FBR, chapter two, scene 3

Hi chickies. I've arrived in Quartzsite, found a nice spot and have begun unpacking. Unfortunately as I do every two years or so, I've tweaked my back and I'm working horizontally for the next few days.
Here is a Monday morning tidbit - scene 3 of chapter 2, Foreign Body Reaction.

Foreign Body Reaction, Alan McNeill Chap 2, scene 3

“I want all the logging roads leading down to 101 and 199 sealed off . . . “

“Say again? ..

“I don't care, use town cops, use forest rangers . . .

“Tell them we have an escaped prisoner, tell them he is a cop killer, tell them .. Fuck!” said Lady P as the phone bounced from her hand. Her black SUV bucked across the erosion trench, while she searched for the phone on the passenger side floor. The night was still ink black, but she had her spotlights and fog lights on too. At least the rain had stopped.

She found the phone, her connection had hung up. She rounded the last turn heading up to the ridge and came over the lip of the log landing. There Ben's trailer still smoldered.

No one here? First the idiots botch the simple job of removing the problem subject. Then they run him off the road. Then the dumb fucks loose him! thought Patricia. She was mystified at how many ways the simplest assignments could unfold to complex problems. She had taken this pipeline assignment for Homeland security with some reluctance. Providing security for gas and hazardous fuels transport was not usually the responsibility of Homeland Security, but this pipeline had it's secrets and her job and her advancement within the agency was dependent on her keeping those secrets.

She picked up her hand held transceiver and keyed the push-to-talk.

“Who's securing the trailer site, and who is securing this road south?” She tried to regain her composure. Her previous outburst on the cell phone was stupid. She of all was well aware that every word she spoke by cell phone or walkie talkie was being recorded by satellites above her.

“We're up on the ridge,” squawked back a tinny voice.

“Do I understand that you are all up on the ridge?”

A cautious voice replied, “Well, we are sweeping the hill below us were the subject crashed.”

“Again, all of you?”

“Yes, ah, he has to be right below us and the imagery shows the river is difficult to cross here. We should have him in a minute.”

Lady P as she was known to her teams, P for perfection, thought for a moment and replied.

“Break two off the search. Block the road south from the trailer and I want a guard on the trailer should he circle back. Lets get this done people”

“Affirmative, sending two, Tully and Jamison coming . . . “

“No names!”

“Sorry.”

Patricia threw the handheld aside and hit speed dial on her cell. After many rings, a voice, rough from lack of sleep answered.

“What now? I'm almost there.”

“Did you bring the dossier I asked you for?”

“I still don't understand what all this is about? Why are you doing this? Why did you wake me up in the middle of the night?”

Patricia stared at the phone for a moment then said, “Jacob, why in the world do you want to understand. You just do as you are told. Now, did you bring it?”

Jacob's reply was cut off as Patrica flipped the phone shut at the lights that were coming up behind her. She put her hand inside her tailored jacket and felt the grip of her 9mm Mak secure in her under shoulder holster. She relaxed as she recognized Jacob's Subaru Outback.

Jacob opened the door and stepped half out, He seemed frozen . He stood speechless gazing at the ruin of Ben's trailer

“Jesus Christ! What is this? What have you done?” he said to glare at Patricia.

“My job, asshole, now give me the folder.”

Jacob handed her the folder with all of Ben's employment and medical information.

“Your job is blowing up my trailers? You're all nuts. When you called and told me to get up here I thought, hell, I don't know what I thought. Where is Ben?”

“We'll have him in a few moments.”

“What do you mean, have him? What has he done. He just did his job and walked the pipeline and filed as always.”

“I'm afraid he walked where he shouldn't have Jacob,” said Patricia without looking up from the folder which was now spread out on the hood of Jacob's Subaru.

“And this wouldn't have happened if you had kept him on his job. Whatever happens now Jacob, whatever happens now, is your fault. Remember that, shut up and go home.”

Jacob's mouth opened and closed twice before anything came out. “What did he do for God's sake? What are you people doing here? What happened to the trailer?” he said gesturing towards the smoking run of Ben's trailer.

“Come here and look at this Jacob,” Patricia said tilting her head towards the paperwork from the folder.

Ben approached and bent his head in to see what she was looking at when she smoothly, fluidly drew the Makarov from her holster with her right hand. In one motion, she brought her right arm up and across, and the barrel of the gun smashed across Jacob's face in a vicious backhand.

Jacob fell backwards, clenching his face with both hands, screaming, blood spurting from his broken nose.

Patricia wiped the barrel of the Mak in the palm of her left hand, and paused entranced at how black the blood looked at night. She rubber her thumb and forefinger in her palm, feeling the thick slip of the blood. then the gun to her shoulder holster.

“Go home Jacob, mind your own business. You don't, I'll kill you,” she said absently. She started a bit, came back to herself, gathered up the loose sheets of paper and turned towards the burned trailer, all without a second glance a Jacob, who lay moaning on the ground.

The trailer's destruction was immaterial to Patrica. This was not a fact finding mission, not a trailer destroying mission, this was a simple period to be placed at the end of a very small sentence, a minor reduction of infinitesimal threat. The line walker on this section could be a problem, and even if Ben had not disappeared off track for a few hours Patricia had been considering removing that threat anyway. What she had just read confirmed the need for the threat reduction.

“Shit!” spat Patricia out loud. “Damnit.”

My phone worked, it shouldn't have worked. The cell phone signal jammers in each of the two SUV's should have made her phone appear to have no service. Yet she had been able to call Jacob as he drove up.

She reached through the window of her SUV and brought the hand held out, thumbing the tranmit button as she did so.

“Do you have him?”

“No, we haven't found him yet,” came back a dispassionate voice, relaxed voice.

“I”m sending one of the SUV's down now to block the road and leave a man at the trailer site in case he circles back.”

Patricia could see the lights bouncing down the grade. “Turn the cell phone jammer back on. You haven't got him yet.” Patricia forced her voice to be calm. She could alienate the hired help but not him. she recognized his voice, Simon. Cool Simon, deadly Simon, the founder and head of Global Security.

“We found his phone, no need for the jam.”

“What if he has two?”

There was a pause, and Patricia could hear Arthur's mind weighing his reply. They had history, her and Arthur. “It's back on now.”

“Good.”

“How do you want this finished,” asked Freddy.

“Quickly,” she snapped.

“I'm coming down.”

“Delightful.”

Patricia remained leaning against the SUV. Her cell phone chirped it's despair at the loss of signal.

End of Scene 3.