“Keep an eye on this one,” David told him with a nod toward Mason. “She’s trouble, but she’s precious to a lot of us.”
“Funny,” Dupond said cheerfully. “Commander O’Brien gave me the exact same speech yesterday.”
Mason chuckled and shoved David gently.
“You’re on leave now, David,” she told him. “Get off of my base before you embarrass me more.”
Chapter 4
Michael O’Brien, Commander of ONSET Strike Team Nine and formerly the Brigadier in charge of ONSET’s predecessor, the OSPI High Threat Response Teams, sighed as he finished reviewing the overnight reports.
His team was currently holding down the segment around Colorado, which came with the significant benefit of operating out of the main ONSET Campus, a massive fortified compound in the mountains above Colorado Springs.
The new teams were too small to deploy sub-groups for multiple deployments, which meant no one was getting much in terms of downtime while on deployment. He was grimly certain they were going to burn their people out.
The big bear-like werewolf looked up as his office door opened, then scrambled to his feet as Major Warner stepped into his office.
“Sit down, Michael,” the slim redheaded officer told him as he cringed against the unusual stiffness in his muscles. “And you tell me you’re fit for duty,” she observed, shaking her head.
“Everything still works,” he pointed out gruffly. “It just hurts.”
There were no nonfatal injuries a werewolf or other Class One regenerator couldn’t recover from, but having a silver nitrate solution injected into the bloodstream was one of the worst things that could happen to one of them. After a full month of recovery, the solution was almost out of his bloodstream and he could even change shape at this point.
But everything still hurt and would until the very last of the silver left his system and his body finished healing.
“What do you need, Major?” he asked as he settled carefully back into his chair. “I don’t imagine you swung by for my coffee-making skills.”
“You heard about the President’s decision?” Warner said, then snorted. “Of course you have. Probably before I did, right?”
“I heard…quickly,” he admitted. “I still have friends in Washington.” He shook his head. “It’s a disaster.”
“His term is almost up and he’s kicking the can down the road because he’s never liked dealing with the Committee or any Omicron affairs,” she said bitterly. “Smart man, but we’re outside his worldview and he just doesn’t want to deal.”
“And when we miss an Incursion and demons eat a town or two, what is he going to say then?” Michael asked rhetorically. “Or when our people burn out and we have an unnecessary friendly fire incident? Or they do something so obviously supernatural and so damn public that the frankly incredible ability of the human race to disbelieve gets broken?”
“The Colonel made every one of those arguments and more,” Warner reminded him. “But at the end of the day, he is the President of the United States of America and our ultimate boss. We operate inside the strictures we are given.”
He sighed and nodded.
“So, inside those strictures, what do we do?” he asked. “We can stabilize around fifteen four-person teams in the mainland US, but it’ll hurt our response times and our effectiveness.”
“We have been authorized to step up our recruiting of supernaturals,” she pointed out. “A lot more of our ‘you are not an ordinary human; we need to explain things to you’ detainments are going to get job offers than usual for the next while.”
“And short-term?”
“Short-term, we are left with…diplomatic solutions,” Warner said. “I don’t think anyone likes it, but the Canadians are lending us a Joint Task Force Hercules team to help secure the Pacific Northwest. The area is sparsely populated and close enough that the team can still backstop their Calgary-based team covering their western command zone.”
“That helps,” he allowed. “But…other than the Canadians, there isn’t anyone out there we’d trust in that kind of role.”
“No one outside the United States, no,” his boss agreed.
“Then what kind of diplomatic solution do you…” He trailed off, staring at her.
“The Elfin Conclave has agreed to meet with members of the Committee to discuss deputizing portions of their membership,” Warner told him.
“The Elfin?” he demanded. “On a good day, they’re a Tolkien-obsessed social club—and on a bad day, they’re a criminal syndicate!”
“Yes.” Warner shrugged. “But they’re also the largest non-government supernatural organization in the US, and the vast majority of their members are not criminals. And in the Elfin Warriors, they have a paramilitary force of supernaturals almost a thousand strong.
“Yes, only about a tenth of them would qualify to serve on an ONSET team, but we need that second tier of support and personnel more,” she continued. “If we can convince the Lords of the Conclave to sign on, deputizing the Warriors would solve our short-term personnel issues in days, weeks at most.”
He sighed.
“The Elfin Lords make the Committee look rational and reasonable,” he pointed out. “They each run their own sections of the country their own way. Even if the majority of the Conclave signs on, some will still refuse to help.”
“We can deal with that,” Warner replied. “But we need their help, Michael. For at least a year at this point, maybe more.”
“We’d be deputizing an armed militia.”
“Yes. But what choice do we have?”
He sighed.
“What do you need from me?”
“The Conclave has agreed to place security for the meeting under ONSET authority,” Warner told him.
“You want me to head it up?”
“That was my thought, yes,” she admitted, “but I was overruled. Ardent thinks your history with them would complicate matters. I need your recommendation as to who to put in.”
“The extent of my history is that one now-dead Elfin Lord taught me their martial arts in the eighties, and that Lord Riley still blames me for not preventing the disaster that led to him leaving OSPI,” he pointed out.
“And it was enough that you almost got in a fistfight at a funeral this year,” she replied.
“Fair,” he admitted. “Send White.”
“That was my second choice, yes. What’s your reasoning?” Warner asked.
“While we haven’t officially told them anything, I guarantee you every member of the Conclave knows exactly what happened in Manhattan,” Michael told her. “They know that White went head-to-head with a high-court demon and won.
“Their own mythology idolizes heroes and swordsmen. White, as Ekhmez’s killer and the wielder of Memoria, will tick their boxes nicely. More, he’s still a relative newcomer to Omicron, so they’ll spare him much, though not all, of the baggage they’d dump on a more senior ONSET officer.”
“And he’s new enough that they may think they can lead him in circles?” she pointed out.
“I pity the Elfin Lord who thinks he can pull one over White,” Michael said with a chuckle. “Even he wouldn’t pretend he’s the sharpest knife in the drawer, and he’s straightforward, but anyone who tries to play him is likely to end up cutting themselves.”
Chapter 5
David leaned into the wind as water spray hit him in the face. He’d never surfed before, but he figured it made as much sense as anything else he could do to unwind, with fewer potential complications than other things he’d tried!
A half-second’s prescience and literally superhuman reflexes made the task, if not trivial, certainly achievable for someone who’d never done it before. The wave he was riding crested, spraying water everywhere…and then his view of the future warned him that his wave was about to disappear from beneath him.
Even that warning wasn’t enough for someone who had no clue how to adapt for that. The front of
the surfboard went down, the back of the board went up, and David White went sprawling into the surf with a resounding belly flop.
Sputtering to his feet in the Florida surf, he took a moment to retrieve his surfboard and then headed for shore. He needed a drink to clear the taste of saltwater from his mouth.
The instructor leading the class he’d just finished met him with a water bottle, and David nodded his thanks as he cleaned his mouth out.
“No offense, but I was almost glad to see you take that fall,” the other man told him with a brightly white grin. “You were surfing like you’d been doing it for years. This is really your first time?”
“Like a fish to water,” David replied. “Seems to work.”
Reaching his pile of belongings, supervised by the instructor’s bikini-clad assistant, he sighed as he saw the blinking light on his phone. His phone could blink in several different colors, depending on the message and its origin. The plain white light it was blinking right now meant that someone from ONSET had reached out to him.
Drying his hands, he unlocked the device and studied the message. Sighing again, he began packing his things up. Warner wanted him back on Campus a day early.
“You’ve got the board for the rest of the day, man,” the instructor said from behind him.
“Can’t stay,” David replied. “Duty calls.”
“Duty? What are ya, some kind of soldier?”
“Cop, actually,” David told him.
“Ah,” the surfer said, pausing to study him. “You seem a good one.”
David laughed at the faint praise.
“I try,” he told the other man. “And that message says I need to be in the office to keep trying in about twelve hours. Thanks for the lessons.”
#
Leaving the terminal in Colorado Springs, David was unsurprised to find one of Warner’s black-suited young minions waiting for him. He’d requested a pickup—though that was a task normally taken care of by one of the soldiers from the security detachment guarding the Campus.
The bodyguard tossed his single carry-on into the trunk of a black government car and whisked David away to the Campus.
Instead of delivering him to the mixed apartment building, office, and armory that housed ONSET Thirteen, the driver dropped him at the largest of the three office towers at the center of the Campus.
“The Major is waiting for you,” David was told. “I’ll drop your stuff off at your apartment.”
“Thanks,” he replied before stepping into the building to face the ever-overwhelming security checks at an Omicron facility.
Five minutes later, having been fingerprinted, retinal-printed, and ID-checked, he knocked on Major Traci Warner’s door.
“Get in here, White,” she snapped.
Stepping into the room, he saluted carefully.
“Reporting as ordered, ma’am,” he told her.
“Have a seat,” Warner instructed.
David obeyed, noting that she had the comfortable chairs out today. Warner had two sets of chairs: the ones she used to intimidate newbies and the bigger, softer set she used for real business. Their presence was always at least somewhat reassuring.
“Sorry to pull you back in earlier than I said, but we need to brief you before we drop you in the deep end,” she told him. “How was your Florida trip?”
“Warmer than I’m used to this time of year,” he replied. “I’ve no complaints.”
“Good.” Warner paused. “We’re not going to be putting ONSET Thirteen back into the duty rotation,” she told him. “We’re going to have a different assignment for you and your team for the next two weeks at least.”
That sounded interesting, if potentially troublesome. David leaned forward in his chair attentively.
“You’re aware of our manpower issues,” she stated. “Director Morrison of International Supernatural Affairs believes he’s found a solution that’ll work in the short and medium term, until we can get our own recruiting up to speed for new supernatural personnel.
“How up to date are you on the Elfin?”
“Tolkien-obsessed supernatural org,” David reeled off instantly. “Pretty widespread across the United States, relatively cooperative with Omicron but also willing to sneak around us when they think we aren’t looking.”
“Basically,” she confirmed. “Relevant to our issue today: the Elfin are run by state-level directors known as ‘Elfin Lords’, who meet in Conclave to make major decisions that affect the whole organization. Each of the Lords, in addition to the physical clubs, bars, meeting places, and so forth, and their staff, has at least a small team of trained paramilitary supernaturals known as Warriors.
“While the Lords themselves are Class One supernaturals to a man and woman, their Warriors vary dramatically. Enough are Class One and Two to make attempting to deputize the Warriors worth the effort.”
“Deputizing them, ma’am?” David said slowly.
“The Committee of Thirteen is sending two representatives, Senator Albert Day and Representative Kevin Wright, to negotiate with the Conclave,” Warner explained. “We hope that in exchange for some concessions with regards to the Elfin organization itself, we can bring the Elfin Warriors at least temporarily into the fold as deputies of some kind, with the authority to serve warrants and carry out arrests.
“They won’t replace ONSET teams, but adding a thousand supernatural police to our capabilities in one shot is worth a lot, especially right now.”
“I see,” David allowed. He could also see the risks, but what choice did Omicron have? Without some kind of major boost in trained strength, they were going to start having serious problems. Recruiting a few thousand FBI and NSA people, or just poaching from the larger police departments, could have helped cover the gap—but they’d been barred from that option.
Since they were cleared to recruit supernaturals, deputizing the Elfin Warriors made sense. It was just…risky.
“Where do I come in?” he finally asked.
“Director Morrison has been running the early negotiations,” Warner pointed out, “but he’s a diplomat and arguably has no place in what is inarguably an internal negotiation. So Day and Wright will take over to make the final pitch, and then the Conclave will debate and decide whether they buy in, or if they’ll make a counteroffer.
“One of the things Morrison did stick to, however, was that no US government official is going to a conference on US soil where someone else is responsible for security. ONSET will be in charge of security at the conference center, and I’m dumping the whole thing in your lap.”
David winced, considering the potential minefield there.
“What resources do I have?” he asked.
“Your team and a platoon of the Anti-Paranormals,” Warner replied. The Anti-Paranormal Companies were technically Marines, but they’d operated under ONSET command for so long, they had their own traditions and command structure.
They were also unquestionably soldiers, which made them all but useless for the police role ONSET needed hands for right now. They’d taken heavy losses in the Incident, but less complete ones than the OPSI mundane tactical teams.
“I can work with that,” he said calmly. “I’ll need to coordinate with the Elfin as well, I presume?”
“Indeed. I don’t know who will be running security from their end, but they’ll be contributing personnel as well—but you are in charge. Remember that.”
“Where is the meeting?”
“Conference center in Seattle,” she told him, sliding a folder across the desk. “Floor plans and details are in here. The meeting with the Conclave is in three days, we take control of the facility at eighteen hundred local time on Wednesday. Remember, David—we need this deal. If anything goes wrong, we could be facing down a growing number of demon incidents with fewer and fewer people.
“This conference has to go off without a hitch.”
David took the folder and studied its plain manila exterior for a long moment.<
br />
“All right,” he agreed. “I’ll make it happen.”
#
David was going over the floor plans in his office the next morning when someone knocked for admittance.
“Come in,” he ordered, folding the plans back up. His prescience wasn’t giving him any threat warnings, though no one was scheduled to be meeting with him this morning.
A sandy-haired young man in plain fatigues stepped through the door and crisply saluted.
“First Lieutenant Liam Ward reporting, sir,” he said. “My platoon has been assigned to your command for security operations?”
“Ah, yes,” David confirmed, checking the name against his email. “Come in; have a seat.”
He unfolded the floor plans again.
“Have you been briefed at all?” he asked.
“Only that we’re running security for a conference under your command, sir.”
“All right,” David paused, considering. “Long and short, we’re running security for a summit between members of the Committee of Thirteen and the Elfin Conclave. We’re going to have to coordinate with Elfin security as well, but primary authority and responsibility is with us.
“We want to make certain nothing happens to the politicians, Committee or Elfin alike, and be prepared to handle threats both supernatural and mundane. Any questions?”
“The politics are above my pay grade,” Ward replied cheerfully. “I have three squads—twelve fireteams—at your beck and call. Do we know the lay of the land yet?”
“Here.” David unfolded the floor plans again. “The meeting will take place at a conference center in Seattle. It’s not attached to a hotel, and we have booked the entire facility for security. No one should be entering or leaving the center except for the Conclave meeting.
“We’ve booked for a week, and you and I are holding down security until the Conclave has come to their decision,” he concluded. “Hopefully it won’t take that long, but we need to be prepared to secure the facility for that entire time.”
Ward studied the drawings.
ONSET: My Enemy's Enemy Page 3
