The End of the Beginning

“You look good, Captain. ISAF really is your color,” Jake joked, opening the driver side door to the patrol car. “I’m sure it feels good to wear that kind of stuff again.” “No,” William groaned, trying to fix his vest. “Your stuff is a little tighter than the Air Force’s was. This is like the Gucci of tact gear. Jesus, what is this, like a kids large?” Jake smiled as he turned on the vehicles electric motor. Nancy got in the back. She was on her glass tablet.

“You almost done with that distraction, Nancy?” asked Jake.

“Locked and loaded,” she excitedly replied.

William closed the passenger door and placed his P90 on the dashboard. “Ready,” he said.

“Time check,” requested Jake.

“Twenty-three o-five,” said William.

“Alright,” said Jake turning, around in his seat to reverse. “Let’s make some noise!”

Nancy pressed enter on her tablet screen.

...

“Chief,” said a guardsman sitting at a computer console inside ISAF’s main control room.

“What is it?” asked Hernandez distractedly. He was overlooking the room’s 3D digital base model.

“Sir, we have a biohazard alarm going off inside the base hospital. Second floor, infectious disease ward, room 216. Computer says anthrax.” “What?” rumbled Hernandez. He hurried over to the guardsman’s console to see the alarm for himself. Sure enough, it was there, and spreading.

“Alarms now going off in multiple rooms, sir.”

“Seal off the affected areas. Evacuate the rest of the building. Get a biohazard team out there to assess the situation and institute level four containment protocols. Dispatch six guardsmen units over there now.” “Yes, sir.”

Hernandez looked across the control room wearily. He felt the inkling of a ruse. “Have Captain Emerson, Rescue Officer Lewis, and Guardsman Sheroff been brought in yet?” he asked the room.

“No, sir,” answered a guardsman at a computer console directly above where Hernandez was standing. “The two guardsmen you assigned to get them last checked in at twenty-two forty-seven hours saying they had arrived at Rescue Officer Lewis’s quarters.” “Hm. The second they are brought in alert me immediately please.”

...

Jake sped the patrol car across the empty BLOC Section, running red lights. He had the cars sirens and warning lights off.

“Is it working?” asked William.

“Yeah, I think so, sir.”

“One way to really be sure,” said Jake, switching on one of the guardsman’s radios they had taken.

Over the radio the three heard exactly what they wanted to hear. “Unit 2 and Unit 5 are now in position at the hospital. It’s a mess. We’re going to need more than six guardsmen units to contain this situation. Requesting Chief Hernandez’s presences on scene as well, over.” “Copy incident commander, back up is on the way. ETA ten minutes, over.”

“Perfect,” smirked William. “The distraction is working.”

“We have to pick up your team, Captain. I can do that,” said Jake.

“How are you going to do that with the base on lockdown?” William asked. “How are you going to find them all? I mean, most are probably in their quarters at this time of night but still you never know, especially with Mambiri. He’s probably still eating dinner; bottomless pit that one.” “Leave that to me. I’ll get them. You take this patrol car to this location.” Jake input coordinates into the cars GPS on its center dashboard display. The coordinates zeroed in on somewhere in the middle of the bases Port Section, in what should have been just acres and acres of container yards.

“What the hell is there?” asked William, looking at the destination.

“You’ll see, just get there. You should be fine in these uniforms and in this car. No one should stop you.” Jake turned onto a road heading northeast. The smooth electric drive barely made a sound as they broke sixty miles per hour.

“Uh, Jake. Where are you going?” asked William, noticing the direction.

“ISAF Headquarters.”

“May I ask why?”

“I need one of our twelve passenger vans to pick up your team. I’ll squeeze them in there.”

“Can’t we find a van somewhere else?”

“No. I also need to gather some supplies and uniforms.”

A light rain began. Jake turned on the cars windshield wipers.

“A little help from nature never hurts,” he grinned. “You ready Nancy?”

“You bet Jake,” she said, her face covered by her tablets light.

William leaned forward in his seat. The dome of ISAF came through the rain. It was strikingly lit with several rings of red light, indicating the current base sequence. Rain seemed to amplify this light in the night sky. Jake turned onto a descending road ramp that dipped below ground. An unmanned security booth lay in their path, watching over the four-lane entrance of a parking garage that stretched under the dome. Jake stopped the cars hood just forward of the booth. A laser scanned a vertical barcode sticker stuck to the cars back left window, lowering three cylindrical crash barriers in front of them.

Dozens and dozens of vehicles filled the garage, some patrol cars, others armored personnel carriers, many SUV’s with exterior roll bars and menacing grill guards. Jake drove to a section of garage that held ISAF’s collection of vans. He skidded to a stop in front of one, lowered his window and erupted out of the car. William moved over to the drivers seat. Nancy replaced William in the front passenger seat. Jake shut the door and leaned down into the open window.

“See you guys soon,” he said.

“Be careful,” Nancy winced.

Jake put his big hand on William’s chest and shoved him back into his seat, holding him there. He blew a kiss to Nancy with his other hand. Nancy tenderly smiled.

“Sorry Captain, didn’t want that landing on you,” Jake said, patting William’s chest.

William just nodded awkwardly. Jake started to jog away.

“Hey, Jake!” called William.

Jake stopped between two vans. “Yeah?”

“Tell Rescue Officer Miller when you find her to bring Shampoo.”

“Why the hell do we need shampoo?”