Gerald, is there anyone at this event who would have reason to want to communicate outside standard channels? Gerald looked at him for a long moment. I don't know who, he said. But I know what I'm looking at. And I know what it means when someone places a covert communications device in a civilian facility.
It means someone was planning to use this location for something other than what it's being used for. Yes. Or someone was planning to use this situation, Rebecca said quietly. A controlled emergency, isolated site, compromised communications, 200 people who can't leave. Gerald was very quiet.
You think this was manufactured? He said, I think some of it was accelerated. Rebecca said the storm was real. The storm was always coming, but the road collapsed, the generator component failure, the marker relocation, the missing flares. She paused.
Someone took a situation that was going to be difficult and made sure it became critical. To what end? Rebecca looked at the radio. I don't know yet, he said. But I know that 200 people on an isolated site in a crisis are a very controllable population.
She picked up the radio and someone wanted to control this population. 3:48 in the afternoon. Derek's third check-in came in 4 minutes late. The delay was 11 seconds over Rebecca's 15-minute standard, and those 11 seconds produced a specific quality of attention in the operations room that outsiders would not have recognized as fear, but was closely related to it. Then the radio crackled.
Operations, this is South team, we have a problem. Rachel looked at Rebecca. Rebecca picked up the radio. Derek, what's your situation? We're at the foot bridge junction.
The north return route is compromised. The secondary creek has overflowed its banks. The 40 m detour you gave me is underwater. We have 21 people and one carry assist and we cannot cross what's in front of us. A pause.
I need options. Rebecca looked at the map. She looked at it for 8 seconds. How deep is the overflow? Mid thigh on Crawford.
She went in to check. It's fast. How wide? 30 ft. Maybe 35.
Rebecca looked at the equipment inventory list. Derek, do you have the emergency rope kit? Yes. Two anchor trees on your side of the crossing. A pause.
Then yes. Cedar both of them. Big enough. Set attention. Traverse.
Both ropes parallel. 8 in spacing. Anchor high on both trees. Chest height for the crossing members. You go first.
Set the far anchor. Come back. Then you bring people across one at a time with the rope as a balance line. A silence. Derek was processing it.
I've never done a tension traverse. She said, "I know, Rebecca said. I'm going to talk you through it. " What followed was 12 minutes of radioguided instruction that Rachel would later describe as the most precise thing she had ever heard. Rebecca's voice, steady and specific, breaking a technical rope technique into sequential physical actions, clear enough that a woman standing in the rain in deteriorating conditions with 21 people counting on her could execute it correctly. The first time, Derek asked three questions.
Rebecca answered all three before Derek finished asking them. At the end of 12 minutes, Derek said, "Traverse is set. I'm going across to anchor the far side. " "Go," Rebecca said. 2 minutes later, far anchor is set. Coming back.
Good. Start your crossing. Smallest person first. That's Morris. Then start with Morris.
4:16 in the afternoon. 21 people across a flooded 30-foot crossing in deteriorating weather conditions. It took 23 minutes. Every one of them made it. When Derek's radio check-in came at 4:19, all 21 personnel across mobile continuing return.
The operations room exhaled collectively with the particular release of people who have been holding something very carefully for a long time. Rachel put her radio down for 4 seconds. Just 4 seconds. Then she picked it back up. But in those four seconds, her face showed everything she had been managing since 217.
Rebecca watched her do it. She did not give her space for it because the situation did not permit space, but she noted it and filed it under the category of things she would address when there was time, which would be later, and she would make sure later arrived. 4:29 in the afternoon. The encrypted radio on the table activated. Not loudly.