They're synchronizing, Rebecca said. They're moving their timeline up, Gerald said. Something changed. What changed? Gerald was as quiet for a moment.
The external response, he said, "If they have any monitoring capability on the county emergency services frequency, and if they've been operating at this level, they almost certainly do. They know help is coming. They know they have less time than they planned for. " "How much less time? " Based on the coordination signal pattern, Gerald said, "I'd estimate they're planning to move in the next 20 to 30 minutes. " 20 to 30 minutes, Derek said. Everyone in the room recalibrated. The 74-minute cushion had just become 25.
Rebecca looked at the map. She looked at it the way she had looked at terrain on the mountain, reading it, not describing it. Finding what it offered and what it didn't. They need to move her from the main tent to a vehicle, he said. The only vehicle access right now is the East Fire Road.
The primary road is collapsed. The south approach is flooded. East Fire Road is the only way in or out until County Response clears the primary. So, they move her east, Rachel said. They try to move her east, Rebecca said through a crowd of 193 people.
She paused. Four operators, one target, confined space, witnesses everywhere. She looked at the group. They're not going to do this with force. They're going to do this with a pretext.
What kind of pretext? something that gives them legitimate looking reason to move her out of the main tent without triggering a response from the crowd. She thought for a moment. Medical. They'll manufacture a medical situation that requires her to be moved to the medical tent which is separate from the main structure. Once she's isolated in the medical tent with controlled access, they take her, Derek said.
Or they do whatever they came here to do, Rebecca said. He looked at Doc Riley through the window. I need Doc in this room, he said to Frank. Right now, quietly. Doc came through the door in 40 seconds.
He read the room in five. Tell me, he said. Rebecca told her in 90 seconds, stripped to the essential facts. Doc listened without expression. When Rebecca finished, Doc said, "You think they'll use a fake medical call to pull her? " Yes.
So when the call comes in, I shouldn't go. When the call comes in, Rebecca said, you go exactly as you normally would. You go, you assess, you find nothing acute. You bring her back to the main tent and tell everyone she's fine. Doc looked at him.
And the reason for that is because if you don't respond, they know we know, Rebecca said. If you respond and find nothing wrong, they have to abort the pretext and find another one. Every pretext they abort costs them time. She paused. And time is what we need.
Doc nodded once. I'll go when they call, he said. I'll take my time getting there and my time evaluating. She looked at Rebecca with the expression of a woman who has done field medicine in genuinely dangerous situations and is drawing on that history right now, and I'll bring her back safe. Yes, Rebecca said.
You will. 6:27 in the afternoon. The medical call came in at 6:29. A woman in the main tent, one of the four flagged contractors, the only woman among them registered as a sponsor representative, approached Doc Riley's assistant and said that the woman at the far table, the gay-haired one, had mentioned feeling dizzy and possibly having chest symptoms. Doc's assistant relayed it to Doc.
Doc picked up his kit. He walked to the main tent with the unhurried professionalism of a man who has evaluated hundreds of field medical situations and knows that urgency is calibrated to actual findings, not reported symptoms. He reached Catherine Park. He crouched beside her. He spoke to her quietly, conducted a brief visible assessment, checked her pulse at the wrist, asked her two questions.
Catherine Park answered both questions with complete composure while making brief eye contact with Doc that communicated without any words that she understood exactly what was happening. Doc took 3 minutes on his assessment. He told the people at her table that she was fine, likely dehydration common in stress situations. He'd make sure she had fluids and she should stay seated. He stood.
He moved toward the beverage station. He did not bring her to the medical tent. From her position near the tent entrance, Rebecca watched the woman who had reported the symptoms. She was still. Her face had the controlled flatness of someone managing frustration while maintaining professional appearance.
She pulled out her phone. She typed something. Rebecca looked at the encrypted radio on the table behind her through the operations room window. It did not pulse. She was using a different channel.
6:38 in the afternoon. They have a secondary communication system, Rebecca said to Rachel. The encrypted radio was a relay point. They have direct handheld communication between the team members. We can't monitor that without knowing the frequency, Rachel said.
No, Rebecca said, but we don't need to monitor it. We need to watch what they do next. What they did next took 4 minutes to materialize. Reyes, the man who had been watching Catherine Park since the beginning, moved from his position near the east wall. She walked through the tent with the particular deliberateness of someone who has received updated instructions and is executing them.
She moved toward the tent's east exit, not toward Catherine Park, toward the exit. Rebecca understood immediately. They're repositioning, he said. They're not going to move her from inside. They're going to be waiting when she comes out.