grasped the armrests.
Someone behind me said, "They always do that, no need to worry."
My bodyguard shook his head and whispered.
"If they always fly a hostile approach to dodge manpack SAMs, someone is shooting at their aircraft over their own cities."
"How do you know that?"
"Iraq."
"Oh."
We leveled out and landed. A long low approach, gentle braking and a prolonged landing.
We did not approach the terminal building. Vehicles came out to us. Dismount stairs and airport buses. And two vans full of armed guards. All of this in the middle of empty tarmac.
The intercom pinged.
"We are now landed in the state of California. This aircraft is now under civilian law. You are authorized to cross the red line and deplane the aircraft in good order. Please do not load your weapons on board. Thank you."
The cockpit door remained locked, although the guard stepped out of our way, helped secure the boarding stairs, then was the first down.
I saw him hand something to one of the guards who had been on the ground.
My own guard jabbed me in the ribs. It was his signal to me, not to notice something.
The guard who had been at the back of the plane walked up to our seat.
"Please remain seated until everyone else has left the aircraft."
I wondered what would happen if we didn't. I supposed that we wouldn't be shot now.
Both buses left by the time the guard signaled us to deboard.
We were met at the bottom of the stairs.
"Good morning, welcome to California. I am Colonel Vasquez and I am in charge of the airport security and screening operation here at Redding International. I have been directed by the Governor of California to extend to the three of you every courtesy."
He did not extend a hand.
"If you are not tired from your travels, would you like to start your reporting by seeing how we process these passengers?"
I nodded. "Thank you, Colonel..." and trailed off as he turned his back and headed to the nearest van.
The driver was an Army private. The Colonel had the front right seat. We were seated in the back. No one else was with us.
The Colonel fastened his seat belt. So did my camera operator and my guard. The camera operator even had time to keep recording.
"With respect, it is requested that the passenger put on her seat belt," the driver intoned.
The Colonel did not seem to think anything unusual about this, that his honored guest was being told by a soldier to put on her seat belt. So I did.
Only after I did clip the belt in, the van slowly drove towards one of the buildings in the middle distance.
None of us spoke. The van pulled into a marked space at what the large sign said was the Security Control. It was marked with the van's vehicle number.
Californians apparently like things orderly.
The driver did not come around and open anyone else's door. He waited for us to get out, then closed all the doors, made sure the doors were locked, and went into the Security Control building ahead of us.
The Colonel gestured us forward. "Please follow me."
He had a security badge card. It got us through three different sets of doors to a set of stairs. We climbed them to a long, narrow corridor lined with windows. One way windows, looking down on a open area. And across to what looked like a choir loft. If the singers had yoga mats, and also rifles.
"There's a dividing line below. To the right, immigrants and first time visitors. To the left, California residents and returning travelers." The Colonel gestured to a machine that took a thumb print and scanned an ID.
We could read the sign from here. It was in several languages, but I recognized English, Spanish and French.
"CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS AND RETURNING VISAS ONLY. IF YOU ARE NOT SURE USE THE OTHER LINE. IMPERSONATION IS A FELONY. UNLAWFUL ENTRY IS A FELONY. FORCE AUTHORIZED."
There was no search and no interview. Just passengers swiping their own ID and pressing their own thumbs to the pad. There was a box of tissues in case the pad needed to be cleaned. No guard anywhere nearby. But many, many cameras.
The traffic followed a green line with arrows on the ground to CUSTOMS.
On the right, there was a waiting lounge with many seats and even a few tables. The passengers collected and milled. Each had been assigned a number by a guard. The service windows called the numbers. Each was a narrow interview booth, where the immigration officer was separated from the immigrant by a clear barrier. There was no pass through for papers or documents, only a clear marked window to hold them up to.
"A trick we picked up from Homeland. We don't need to touch documents to scan and verify them."
To the right rear of each interview booth, there was a separate smaller door. It led to a corridor that branched off far to the right.
I gestured.
"Apprehension," the Colonel said, which did not explain anything to me.
My bodyguard nodded grimly.
"Every airport in the world has a jail," he murmured.
There was a larger room, with the immigration officer still separated by a transparent window, that contained tables and benches.
"family processing," said the cheerful sign without capital letters.
There was movement in one of the booths. The door from behind had opened suddenly and two men in heavy black armor grabbed the arms of the immigrant and dragged him. It was practiced, clearly something they did every day.
The Colonel took us down a branch of the observation corridor, past a man wearing a leather jacket and jeans and cheap sneakers. He was the first non-uniformed man we had seen in the secure area.
He had around his neck a credential on a chain, a snarling bear.
"No," he stopped us. The Colonel flinched.
"Delete the video and show me that you have. Do it now."
I decided not to protest. The camera operator complied.
"Thank you for your cooperation." The man gestured us forward past him.
As we did, the Colonel said quietly, "Be very sure that you do not have a still capture of the credential. This is normally a no cameras area. Do we need to search the camera?"
The camera operator shook his head, a little defiantly.
"Unauthorized images of a Collections Agent's credentials are the death penalty to possess."
That seemed... extreme. I heard the capitals. Collections Agent. Sounded like an accountant. But the Colonel, who had told us he was in charge here, was deferential to the Agent.
The detained immigrant was placed against the wall and rudely searched. They then cut off his clothing. A person wearing a MEDIC vest put on a glove and used a flashlight, and a finger, to search the one hiding place all people have.
"Lube," my bodyguard muttered. "How considerate."
I hardly expected that within an hour of landing, I would see California agents openly sodomize someone. But that's what I saw.
Someone wearing a blue uniform approached next.
We could hear what was said in the room due to a speaker and microphone setup in line above.
"You are under felony arrest for unlawful entry and for impersonation. You have the right to identify yourself. You have the right to refuse to identify yourself, when you are not yet in California territory. When the plane pushed back, you commited unlawful entry. When you gave the fake name, you committed impersonation. Do you choose to identify yourself at this time? If so, leniency is possible."
It clearly did not seem very lenient to the naked, shivering man surrounded by the guards and police officers. He protested that there was a mistake, he gave his name.
His arms were held still and his hands were pressed to a portable device. A more complex version of the thumbprint reader.
The Colonel motioned us over to a computer screen.
I noticed that the Agent had also followed, without us noticing.
The detainee's face was compared to a file photo. The fingerprints were matched to a file. There was a name, a different name from the one the detainee had claimed. There was a dossier. Across the bottom there was a scrolling warning in BRIGHT RED. "Red Flag - Red Flag - Red Flag."
"We knew who he was in Portland," the Agent murmured. "It is so convenient when they turn themselves in."
"Your identity has been verified electronically. We will now verify your identity by confession."
My stomach dropped again for the second time that day as he was strapped to a chair.
What was this?
A pair of guards gently held his head facing forward, facing the array of cameras. Some of them were video cameras. Others I did not recognize.
"We tried using a head clamp but it was bruising people," the Colonel said and was hushed by the Agent.
The police officer began a recitation.
"Your name is ____. You were born in ____ on ____ __, ____. You attended _____ primary school in ____, ___. Your mother's maiden name is _____."
It was an exhaustive list. A dossier in itself. It took about ten minutes to read but it was all biographical information.
The guards released his head.
The Agent picked up a phone, said a few words, listened, and hung up.
"We have confession. Transfer to criminal custody."
He turned.
"Do you reporters want to witness the execution?"
###
I was numb as they walked us down to the post-interview floor, where all the other immigrants - the legal immigrants - were being welcomed to California. It was somewhere between a conga line and greeting long-lost relatives.
The technical term is love bombing. California was happy that they came.
I'd seen enough to want to get right back on the next plane out. It was all such a big lie.
We were not love bombed. We were treated respectfully. There was a palpable difference.
My bodyguard excused himself to use the toilet. He came back a short time later.
The portable reader we had seen earlier was brought to us and read our prints.
"Would you like to sit in the chair?" the Colonel offered next, after the buses with the immigrants left for their Welcome Center.
"Excuse me?" I snapped.
"The confession chair. I've been directed to provide some information about how it works."
He handed me a tablet on which there was a script. My name, the town and date of my birth ... my biographical information.
"You sit in the chair and face forward. I read this to you. Then we go in the next room."
I shrugged. It seemed harmless enough, so I went through the farce.
In the next room, there were several large monitors and three people. The second, third and fourth Californian we'd seen not wearing a uniform. They looked like college students. They asked not to be identified and that we take no pictures in the room.
"This is your pulse. This is a millimeter wave scan of your abdomen. This, however, is the magic."
The cameras were zoomed in on my eyeballs. They made slight motions.
"We read you a script of your life, which you are of course familiar with. Notice that you could not help but make certain motions with your eyes."
"Now let's go back and read another script. It will be slightly harder because you have seen some of this, but an enemy agent can be expected to know some of how this might work too."
They read me a script of yet another person. All I had in common with them was gender.
"Now look at the differences. As unique as a thumbprint. More, really, because prints can be sculpted if you have the patience and resources - which America does. But people who can lie with their saccarides, 'lie with the eyes' are incredibly uncommon."
He gestured to another screen.
"This is a muscle tremor analysis of your facial muscles. See the differences. Here, here, here. The conclusion is that you are over 90% certain to be suspect #1 - your script - and less than 3% likely to be suspect #2 - the other script. In the prior case, it was just confirmation of"
"Stop," the Agent ordered, and the psychometrics technician - according to his badge around his neck - fell silent instantly.
"When people who are Red Flag war criminals return to California, we have to decide what to do with them. This costs money and effort. So tell your readers. If California kicked you out, don't come back. If you want to kill yourself, do it somewhere else."
The Agent stalked out.
The Colonel held up a hand. "The sentence is normally commuted to twenty years at hard labor. In this case, however, this suspect narrowly avoided a Black Flag. That's a different matter altogether. In the interests of justice, I would like you to know what crimes this person was convicted of."
He handed across the tablet again. I realized that this was a paperless environment, except for the travelers documents.
Murder. Homeland operative. Of course, I could only read it all and take their word for it.
"May I image this?"
"Yes, and research it. Report his crimes, please do not glorify them. You are not California journalists so the Some Asshole policy does not apply to you. However, please consider whether you are willing to adopt it."
"I'm sorry," I said, honestly confused.
"Our Public Information Officer will do a better job explaining it. Notorious criminals are not identified by name on the first page of any article, or on video at any time. Their picture is not shown. They are generally referred to as Some Asshole or SA for short. We don't choose to compound their crimes by making them famous."
He surfed the Internet on his tablet, found a cartoon, showed it to us. The 'Some Asshole' policy, explained in cartoon form by some person named Wonderella.
"Let's claim your luggage and get you to your hotel. You can make other arrangements once you've settled in."
That same van, and driver, drove us out of the airport to a nearby hotel. It was just like any other check in. The Colonel did not accompany us.
"What's to stop me from getting out the van?" asked my bodyguard idly.
"Go ahead," shrugged the driver. "I'll have to call it in. The three of you will probably get PNG'd, but that's not my business."
Persona Non Grata. Kicked out of a foreign country for misbehavior.
We were met at the hotel driveway by three apparently civilian Californians. One wore a reflective vest labeled PIO over her dress; the other two, business suits.
"You got the short version from the officer in Portland. This is the long version."
Don't be rude guests. Tell the truth. Ask questions. Don't evade security regulations.
"How much is the hotel costing us?"
"The first three days are compliments of the State. After that, let's see." A calculator, a conversion from Euros.
About a third the price of an equivalent hotel room in London. But London is expensive.
The third man held out his hand.
"The object," he said to my guard, very firmly.
I knew Jay well. Well enough to see him flinch, for the first time that day.
He handed over something wrapped in a piece of toilet paper.
The third man bagged it, pocketed it, and got up to go wash his hands.
"You don't know us very well yet. So that will be overlooked. But the decision was the Governor's and GovCal is a very busy person. So don't misbehave again."
With that we were walked up to our rooms.
In the hallway, two guards with the same odd submachine gun we had seen on the plane.
I approached one.
"With respect, I am not permitted to speak with you. If you wish to leave the floor, I will call you an escort."
So much for that interview.
Lunch was room service, and served with a card.
"The pleasure of your company is requested in the hotel penthouse suite at 7 PM tonight. No regrets please."
The card had the logo of a snarling bear.
But this bear was throwing a spear.
