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.
She looked at the clock. They're forcing a situation that requires her to leave the tent voluntarily. How? Derek said. And then the lights in the main tent went out.
Not the emergency lighting that stayed on the battery-backed strips along the floor, providing enough visibility to navigate safely. But the propane heating units, which were on the same partial power circuit that Rebecca had restored through the solar installation, went off simultaneously. The temperature in the tent began dropping immediately and the announcement came from the east entrance, one of the flagged contractors, calm and professional sounding. The voice of someone who knows how to sound authoritative in an emergency. We have a heating situation in the main tent.
We're routing everyone to the operations building and the secondary structure for the next 20 minutes while we address the fuel supply. Please move in an orderly fashion toward the east exit. 193 people, most of them beginning to stand, moving toward the east exit where Reyes was waiting. 6:44 in the afternoon. Derek said he's going to take her in the crowd.
Yes, Rebecca said in front of 190 people, crowd cover, darkness outside, controlled movement to a waiting vehicle. A pause. It's not a bad plan. What do we do? Rebecca was already moving.