Chapter Twenty
Rylee
Saturday
Rylee was lying awake in bed, trying not shift around restlessly because she didn’t want to wake Dakota. It felt wonderful that he had scooped around her in his sleep. And the arm that rested over her, with his hand gently on her shoulder, felt protective.
But her phone buzzed on the nightstand, and it was Hailey’s ringtone.
“Hailey, hi,” Rylee whispered.
“Sorry if I’m waking you. There was an Earthquake in the southeastern Anatolia region of Turkey fifteen minutes ago.
It was a 7.6 at the epicenter with a severe regional impact.
Iniquus has a contract with a university whose students were conducting a spring break archaeological dig outside ?ncüpinar, a town of about a thousand.
If you’re looking at a map, the nearest city is Kilis. ”
“Okay, I’m pulling that up and looking,” Rylee said as she put the search in the bar, doing her best to spell what had sounded like “Oncu-pinar.” She spelled took a jab at spelling it. “On the Syrian border?”
“That’s it. When our computer picked up on the quake, the students were setting off their SOS buttons on the Iniquus app. They’re buried in the rubble at their hotel.”
“Okay, what do you need from WorldCares?” Rylee put her feet on the ground. Dakota was fully awake, listening attentively.
“I’m calling to offer you a ride. Are you spooling up a team?”
“I haven’t gotten a call from Logistics yet,” Rylee said.
Dakota got out of bed and pointed to the bathroom, lifting his brow to ask if she wanted to go first. Rylee waved him in.
“This is what we have,” Hailey said. “Cerberus Team Bravo is gearing up with the K9s to find our people and do an extraction. We have access to a jet through McKayla Pickard Gideon, Cerberus Bravo operator Ash Gideon’s wife.
She uses it for humanitarian runs around the world.
It can hold our team and yours, plus equipment if you’re sending out a single fast-response team. ”
“I’ll take you up on that. Even if we’re sending out more teams, their transit will be slower. Better to get our people mobilized.”
“We’re requesting that you send an extraction with crush injury team.”
“That would be Quebec for crush stabilization. But we don’t have a surgeon who goes with that team. You know this. It’s just getting them out, stabilizing, and handing them off. Will you have medical?”
“We don’t have those capabilities. This all happened minutes ago.
We reached one person in the group by phone.
They said their hotel was one of the more modern buildings in the area.
Most people live in concrete houses that aren’t up to modern earthquake standards.
I’m working the lines to see regionally what we can do for emergency medical care.
But given their architecture, we have to assume the hospitals will be swamped.
There is a U.S. military base to the north. ”
“So how close can the jet get us to this town?” Rylee asked. “Do you know anything about road damage?”
“We’ll be working with the Turkish government along the usual channels to allow us to land and operate outside of the normal procedures.
I’m calling you before I speak to them so I can share a roster of potential rescuers we’re bringing in.
My goal is to get us landed right outside of town, so we have limited need for the roads.
We don’t have satellite images available yet, but I’d imagine landslides are cutting off roadways. ”
“Does this region meet our stability criteria?” Rylee asked measuring the kilometers to the border.
“I can send you the intelligence we have on the region to the east. We have this flagged orange for increased risk of cross-border interaction.”
“This is exactly why we work with the CIA. I’ll call Casey Andrews. Could you put him on the plane roster?”
“Absolutely. The more we know, the safer we are, especially in this area.’
“What about getting supplies in?” Rylee asked. “Do you know about trains to bring in our refugee housing?”
“There’s a train that passes right through the village.
Beyond that, I don’t know. The scope of Iniquus’s mission is to account for everyone on our list and, in whatever state they’re in, we transport them to an American hospital somewhere in Europe.
After we accomplish that goal, we’ll reassess to see where our K9s will be most helpful. ”
“I tried to pull up news on the impact, and there’s nothing yet,” Rylee said. “What time are you flying out?”
“McKayla’s plane is on the West Coast,” Hailey said.
“When I looked at public airlines, once we get to Turkey and take ground transportation, flying directly into a municipal airport a half mile from the village cuts the travel time at least in half, even with waiting for her jet to arrive. The pilot says they can take off within the hour. Here it will be refueled. There are no seats, which works for us. Think of it as a high-end military cargo flight. You can stretch out in a bag and get some sleep. There will be a refuel in Amsterdam to make sure the plane doesn’t require servicing in Turkey.
But yeah, before we offered the space to any other service, I wanted to reach out to you. ”
“I really appreciate this, Hailey. Let me get down to WorldCares and spin up the logistics machine. We’ll talk to Turkey and see which area medical teams might be available. Give me the numbers you have. How many protectees do you have? How many in the village?”
“We have twenty-one. The most precise village population I have is from two years ago, and there were thirteen hundred.”
Rylee’s doorbell rang. Dakota was in the shower. Rylee pulled on Dakota’s T-shirt and her sweatpants, and she went to see who it was, saying, “Okay, you know how this works. Let me get the government to send us a request, so we can show up and do our work. How many teams do you think?”
“I’d send Oscar and Quebec to start. Quebec on the plane, though, please,” Hailey said.
It was Neesa at the door. “Oscar just came in from Colombia. They’re on R&R.”
“Okay, Mike then?” Hailey asked.
Rylee pulled the door open. “Agreed. Neesa’s here. Let me bring her up to speed, and we’ll stay in touch. I do need the cargo capacity ASAP, please.” And Rylee ended the call.
“Nice T-shirt,” Neesa said with a wink.
“Isn’t it?”
“Have fun last night?”
“Neesa, why are you here?”
“Mandy and I were going to Dos Chicas for breakfast when we got a call from Logistics. They need to spin up fast-response teams for a major seismic event in Turkey.”
“I was just on the phone with Hailey. They’re deploying Cerberus Bravo. I have first steps. Wait, you weren’t going to ask me to brunch? It’s literally two blocks away.”
“When Mandy drove by, I saw Dakota’s car, so I figured if I knocked on the door, you’d be busy.” Neesa elbowed her. “Or gettin’ busy. I wasn’t going to interrupt.”
“You know Dakota’s car?” Rylee looked up and down the street.
“I saw you drive off on the Day of the Dead, Potomac version.
“Okay. Where’s Mandy?”
“Parking and coming here. She has her work computer—here she is.” Neesa lifted her hand and waved. “Mandy! We’re here. Let’s go, girl. This is supposed to be a fast response team.”
As Mandy jogged up, Dakota came out of her bedroom dressed and shaven, Tank by his side.
Rylee walked over to him. “Sorry for the early morning chaos.” She rubbed a finger down his jawline.
“I saw a package of razors in your medicine cabinet last night. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Help yourself.”
“You’re spooling up?” he asked.
“Earthquake along the Turkish-Syrian border,” Neesa called out. “Good morning. This is Mandy.”
“Has everyone eaten?” Dakota asked as the women walked into the living room.
“No one,” Rylee said, heading toward her kitchen. “Is there any leftover pizza?”
“There is. But why don’t I dig around and get something on the table for you?” Dakota asked.
“Yes, please,” Neesa said. “Prioritize the coffee, though. Thank you, Dakota.”
“I’ll get that done, then I’ll take off.” Dakota picked up the coffee pot and held it under the filtered waterspout on her fridge. “Once I have you all fed, I need to run Tank before he gets the zoomies.”
Rylee came up on her toes and kissed him. “I appreciate everything.”
Neesa and Mandy were already setting up their computers at Rylee’s table.
Over eggs and toast with roasted vegetables and coffee, Rylee left a message for Casey Andrews, letting him know he had a spot on the forward team and to please call her as soon as he got the message.
“Azaz is minutes away on paper. It’s quite a bit farther to get to a regulated border crossing,” Mandy said.
“How is the stability in Azaz right now?” Neesa asked.
“Volatile. The intelligence report says various armed actors are posing political and security risks. They use words like fragile.”
“That’s never good,” Neesa said, nibbling on her toast.
Dakota leaned over Rylee, dropping a kiss on her lips. “I’ll text a check-in later. I don’t expect an answer, I know things are about to get busy.” He turned to the others. “Good luck, ladies.” And off he went with not a single “Look at me! Look at me! moment.”
Neesa noticed it, too. “What? No ‘I’m the god of scrambled eggs’ remark?”
“Concentrate,” Rylee said.
“As far as I’m concerned, he is the god scrambled eggs.
Delicious.” Mandy took a bite, then put down her fork.
“Okay. Active conflict zone. Three major players are fighting it out. Economic strain. Currency instability.” Mandy paused.
“I don’t see anything in the reports indicating that it’s spilling over the border into Turkey. ”
“Are you going, Rylee?” Neesa asked.
“Yes. As we planned.”
“You have a go bag?” Mandy asked.
“They outfitted me the other day, I’m set.”