Chapter 13
Posted: July 16, 2007 - 02:02:29 pm


Dale walked into the work area and looked around. The only ones present were Mike and Sanjay. Shaking his head, he said, "Somehow, I'm not surprised to see the two of you here hard at work."

Sanjay frowned and asked, "Where else would we be? We are in the middle of the biggest crisis in the history of this country. People are counting on us."

It was nice to hear Sanjay say that. Dale said, "We've been hit with a real bad case of fear flu. Almost ten percent of our people didn't show up to work today."

"That sucks," Mike said.

"I thought it was a little to easy to find a parking space today," Sanjay said with a sad smile. He was very disappointed by the behavior of his coworkers.

Nodding his head, Dale said, "On top of that, we suspended a bunch of agents this morning."

Surprised by that little piece of news, Mike looked up and asked, "Why?"

"The Assistant Director decided that employees of the agency who were sending their families overseas couldn't be trusted with our national security. If they weren't willing to face the risks like everyone else, then they didn't belong in the agency," Dale answered.

"Good for him," Sanjay said with a nod of his head.

"I'll let him know you said that," Dale said with a smile. The Assistant Director had actually caught the end of Sanjay's speech in the cafeteria the previous day. The sentiment that Sanjay had expressed had struck fertile soil.

"No need," Sanjay said blushing.

Laughing at Sanjay's reaction, Dale said, "I want the two of you to join the emergency task force that is meeting in the executive conference room upstairs. You two are to help plan how we're going to operate in case our facility becomes isolated as a result of terrorist actions."

"What do you mean?" Sanjay asked.

Dale answered, "Circumstances may make it difficult for people to show up here. Don't forget that we've lost employees trying to get to work when some bastard shot people turning into the entrance. We may have to ask people to show up to alternative locations in order to keep them safe."

It was a very diverse group of people who met in the executive conference room to discuss how to recover capabilities in the event that the worst possible scenario occurred. There were representatives from every major intelligence organization in the area. Mike recognized more than one member of the Intelligence 100 in the room.

The discussion centered on one topic from the very beginning of the meeting. It wasn't how to reopen the facility. It was how to achieve access to intelligence information in the event they were unable to get access to the buildings. It was not only the CIA that was worried about that problem. The NSA, FBI, and people from the Pentagon were just as worried. Visions of planes flying into the Pentagon were not too far from the minds of everyone in the room.

Mike and Tim Brown sat off to the side listening to the discussion. Having learned that the servers used by the Intelligence 100 were in a vault underground a hundred miles away, Mike leaned over and whispered, "What about the internet cafes?"

"That's a good idea," Tim said. He listened to the discussion for a bit. Tim leaned over and whispered, "I'm going to leave here and set it up. We've got fifty secure cafes in the area and each one has over twenty computers. I'll see about setting up an automated notification system that will send a thousand of our people from the various agencies to them. Cover for me."

"Okay," Mike answered.

"Don't say anything about it. I'll be back in an hour," Tim said. He wanted to set up a secondary plan in case the primary plan fell through for some reason.

"Good," Mike said. He whispered, "How about I suggest that we just take over the computing facilities of some of the local universities?"

"That'll be perfect," Tim said.

Mike waited until Tim had left the room. Leaning forward, he said, "Here's what we need to do. We'll plan on taking over the computer labs in all of the high schools, colleges, and universities in the area. I know that moving our operations into residential areas is not the best idea. However, if things get so bad that we have to use that option I think it won't be an issue. We can make arrangements with the NSA to engineer secure access to the information. It might not be the most secure solution, but when the shit hits the fan I don't think that is going to be an issue."

With his head wobbling, Sanjay said, "That is a very good idea. All schools have at least one classroom filled with computers. I bet we could find at least five thousand seats at the various schools in the area."

Mike sat back and listened to the discussion flow around the room. He didn't even notice when Tim took a seat next to him. When the group broke for a fifteen minute bathroom break, Tim leaned over and whispered, "It's all set up."

"Good. They've been identifying schools in the area with sufficient computer resources to host five thousand of us. I figure that the law enforcement groups should be sent there," Mike said.

Joining the meeting, Jack Lancer came over to them and said, "Tim, the role call is all set up. We're going to confiscate another fifty internet cafes in the surrounding areas. There will be one of us in each place taking charge. We'll have a mixture of agents from different agencies at each location. There won't be any problems sharing information because we'll all be co-located."

Mike didn't need to ask who would be put in charge. It was going to be the Intelligence 100. Smiling, he said, "Semper Fi."

"OohRah," Tim said with a smile.

"OohRah," Jack said with a frown. Shaking his head, he said, "I just hope to God that we never need to do that."

By two in the afternoon, the executive conference room looked like a disaster area. Lunch had been brought in and there were dirty plates stacked on one of the cabinets at the end of the room. Papers were scattered over the table. Cups half filled with cold coffee fought for space in the center of the table. The men inside the room looked disheveled and tired.

The meeting was about to break up when there was a huge noise and a general tremor of the building floor. Everyone looked around wondering what was happening. The image of a canister flying into the building at supersonic speeds spilling some toxic material flashed through Mike's mind. He jumped up and went over to the cabinets on which the dirty plates had been stacked. He grabbed the cloth napkins and started handing them out. He shouted, "Everyone get one of these and put it over your mouth and nose."

"Why?" one of the men asked heading towards the door. He wanted out of there and he wanted out right then.

Jack moved to the door and blocked it before the man made it there. Jack shouted, "Sit down everyone."

There was another shudder in the building along with a loud bang. Mike said, "We may have just been hit with that rail gun weapon you've all heard so much about. The dust in the air could kill you. So far there's no dust flying into this room. Put on the napkin like you've seen the cowboys wear their bandanas during dust storms in those old westerns and make your way out of the building. Don't get excited. Keep breathing through the napkin."

As the group slowly made their way down the stairs and towards the exit, it was like walking into a dust storm. There were places where the dust was so thick that it was nearly impossible to see. Eyes burned as particulates scratched the sensitive surface of the eye. Mike wished that he had goggles, but he'd live with irritated eyes if it meant living.

The noise was almost deafening. Fire alarms were ringing. The radiation alarms were sounding. People were running to and fro screaming and shouting instructions. A woman who worked in the cafeteria was standing by the door shouting that the world was ending. Later, Mike would remember thinking that the world had indeed ended for that woman. He didn't know what was in the dust, but all that screaming must have brought it deep into her lungs.

He ran into a woman who was holding her shirt up over her face. Half of her bra was exposed. There was a rather large Caesarian scar that ran down her abdomen. He had no idea who she was, but thought she was at least smart enough to try to cover her face. Who cared about exposing a little skin when that was the difference between life and death? He hoped she made it through that alive.

A man was seated on the ground crying. Mike couldn't see his face, but he wondered how someone could give up like that. When Sanjay went over to help the man, Mike shook his head. He pointed towards the exit hoping that Sanjay would go with him.

Holding the mask against his face, Sanjay went over to Mike and asked, "Why shouldn't I help him?"

His words were muffled, but Mike understood. Holding his mask tight against his face, he answered, "If the air is bad, he's already dead. If it isn't, then they'll get him out later."

"Okay," Sanjay said thinking that Mike must have veins filled with ice water to think through things in such a situation.

The crowd following Mike seemed to grow with each step they took. Some folks who weren't wearing masks decided that after seeing Mike and his group to hold their shirts over their faces. Mike tried to prevent them from doing it, but many of them did it anyway. They didn't realize that they were putting the dusty side of their shirts right against their mouths and nose.

By the time the group made their way outside it had grown to almost a hundred people. Once there, Mike held his mask against his face and shouted, "Don't remove your masks. Everything could be contaminated. Move upwind of the building and wait for the Hazmat teams. Don't move around too much or else you'll just spread the radioactive material in your area. Don't go back in the building for any reason. Don't eat or drink anything. You've got to get decontaminated before you put anything near your mouth or nose."

One of the men who had joined the group said, "My car is right over there. I can be at home in half an hour. I'll take a shower there."

"You will contaminate your entire home. Do you want to kill your family?" Mike asked unable to believe what he was hearing. Looking in the parking lot, he saw people driving away. Shaking his head, he said, "This is a cluster fuck."

A couple of the men went to their cars anyway. Mike didn't recognize any of them. After watching people walk off to return home, Mike and Sanjay tried to get the people around them to calm down and sit in one place. Tim arrived and asked, "Have you seen Dale?"

"No, I haven't," Mike said. He looked around at the people around him. They were covered in dust. Most of them hadn't bothered to cover their mouths. Shaking his head, he said, "This is bad. We've got to get people clean."

The sounds of sirens rent the air. It sounded like a thousand police cars were on the way there. Sanjay said, "Some one needs to tell them about the fact that the dust is contaminated."

Thinking he could look for Dale at the same time, Tim said, "I'll do that."

"I can do that," Sanjay said wanting to do something to help.

"Stay here and help Mike. The people here trust you two," Tim said. He turned and walked towards the street leading to the front of the building. He planned to plant himself in the center of the road and wave his arms in an attempt to stop anyone driving towards the building.

Working together, Mike and Sanjay got most of the people settled. Sanjay managed to identify a couple of people with commonsense who were rather strong personalities. They put those people in charge of the others and sat back to take a break.

About an hour after they had evacuated the building, Sanjay pointed to a figure stumbling out of the building. The man was the size and shape of their boss. He asked, "Is that Dale?"

"It looks like him. Let's go," Mike said heading in the direction of the building.

Sanjay followed him towards the fallen figure just outside the building. They reached the man only to discover that he wasn't Dale. The man looked to be in pretty bad shape. He was bleeding from several small cuts around his face and arms. His face had a purplish hue to it like it was one huge bruise. Despite the fact that the sound of an alarm blaring overhead made it very difficult to hear, Mike knelt down and asked, "What happened to you?"

"I was in the room when it exploded," the man answered. Mike was barely able to make out the answer. The man's voice was weak and the alarms were loud.

Mike checked the man over. He was busted up pretty badly. There were definitely broken ribs, but the rest of the man's bones appeared to be whole. There was a huge purple bruise across the man's stomach that suggested internal bleeding. There wasn't much that Mike could do for the man. Turning to Sanjay, he said, "Let's get him away from the building."

"Okay," Sanjay said. He wondered why Mike would bother with this man and not the one who was crying in the hallway. Thinking about it he realized that there was one fundamental difference; this man was wounded and the other wasn't.

The two men carried the wounded man halfway from the building to where the crowd was waiting. The noise of the alarms was distant enough that he could hear. Feeling like his left hand was about to give out on him, Mike said, "Let's set him down here."

"Okay," Sanjay replied.

Once the man was on the ground, Mike knelt beside him and asked, "Was it a bomb?"

"I don't think so. It was a thud kind of explosion and not a boom," the man answered. He started coughing. A grimace crossed his face as the ends of broken ribs ground against each other. After hacking for a minute, the man's head fell back. It appeared to Mike that the man had lost consciousness from the pain.

Mike looked across at Sanjay and said, "I'm pretty sure that we were hit by the rail gun. As far as I can tell, we were hit twice. There might have been a third time while we were in the stairwell, but I'm not sure. I heard the radiation warning alarms while we were getting out of the building."

"You were smart to insist on the masks," Sanjay said. He decided that sticking by Mike was a good recipe for survival.

"There's not much that we can do for this fellow. My first aid ends at stopping bleeding and stabilizing broken bones. His wounds appear to be minor, but he's acting a lot worse than the wounds would suggest. I'm afraid that he's suffered some internal damage. I wanted to get him away from the building to where we could talk. He's injured and can't move by himself," Mike said.

"Ah, I understand," Sanjay said wobbling his head from side to side.

"Do you want to stay here with him while I try to find someone to stay here with him or would you rather go?" Mike asked.

Sanjay looked over at the crowd of people they had left. Shaking his head, he said, "I'd rather we both just stayed here."

Mike looked over at the crowd and shook his head. People were dusting themselves off and wiping their faces with their dirty shirts. Nodding his head, he said, "I think I agree with you. Let's carry him over towards the road where we won't be down wind of those jokers over there."

"That sounds good to me, Mike."

The pair of men carried the wounded man a hundred yards away before setting him back on the ground. It was an hour before Tim showed up and joined them. Shaking his head, he said, "This is a disaster."

"You can say that again," Mike said.

Sanjay said, "I like how Mike describes it better. He calls it a cluster fuck."

Tim laughed at the comment and said, "I think you are right, Sanjay. That is a much better description."

The man on the ground moaned. His eyes fluttered open. Looking at Tim, he asked, "Where am I?"

"You're in the lawn. We're waiting for the Hazmat teams to come. They'll clean you up and then an ambulance will take you to the hospital," Tim answered.

The man shook his head and said, "You men take care of yourselves. I'm a goner and I know it. Something is busted up inside me. I can feel it."

Mike said, "Friend, we're here to stay. You just hang on and we'll get through this."

"Thanks," said the man before closing his eyes.

From their vantage point, they could watch the police, firemen, and ambulances assemble at the entrance of the drive to the original CIA building. Without Hazmat to move in first, the people were just standing around and waiting. Sanjay asked, "What's going to happen to us?"

"We'll sit here for a while until the Hazmat teams show up. They'll have us strip off our clothes and line up to get washed. They'll probably wash us with a solution of bleach and water because they don't know what is in this dust. We'll get some weird paper clothes or something. Maybe they'll let us keep our keys so that we can drive home," Mike answered.

"What about our work?" Sanjay asked. He gestured to the building and said, "There's no way anything inside that building will be removed for years. We didn't finish the plans for relocating. Even if we had, all of that material is back in the building."

Tim said, "We had a backup plan in place."

Sanjay noticed a figure coming in their direction. Pointing at it, he asked, "Who is that?"

"Looks like Jack Lancer," Tim answered.

Seeing the blank look on Sanjay's face, Mike said, "He's from the NSA and had just arrived at our meeting when the shit hit the fan."

Jack came over and knelt down next to the man on the ground. Shaking his head, he said, "Damn. Is he okay?"

Mike shook his head and said, "I don't know. It doesn't look good. He said earlier that something inside was broken. Do you know him?"

"Yes. That's Mark Young from over at the FBI. He's one of the Intelligence 100," Jack answered.

"Damn," Tim said shaking his head.

"We lost three others of the team," Jack said glancing at Sanjay when he said it. He'd been busy walking around finding out what had happened to people. The individuals on the team had all responded to the crisis in an exemplary fashion. Everyone had covered their mouths and noses. They had all moved upwind of the building. They had all lead others out of the building.

"How?" Mike asked.

"From what I understand, they were all together when the room exploded. Two of them died on the spot. The third lived long enough to tell me what happened. I think Mark had just entered the room," Jack said.

"Does anyone have good news?" Tim asked.

"We have a new member of the team," Jack said.

Mike asked, "Who?"

"This guy here," Jack said pointing to Sanjay. Sitting down, he said, "I pretty sure that he doesn't fit the entrance requirements, but I don't think the two of you would have kept him around if he wasn't competent and trustworthy. After this mess, those two qualities are going to be in short supply. The smart ones will head for the hills."

Mike looked over at Sanjay and said, "Welcome to the Intelligence 100, Sanjay."

Sanjay was speechless. After several false starts, he said, "Thank you."

Tim laughed and said, "And here I thought you were an elegant public speaker."

"Ah, he's the one," Jack said laughing. On seeing Sanjay's reaction to his comment, he added, "I heard about your little speech. It does my heart good to hear about someone standing up in public and saying that he's proud to be an American."

"It doesn't happen often enough," Mike said shaking his head.

Mark started coughing. It sounded pretty bad. All of a sudden Mark arched his back and then slumped to the ground. Mike reached over to fell for a pulse. He couldn't find one. Shaking his head, he said, "He didn't make it."

The sun had set hours earlier and the four men were still sitting around waiting to be decontaminated. There was a line of people waiting to strip and get washed. The four men had decided to remain separate from the others although they had moved a ways from Mark's body. Too many of the other people were patting themselves off and distributing the dust everywhere they went.

Mike, Tim, Jack, and Sanjay were still wearing the masks. They didn't know if the masks were helping, but they definitely weren't hurting. It was hard to keep from reaching up under the mask. It seemed that all of their noses demanded to be scratched.

Lying on his back and watching the night sky, Mike asked, "How long before they are ready for us?"

"I have no idea. Personally, I'm just as happy sitting here doing nothing. I've got a feeling that we're going to be busier than one armed paper hangers over the next few years," Jack answered.

"I wonder what's happening with the President," Mike said looking down at his useless left hand knowing that he'd never be hanging wallpaper.

"Oh, he's probably giving some speech about how we need to have a restrained response to this attack," Tim answered with a snort.

"I like Edgar much more than the President," Sanjay said earning puzzled looks from the other three men.

"Who is Edgar?" Tim asked.

"Edgar is my neighbor's rat. I hate rats," Sanjay said provoking a round of laughter from everyone.
Lazlo Zalezac
Chapter 14