"Such A Time As This"

[mongoose]

A short story I wrote, not quite spurr of the moment, just now.

Esther sat hunched over the laptop in the nearly empty room on the opposite side of the block and across the street from the bank, currently being held by multiple gun men. She couldn't operate from the room in which she'd placed the scope, several feet back from the open window across from the bank, or she might get in the way of the SWAT snipers who just had to sit in the neighboring room.

Sit. That was all they would do. It was all anyone could do, for a while anyway. The lead gunman and hostage taker had presented them with a unique problem. Hostages placed near each of the doors into the bank, wrapped in explosives and shrapnel -- human claymore mines -- set to be detonated remotely by a reverse wired trigger held by the lead gunman. If he let go of the trigger the hostages went boom. All of them, or one at a time at intervals, or just one? He hadn't announced that much.

The hostage negotiator did his piece, but the lead hostage taker wasn't showing signs of weakness. Nor was he getting angry or impatient as might have been expected. He was way to calm to be expected to make a mistake, and no one really wanted a mistake here anyway. They were stuck.

Esther was only stuck so long as it took for her people to get her the information she needed and move into place. She noticed with satisfaction 15 minutes into the crisis that a small window appeared in the corner of her laptop screen. A small movement and the chat window maximized with a link to a file newly downloaded. The blueprints to the bank and the three buildings surrounding it. One of those buildings had a window across a side street from the bank itself, and a doorway outside the police perimeter.

"Newsies in place" she heard in her custom ear piece. It was like a hearing aid in size, shape and color, and her just long enough hair covered it and kept it from view. A moment later, "Transport ready and waiting." She packed her few things and headed down the stairs to the suburban with its tinted windows.

The back seats had been removed to make room for Esther to prepare for operations. She rarely used all the equipment that others did when on surveillance, so she had plenty of room to change. The outfit she changed into, in this case, was dictated by the nature of her approach rather than by a need to assume any given role or persona. She did under-cover work on occasion, but that wouldn't help her this time. Her grey, digital camouflage micro-fleece and lycra one piece jumpsuit was comfortable, low profile, stretchy, and would make minimal sound against itself or any objects she touched. Even her shoes were closer to custom fitted slippers with sticky rubber soles. Something between rock climbing shoes and moccasins incorporated into the legs of her jumpsuit.

The police didn't even notice the truck pull behind their lines into the street on the far side of the building next to the bank, or Esther dropping out the back while it continued rolling past. A borrowed ID card gave her access to the employee area of the building. No one seemed to notice her as she made her way through the halls and to the fourth floor, ubiquitous blue maintenance coveralls over her jumpsuit. She mentally thanked her mom for teaching her how to use make up to obscure rather than bring out her natural bi-ethnic beauty, and her father for teaching her so many different walks. It hardly took a thought to assume the hunched shoulder, shuffling walk expected of menial laborers.

She waited till she reached the window looking into the bank and barricaded the door to the room behind her before stripping the blues. Those went into the garbage, most likely free of prints or fibers. Even if there were some found in it, chances would be no one would try very hard to track her down, and if they did they'd run into too many well disguised dead ends to keep after her. But there was no use in pondering such things at such a time as this. "All clear?" she muttered.

"Affirm" came the response from her people in the Suburban. No one was watching this window, or even this side of the bank.

"Newsies, on my mark."
"Ready."

She pulled a climbing anchor from her pack, already assembled and ready to put into place, followed by a stud finder. In a moment she identified the studs in the wall across from the window.
"Newsies, Mark."

On the street approaching the front door to the bank, a news van careened up to the police barricades, skidded to a halt, and dumped its cargo of nosy reporters and camera men. They rushed through an opening between officers, and straight toward the front of the bank, drawing the attention and ire of the hostages, hostage takers, cops, and competing reporters who were just then arriving on the scene.

Esther fired the nails into the studs, that would secure the anchor from which her life would depend. The sound was lost in the chaos ensuing below as a scuffle broke out between a camera man and a cop. It was an expensive camera, and he wasn't going to let anyone else handle it, authority or no!

She ran the rope through the anchor, opened the window and stepped out onto the narrow ledge. It was just wide enough for most of her foot. She looked down for a moment, enjoying the rush of adrenalin that resulted from the possibility of a fall, before focusing on the task at hand. The running end of the rope was tied into a slip knot, which she tossed across the street to a solid piece of architecture on the bank. It caught, and she pulled it tight, stepped back into the room and adjusted the standing end through the anchor to bring it as tight as was reasonable.

Back on the ledge, she attached a webbing strap from her harness to the "tight" rope by a locking caribener, and stepped up onto the rope. A moment to breath, focus, and she pulled her hand away from the building from which she traveled, and stepped forward along the rope, out over the street. Ten steps across. She knew she would make it. She'd done this a few dozen times, blindfolded. Wind could be a problem, but one just had to be quick and sure to adjust for it. Then she was across. Another breath, and she pulled the device from her pack that would let her into the bank.

Esther attached the device to the window, one piece in the center, the other near the outside edge, and began to cut the glass in a circle just large enough for her slight body to slip through. The procedure was nothing new. It had been used in so many heist movies she was sometimes surprised it still worked. Soon she was inside.

She knew from memory where to go and how far. She hardly needed to count her steps, and she was directly over the space the lead hostage taker had occupied, give or take, for the last half hour prior to the beginning of her movement. Her crew hadn't said anything about a change, which meant the police had observed none, which meant he was probably still right where he was supposed to be.

She found another wall with studs, and proceeded much as she had in the other building.

"Wrench?"
"Ready"
"Go."

One of the cop cars in front of the bank suddenly rolled into another before its sirens began to wail. A young man with scraggly hair rolled under one vehicle and then another before rising and stepping into the suburban, which rolled quietly away. As the cops turned to look for a target, the news crew slipped away. Esther placed the anchor, the sound lost in the sirens and shouting.

The hostage takers were beginning to get nervous. It wasn't good, but it couldn't be helped. She couldn't have them know she was coming. Esther pulled the nearest fire alarm. Of course no one would leave the building, but all she needed was the noise to mask the sound of her knocking a hole in the floor.

One hand held the running end of her rope in the break position. The other held her silenced pistol. She leaned down through the hole, head first, and glanced around for a moment before loosening her grip on the running line and beginning to drop. The movement was almost silent, and no one looked up until it was too late. Half way down she began to fire, each shot placing a quick acting tranquilizer dart in the neck of her victim. Before they realized they were under attack, or hit the floor, she rotated feet downward, released her grip on the rope and fell the last six feet. Even as she fell, she reached out with her now free hand, and grabbed the hand of the hostage taker.

The hand closing over his was the hostage taker's first clue a hostile was in the room with him. His next clue was the sharp pain that lanced up and down his spine, overloading his nervous system and dropping him to the floor, the camo clad woman with a knee placed in his lower back her pistol to the back of his head, and his trigger tightly in her other hand.

Still holding the trigger and kneeling on the lead hostage taker's back, Esther set the gun down and pulled a gas mask from her pack. She put it on, and then pulled a sleeping gas grenade from her pack, which she activated and tossed into the midst of the group of hostages and hostage takers. The police could sort them out later.

She retrieved the gun and, still holding the trigger and wearing the gas mask, walked out the front doors of the bank, holding up the device for all to see. Police surrounded her, weapons aimed and ready. She stopped, and just stood there.

Momentarily the suburban pulled up to one of the police barricades. She waved it forward. It took a moment, a few gestures with the trigger, but the police let the Suburban through. Esther stepped up onto its running board, and extended the trigger toward the nearest SWAT Officer. He took it, carefully, as superiors shouted or whispered orders and most of the officers stood back with weapons ready, but daring not to take any action. Then the officer has the trigger in his hand, Esther disappeared into the truck, and it was rolling away again. Officers broke from their stunned immobility to intercept it, but it was too late. When they rolled to give chase they soon found the truck, pulled into a parking garage and empty, both of people and evidence.

The officers remaining at the bank cleaned things up, with the help of the bomb squad, and arrested all of the perpetrators. There were no casualties, and the hostage situation had lasted only two hours. Esther and her team were not found, but re-convened in one of several cabins on the edge of the wildlife preserve just outside town. Another mission was a full success, and no one but the participants had a clue who had done it. They celebrated with root bear floats, pizza, and a little positive, encouraging music, as was their custom. Within hours they would go back to their relatively ordinary lives, waiting for the next situation that would justify action from the men and women who might be called upon for just such a time as this.

[mongoose]

I can't get away from this character. Here's another story about Esther.

---------------------
Esther sat, slouched in the overstuffed arm chair, hand loosely wrapped around her root-beer float glass, and stared absently at the 30 inch computer screen that replayed shots from the “bank job.” They’d already given it a name. She found she didn’t really care. Nothing deep in that, she knew; it was just the adrenalin and excitement draining away. What did you do after you reached a mountain top, and recovered from the immediate pain and fatigue of the climb?

You either rested, fell into depression with nothing more to do, ran down the mountain at break-neck speeds, or found another mountain to climb, right? She used the wireless mouse to bring up a television window filling most of the computer screen. The recorded footage from the bank job shrank down into a corner to make room, to the accompanying protests of her companions. She ignored them and watched the news.

After ten minutes, and three stations, she closed the window, a little frustrated. Nothing good was happening. Or bad, depending no how you looked at it. She took a long slurp of the root-beer float, and stared absently at the footage. The scope across the street from the bank had caught the tail end of her take down of the lead perp. Perfectly timed. The corner of her mouth crooked up slightly as her comrades praised her movement. How had she managed to learn to do that? Falling, grabbing a moving object, and precisely hitting a tiny target with the butt of her pistol all at the same time. Each person in the room was an expert in something, but none of them could come close to that kind of coordination or quick reflexes.

“How do you do that?” said Wrench. Esther just shrugged a little.
“You some kind of ninja? Spend time in east asia you never told us about?” She shook her head, tossed her nearly empty float glass from the one hand, over her head, and caught it without looking in her other hand. “Guess dad taught me. ‘The best fighter isn’t the strongest or the most skilled, but the fastest and most coordinated.’” She quoted.

“Aha! I know.” Speeder this time, they’re designated driver and coordinator of transportation. “Like in that movie, what was it, where the guy learns sword fighting in prison, and then escapes, and joins those pirates? He was on some kind of revenge kick.”
“It’s ‘The Count of Monte Christo, you bafoon.” Susan said. She was their liaison to anyone else who might want their services; the public face of the organization, and the only non-operator outside Esther’s parents and trainers who knew of their activities. In her position it paid to know trivia and be able to toss it out at a moment’s notice.

Speeder pretended to swoon for a moment. “Oooh, so the beauty knows the beast exists. Hope remains after all.”

“Shut up before I turn you in. How many crimes did you commit today?”

“What, like you’re innocent? Thou shalt not lie comes to mind.”

Esther tuned out the friendly bantering. Everyone had to release the tension in their own way. Finally she got sick of sitting and sucking on the last vestiges of the root bear float, and rose, heading toward the arctic entry way where she kept the things she used most often. The others stopped to watch her momentarily, but when she made no sign, they went back to their chatting and watching of the footage. Two years ago someone would have tried to go after her, back her up, watch over her. But not anymore. They knew better than to try to protect their leader.

Ignoring any protocols that might have existed as a result of there being other men and women in the building,Esther stripped to her under clothes and donned a pair of re-rocked jogging pants and a somewhat form fitting micro-fleece pullover. She wore trail running shoes, a fleece earband, and liner gloves, and strapped a fanny pack over it all carrying the essentials. With the addition of stylish okley shades, she headed out the door at a fast walk.

Soon the young woman, built like a gymnast, was jogging down the trail outside her cabin at a good clip. She wasn’t paying attention to how far or fast she went, but would probably put in five miles in a loop she could follow, at speed and blindfolded.

She was just getting warmed up to it; found her stride, when it happened. Something always seemed to happen. But wait, 15 minutes ago she was bored stiff, only a couple hours after the completion of an operation. What did that make her? An adrenaline junky, or something? A woman cried out in protest, and then her cries grew more desperate; sounds of pain now more than anger; interspersed with the sound of flesh striking flesh.

For a moment as Esther slowed, a number of approaches flashed through her mind, each quickly dis-regarded. She had nothing with which to cover her face, so anything using skills that could be traced back to her was out. She’d have to act “normal.” Esther sighed, pulled the pepper spray from her fanny pack, and hurried, tentatively she hoped, into the brush toward the sounds of the struggle.

As expected, there was a man, homeless by his look, pinning a younger woman, another jogger, to the ground. He was trying to keep her under control while undoing his pants, and having a hard time of it, but she was already in bad shape.

“Hey!” Esther shouted, getting his attention. As he whipped around, knife in hand, she let loose the spray, catching him directly in the eyes. He screamed and reared back, as she stepped forward, unleashing a vicious kick into his groin. He fell over, his body rebelling against him, not knowing whether to guard his more sensitive parts against a repeat attack, or try to rub out his eyes. She kicked him again, in the ribs this time to give him something else to think about.

Then she remembered that, as a normal person, she should be saying something.
“Take that, you filthy, fornicating, abusive bastard!” Hopefully it sounded angry and vulgar enough. It was the best she could come up with on the spot. She’d never learned to swear or curse, and she wasn’t about to start now. She picked up the knife, which the man had dropped when she sprayed him, and tucked it into her fanny pack along with the pepper spray. She’d have to be careful not to cut herself if she went for anything else in there.

That done, she turned away from the suffering man, and to the woman on the ground. “Are you all right?” She hoped she put enough concern into her voice. “Can you get up?”

The man had risen behind her, and was about to attack. She ignored him, offering her hand to the girl to help her up. She considered a back kick, but ruled it out. The girl would be able to tell people that her savior had been a martial artist of some kind. The girl screamed as the man rushed upon Esther.

She let him hit her, had to or no one would believe she was an ordinary jogger. She did turn at the last moment, however, ducking her head and taking the brunt of the blow on her forearm, as she went down, falling across the man’s first intended victim. Small and relatively vulnerable though Esther’s body was, she knew how to take abuse with minimal lasting damage.

The man tried to kick her. She caught his foot, twisted, and shoved hard, shouting, and sending him toppling over backward. He obviously wasn’t going to give up easily, and she’d have to do something abnormal to eliminate his threat to the other girl. Esther could always run. Not a bad idea, that.

“Run!” She said to the girl as she climbed off of her and rose in a defensive posture. “Get up and run!”
“I, I,” the girl began to protest.
“Just do it!”

She finally rolled over with a groan, got to her hands and knees, and stumbled off deeper into the woods. Esther sighed. She’d get lost that way, in her current condition, and Esther would have to find her and take her somewhere.

The man was back up, and rushed her, swinging a fist in the all American round house punch. She easily caught his wrist in a lock, turned inward, and using his momentum and his arm as leverage threw him head first into a convenient tree trunk. The move probably did some damage to his wrist, and running into the tree stunned him long enough for Esther to hog tie him with his belt, shoe laces and clothing.

“Don’t do that again!” She said, then took off after the girl. Hopefully they wouldn’t get her in a line up based on this perp’s testimony, but what else could she do? And any charges would be quickly dropped, especially with Susan’s expert legal advocacy. But the attention wouldn’t help their cause. She’d have to stay off the radar for a while, or be extra careful to use more clandestine methods than at the bank. Time to brush up on the sniping skills.

The girl was surprisingly far off, and when Esther didn’t catch up with her after a moment, she began to cast about for a trail. It oughtn’t to be too difficult, considering the girl’s condition. After a minute or two, she hadn’t found anything. The brush was too sparse, and the ground to hard to hold a good trail right here, or else the girl had gone off in another direction. Esther stopped and listened. No helpful sounds. She thought back to the incident, going over every moment in her mind.

The girl had guarded primarily with her left arm. That indicated either that her right was injured — but Esther had not seen enough blood or signs of a break there — or that she was left handed. A left handed person in crisis and lost would tend toward the left in her travels. Esther pulled up a quick map of the area in her mind. They would also follow the routs of least resistance. That would put the girl somewhere around that hill, striking left around it . . .

Esther turned about 25 degrees to the left of her prior heading and took off at an easy jog, dodging or jumping obstructions in her way and going around anything larger. She took short, quick steps, landing with her weight more fully over her forward foot than would a street runner, ready to change direction at a moment’s notice. It didn’t take thought. It was as though her body knew the situation she was in and adjusted its movement naturally to fit the environment. The shoes were appropriate, and she made good time. Unless she missed her guess about the girl, she would beat her to the shoulder of the low ridge about a quarter of a mile ahead, and get into a position to locate her.

On a thought she pushed a button on her watch.
———————————-

In the cabin, Susan, now watching an entertainment news show, saw a small yellow button blinking in the computer’s tool bar. “Hey, guys! We’ve got a yellow alert.” She clicked on the flashing button, bringing up a satellite map of the area, showing the blinking yellow dot marking Esther’s location, and the solid blue dot marking theirs. The others wandered back into the room one or two at a time, most of them holding whatever they had been using a moment before.

“What is it?”

“Yellow alert. No details. You know how it is.”

Speeder took a closer look at the map. “She’s off the trail network, headed toward Shonda’s ridge. Higher ground. Not really in too much of a hurry, I don’t think. Can you zoom in, look at her surroundings? These are real time, right?”

“Nearly. There’s about a 15 second delay between here and the satellites.” Wrench said. He had set up the system and took great pride in his work.

Susan double clicked on Esther’s dot, zooming in to about half the previous distance. The dot turned to something barely distinguishable as a running form, from almost directly over head. She panned back behind Esther a bit, looking for anything un-toward.

“Stop!” Speeder pointed. “Was that flattened place there last time we looked? And what’s that against the tree?” Susan zoomed in further. You couldn’t get close enough with this to read license plates clearly — you’d have to hack DOD networks to do that — but you could see enough to get an idea of what happened.

“Looks like there was a struggle here, and that would be a man tied up there.”

“Hog tied. That’s Esther’s work, for sure.” Ops. They called him. A genius in his own right when it came to intelligence analysis and planning missions. He’d been an operator himself for a time, before the shrapnel took out his knee, and he retreated to the office. It turned out they’d wasted his truest talents prior to that, sending him running out on missions, when his contributions in the command center proved invaluable. He’d recovered enough to walk, but the limp remained, and he would never run into a firefight again if he could help it.

“Go ahead of her a bit, up to the ridge.” He said. Susan complied. “Over the right a bit. What’s that moving?” Another pan and zoom, and they made out another figure, this one moving badly along the base of the ridge. At their current rates, Esther would cut this one off. “Can you mark this one, and track it back to its origin?” It wasn’t easy, but with a little discussion, zooming and panning, and Ops’ careful direction they determined that the new figure had come from the scene of the struggle.

“All right then. That settles that.” The others looked at him. “What settles what?” Speeder said.

Ops. Sighed. “Pull back out to where we can see all the players.” Susan complied, partially. “And the man tied up.” She pulled out a little farther. “This person, probably a woman from what we can see, is moving badly, probably injured. She came from the scene of the struggle. The man there, hog tied by Esther . . . She must have come upon the two of them and judged him to need restraining. Which means he did something to hurt this girl, who ran away when Esther tangled with the man. Now she’s running to head the girl off, because if she doesn’t stop her, we’ll have an injured, scared, and inexperienced young woman lost in the backwoods. It’s only a yellow alert, so the immediate threat is past, she just wants us to know what’s going on. I suggest you get medical transport . . . Here.” He pointed to a flat and clear spot atop the ridge. “Low profile. If there’s authorities who can respond in time that might be best.”

“I’m on it.” Susan opened another application, and the computer dialed a number, patching her into the area’s 911 network. Another few keys and she was on the horn with the EMTs based at the nearest hospital with a helicopter.

“Providence ER, Dispatch.” She said. After a moment the response sounded in her bluetooth ear phone, and she put it on speaker. The sound filled the room. Another of Wrench’s projects.

“Dispatch, Providence. Go ahead.”

“Providence. Anonymous 10-37 Code 3, location: Shonda’s Ridge, West end. 1 individual. Suggest helo evac. At . . .” She gave the coordinates of the proposed landing zone, “Possible medical and psychological emergency.”

“10-63 dispatch. Helo responding with CIT officer. ETA: 10 minutes.”

“10-04 Providence. Please keep coms open. What’s your code?”

“The air’s empty right now. Call us helo. And you?”

“Helo, Base. It’s been good doing business with you. We’ll be on the air. Thank you. Over.”

“Base, Helo. We’re on our way. The pleasure was mine. I hope you’ll call again. Over.”

The line fell silent and Susan muted it.

“Esther’d better hurry.” Ops said. “If she doesn’t settle that girl down in time they’ll be well clear of the LZ, and the EMTs’ll have a search and rescue on their hands. Can you call her?”

Susan touched a button on her earphone. “Call Esther. Yes.”
———————————
Esther’s fanny pack vibrated. She sighed and slowed enough to pull it into position so she could see what she was doing, avoided the knife, and pulled out her blackberry. They shouldn’t have to call her, but they were.

“Esther here. I’m kind of busy right now.”

“Understood. It’s Susan. Evac’s on its way to Shonda’s ridge, ETA 10. Your situation?”

“I’m in pursuit of one assault victim, probably sexual assault, not complete, if you know what I mean. I’m 5 minutes out from the end of the ridge.”

“Victim is about two minutes to your 2 ocklock, heading toward your 12, at your current rates of travel. Suggest you settle her near the LZ just to your 1 oclock atop the ridge. I am in touch with the response team and will direct them from here.”

“Agreed. Text me if you need anything else. Esther out.”

She tucked the phone back into her fanny pack, closed it, and hurried forward. Things would be difficult in a moment.

Esther broke from the brush onto a deer trail, and stopped, breathing and glancing around to learn what she could. She was sure the victim hadn’t reached her yet, and indeed, there were the sounds of her approach from the right.

“Hello? Mis?” Esther said just loudly enough for the girl to hear, hopefully not so loud as to frighten her. “Hello?”

The movement continued for a moment, and then stopped. “It’s me. My name’s Amanda. I stopped that man just now. It’s okay. Can you come to me?”

After a moment the movement resumed, and the young lady stepped forward tentatively into view. She was limping, holding her side where her ribs had probably been injured, and blood seeped from multiple small cuts on her face and one deeper one on her shoulder. Nothing life threatening, but that danger came more from her mental state. Esther could, of course, escort her back to the cabin, but she didn’t want to risk that kind of exposure.

“Hello. I’m Amanda. What’s your name?” Esther stuck out her hand to shake the young lady’s. She was probably between 16 and 22 years of age, and was in bad shape. It was getting colder too, as the sun began to set.

“D, Delores.”

“Hello Delores. You’re going to be just fine.” Esther took her hand, and drew her into a gentle hug from the side. “That man’s not coming after you anymore. It’s going to be all right. He didn’t even hurt you that badly. You were lucky. Did you know him?”

“N, n, no. He just jumped me a, and drug me off the t, trail. I was j, just jogging!”

“I know. I know, it’s all right. You didn’t do anything wrong. Everything’s going to be fine. Help is on its way. We just have to get up on this ridge here, and they’ll take care of you. Okay?”

“O, Okay.” She said.

“You know you’re a survivor, right Delores? You did good back there, and you’re going to go on to do whatever it is you were going to do, right? You won’t let this creep get to you. You’re the winner here, right?”

“R, right. I win.” Delores smiled a little, lopsided. “Some jog. I guess I’ll have a good story for my friends.”

Esther scoffed a little. “Yeah, but you might want to tone it down a bit, or they’ll get scared. That was close. And you might want to carry protection next time.”

Delores stopped, surprised, and turned to look at Esther, who just held up her can of pepper spray and smiled. “Hey, why don’t you take this? No, I insist. I can always get another. Yeah, I think I have one back home, now. Go on.”

She took Delores’ hand and placed the can in it, closing her fingers over it. “Take it, and keep it with you whenever you go out. It’s perfectly legal, and it can stop creeps like that guy in their tracks.”

She saw the doubt in Delores’ eyes. The man had attacked her savior after getting sprayed in the face.

“Long enough for you to run, at least.” She added. “Here, put it in your jacket pocket, and we’ll go meet the doctors, kay?”

Delores finally nodded, smiled, and put the pepper spray away. She paused for a moment, and Esther waited, giving her a questioning look. She was taken by surprised when Delores stepped forward and hugged her.

“Thank you, Amanda. You saved me. I don’t know how I can pay you back.” She took another breath to keep talking, but Esther shushed her with a finger against her lips.

“You still have to get to the doctors, and they’re almost here. You can thank me later. Let’s go.”

Delores sighed, took Esther’s hand, and she led Delores up the hill as the chopper flew over and began its orbit of the landing area. It was only a few yard ahead, and they would make it in time.

“There they are, in that clearing just up ahead. See them? They’re waiting for you. Go on, I’m right behind you.” Esther shoved Delores gently forward. She gave her another hug and thank you, and then stumbled up toward the EMTs, who hurried down to assist her as soon as they spotted her.

One of them thought he saw another person behind in the brush, but when he looked again, she was gone. The dispatcher had said there was only one suspected victim, anyway, and here she was, his priority. He turned to the injured woman, extending a gloved hand to stabilize her, against her good shoulder. “Hello. I’m Steve. I’m an EMT. I’m here to help you.”

Esther, listening from behind a large tree, smiled and moved off. Another life would be saved, another situation handled. And maybe she could sleep tonight. She broke into an easy jog as straight as she reasonably could toward the cabin, heading home.