Young Again
Copyright© 2018 by Edward Douglass Patterson
Chapter 24: After Action Reports
Mark started to follow Bee Knight and Tech-neat into the cafeteria line to get food, but Roberta Cuervo met him at the door with a tray.
“Senor Sawyer, Ashley had me prepare a tray for you.” Roberta smiled at one of her new bosses. She had been hired by Ashley to run the cafeteria.
“Thank you, Senora Cuervo.” The smell of the food caused Mark’s stomach to rumble. “I see she told you to make it a large serving. Let us know about any changes in the cafeteria you want to make so that we can expedite them.” His stomach rumbled again. “Right now, I need to go enjoy this meal. Thank you again.”
Roberta laughed and returned to the food preparation area.
Mark made his way to his seat on the stage and took the last seat next to ASAC Gary Belshaw. As he ate, he listened to Marsha Poe filling Gary in on the three groups, which would be working out of the Sawyer-Holdings facility.
“But why do you need the SEALs and the civilians to go after terrorists? They must outnumber your people ten to one. The FBI is responsible for handling terrorists in the United States.” As he said it, Gary realized the answer. “You plan to also work outside of the states, but why the civilians?”
“Mark, do you want to explain?” Marsha leaned forward to look at Mark.
Mark finished chewing before he answered. “I need to eat right now. Go ahead and explain what the girls have done with respect to the terrorists and the spies.” He went back to eating.
Marsha realized she wanted her to explain the girls. Yes, it would be better coming from someone unrelated to them. “Gary, you saw the video of how Ashley and Sarah handled the assassin who was sent to kill them.” She held up her hand when he started to reply. “They have also identified and nullified two spy rings. The Russian one in the spring and a Chinese one just days ago. The Chinese one has been in place for over two decades. The other civilians working with them have been selected by them to help them both now and in the future so they would have time for high school and their other activities. There will be three groups of what they are calling hackers.” She shook her head and said softly. “I need to find a better term for them, though the President hasn’t objected.” She sighed and continued. “I’m in charge of the FBI group, Captain McRae is in charge of the military group, and Ashley and Sarah are in charge of the last group.” She held up her hand again. “They are teaching the three groups what they know and having everyone share any special computer skills or knowledge with each other. In some ways, Sheila and I are only nominally in charge of our hacker groups. The girls selected the people for each of the groups and I suspect they see the girls as their leaders more than us.”
“They’ve spoken to me about the problem.” Mark interrupts. “All I know is they’re working on it.” He went back to eating.
Gary looked at the two girls sitting at the other table at the front of the room. Both were eating, using their computers, and talking to the military officers seated beside them. He had wondered at their inclusion at the front of the room. He continued watching while Marsha described the relationship between their group and various groups in the government. There was something about what they were doing which was unusual. Then Sarah turned and said something to Captain McRae. Then he understood what he was seeing. “They are participating in both conversation, using the computer, and eating.” He realized Captain McRae and Commander Whitner were having a hard time eating because of the conversation with the girls. It wasn’t that they were the only ones talking, but they didn’t have time to think about the conversation and eat.
Mark leaned forward to get a better look at the other table. “Girls, let Sheila and Nat finish eating.” He returned to his meal.
The conversation at the other table died. Captain McRae and Commander Whitner smiled as they put more attention to their meals.
Marsha saw the confused look on Gary’s face. “Yes, they are very proficient multi-taskers. You saw what they did in the fight. They can mesh perfectly together and perform as a single person with two bodies. Better actually.” She saw Gary nod in understanding. “And don’t take Mark on appearance. He’s just like them. He has just had years to learn to hide his abilities.”
Sheila looked over at Mark eating, then turned to survey the room. She judged it was time to start, so she addressed the room. “We’ll start in ten minutes. Grab something to drink, but we’ll take breaks every hour, so you don’t need to stock up.” She grabbed her mug and started to rise, but stopped as she saw Roberta carrying a tray with two pots of coffee and two glasses of soda towards them. She glanced over at Ashley and Sarah, but both were working with their computers.
“MSI engineers, Sergeant McKnight and Staff Sergeant Rudert, will work with the Northrop Grumman people for the next few days on changes in software and hardware for the mini-drones. The sergeants’ help has also been requested during the evaluation of the changes. I’ll accompany a group from MSI to watch the evaluation, but they specifically wanted Sergeant Knight to evaluate the operation of the modified mini-drones.” Mark finished his report on the informal After Action Review, AAR, he had held on the mini-drones’ use.
“Nat, do you want to send someone with the sergeants so you can have more data for integrating mini-drones into your operational planning?” Sheila looked towards the Commander at the far end of her table.
“Yes, ma’am. Lieutenant Douglas, you should make plans for representing us. Spend some time learning about the mini-drones and the hardware and software changes over the next few days.”
“Yes, sir.” Chuck Douglas looked interested in the assignment.
“Mark, what are we looking at for getting some of the mini-drones for our work?”
“Sheila, they aren’t as expensive as a full-size plane, but they’re not cheap to buy or operate.” He saw Ashley on the far side of Captain McRae hold up two fingers and shake her head yes. “Sawyer-Holding will be purchasing two of them, which will be available for our group to use. They will be strictly for surveillance since they would be privately owned. We will also be looking at modifications which would enhance them for use in special circumstances where your and Agent Poe’s people may find them useful. We would be able to lease them to you for evaluation and for your operations.”
“Yes, that might be useful to determine changes we might want in any min-drones we procured.” Sheila was having a hard time keeping a smile off her face. There was laughter from those in the main body of the participants in the AAR. She looked at Agent Belshaw. “I imagine FBI SWAT would be interested in evaluating modifications of these mini-drones. If you have someone you would want to sit in on the discussion on the mini-drones, let Mark know.”
“Yes, I will send someone. If I have time, I may also sit in.”
“Agent Belshaw, thank you and the rest of your SWAT team for participating with us in a joint AAR on the action with the terrorists with the drones. The SWAT team members are welcome to stay if they wish, but feel free to leave. We were glad to have you here today working with us.” Sheila had risen and walked over and offered Gary her hand. After they shook, Gary looked at the other members of the SWAT team. He didn’t see a one of them who looked interested in leaving.
“If any of you want to leave, go ahead. I don’t expect anyone to be in before eleven o’clock, because I’m going to stay and learn more about our friends here.” He looked from face to face of the SWAT team member. Each indicated they were staying. “It looks like they’re all as curious as I am. Of course, another free meal at the next break doesn’t hurt either.”
“No, Roberta’s food will lead me to getting fat if I’m not careful. I think I’ll need to check out how far along Ken is in setting up an exercise area. I sat around for the last few days.” She looked at Marsha sitting next to Gary. “SSAC Poe, let’s go over what happened outside the conference center this morning.”
“Ashley, neither you nor Sarah told Agent Poe, Commander Whitner, or me about your plan to engage the two assassins at the conference center. You knew your plan would cause the terrorist to move up their attack, which could have caught us unprepared.” Captain McRae didn’t specifically mention the girls drawing Chanarong into attacking them. “We need to coordinate so everyone is aware of what’s planned. The terrorist could have attacked while we were trying to get ready.” Sheila was surprised the two girls seemed disturbed by the dressing down.
“We agree we should have informed you or the others of our intentions. If we had told Grandfather, he would have been able to let you know earlier, but telling him had other problems. We were dealing with a traitor in our protection detail, which led us to be unsure of most of the people around us. Confirmation of Chang Kuo passing information didn’t come until after the attack on Romano and Julia. When the assassin had to be stopped by Tom and Bao, it worried us about whether there might be other problems of which we were unaware. We decided to throw everything off balance and see if we detected any other problems.” Ashley smiled. “Happily, we found no one else to be concerned about.” Ashley nodded to Sarah.
“We do have a problem with ourselves. You need experience or training to make correct decisions. Master Overton is planning both advanced and basic training for our people. This will be physical, combat, and operation techniques. This will help, but we will need training beyond what is being planned. We are unsure how to define what we need.” Both Sarah and Ashley looked like two girls asking for help. Sarah shook her head and continued. “The good news is the terrorists went all out in their attacks today. It should take them a while to figure out what happened and make another well-coordinated attack.” She shook her head. “Attacks from one or two people might occur, but they would have to cut all outside contact so they wouldn’t be traced.”
Those sitting in the audience reacted in various ways. The talking was loud, but Sheila was able to restore order in a couple of minutes.
Sarah continued. “What we need is to concentrate on training, both at school and here. We have untrained ability, but as you pointed out, we made a mistake today, which could have allowed the terrorist to catch us before we were ready. We need to work with the rest of our people to become a well-trained team.”
Sheila McRae was surprised at how readily both girls had acknowledged their acting without telling her could have caused a disaster. That they needed training above what they currently were planning for most of their people was now obvious to her. “Let me think about additional training for the two of you. We can discuss it later in the week.” She turned to Marsha. “What is the status on the other two assassins, Chanarong and Sumalee?”
Very late that night, Captain McRae, Agent Poe, and Mark Sawyer were meeting with Sandy Vickers about Chang Kuo, who had supplied information to the terrorists.
“Both Chang Kuo and Bruce Canham were employees of Richardson Security before we joined. We checked on all the employees when Jason and I joined Richardson, but we didn’t do an in-depth screening. We were only using the position as a cover for our assignment.” Sandy grimaced. “We should have done it when we joined you, but ___.” She stopped. “No buts. We were overwhelmed by what was going on. Luckily, Sarah wasn’t as trusting. She told Jason and me about Chang four days ago. They had been managing the information he learned for the last couple of weeks.”
“What does he know?” Sheila saw Mark was smiling.
“He was led to believe the activity near Mark’s cabin was for training. He had no knowledge of the connections we have made with the Russians or the Chinese.” Sandy looked at Mark. “He knows Mark has grown younger, and we are planning to find out why. Most important to the terrorists is that they know we are planning to come after them.”
“Why did they let that information out?” Marsha was upset.
“Why else would we be working with the FBI and the military?” Mark had another concern. “How did we slip up with the group who shot the police?”
“They were a deep undercover cell who was pulled out of Maryland. They were unknown to the rest of them. From what was reported about them by Agent Belshaw, I suspect they are an assassin group. They probably set up to kill Ashley, Sarah, or Mark when they came to the location of the terrorists handling the drones. When the police went to clear the building they were in, they shot them. They probably didn’t realize we are concerned about civilian safety and would clear the area.” Then she realized who the original target of the assassin squad from Maryland was. Her voice became a harsh whisper. “They were planning to assassinate the President.” She got up and started towards the door. “I need to inform the Secret Service.”
“Sarah sent them information after the meeting. Check your phone messages. She also sent you one using your sister’s e-mail address.” Sandy had waited to deliver the information as Sarah had suggested.
Marsha pulled out her phone and checked her e-mail. The first line of the e-mail said, “Let John handle it.” She laughed and forwarded the email to John. She instructed him to immediately look into finding the hotel where the assassin squad had stayed.
She returned to her seat. “John will look for their hotel and see if he can find out more about them.” She looked at Sandy. “What else did the girls want you to tell us?”
“They are serious about needing the training they talked about. The reason they went through this as they did was to impress on everyone the need for more training. They see the need for them needing more training should have others understand the importance of additional training. I agree. Showing they need more training after all they accomplished makes it harder for anyone to say or even think they don’t need training. Last, they want to make it easier for Sheila and Marsha to be seen as the commanders of their groups.
Sheila glanced at Mark. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this is just part of what they told you. I would also bet they had other reasons they are not sharing with us.”
“They want me to step up my role with our group, which I was planning to do anyway. Len has MSI well in hand. I have visited all the MSI facilities and our new facility is coming together.” A sour expression briefly appeared on Marks face. “One of the things we need to do is come up with a name for our group as well as this facility and the site in the mountain we are trying to get into. Any suggestions?” He scanned the other faces and realized he was the only man. When you included Ashley and Sarah, their top leadership was all women except for him.
The three women shook their heads.
“I guess we could ask for suggestions. Some of those should be pretty interesting.”
“It would also help to bring us closer together. I think that is something we gained this weekend. I’ll have Chief Alvarez put something out requesting suggestions for names.” Sheila made another addition to her notes.
“Sandy, I think another thing they were doing is putting you into a higher leadership position. Wayne Sobczak and the other hackers also need someone in charge.”
“What about Romano Aviles?” Marsha asked. “My group was very excited about Caballero Verte and Black Queen joining us. From what I heard, either of them would be acceptable to lead any of the hacker groups.”
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