“No, you can do your on line homework and THEN you can play your video games until nine. After that, shower and bed.”
“Awww…”
“Go on, do as your father said.”
After Michael skulked out of the room, obviously highly disturbed by the invention of on line homework, Dillon had some time to talk privately with Hannah.
“Doc gave me some vaccine. He said you should poke us tonight.” Dillon tried to joke about it, but had never been overly fond of needles.
“Okay, we can do it before bedtime. Michael will be thrilled.” Hannah rolled her eyes.
“Come on, he’s MUCH better at this than he used to be. We don’t have to hold him down anymore.”
“Well, thank God for that. It’s hard enough dealing with you, you big baby. I don’t know how you can do what you do and be afraid of needles.”
“I can’t explain it, hun. I’ll get through it. Why don’t you just do it now and get it over with?”
“Sure. Where’s the vaccine?”
“It’s in the fridge. Doc gave me three doses and some syringes.”
“Okay, you big baby. Let’s do this.”
Hannah smiled at Dillon with a look of sublime amusement as he sat down in a kitchen chair and rolled up his sleeve.
“So we’re going to be evacuated again? Where this time?” Hannah had already been through TWO evacuations and was becoming an old pro. Right now, she was swabbing his arm with some alcohol.
“My guess is Cyprus, but Malta and Crete are possibilities.”
“I’ll pack bags tonight. What kind of weight limit?”
“I’m guessing one suitcase per person plus carry on. I’m recommending that to Rick tomorrow morning.”
“Are you coming with us this time?” It was a fair question. Dillon had stayed in Cairo during the last two evacuations.
“I’ll meet you there afterward. I’ll be on the last flight out, with the Ambassador. It looks like they’ll be taking two trips, about eight hours apart. C-130s can carry 64 fully loaded paratroopers, or 92 soldiers. Let’s say closer to 64 with luggage. We’ll get 128 out about 20:00, and then they can send a single C-130 back on the same tank of gas and pick us up before 0300.”
Hannah poked Dillon without warning, depressing the plunger and withdrawing the needle quickly and professionally, then immediately reaching for a band aid. “Okay. Do you want a Star Wars band aid or a plain one?
Dillon looked at her piteously. “Star Wars, please.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Dillon loved Hannah for many reasons, but her nonchalance was at the top of the list. She had accepted the risks when she fell in love with him, and for that Dillon was infinitely grateful. “I’m going to finish up the laundry and pack the bags right out of the dryer.”
“Okay, I’m going to start loading some of these magazines.”
Dillon’s cell phone rang at eleven PM. He quickly stepped out of bed and answered it as he walked out of the bedroom and shut the door quietly behind him.
“RSO Shay speaking.”
“Hey, Dillon. Bryce. The Ministry of Health just announced a dusk to dawn curfew for the entire country. The Minister called it “the American Virus.” They also announced that the virus has taken hold in Suez, but they’re claiming they have it under control. We’re expecting a lot of resistance to the curfew, especially in Tahrir Square. We’re also starting to see a lot of demonstrators around the Embassy.”
“Is the Ambassador going to let you close down and evacuate now?”
“Yes, but it might be too late. I think we’re going to have to sit tight and wait this one out.”
“Do you want me to come up there?”
“No. I doubt one more person would do any good. The local guards and police are still on post, and the Egyptian Army brought in some APCs to park along our wall. I’ll keep in touch.”
“Okay, Bryce. Hey….”
“Yes, I know. Keep my head down. You know I will.”
Bryce had the feeling he would be getting more phone calls throughout the night, and didn’t want to be constantly waking Hannah up, so he decided to bed down on the sofa for the rest of the night. Sure enough, the calls were rolling in throughout the night. A couple of ex-pats were caught outside during curfew and harassed by police before bribing their way out of it. The local guards at the USAID compound had some kids threaten the building. Later that night, someone threw a plastic bottle full of gasoline at the USAID wall. It made the worst Molotov cocktail ever, smoldering a bit at the base of the wall before going out. At dawn, the military placed movable concrete walls along the southbound roads leading to and from Tahrir Square. There was rioting and some sporadic gunfire in Maadi, with a few stores vandalized.
Hannah was up making coffee at 7:00 AM, and Michael was up a half hour later eating breakfast before he started what would be a day of video games. Bryce had managed to load about half of the magazines for the MP-5 last night, and loaded the other half that morning, mostly before anyone else was awake.
“Are you really going out today?” Hannah looked a little worried.
“Yes, but not far. Doc said he would begin giving everyone the vaccine today, starting with the 611 compound. I figure I’ll need to give him a ride to USAID and back. After that I’ll be going back and forth between here and the 611 compound for most of the day. Oh, and I have a meeting with Rick today at noon.”
“Tell him to come down here and I’ll cook something for lunch.”
“I think he’s doing some paleo diet thing right now.”
“I can make him a boring salad if he wants to punish himself.” she said with a grin.
“Speaking of that, I haven’t worked out in a couple of days. I think I need to hit the gym.”
“I think so, too.” she said, smacking him on the ass. Hannah had been big into cross training and running when he first met her, but Cairo wasn’t good for that. Still, she liked to run the interior of CAS, which was about half a mile, and she managed to hamster on the treadmill for a few miles every day. Occasionally, she would run a half marathon in Wadi Degla, a large, ancient, dried-out riverbed used as a recreational park by some of the ex-pats.
“Hey, watch it.” he said, spinning around and lifting her up onto the kitchen counter with ease. Dillon was just shy of six feet tall and, at two hundred pounds, had almost eighty pounds on her.
Hannah took the opportunity to latch her arms around him and kiss him deeply. A single kiss from Hannah seemed to last an hour.
“Go work out. You have a busy day. Don’t forget to call me.”
“I will call you often.”
“You better.”
Dillon ran a mile as a warm up, then switched to free weights for about twenty minutes before finishing up with a two mile run and a mile on the rowing machine. It felt good to blow off some steam, and he was still sweating as he toweled off from his shower and dressed himself. It was winter in Cairo, which meant sixty degree weather with occasional rain. He threw on a pair of tactical pants and a long sleeve shirt, then put on the paddle holster which would hold his USP and a magazine pouch that would hold two spare fifteen round magazines. Finally, he pulled up his pant leg and strapped on the ankle holster for his USP Compact. On the way out of the house, he threw on a plain, brown ball cap and a black field jacket shell.
Hannah kissed him as he headed out the door. “You look like a contractor.”
“Blackwater or Triple Canopy?”
“Is there a difference?”
“Blackwater needs a backpack to hold their money.”
Hannah smiled. “Good one. Maybe you should have gone into contracting.”
“Maybe I should have.”
“Then you wouldn’t be here with us. We’d be in the States, missing you terribly. But, the paycheck….”
“We do okay.”
“We do great.” she said, planting another kiss.
Michael walked by, evidently to get something to drink. “Gross, guys.”
“Whatever.” They both said in unison.
Dillon called Doc on the way to the parking lot to offer him a ride to USAID. Doc seemed happy to accept, and soon they managed to snake their way through Maadi to the USAID compound, avoiding one new checkpoint on the way. Dillon noted a few Armored Personnel Carriers and at least one Main Battle Tank on the way, but it was still the early morning hours, and everything was quiet. He called Bryce while Doc grabbed the supplies he would need to start the inoculations, reporting the extra military hardware on the streets. Bryce told him that everything was quiet downtown, but he didn’t expect things to remain so.
“So, you have the Ambassador packing his suitcase?”
“I wish. I told him we had a window, but he thinks that the protests have died out and things will normalize.”
“What do you think?”
“I think things are going to be touch and go as soon as the mosque lets out.” Friday was prayer day, and a lot of protests started in the mosques and spilled out onto the streets immediately following afternoon prayers.
“Do we have some guys monitoring the mosques?”
“I sent a couple of our locals to check things out. They’ll be able to give me a heads up.”
“Good. Okay, Doc is ready to go. I’ll talk to you later. How many vials of vaccine should we save for you?”
“Thirteen.” Dillon was pretty sure that was Bryce, ten Marines, the Ambassador, and the Ambassador’s assistant.”
“Okay, we’ll keep them on ice.”
“Excellent. Keep your head down.”
“You too.”
By then, Doc was settled into the suburban for the ride back to 611. The square near Road 8 was packed to the gills, and getting violent, and Dillon had to back out around several honking cars as a small group of locals banged on his hood. The smell of tear gas was already in the air, forcing Dillon to shut the vehicle vents. The traffic circle leading to Road 6 was empty of protesters, but there were a lot of local youth hanging around the sidewalks.
“Hold on, this could get messy.” Is all Dillon said as he started to glide through the circle. The youth were immediately in the street, and Dillon came to a stop to avoid hitting them. They were pounding on the car and a few kids started to try to open the doors as one kid pounded on the window with his fist, a hatchet in his other hand.
“What do they want?”
“This one is asking me to open up my door.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to drive.” With that, Dillon put a little pressure on the gas and started to push his way through the crowd at about five or six miles per hour. Some of the youths scrambled, the kid with the hatchet smacked it against the bullet proof window of the rear driver side, creating a small spider web in the glass. One kid rolled a bit over the hood.
Dillon pressed the petal a bit harder, and the vehicle moved up to about ten miles per hour. The rest of the kids scattered as one through a Molotov cocktail. This one was glass, and broke on the front windshield. Dillon kept driving, turning the windshield wipers on to keep the flame down as they proceeded through the circle and picked up speed on the way to the safety of the 611 complex. He honked twice and the local guard opened the gate and let him through without a search. Outside, he could hear the police firing at least one AK-47, hopefully in the air. Dillon was happy to see the gardener, and drove right up to him. The gardener took the hint and sprayed the vehicle with a nearby hose, putting out what was left of the fire on his hood. Dillon took a deep breath before pulling the key out of the ignition. He looked over at Doc, who was near panic.
“Well, here we are, safe and sound. Let’s get started on the inoculations, shall we?” Dillon knew that the surefire cure for panic was doing something, anything, that you knew how to do well. It gave you a sense of control over the situation.
“Wow.” was Doc’s only response.
“Yeah, let’s get those vaccines out and then I’ll go door to door with you and use it as an excuse to make sure everyone has bottled water and MREs.”
MREs, or Meals, Ready to Eat, were the standard fare of a soldier or marine out in the field. They were 2400 calories of mediocrity in a plastic wrapper, though there were some gems to be found, like skittles and fruit cobbler. Every Embassy employee was provided with one week per family member and was directed to keep a stock of bottled water on hand. With as bad as the local drinking water was, the bottled water was never a problem.
Doc managed to vaccinate the first floor in a little over an hour, with the second floor taking even less time. Dillon would chat up the nervous foreign service officers and answer what questions he could about the security situation and the evacuation procedures. The biggest complaint he received was that they weren’t going to be able to take more than one bag each on the transport.
“Who’s next?”
“Johnson Family, unit 302.”
“Johnson from political or Johnson from consular?”
“Political. Johnson from consular lives in Zamalek.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Johnson from political was a grumpy loner, a fifty-five year old divorcee with estranged kids that seemed retired in place. Dillon didn’t like the man very much, but had interaction with him so infrequently that it hardly mattered.