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Old 01-21-2018, 12:15 PM   #200
Icelander
 
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Changing of the Guard

Special Agent Danny O’Toole looks around for something to drink, but the crowded impromptu operations room seems to have only empties. He sighs and swallows a fistful of painkillers dry, biting down on the bitter taste. His head is ringing like a brass band and his eyes sting, but the crushing weight of responsibility feels worse than his physical discomfort.

Even with about thirty Coast Guardsmen from the Atlantic Strike Force and about as many medical and technical specialists from the DHS there, no one has relieved him as the ad hoc and interim Incident Commander. Well, technically, no one has, yet, but you wouldn’t know it by the way they act.

It’s not as if the Coast Guard is bothering to run anything by him before they do it and Dr. Figuroa from DHS clearly expected him to defer to her when it came to setting up the decontamination facilities, but everyone seems to expect him to handle the myriad of small crises and coordination issues that inevitably come up, as well as being responsible for running Manhanock Asylum while the actual senior staff there is either hospitalised, catatonic or detained as suspects.

All O’Toole wants to do is jump into a soft feather bed and sleep for a week. Possibly after downing a six-pack of beer on the way to the bed. If he has to talk a supposedly functioning adult through some incredibly minor organisational issue one more time, he’ll have to check himself into the asylum as a patient. At least they get to sleep.

His reverie is interrupted by someone at the door. All the people in the room, four Coast Guardsmen, two DHS staffers, Cameron Townsend and Special Agent O’Toole, look toward the door as it opens slowly, diffidently. A slight, unshaven, bald man with unsightly skin and comically oversized glasses walks in.

Ford: “Good morning. My name is Curtis A. Ford and I work for the Office of Operations Coordination. As of now, I am in charge of Jewell Island. I very much regret that no one will be leaving and that you are all subject to decontamination protocol.”
O’Toole: “Thank Christ, sir!”
Ford: “You may, I suppose. I prefer to err in favour of a strict interpretation of the Establishment Clause and avoid any reference to a Supreme Being in the course of my duties.”
O’Toole: “Er, yessir. I only meant that I was glad to be relieved.”
Ford: “I can imagine. You look like cat [excrement] warmed over. In a microwave. By someone who can’t cook. And then eaten by a dog and vomited up again. And stepped in.”
O’Toole: “Sorry, sir. We’ve been very busy. No time to keep up appearances.”
Ford: “I wasn’t criticising. My comment was in the nature of an observation. No reflection on your professional capacity was intended. When I feel you’ve earned criticism, I will be sure to tell you. In no uncertain terms.”
O’Toole: “I’m glad to hear it, sir.”
Ford: “I rejoice in your approval, Special Agent. Now, brief me on where we are and then report to the decon tents.”

O’Toole proceeds to lay out the situation on Jewell Island, the disposition of all responders already there, the arrangements made for feeding and housing of everyone, the problems solved, pending and likely to develop. Despite his fatigue and stress, he manages to deliver a clear, concise and coherent briefing.

Cam Townsend interjects agitated demands that Homeland Security immediately arrest the ‘violent rogue killer, Mackenzie Chase Taylor’, but is barely launched on his tirade when a raised hand and a ferocious glare from Curtis Ford silences him. Ford listens attentively to the briefing from O’Toole, ignoring Townsend, and delivers incisive and intelligent questions at the end, which Special Agent O’Toole manages to answer with a modicum of credibility.

Ford: “Now, Mr. Townsend. Find a private room and a secure telephone. Then call the Director. If she’ll still talk to you, tell your story to her again. Then do what she tells you. If she is disinclined to listen to the third or fourth time you tell us the same thing, report to medical. I don’t have time for a panicked civilian, no matter where his degrees are from or who his boss is. I can see that you are personally affected by what you went through, but the personal is not the same as the important. Respectfully, Mr. Townsend.”
Townsend: “But…”
Ford: “If it helps, no amount of arresting or not arresting someone presently on Jewell Island is going to change the fact that everyone here is detained under bioterrorism protocols and that the Coast Guard has orders to fire in the event of an attempt to breach quarantine. No one is going anywhere and everyone who should be taken into custody will be, once investigators get here.”
Townsend: “But Taylor is dangerous, he’s…”
Ford: “Anyone not cleared as part of the response force will be treated as potentially dangerous, Mr. Townsend. The criminal investigators detailed to us will take care of distinguishing between victims and perpetrators. Remember that the names of suspects, as well as consultants to the DHS on classified matters, are not necessarily need-to-know for everyone on Jewell Island.”
Townsend: “Then I need to speak with you in private, Curt, urgently…”
Ford: “No, Mr. Townsend. You need to speak with a criminal investigator, when called upon. Until then, you need to shut the [fornication] up. Dismissed, the pair of you.”
O’Toole: “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Seeming stunned, Cameron Townsend walks quietly away, searching for a private place to call his boss, no doubt to complain about the behaviour of Curtis Ford. Agent O’Toole makes his way to the decontamination tents that have been erected outside of the main buildings of Manhanock Asylum. Mechanically shedding his clothes, he allows the decontamination officers to bag his belongings as evidence and enters the shower area. Emerging into another room, he is examined, helped to towel off and given disposable modesty clothing and protective overalls, the underwear made from some sort of teal coloured polymer and the overalls white.

O’Toole refuses any further medical attention and just requests a bottle of water and somewhere to sleep. He is given some blankets and guided to an apartment block just outside of the wall around the main complex, where the response personnel are being quartered. The walk isn’t long, but well before he reaches his destination, O’Toole has started shambling like a zombie.

Once he’s inside, he stumbles into the small apartment whose number he was given and is going to collapse into the bed, but something makes him refrain. Instead, he paces nervously around the room, checks the door, engages the lock and looks for something to block it from opening. He braces a chair in front of the door, which is unlikely to help, consider that they open outward, and then looks at the window. Feeling defeated and unable to come up with any plan to secure the window, O’Toole crawls into the clothes closet, pulls the closet door closed, wraps his blanket around him and tries to go to sleep.

---

Waking up with a start, Danny O’Toole reached for his gun. Touching the clean, anti-septic material of his Homeland Security overalls, he realised that he was unarmed. Shortly afterward, he realised that he was in a closet and that he could hear voices outside it.

Pleasant baritone: “You’re sure he was assigned to this apartment?”
Hoarse whine: “Yeah, of course I am! What, you think I’m incompetent? They’re our most important witnesses. First thing I did when I arrived was double-check their locations.”
Baritone: “Fair enough. I guess he couldn’t sleep, then. Move on to someone else on the witness list?”
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Last edited by Icelander; 01-22-2018 at 05:00 PM.
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