Point of Crisis by Steven Konkoly Read Free Book Online Page B

laptop.
    “Crosby plans to take them all out,” announced another soldier.
    She shook her head and muttered a few expletives.
    “You might be on to something, Crosby,” said Alex, silencing her colleagues.
    Alex walked down the shadowy hallway, passing two pitch-black, empty offices. Light from the outside filled the third office, rendering the space useable. A desk chair scraped the floor inside the office, followed by muttering.
    “Where the fuck is this guy?”
    A dark-haired soldier charged out of the doorway, stopping himself before barreling into Alex.
    “Shit. Sorry about that. Did they run your ID?”
    “The sergeant gave it a once-over,” said Alex.
    “Goddamn it,” he muttered, extending a hand. “Captain Rick Adler. Commanding officer, 262 nd Engineering Company out of Westbrook.”
    “Captain Alex Fletcher. United States Marine Corps. Provisional.”
    “Provo, huh? I just cracked the code on all of this shit. Mind if I grab your ID?”
    “Sure,” said Alex, handing it over again.
    “Follow me,” he said, storming down the hallway.
    “Listen up! We talked about provisional ID cards! You have to scan them at this computer and send the e-file to my desk. Easy enough?”
    The table of lethargic soldiers nodded and responded with wary, “Yes, sirs.”
    “That way, I know if I’m dealing with a civilian construction engineer sent by battalion, or…” He swiped Alex’s card and read the screen. “Huh. Let’s talk in my office.”
    Alex wasn’t sure how to interpret Adler’s sudden need for privacy. Once inside the spacious, ghastly hot office, Adler shut the door and offered him a drink from a water cooler behind his modular desk.
    “Room temperature. All of our juice is going to the comms gear, though it’s awfully tempting to run a line to the cooler.”
    Alex took a sip.
    “You could make hot cocoa with this,” he said, finishing the thin paper cup.
    “Without the central air-conditioning, the building is basically one big convection oven. Tin roof. Fucking miserable. It’s worse in the hangars.”
    “Really?” said Alex, immediately eliminating the possibility of bringing his family to the hangar.
    Adler slid Alex’s ID card across the desk. “This card identifies you as the airport’s MIF.”
    “MIF?”
    “Most Important Fucker. Congratulations. Until an EMIF arrives—your wish is my command.” At Alex’s questioning look, Adler explained, “Even More Important Fucker. I’m still cracking the code on this Regional Recovery Zone shit, but the hierarchy is well defined. Security and Intelligence is at the top of the food chain.”
    “You didn’t know about the Category Five response protocols?”
    “Negative. I can only assume that knowledge was kept at the battalion commander and above level. I had a sealed pod kept under lock and key at the unit armory—to be opened under certain circumstances. Suspected EMP was one of those circumstances. I found this laptop computer and a ROTAC satphone, along with instructions for tapping into the battalion’s SIPRNet through DTCS. We never used DTCS before Monday, now it’s the only way to communicate over any appreciable distance.”
    “We used real radios in my day, and if you didn’t have comms—you didn’t have comms. Portable sat-gear was borderline Star Wars shit, even at the battalion level,” said Alex.
    “Even today it’s not widely issued to regular units below the battalion level.”
    “Then why does it seem like every soldier and Marine has one?”
    “Good question. DTCS came to life in 2011. Too late to make a big difference in the War on Terror, but the Pentagon pushed it.”
    “I don’t blame them. I lost several Marines in Iraq because of shitty comms.”
    “That was the big selling point. One hundred percent worldwide coverage at all times. I studied the system a year ago in one of my Staff and Command courses. One case study after another where DTCS-enabled sat-gear could have saved lives. Made