Red North!

by Mark Lemke

CHAPTER 13

  ?

  WEDNESDAY MORNING

  AT THE SAFE HOUSE

  ?

  When I woke a few hours later, it was quiet and dark outside.? I was used to getting up before dawn.? I was just wired that way and had been getting up early my entire life.?Something to do with my Catholic upbringing, I guess, and going to early Mass as a kid.? I pulled on a T-shirt, sweat pants, socks, and running shoes and headed outside for a quick run.? Exercise in one form or another was part of who I was.? It wasn't something I had to do. ?I didn't think too much about it.? I just did it.?

  A 'quick run' for me was a couple of miles.? I didn't really like treadmills because the scenery never changed and it's too artificial, so I usually opted to go outside and just start running.? The cabin was in a rural area of Willits, about 20 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean, which afforded me some quiet roads, both up hill and down.? I liked that because it reminded me of home growing up.? I never ran with my iPod on.? That was a distraction to the task at hand, which in this case was running.? I learned at a young age to focus and not use distractions as a means to avoid feeling pain or discomfort.? Feel everything; see everything. Control your environment.

  Like most people who run a good distance, I'd usually get an endorphin high that always left me feeling good.? Even though it was cool and damp, I quickly worked up a sweat.? For some strange reason, I liked to sweat.? It made me feel alive.?But unlike most people, I liked to use the weather to help me train.? The worse the weather, the more I liked it.? To test myself when I was younger, I would go for long runs when it was raining and miserable outside.? I looked for ways to challenge myself when it meant something to me.? No crowds, no awards, no finish line-just a personal challenge. At first, I'd run short distances, like down the street and around the block.? As I got older and stronger, I'd run around the block two or three times. My challenge back then was to run longer and faster, so I'd continue to push myself a little further each time I ran. ?I learned, though, that the number of trips around the block was meaningless.? It was just a number.? I reasoned if I could do ten trips around the block, then I could do twenty.? And if I could do twenty, I could do more.? It was less about muscles or wind capacity, and more about mental discipline.? So unlike marathoners who train to run discrete distances, whether it was 3k, 5k, 10k, or 25k, I would run until I chose not to run anymore.

  Today I chose to run for about thirty minutes. That would give me time to get back, take a shower, and down a quick cup of coffee before I headed into the plant for the debriefing.

  As I ran, my thoughts turned to the drill the night before.? Running always got my blood moving and pumps oxygen to my brain.? I just think better when I exercise.?

  The Headlands had good security people.? They weren't rent-a-cops.? Many were ex-military, and most of them were Marines, though some of them passed their prime a few squares back.? They carried themselves well and were well organized.? But they suffered, like most civilian security groups, in that they tended to think of themselves with a bit more respect than perhaps they deserved.?? These guys were salaried employees who worked defined shifts, to secure a commercial nuclear power plant from a very specific kind of threat, which was believed to be minimal.? They got to go home every day to a home-cooked meal if they were married, watch their favorite TV shows with a bottle of beer and their feet up. They drove expensive trucks with fog lamps, sunroofs, and heated leather seats.? They liked to take holidays off so they could barbecue ribs or steaks and generally enjoy the perks of family life.?

  I knew they were good people and my purpose in being there was to help them, not break them down.? What I struggled with most was that I didn't think they appreciated the unpredictability of a determined adversary.? They appeared to be good at putting down civil disobedience or the occasional trespasser.? They handled protestors well, like when the local antinuclear groups, now calling themselves 'pro-safety', lined up to attempt a show of solidarity at the front gate a year ago.? What they struggled with was how to handle an enemy of the state.? The Headlands was a commercial facility, not a military one, a distinction the plant staff embraced, but terrorists didn't. ?If someone wanted to create terrorism, all they had to do was to create fear in an area that people didn't think they had to worry about.? Something they thought was inherently safe, like plane travel or Tylenol.? Damage to one of the sixty-five nuclear power facilities in the country would challenge their sense of safety.? Prichard understood that too, which is why he'd hired NeXus-and specifically, me.

  Toward the end of my run, I rounded the last bend in the road just before the cabin when a car suddenly pulled out in front of me.? Despite the fact that I was moving at a fast pace, the world and everything in it immediately slowed down, which allowed me to assimilate more data in a shorter period of time.? In the blink of an eye, I felt more than saw the car.? I could feel it moving in relationship to me, and the world around me.? As a result, I was able to turn my body to avoid hitting the car-or having the car hit me.?

  Many people may experience a close call once in their lives and later say it was like 'seeing my life flash before my eyes.' ?I had learned how to do this intentionally, through repetitive training in martial arts.? I wasn't sure if this was something I had a knack for or if it really was just a result of intensive training.? Maybe a little of both.? What I knew for sure was that it required discipline and focus, all acquired through long hours of drills and exercises.? The most difficult thing to learn in years of training wasn't kicking or punching, doing pushups on my knuckles, or standing in stances so long I verged on unconsciousness, but to see a fist coming at my face and not blink, not flinch, and not bail out and jump out of the way.? I'd learned to 'see the fist' and move in concert with it, so I could evade it by a hair's breadth.? I learned not to fear the fist, but how to see the fist all the way past my face.? A person could take a lot of punches to the stomach or other parts of the body and not go down.? But even one strike to the face would hurt, draw blood, rearrange cartilage, and break bones.? Few people trained in a style of martial arts where they didn't pull their punches.? But I had.? With time and a lot of failures along the way, I'd gotten better and better at it until it appeared that the fist was slowing down.? In reality, I was just moving quicker, on multiple levels.

  So when the car appeared suddenly in front of me, I slowed it down in my mind's eye and immediately altered my path by turning to one side and allowing the car to pass, narrowly missing me, much as I would with a punch coming for my face. I did not turn away, but looked around to evaluate the situation, to see if there was anything I was missing-or needed to do next.?

  The car pulled past me and stopped.? Pete jumped out from the driver's seat with a big grin on his face.? "Hey boss! Out for a little run, eh?"

  I looked at him and relaxed.? Testing each other was almost a game between us.? It was always good-natured, though realistic, and frequently ended in bruises.?

  I walked up to him and shook his hand.? What we shared was a bond that most men don't experience.? A bond between brothers, unspoken and unbreakable.

  "Still learning how to drive, I see?" I said as I walked the rest of the way toward the cabin.

  "You're too easy a target for me," Pete countered.

  While the banter was a good distraction at times, right now I wasn't in the mood to continue with it.? I had things on my mind; things that didn't settle well.? I didn't know what was going on, and I didn't like that.

  "I assume the team is holed up somewhere?"

  "Yeah.? I have them over in Mendocino.? I figured it was far enough away from here that nobody would be looking for us there."

  "Good," I said.? "I have to go brief the site VP on the drill yesterday.? I'll be back in a couple of hours.? I'll meet you back here and we can talk about what's going on.? I've got the comm gear out that I brought with me, but I assume you brought more.? Break it out and get it set up.? We may need to check with Washington later."

  "Copy that," Pete
acknowledged.?