Dangerous Waters

by Radclyffe

  “Colonel Kincaid, is it?”

  Sawyer looked back. “Just Sawyer at the moment.”

  “Anything you care to share?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Catherine rose and walked beside her as Sawyer continued toward her room. “You don’t watch much television, do you?”

  “Not really.” Sawyer paused on her patio by the sliding glass doors. “I’m sorry, I’m a little short on time.”

  “I can see that. That’s why I’m curious.” Catherine dug in the colorful straw satchel she’d slung over her shoulder and held out a card. “Channel 10 News, Miami bureau.”

  Sawyer did not take the card. “Now I’m really short on time.”

  Catherine laughed and tucked the card delicately under the waistband of Sawyer’s shorts. “I can be a good person to know.”

  “I don’t doubt it. But I’m not the person you want to talk to you. We have a media representative, if and when there’s anything to talk about. I’m sure your station will have the number.”

  “I’m sure one of these days we’ll see each other again.”

  “It was nice talking to you, Ms. Winchell.” Sawyer nodded and slid open the door.

  “You never mentioned what branch of the military,” Catherine called after her.

  Sawyer smiled and shut the door, letting the heavy drapes fall closed behind her. Catherine Winchell was as persistent as she was beautiful and, if Sawyer wasn’t mistaken, used to getting what she wanted. The only safe play with a woman like that was no play at all. As she pulled her duffel from the closet, her stomach tightened with an undeniable twinge of regret.

  Landfall minus 6.5 days, 7:45 p.m.

  Ocean Drive, South Beach

  Miami Beach, Florida

  Dara’s cell rang as she let herself into her condo. From the door she could see across the open-floor living space to the balcony and the ocean beyond. She still had enough daylight left for a run if she hurried. She could be on the beach in two minutes once she hit Ocean Drive. Hurriedly she dug out her phone from her backpack and checked the readout. Private number. Her pent-up breath escaped. Not the hospital. “Hello?”

  “Dr. Sims?”

  Dara winced. Celebrated too soon. She vaguely recognized the voice but couldn’t quite place it. “Yes?”

  “Sorry to bother you at home. This is Victor Sanchez.”

  “Of course, how can I help you, Mr. Sanchez.” She’d heard the hospital CEO speak enough times at staff meetings, but she didn’t really spend a lot of time with the administrators. They were budget and protocol people, and she mostly wasn’t. Sure, she had to deal with the financial end of things to keep the ER running, but fortunately, the medical chief of staff bore the brunt of that. As to procedure and protocol, if it didn’t affect patient care, she left that to management to manage.

  “You couldn’t be reached, so the call got handed up to me.” He chuckled. “And I am sending it back to you.”

  Dara glanced at her phone and saw there was a missed call. “Sorry, I was driving. I put my phone on Do Not Disturb when I’m in the car.”

  “Very wise of you. We’ve been alerted there is a statewide hurricane alert. Nothing critical at the moment, but since you’re the head of the hospital’s emergency response team, I thought you’d want to know sooner rather than later.”

  “Of course. I’ll check my mail—I should automatically get an update from the state.”

  “Well, it is the season for these things, and I’m sure it will turn out to be nothing much.”

  Dara rolled her eyes. In her line of work, nothing was nothing to worry about until she was absolutely certain every possibility had been considered.

  “Just be sure to keep me apprised,” he said, already sounding as if he’d dispensed with thinking about the potential problem.

  “I certainly will,” Dara said. “Thanks. I’m sorry you were bothered.”

  “No trouble at all, Doctor. You have a nice night.”

  Dara switched to her mail program. The last message had come in just after she’d left work. An advisory from the state emergency response division alerting all level one trauma centers of an impending weather event. She scanned the details. A hurricane warning, apparently a big enough storm to warrant enhanced readiness, but still a good week away. She quickly typed a memo to the other members of the hospital emergency management team for a morning meeting and sent it out. She could already hear the complaints about a seven a.m. meeting, but that was the only way to get everyone together at such short notice. Maybe by morning, the threat level would’ve been downgraded, and she could cancel the meeting. These kinds of alerts were common this time of year.

  Shedding her clothes as she hurried to the bedroom, she put thoughts of hurricanes aside. If she was lucky, she could still get in a decent run.

  Chapter Five

  Landfall minus 6 days, 5:55 a.m.

  Florida National Guard, Joint Training Center

  Camp Blanding, Florida

  Sawyer rounded the corner to the briefing room just as Rambo approached from the opposite direction.

  “Sorry about the vacation, Bones.” Rambo’s mildly sarcastic tone told her he knew damn well she was happy to be back. Maybe he was being just a little bit critical too. He mostly gave her the space she demanded, even from a friend, but every now and then he slipped in a gibe that maybe she could do with a little more fun and less work.

  She let his needling pass, because when it counted, he’d always been there for her. When her mom died, when her family scattered at last, as if the glue holding them all together had finally hardened to dust along with her, he’d been the one to stand with her at the graveside and watch her sisters and brothers begin to drift away on the wind. He’d been the one to invite her home for a meal, and to his wedding, and to the baptism of his first child. He never pushed, but he was always there.

  “How’s Miko?” Sawyer asked, knowing exactly how to divert the conversation from herself.

  His smile broadened, joy tingeing his creamy tan skin an unexpected and oddly beautiful rose. “Gorgeous as ever. She seems to get prettier every time she’s pregnant.”

  “I don’t think you should mention that around her. It sounds a little—” She waggled her hand.

  “Macho?”

  “That might be one word for it.” She pushed the door to the briefing room open and let him pass by. “Tell her hello from me.”

  “You’re overdue for barbecue.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He didn’t have a chance to bug her further. The rows of chairs facing the big screen at the far end of the long, narrow room were half full, and a dozen troops followed them in and shuffled to seats. She and Rambo settled in the first row, as was customary for the ranking officers.

  She nodded to the wing commanders, who flew aerial surveillance, and her squad, the Pave Hawk helo pilots who flew combat search and rescue when deployed, and when at home, civil SAR, EVAC, and disaster relief.

  “Attention!” a deep male voice commanded from the back of the room and everyone shot to their feet.

  Brigadier General Jim Baker, commander of the Florida National Guard, strode to the front of the room at precisely 0600 accompanied by another officer. Sawyer had served under him for most of her ten years in the active Guard, at home and abroad. In his midfifties, he was still sandy haired and in fighting trim. He had the well-earned rep of being a boots on the ground leader. She respected and trusted him, and when he’d pushed her to go full-time active Guard, she’d found a home she could count on.

  “As you were,” Baker said, and everyone sat.

  The screen behind him lit up with a map of the eastern United States, the Caribbean, and a portion of the Atlantic Ocean. Red circles, stacked like poker chips spread across blue-green felt, trailed across the ocean toward the islands south of the continental US. As the circles closed in on land, streamers spread out like tails on a whip, fanning out into dozens of lines headed toward the islands scat
tered in the Caribbean and the Florida Keys. Some drifted off into the Gulf of Mexico and others turned northeast away from the coast. The majority, however, ended up over land, stretching on a path from New Orleans to North Carolina. Baker fixed a laser pointer on one of the circles in the middle of the ocean marked with a time stamp. “This the last location of Hurricane Leo’s eyewall. It’s too early to tell for sure where he’s headed from here.” The red light danced over the many paths headed for inhabited areas. “Right now, the computer models show these as the likely paths.”

  “That’s helpful,” Rambo muttered.

  “What we can be sure of,” Baker continued, ignoring similar comments from around the room as he focused the pointer on Florida, “is he’s going to hit land with a seriously big punch.”

  Baker handed the pointer to the officer by his side. “Major Kim is with the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squad and has just come back from a data-gathering mission. I’ll let her fill you in on the details.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Kim stepped forward. “The storm front is massive just in terms of sheer size. The biggest formation we’ve ever tracked. Added to that, the water and wind conditions are optimal for an acceleration of wind speed, which we’ve been seeing in the last twelve hours.” She circled the Florida Keys and moved north to the tip of the mainland. “No matter how Leo tracks in the next five to six days, the Keys are likely to get a shellacking. We can expect twelve- to fifteen-foot storm surge in addition to high winds there and, if Leo makes landfall over the state, along the coasts. Because of his size, both coasts will likely be affected.”

  “Thank you, Major,” the general said. “This could be the most devastating storm to hit this region since Andrew.”

  Sawyer’s chest tightened and icy cold slithered through her gut. Anyone who lived in a hurricane region had weathered more than one episode of nature’s fury, but there hadn’t been anything as lethal as Andrew in twenty-five years. Images of torn sheet metal flying through the air like deadly scimitars, trailer homes crushed like soda cans and impaled by uprooted trees honed to lethal spear points, raging rivers of muddy water carrying everything—everyone—in their paths away. Sweat soaked the back of her shirt, and she shivered.

  Baker focused on Sawyer, and the effect was like a jolt of electricity, burning the haze from her brain. She shuddered, shaking off the memories. She’d lived through it, lived through some things just as bad. She’d been a kid then, and she hadn’t been in charge. She would be now.

  If the general noticed her reaction, he didn’t show it. “The governor’s Emergency Management Division has designated Miami Memorial the medical op center. Colonel Kincaid will have overall operational command of SAR and relief preparedness, including coordinating the local emergency medical response and liaising with naval Fleet Command, which is moving a carrier into range.” He looked to Rambo. “Colonel Beauregard will command supply disbursement. Questions?”

  “What’s the chance of a mass civilian evac?” Sawyer asked.

  “The governor is waiting for a clearer indication of the storm’s direction.”

  “Thank you, sir.” After dozens of briefings like this one, Sawyer was adept at reading the unspoken messages from her superiors. Baker was a master at hiding his opinion of civilian authority, but his tone suggested he would have made a decision by now.

  With the Guard fully mobilized, Sawyer could disperse troops into high-risk areas quickly, but she’d seen firsthand how difficult moving civilians en masse could be. Delay could be deadly. She also knew the Guard served at the pleasure of the civilian authorities, and all she could do was her job. Part of that was anticipating the next crisis and averting casualties, and she intended to do that even if she had to side-step a little red tape or bruise a few civilian egos.

  Baker’s adjutant dismissed the room and Sawyer rose with the others. Her second priority after evacuating threatened communities was ensuring medical response was at full capacity. Six days might be plenty of time to gear up emergency relief centers under Guard supervision, but the readiness of the civilian medical center was an open question. A question she’d need answered as quickly as possible.

  Sawyer said to Rambo as they walked out, “Let me know where you’ll be setting up your main supply center.”

  “I’m thinking Orlando,” Rambo said. “You heading south?”

  “Yeah,” Sawyer said. “Miami seems the most reasonable central staging point until we know where we can safely set up relief centers.”

  “I’ll copy you in on supply assessments by end of day.” He hesitated. “You okay?”

  Sawyer frowned. “What? Why?”

  “I don’t know—I thought for a second there you looked spooked.”

  “I’m fine.” Her tone shut him down, and he nodded silently.

  “You planning to run the medical response from Miami Memorial?”

  Sawyer laughed. “I wish I could. I’ll have to let them think they’re in charge.”

  Rambo grinned. “They’ll probably be happy to hand you the ball. And the paperwork.”

  Sawyer only wished it was going to be that simple.

  Landfall minus 6 days, 7:00 a.m.

  Miami Memorial Hospital

  “I think everyone’s here,” Dara said, sitting down at the head of the table with the takeout cup of coffee she’d grabbed from the kiosk down the block from the front entrance on her way in. She needed the extra caffeine this morning. The Cuban espresso she’d picked up in the drive-through coffee place on her way to work hadn’t quite gotten her up to speed. The run she’d managed to squeeze in the night before hadn’t helped de-stress her the way it usually did after a long day, and she’d awakened in the middle of the night thinking about all the things she needed to do thanks to Victor’s call. Waiting until morning to get started had seemed like a good idea the night before, but if she was going to lie awake all night planning, she probably should have contacted some of the key people personally. Fortunately, the NHC weather update hadn’t changed much from what she’d gotten last night. The predictions were still grave, but the situation was still developing and changing hour to hour.

  She double-checked the roster—pharmacy, OR, trauma, ICU, and of course, the other side of the coin, legal and finance. All accounted for. “This shouldn’t take too long. Thank you all for getting here on such short notice and at such an early hour.”

  The trauma chief, Wen Haruke, shrugged. “It’s late for me.”

  Dara was used to Wen’s cavalier attitude, and compared to some of the trauma jocks she worked with, he was on the mild-mannered side and more affable than most. “Not to worry, Wen. We’ll get you upstairs in plenty of time for your eight a.m. start.”

  “Where do things stand with the governor?” asked Gretchen Baylor, the hospital’s lead attorney, before Dara could provide any background. “Are we officially instituting emergency protocols now, or is this just a heads-up?”

  “Yes,” Anthony Elliott from finance, put in. “Let’s not spend money we don’t need to if this is all going to blow over in another day or two.” A few people groaned and Anthony grinned. “No pun intended, of course.”

  “As you’re all aware from the email I sent last night, the latest weather advisory from NHC has upgraded Leo to a Cat 3,” Dara said. “The predictive models put the Keys and possibly parts of southern Florida in the red zone. I think we have to assume we’ll see transfers from hospitals in the storm track as well as acute storm-associated injuries.”

  Anthony winced. “It costs money to bring in extra staff, pay overtime, and hold beds open for emergencies that might never arise.”

  “Not to mention stocking extra blood, drugs, and supplies,” the pharmacy chief added.

  “We’ll have to scale back on our elective surgery schedule too,” Angela Murdoch, the OR supervisor, commented. “That’s going to pi—uh, tick off the surgeons and the patients.”

  Dara stifled a sigh. She understood that no one wanted to disrupt their routine
, least of all her. She’d have to schedule extra physicians, make everyone work twelve-hour shifts, and reduce the work rotations from four days on and three days off to no days off until the situation clarified itself. No one was going to be happy. And no one could do anything about it.

  “The governor made the call,” Dara said, “and the ball is rolling.”

  “Let me talk to the adjutant general,” Gretchen said. “I should be able to get the inside track on this. We”—she glanced at Dara—“might be overreacting.”

  “I’m not sure what good that will do,” Dara said as diplomatically as she could. Gretchen prided herself on her contacts in high places and made no secret of her political aspirations. Some rumors suggested she was going to make a run for the state senate. Good for her, and irrelevant at the moment.

  Gretchen gave her a smile Dara recognized well. She hadn’t gone to the same private girls’ school as Gretchen, but she might as well have. She’d grown up with girls—women now—who had never doubted their ability to manipulate the system and the people in it by virtue of their name, their money, or their family influence.

  “The governor is the one who made the call, Gretch,” Dara repeated.

  “The governor has done the proper thing, erring on the side of caution. We’ve got time to safeguard our own interests.” Gretchen shrugged. “There are many ways to interpret the word prepared.”

  Dara took a slow breath. She wasn’t in the mood for sparring. “Then I think we should clarify the definition. In this situation, prepared means full readiness. We are not waiting until it starts raining to institute the emergency protocols we already have in place. Everyone knows what they are. I’ll be checking in later today with everyone to make sure there are no problems. Or delays.”

  Gretchen’s eyes glittered with irritation, but she was wise enough not to argue in a public forum. She could make all the phone calls she wanted. If Dara received word from the governor through proper channels that the situation had changed, then she would alter her directives.