The primary system was down due to the lightning strike. The emergency lighting was battery-backed and would run for approximately 6 hours which was adequate, but there were medical equipment needs. Doc's monitoring devices for Anderson primarily that required stable power. There was a third option. The site had a small solar plus battery installation that had been added 2 years earlier as a supplemental power source for the communications equipment.
It was not on the emergency power plan because it had been installed after the emergency documentation was last updated. Rebecca knew about it because she had done the safety compliance check on it 8 months ago. It had a maximum output of 3 kW, enough for communications, medical monitoring, and critical lighting. She walked out the door into the rain. She found the solar installation controller in the communications utility structure, bypassed the automated switching that had been disabled by the main power failure, and brought the battery bank online manually.
It took him 11 minutes. When he came back through the operations room door, his jacket was soaked through. Rachel looked at him. "Power," she said. "Partial enough for what we need. " "How did you? " It was in the compliance documentation from last spring.
It wasn't on the emergency plan. He moved back to the map. It is now 3:16 in the afternoon. Derek's second check-in. Operation South team.
We are mobile and returning. Nine personnel plus R12. One carry assist in progress. Morris is being carried by two volunteers. He's stable.
Current pace is slower than projected estimate. We're looking at 110 to 120 minutes to return, not 90. Terrain is significantly worse than the outbound trip. Rachel relayed the update to Rebecca. She looked at the map at Derek's projected position at the weather timeline.
Tell him to hold current pace. Don't push it. Slow and steady through the wet terrain is better than a fall. Confirmed. Anything else for him?
Rebecca looked at the map for a moment. Tell him he's doing exactly right. Rachel transmitted it. Derek's acknowledgement came back with the particular quality of a man who has received a piece of information he didn't know he needed until it arrived. 3:22 in the afternoon.
The twist came from a direction nobody had anticipated. Frank Dri came through the operations door with an expression that Rebecca had not seen on him in 2 years of working alongside him. not alarmed, not panicked, but the particular expression of a man who has just processed something and needs to deliver it carefully. We have a situation with the east equipment cash, Frank said. Rebecca looked at her. The cash that was tampered with, Frank said.
The one with the evidence of forced entry. What about it? I went to verify the emergency signaling equipment for the inventory. The cash has been opened again. A pause.
The emergency signaling flares are gone. All of them. And the cash contains something that wasn't there before. She held up a waterproof equipment bag. Rebecca crossed to her and took it.
She opened it. Inside was a handheld radio, not a standard competition radio, not an Iron Ridge unit, but a military specification encrypted communications device of the type. Rebecca recognized immediately and did not expect to see on a civilian emergency response competition site. She turned it over in her hands. She looked at the frequency settings.
He looked at Frank. "Where did this come from? " Frank said. Rebecca was quiet for a moment. She thought about the unauthorized access, the moved markers, the generator component that had been replaced with an identical incorrect part, the access road collapse that had blocked the primary egress. Each of those things individually had an innocent explanation.
Taken together with this radio in his hands, they told a different story. Someone had been on this site before this event with a specific purpose. The flares being removed was not theft flares were not valuable. The flares being removed meant someone did not want those flares available during this specific event. And the radio being placed meant someone wanted a specific communications capability present that was not part of the official event infrastructure.
Rebecca's training had given her a particular skill for pattern recognition in ambiguous situations. The pattern here was not ambiguous. Someone had intended for this event to become an emergency. The question was why lock this room, Rebecca said to Frank. Nobody comes in or out except our core team.
Don't tell anyone what you found yet. Frank nodded and moved to the door. Rebecca picked up her radio. Rachel, he said quietly. I need Gerald Hutchkins in this room right now.
A pause. Rebecca Gerald is in the medical tent helping Doc with Right now, Rachel. She heard the quality of her voice. Copy, she said. Gerald Hutchkins came through the door 4 minutes later, moving faster than his hip usually allowed.
She looked at Rebecca, then at the radio on the table. Her face did the same thing it had done in the front row of the exhibition, the thing where the color changed. You recognize that, Rebecca said. Gerald sat down heavily in the nearest chair. That's a Taccom 7, he said.
Encrypted tactical communications device, standard issue for certain joint special operations elements. She looked at Rebecca, the type that gets fielded when a team is operating in a location where they don't want their communications tracked by standard military monitoring. What kind of team uses that in a civilian location? The kind that's not supposed to be in a civilian location, Gerald said. Rebecca stood very still.