Chapter 2 - The Logistics of the First Command
The response from the Bangor communication post did not carry the conversational pleasantries of a residential telephone exchange. It was managed by Sergeant Major Harrison, a fifty-five-year-old logistical clerk who had spent twenty-two winters managing the movement of heavy tracked vehicles through the winter mud of the northern command zones.
"Vance Station," the voice said, the signal carrying the faint, dry crackle of an encrypted satellite link.
"Harrison," I said, keeping my breath shallow to prevent the incision stitches from shifting against my skin. "This is Audrey. I am located in the neonatal intensive care unit at St. Matthew Medical Center. Room four-B, north pavilion. The infants are at twenty-nine weeks' displacement. I require a tactical security detail and a full asset quarantine under the third emergency allocation."
A three-second delay occurred while the encryption keys synchronized across the regional array.
"The General has been on the line since the noon weather report, Miss Audrey," Harrison replied, his voice dropping into a flat, level cadence that lacked any corporate jargon. "The transport wagon—the armored Chevy Suburban from the regional pool—is already clearing the interstate ramp at mile marker fourteen. We have two rotary assets from the National Guard detachment at Bangor clearing their flight plans now. The perimeter will be established before the shift change."
The line terminated with a sharp, clean click.
Daniel Hayes had reached the glass door of the NICU before he stopped. He turned his head back toward my chair, his smirk remaining fixed as he looked at the grey plastic casing of the satellite phone in my hand.
"Calling the municipal legal aid desk, Audrey?" he said, his leather-shod heel making a dry scratch against the anti-static linoleum floor. "The city offices don't process emergency custody reviews on Tuesdays. And if you think the municipal police are going to challenge a corporate lease exclusion signed by the senior executive of the Hayes Syndicate, you haven't reviewed the regional campaign contribution logs for the current fiscal year."
"The municipal police are not on the dispatch log for this afternoon, Daniel," I said, my voice maintaining the low, steady register I used when I was calibration checking the tension lines on my industrial looms. "I directed my grandfather to clear the lane under the military authority code. The regional command structure doesn't look at the city contribution logs when a tactical assets protection order is activated."
Rachel Morgan let out a short, high-pitched laugh that caused the nurse near the medicine cart to raise her head.
"A retired general?" Rachel said, her hand dropping from my coat to touch the gold buckle of her Italian handbag. "Daniel, your father has three former governors on the board of the maritime bank. A pensioned officer with a collection of old service medals isn't going to clear a civil property line in this district. Let’s get the car from the valet; the smell of the disinfectant in here is settling into the cashmere."
Outside the double glass doors of the north pavilion, the sound of the afternoon traffic on Route 1A was suddenly superseded by a low-frequency, rhythmic thumping that vibrated through the structural concrete pillars of the hospital building. It was the sound of twin-engine Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters moving south along the Penobscot river channel at an altitude of less than four hundred feet, their rotor blades cutting the cold, heavy air with an acoustic weight that caused the water cups on the nursing station desk to ripple in concentric circles.
The floorboards of the NICU shook by three millimeters as the first aircraft entered its hover cycle over the hospital’s roof-top helipad.
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Daniel’s hand dropped from the iron latch of the door. He looked through the narrow observation window toward the main elevator bank, where the red indicator light for the express shaft had stopped flashing and turned a solid, high-intensity amber.
The doors of the elevator shaft rolled back with a heavy, mechanical thud.
