CHAPTER 03


   The girl had a thick German accent but, Phil could not help but notice the black uniform she had on. That made her a Camelonian and, automatically suspect. She also wore a red cross on her sleeve and, Phil was not even sure what to make of that. He supposed the Camelonians would have medics like anyone else but, the speed of events had not given him time to consider such fine details. The girl, that he guessed to be named Weber, seemed like she was trying to be helpful so, Phil followed her out the big blast doors of building Thirteen. Then he saw where he was going and picked up the pace.
Janet Isaacs was kneeling over the stretcher, looked pretty busy, and had tubes hanging over her shoulders, cutting implements in her hands, and a serious look on her face. She did manage a smile when she looked up and said, “hey Phil. Funny who you run into at inner-dimensional doorways, huh?”
Conner ignored the poor attempt at humor as he went to his knees next to the stretcher and took a good look at Katie Mack. He let out his breath when he discovered that she was just unconscious and not dead. The belly wound she had was a nasty one and Phil, unfortunately, had experience at judging such things.
As Janet got back to work, snapping orders to a couple of Navy corpsmen, she let Phil know, “it’s ok, I knocked her out but…”
The Camelonian had now joined Janet in working on their patient and finished her sentence, “she is not going to make it to the aid station.” After looking at the little box, that Phil could only guess about, Weber told Janet, “her vitals are too weak.”
Janet snapped at the woman in the black uniform, “we can’t operate on her here!”
Weber shot back with, “who the hell are you anyway?”
Janet almost laughed, wiped her hand clean on her sleeve, and then extended it for a shake, “Doctor Janet Isaacs, trauma specialist and surgeon.”
Weber took her hand easy enough, “Doctor Mila Weber, Camelonian Defense Forces.” What did that mean? Janet had no idea but, at the moment, really did not care. She simply nodded as Mila continued, “the Major is going to need you. We have a facility at the base of the hill that should…”
The blast almost knocked Phil off of his feet. When he recovered he noticed that both women had jumped over their patient and shielded her from the expected blast. It was something of a relief to Phil that all they got, from the explosion, turned out to be mostly hot air. The main problem, as he saw it, looking back at the open doors of Building Thirteen, was the orange glow and that roaring sound of fire. What the hell had just happened? Then Phil realized the worst part of it. As he watched the ambulances, fire trucks, and people running towards the building, he realized that he had just been in there! If he had not rushed out here to see Katie, he would probably be dead right now!
Katie! Phil looked back down to her, then back to the building, he was suddenly hit with indecision until Janet told him, “Phil, I got this. Go take care of it.”
It took Mila Weber snapping at him, “you cannot follow us anyway. Go to the Dell. For all we know, the Orc are following that explosion.”
The Camelonian had a good point. Phil had a weapon slung over his shoulder but, never in a million years had he expected to pull that charging handle back. He did so as he ran to the building. When he got there he saw the Dell, the rip in the universe that was the doorway to Feyland. It looked like a giant round sphere of fire, almost like a sun. It suddenly shrunk to a small point of light before vanishing entirely. Most of the heat and light did so right along with it. There were still fires inside the giant cavern but, with the primary source of heat gone, emergency crews got a handle on them quickly enough. It was too late for most of the man made improvements to the cavern though. They had been completely wrecked and Phil had no idea how long it would take to replace them. He was not even sure they needed to be replaced. As of yet the Camelonians had not been so forthcoming about how this operation of theirs worked.
Phil knew what he had to do now. He left the cavern and walked up the runway to find a vehicle that he could use. He ran into a mechanized column of British soldiers first. They had sped onto the runway from one of the side roads and Phil recognized the markings and vehicles. He stopped the column and, thankfully, the man who got out of the armored vehicle was a familiar one. These were not the guys on the UK reaction force here. That was good news, in a way, because it meant they were under NATO and not UN command.
The British Captain, Carter James, looked to be as glad to see Phil as was the reverse. As it turned out, Carter’s luck had not changed much since the Black Rats got deployed here only a few days ago. “Colonel, this whole op is as tits up as it was when they sent us here. Battalion told me to get my ass over here but, nobody bothered to tell me why.”
Given current events, Phil could understand the guys frustration. They had almost just started another world war here and, for a guy who was not a head of state, things might look a bit confused. It made Phil wonder because C.H.I.E.F. was a place that was full of heavily armed soldiers, most of whom, like James, had no idea what was going on. It made things especially dangerous and someone had to get a handle on this and soon. It made Phil realize that his little detail was more important than ever but, first, something else had to be handled.
Phil pointed back towards the building as James flooded him with questions. The American colonel told the British Captain, “I would tell you what’s going on if I knew Captain. We know the Orc attacked the Temple in Feyland. We sent in a reaction force along with a contingent of Camelonian Security.”
That made Carter wince, “who?” The confusion returned and Carter spouted out, “is that what that airborne drop was for? We thought that…”
“Don’t think Captain,” Phil commanded. “First, I need a ride to the American mission. Second, you need to deploy your force around the hill back there, particularly in front of the doors. Anything that comes out of there that doesn’t look halfway human, kill it.”
James nodded in the affirmative, even if he did not quite understand, and then he called back for one of his armored scout vehicles to advance forward. Phil took the ride and was happy to note that, on this night at least, none of the usual roadblocks were particularly thrilled with the idea of challenging a heavily armed vehicle. He made it to the US mission in record time and was downstairs in operations a few minutes after arriving. He borrowed the NSA communications center and put a call in directly to the White House.
Mary Moore picked up on the other end and the first words out of her mouth were, “my daughter better be safe, Phil.”
“She’s fine Mary,” Phil said with a slight hint of agitation in his voice. He then cut her off because he knew what her next words were going to be, “and you can’t blame Bob for all this. He’s stuck on the other side.”
There was a moment of silence that followed and when Mary spoke again there was quite a bit of confusion in her voice, “what the hell does that mean? Look Phil, you’re my guy on the spot right now. We’re getting a lot of contradictory information and…”
“The Dell is gone,” Phil said interrupting her.
“What?” Mary nearly exploded, “how is that even possible?”
“It blew up,” Phil told her point blank. Phil then tried to collect himself and he had enough time because it was obvious that Mary had no idea what to say. Phil tried to fill the void, “I have no idea if that means it’s permanently closed. I have no idea if you can even destroy the thing. What I do know is Building 13 is wrecked. The Orc were definitely hitting the temple on the other side. I saw it first hand.”
Mary felt a shiver run up her spine when she replied, “I’m going to have to wake the President up, you know that right?”
Phil was quite adamant and forceful when he replied, “I would seriously suggest that Mary. Forget what might come through that damn hole. I’m sitting on a big enough bomb right here. We’ve got the biggest multinational force in history, all about to blow each other to hell because nobody is in charge and nobody knows what’s going on.”
“Uh,” Mary huffed before she said, “noted. We’ll take care of that.”
“It better be fast,” Phil was almost angry, “nobody trusts each other. Nobody is in charge and we might just get invaded in the middle our own fight.”
What could Mary say. She snapped, “I’ll call you back. Be ready.” When she disconnected the line she looked to the only other person in the small room. It was the one reserved for private Presidential phone calls in the White House Situation Room, and that was good because it was none other than the President, William Devon, who was with Mary. Currently, his tie was undone and top button loose. His shirt looked wrinkled and his expression was one of pure exhaustion.
Devon grimaced and then said, “so it really is as bad as all the reports say.”
“Not as bad,” Mary said with deep apprehension, “I trust Phil’s assessment more than I do the other sources. You heard him, he saw it. It's worse than what the other yahoos have been saying.”
Devon rubbed his chin and considered the situation. Conner was one of the most bland guys he had ever met. When he told a joke you could hardly tell. He was also the kind of guy that did not mince words and he had a serious eye for details. It was no wonder Bob Isaacs kept the guy around to be his water boy. The man sounded rattled and that alone was enough to impress how serious this situation was. When they made their play to take the Dell, by force, nobody had considered that the Orc would show up and crash the party. It left Devon considering the situation and, that the threat he really feared was still there.
Still, As Bill Devon saw it, there was a silver lining here. He calmly told Mary, “call Rose Atwater and tell her to get her ass up to New York, ASAP.”
Mary winced and thought about it before it hit her, “you want the Security Council to meet?”
Bill shrugged, “can you think of a better play? We know how dangerous those things are, it’s time to impress that upon our alleged allies in this, at least, without tipping our hand.”
Now it was Mary’s turn to consider the facts that she knew. That left her asking the logical question, “maybe we should…”
“What?” Bill came back with. He followed up by pointing out, “we don’t know everything yet Mary. Hell, we don’t even know what we don’t know. Till we do, spreading crap around could hurt us if we start screaming that the sky is falling. I think we’re reasonably sure, at this point, that it’s going to eventually happen, so, sounding an alarm now isn’t going to help. I think we got enough on our plate to scare the hell out of any rational human being.”
Mary noted, “we’re talking about diplomats here.”
“Them too,” Bill replied as he walked to the door.