30 August 2005 – Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, New Orleans, Louisiana

Jeff pressed the backlight button on his watch.

03:07

He rubbed Keiko’s back, trying to calm her while she twitched and whimpered in her sleep. She put up a brave front while in public after the previous day’s incident. Once in private, however, she broke down. Keiko studied karate all her life, but yesterday was the first time she ever had to use it for real and fight for that life. This was her second episode of distress that night. Jeff wanted to go – hell, needed to go – back to sleep but his mind wasn’t letting him.

The leader of the gang from last night received a broken jaw for his trouble, as had the one holding Keiko. The one guarding the door had a probable knee injury and a concussion. The two he took down suffered a bruised sternum and broken ribs, respectively. Ezra’s other friend: a broken wrist. The rest received various other injuries thanks to the folks who helped take back the convention center. The thugs all needed to be taken somewhere else from both a medical and law enforcement standpoint. As far as Jeff was concerned they got what they deserved. As he said the day before, the thugs were lucky they weren’t dead.

Yesterday’s foraging expeditions to the nearby hotels were successful, but only in the barest sense of the word. The supplies they brought back wouldn’t last much beyond this morning’s meal, not with so many people here. Breakfast wouldn’t be anything resembling a normal breakfast but at least it would be edible. The expeditions also brought back more people which added to the pressure to find more food for everyone. Any foraging expeditions today would have to range farther afield but could also use the trucks they realized they did have after they returned yesterday: the demo ambulances. They could carry lots of food if it could be found today.

Ezra told Keiko and Jeff to crash in this upstairs room last night. It was private, quiet, could be locked, and was carpeted. Jeff pulled a poncho liner out of his ruck last night for he and Keiko to sleep under. His Army camouflage uniforms made decent enough pillows. This relative luxury was in sharp contrast to how the others here slept.

Most of them lay without blankets on the cold floor of the exhibit halls overnight. Those with young children were given priority when assigning the second floor rooms last night, but there weren’t enough of the private rooms to go around, nor were they very large. They had to balance keeping the center livable and not freezing those in it to death with the air conditioning while they slept. Jeff was glad the rooms up here were in a separate cooling zone. Still, the disparity between those on the first floor and those on the second could be yet one more area of conflict.

Jeff blinked and heard others moving around outside their room. A check of his watch told him it was now after seven. He must have fallen back to sleep. Keiko, who rolled over in his arms while they slept, looked up at him.

“Good morning, husband.”

“How are you feeling, Keiko?”

“Better, thank you. I know you helped chase my nightmares away. Did I keep you awake for long during them?”

“No.”

“Liar,” she retorted before smiling and kissing his nose. “If I did I am sorry, Jeffrey, because you needed your sleep as well. Let us go see what needs to be done today.”

Jeff agreed despite not feeling rested at all. The gauze on his back pulled at his wound when he stood. He probably needed to find Jack and have him redress the laceration. The threads from the gauze might become lodged in the wound and cause an infection.

“Husband, you need to change your shirt.” Jeff tried to twist around and see why. “It appears your wound soaked through your bandage overnight and has stained the back of it.”

Jeff frowned, pulling the shirt over his head. The back of his gray t-shirt was now encrusted with a reddish-yellow stain by the bottom hem.

“Looks like plasma soaked through the gauze and the shirt absorbed it. Is the gauze about this color?” Keiko told him the gauze looked bloodier. “I’ll find Jack when we go downstairs and have my dressing changed.”

“You feel all right otherwise, Jeffrey?”

“As well as can be expected, Keiko. I got lucky. A knife to the kidney usually doesn’t end well.”

Jeff grabbed a clean shirt before putting the old one on. He waved Keiko out of the room ahead of him. As they stepped out of the room, they noticed two people strolling toward them wearing bright yellow ’STAFF’ shirts and carrying radios.

“Morning, sir,” one of them offered.

“Morning, Claude. Claude, you remember I’m a staff sergeant, right? You don’t have to call me sir, unless you want me to call you ‘Lance Corporal’ all day?”

“You’re in charge here, sir. The commanding officer. That means I refer to you as ‘sir’ when I see you, sir.”

“At the most I’m the NCOIC, Claude, though I’m not likely to change your mind on that, am I?”

“Sir, negative, sir!” Claude replied with a smile.

Jeff shook his head in resignation while Keiko giggled.

“Et tu, Brute?” he asked, making her laugh harder. He held up his hands in surrender. “How are things going?”

“Quiet overnight, sir. Father Beauchamp and Reverend Watson are holding an interfaith service in the theater down the hall.”

“I hope they put in a good word for us.”

“God will provide, sir.”

“Hope so. I’ve always been more of an adherent of the philosophy of ‘God helps those who helps themselves,’ Claude, but I’ll take whatever help we can get. A lot of lives are on the line.”

“You’re from Boston aren’t you, sir?”

“Close enough, why?”

“The rallying cry during the Red Sox’s run to the championship last year was ‘Keep the Faith.’ That applies here too, sir.”

“Guess we have to, right? Who’s this with you?”

“This is Ephraim Gallatin, sir. He asked if he could help out after he arrived this morning, so I’m showing him the ropes. Chief Washington grilled him pretty good.”

Jeff offered his hand. “The chief already put the screws to you?”

“Um, he questioned me pretty good, yessir,” the young man replied. “Momma and I saw the lights from the building last night. They lit up the sky, especially with everything else dark. Our neighborhood is flooded so we didn’t have water or lights, but our apartment is on the third floor of our building. We were dry last night at least. We waded through the floodwater to get out of the building after first light and made our way here.”

“And you still offered your help after you got here? You and your mother must be made of stern stuff if you two did that.”

“The chief said he’s as modest as you are, sir,” Claude added. “He and his momma led lots of other folks here, too. Those people would still be stuck in that building without food and water otherwise.”

“Jeffrey, we need to change your dressing,” Keiko reminded him.

“Doc Blanchard set up the aid station along the south wall, sir, by the two large roll-up doors to the outside,” Claude said.

“I’d better go see him, then. You gents be safe.”

“Thank you, sir,” they both replied. Jeff resolved to have a little chat with Ezra Washington.

“‘NCOIC,’ Jeffrey?” Keiko asked as they walked downstairs to the exhibit floor.

“Non-commissioned officer in charge, though it sounds like everyone already considers me the OIC. The polite term for the OIC is ‘The Old Man.’”

“You are in charge here, Jeffrey, whether you choose to accept that or not.”

Jeff shook his head again. Over fifteen years with Keiko and he’d yet to win an argument with his wife.

Nadine Pierre carefully peeled the old gauze off Jeff’s back at the aid station. There was no way for it not to hurt as she did so, despite how gently she removed it.

“Sorry, Jeff. I know how to put this stuff on but paramedic school never taught me how to take it off!”

“Mine school didn’t either,” Jeff grunted. “I know you’re doing your best, Nadine. Jack didn’t have any non-adhering gauze last night so it’s not like you can help it. It is ouch! what it is.”

“You’re a medic?”

“Yeah. I’ve been a civilian medic since ‘95 and an Army medic since 2002. I’m supposed to get out of the Army in a month.”

“It’s a good thing the EMS trade show was here this week. It’s why most of the equipment is here to begin with, and a good number of the staff. Close to half of us were presenting here, and the other half of us were attendees who got stuck when the airlines started to cancel flights. I live about two hours west of here but didn’t know about the evacuation until it was too late to leave.” Jeff felt Nadine smear something around the wound before recovering it with fresh gauze. “You’re all set, Jeff. I put some antibiotic ointment around the laceration before I bandaged it. Try to stay out of the way of knives from now on.”

“I’ll take it under advisement,” he snorted while slipping on his clean shirt.

“Are you from Tampa?” Nadine asked, motioning to the shirt.

“No, Central Massachusetts. I did ride time in Tampa as a trainee for one of my Army medic courses. I picked up the shirt there.”

“One of our new volunteers is from there. She should be here any minute to start learning the ropes.” Nadine pointed behind him. “Here she is now.”

Jeff turned to see Tamika Granger walking toward him.

“Hey, Tam,” he said, causing her to stop short. Her dark eyes darted back and forth between his face and his shirt. She broke into a wide grin before hugging her former ‘student.’

“Lord Almighty, what are you doing here, Jeff?”

“My wife and I were on vacation and got trapped here, thanks to that ol’ demon liquor.” He introduced Tamika to Keiko. “What about you?”

“Same, minus the alcohol. We were visiting Stacia’s family down outside of Empire, down in Plaquemines Parish, when the order to evacuate came down. We made it as far as New Orleans before the traffic got too bad to keep going. We were able to get a single room at the Omni for the four of us but they lost power yesterday. We came over after a group from here came looking for food. I volunteered to help here at the aid station, my boyfriend Taurean’s working with the maintenance crews, and JC and Stacia are in the kitchens. The rest of Stacia’s family is around here somewhere, too.”

“Sounds like a tour of the kitchens is in order then, Keiko. You’ll get to meet both of the ladies I caused trouble with in Tampa.”

“I am sure you are the one who corrupted them, Jeffrey.”

“Your faith in me is underwhelming, dear.”

“Hey, Boss,” came the call from Jack Blanchard as he approached.

“Jack, I’m not your boss, you know?”

“Yeah, okay, Boss,” Jack laughed. Jeff rolled his eyes and sighed at the response. “You need anything?”

“Not any more, Jack. Nadine changed the dressing on my back for me. I leaked a bit last night.” Jeff showed Jack his other shirt.

“If we could have stitched you up yesterday you wouldn’t have done that.”

“That’ll teach me to piss off people carrying knives.”

Tamika raised an eyebrow. Jeff indicated Jack could explain the events of the day before.

“Didn’t work out as well for you as that day in Tampa, huh?” she asked. Tamika then recounted the tale of their domestic assault call.

“You cannot help but get in trouble can you, Jeffrey?” Keiko asked.

“How long have you known me?”

“Jeffrey, I wish to head upstairs and look over the theater space,” Keiko said while they walked through the service corridor toward the lobby. “I have some ideas how we might keep the children here occupied.”

“I’m sure their parents would appreciate that, Keiko. You’ll need to coordinate with the two folks running the worship services if they’ve already started using the theater. They might have a schedule already mapped out.”

“Something to consider, true.”

“You know I brought my personal laptop with me when I left for Polk last month. If the AV booth has the right connectors, we might be able to keep them occupied with kids’ movies if we can also find some DVDs.”

“We need more of a plan than just movies and videos, however,” pointed out Keiko. “With the open meeting rooms around the facility we might be capable of hosting other activities to keep the children from becoming bored.”

“‘Idle hands... ‘“ offered Jeff.

“Quite right, husband.”

“You’re the certified teacher, Keiko. I leave it to you.” Jeff hesitated before he left his wife’s side. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I presume you mean, ‘Are you going to be okay by yourself, Keiko?’ The answer is yes, Jeffrey. I will not be caught unaware as I was last night. I believe our previous display of strength will both deter those seeking to do others harm and encourage those who would to stand up to them.” Jeff still hesitated. “Jeffrey, you cannot watch out for me twenty-four hours a day. You have to let people stand on their own at some point. Plus you cannot manage the center if you do not know what is happening in it.” She shooed Jeff toward the security office.

In the security office Jeff received a morning briefing from Ezra Washington. The overnight staff turned on all of the convention center’s exterior lights last night. The glow attracted thousands more evacuees like Ephraim and his mother once the sun rose. No one wanted to move around on dark and flooded city streets. The pressure to find more food mounted with each person arriving. The center’s population approached fifteen thousand and showed no signs of stopping.

“We’ll be up the proverbial creek in a real hurry without a steady supply of food, Ezra.”

Before Ezra could reply, a call came over the CB radio behind him. Charlie Proulx and Glenn Marchand, the Marine Charlie discussed radios with the day before, constructed a makeshift antenna farm on the roof, running the cables through already installed conduits from the top of the building. Unbolting the equipment rack from the back of Gary Smith’s SUV allowed them to carry it inside the security office and wire the radios to the new antennas. They worked all night for it to be in place this morning. Gary looked to be in okay shape emotionally as he sat behind the equipment, though the bruises on his face were prominent. He keyed the CB’s mike.

“To the person calling on channel forty this is the Morial Convention Center, how copy?”

“Five-by-five, Morial Center. This is Frosty. I’m hauling a reefer truck full of frozen food, looking for a safe place after spending the night in the cab of my truck.”

“Give us your location, Frosty.” The voice at the other end of the radio did so, and Ezra gave directions to the center.

“Okay, Morial, we should be there in about fifteen to twenty minutes.”

“‘We,’ Frosty?”

“There are five of us who rode out the storm in our trucks here. Will you have enough room for all of us?”

“Don’t think that’ll be a problem, Frosty. We’ll be waiting.”

As Gary finished the conversation his scanner exploded with chatter.

“That’s the city’s EMS service,” he said.

“There’s an EMS station under the highway a couple of blocks from here,” Ezra explained to Jeff. “One of their supervisors came over last night when she saw us all lit up. She asked if we needed any medical help. I showed her Jack’s aid station.”

“Sounds like they just lost their generator and have a big hole in their roof now,” Gary relayed. “A tractor trailer just rolled off the highway above them!”

“Can you raise them?” Jeff asked. “Do they need help?”

“Charlie and Glenn reprogrammed this radio last night...” Gary muttered. “They’re using direct UHF channels, so I should be able to raise them.”

Gary made contact and offered assistance. The on-duty supervisor answered that she’d get back to Gary in a few minutes.

“I’ll touch base with Jack and have him get ready for a possible influx of patients. We’ll need to see where the best place to keep their ambulances will be,” Jeff said. “They’ll need to protected from whomever. Gary, any luck making contact with any federal agencies like FEMA? Someone who can start moving people out of here?”

“No luck with any of the amateur-to-military radio ties yet but I’ll keep trying, Jeff. Might have to work through a couple of layers, depending who I make contact with.”

“Keep at it, please?” Jeff walked over and lowered his voice. “How you doing, Gary? I didn’t have a chance to thank you for what you tried to do yesterday.”

Gary drew a shuddering breath. “I’m okay though I’ve never been that scared in all my life. I’ll skip a repeat of that, if you don’t mind?”

“You and me both, Gary. Take a break whenever you think you need one, even if you don’t have relief. Don’t work yourself sick.”

“Same goes for you, Boss,” Gary smirked. Jeff shot a look at Ezra.

“You need to stop.”

“What’s the matter, Jeff? Lonely at the top?”

“I’m not doing this by myself, Ezra. I couldn’t have done any of this without all of you. You folks are really the ones doing all the work, anyway.”

“There’s always someone at the top directing things, Jeff. You’re our idea guy. And, like it or not, the boss.”

Jeff pinched the bridge of his nose once again and shook his head. Gary called out to him as he turned to leave.

“Take these, Jeff.” Jeff looked at the portable radio and keycard Gary handed him. “We’re using channel one as our admin channel, channel two as our maintenance channel. That keycard will open any door in the building with a card reader. Come back by later and we’ll have a charger for your radio that you can put in your room. We’ve just about got the building’s phone system back online also, at least internally. I haven’t had any luck connecting with anyone outside the building yet. Between the radios and the phones, we shouldn’t have to keep running around gathering info.”

“Good work, Gary. Thanks.”

“Take these as well, Jeff,” Ezra said, holding out two of the ’STAFF’ shirts he’d seen earlier, telling Jeff one was Keiko’s. “I figured we needed something to help our folks stand out, so I raided the supply room for these.”

“Thanks, Ezra. I’ll check in later.”

“Later, Boss!” Ezra called as Jeff stepped into the hall.

Jeff looked back through the window and flipped off the older veteran while he walked away. The window blocked Ezra’s laughter.

Jeff got to the south loading docks in time to see five fifty-three-foot tractor trailers back in. Tonia Hebert stood next to him while they watched. One by one the truck drivers hopped out of their trucks and onto the dock.

“Hi there! I’m Frosty Ducharme,” a white-haired man said.

“Well, you look like a jolly, happy soul,” Jeff quipped. “Jeff Knox.”

“Yeah, no corn cob pipe or old silk hat, though,” Frosty chuckled. “This here’s Jock English. We work for the same shipping company, but Jock’s based out of Oklahoma. We’ve both got reefer trucks full of all sorts of meat and other frozen foods. Helen Raymond there has a mixed load of rice, flour, and paper products. Squeaky Shipley’s hauling a whole truck full of rice, pasta, and spaghetti sauce. Flip Saunderson’s got a truck load of burger buns. From what the fella on the CB said you’ve got a few people here you need to feed?”

“You ain’t kidding, Frosty. Fifteen thousand at last count and rising. I hope it’s tapering off. We’ve got limited kitchen capacity here but we’re gonna make it work, one way or another. Tonia, I’ll let the kitchen know they’ve got stuff to work with now. Frosty, can we keep the reefer units on the trailers running for a while? We’ve got shore power available, if that’ll help?”

“The reefer unit’s self-contained, running on a small diesel engine. We can siphon fuel from the main tanks on the trucks if we need to, but there’s no provision to hook them to shore power.”

“Ah, I didn’t know that. See? You learn something new every day. Why don’t you all follow me, and we’ll get you something to eat. You folks must be starving.” Jeff turned to Tonia and explained the issues the EMS station faced.

“Put an ambulance inside each of those roll-up doors on our south side, inside that little garage-like area next to the aid station. Put three in there if they’ll fit. Line the rest up on the dock here, like Gary’s SUV. Let EMS decide which ones they want where. Think you and the chief can come up with a plan to protect all this while we’re here?”

“You damn right we can, Boss!”

Stacia Alvarez looked up when the doors to the kitchen she helped commandeer opened. An apparition from her past strode toward her, one which wore a La Boca Feliz t-shirt. She nudged her husband Juan Carlos.

“Hey, can I get six Tampa mixto to go, please?” the apparition asked.

“It’s gonna be a while,” Stacia smiled. “We’re a little backed up.” She led JC over to the man who was her favorite paramedic student to date. “Hi, Jeff,” she said while giving him a hug and kiss on the cheek. “What are you doing here?”

“Vacation. They keep telling me I’m in charge around here, too.”

Turning to JC Stacia introduced the two men. “Mon cher, this is Jeff Knox. He was riding with Tam and I that day we first kissed in your parents’ place. Jeff, Juan Carlos Alvarez, my husband.”

“Good to meet you, Mr. Knox. I’m sorry to say I don’t remember you from that day,” JC apologized.

“You two only had eyes for each other then, so I’m not surprised. I came by to let you know that there are five trailer-loads of food out at the loading dock thanks to these folks here. Frosty, Jock, what were you hauling?”

“I had mostly beef along with frozen veggies while Frosty had mostly pork with his,” Jock answered. “Temps in reefer trucks are set low for long hauls, near zero. Frosty and I both have patties you could cook from frozen, but any other cuts of meat will take some time to defrost.

“Keisha, think you can work with that? Miss Helen and Mister Squeaky have rice, flour, pasta, and sauce in their trucks while Mister Flip has a load of burger buns.”

“I think we just hit the jackpot,” Keisha Williams said from the back of the kitchen. “The ovens in here are the only ovens in the building we can roast or broil with, but the warming ovens in the others can do low-and-slow stuff like braising or poor man’s barbecue. There are large griddles in all the kitchens we can fry with.”

“We’ll take it. Would you be able to get these folks something to eat, Keisha? They spent all day yesterday in the cabs of their trucks, including when the hurricane came through.”

“We’ll fix ‘em up.”

“I’ll start getting people to work on places for you folks to sleep,” Jeff told the drivers.

“We all have sleeper cabs,” Flip said. “We can sleep in our trucks if that helps?”

“I’m guessing you’ll need to come inside to use the facilities, though?”

“You learn to plan ahead,” Helen laughed.

When the relief column from the convention center arrived at the EMS station a few blocks away it looked like a giant angry kid had dropped a toy truck on a model building. Flames still rose from behind the building where the generator used to be. Not only had the cab of the truck punched through the roof, but half the exterior wall next to the generator collapsed from the impact. The six crews and two supervisors from New Orleans EMS looked like they all needed to sleep for a week.

“We got pretty lucky,” Charmaine Jones, the NOEMS supervisor who visited the center last night, said to Tamika Granger. Jack Blanchard tapped her as the column’s leader since she was a current urban EMS paramedic. “One of our ambulances got flattened by the truck when it came through the roof. The crew had just been in it. Thankfully they’re okay.”

“How’d the truck fall off the overpass?”

“The driver rode out the storm in his truck’s cab, and it’s not a sleeper cab either. He tried to get off the expressway this morning but he was exhausted and nodded off. He wasn’t going very fast, but the guard wall up there’s needed work for quite a few years and he punched right through. The truck’s cab teetered on the edge of the road for a minute or two with its right-side tires hanging over, which allowed the driver to wake up and jump clear. The truck driver didn’t quite stick his landing and rolled an ankle. We were also able to clear the building before the truck fell.

“That piece of the wall is what took out the generator, then the truck came through our roof. DOT kept saying they’d get to repairing that wall. We all figured it was just a matter of time before something like this happened before they made those repairs. We’re lucky the truck behind him didn’t follow him over, too.”

“How many patients do you have here?” Tam asked.

“Thirteen with mostly minor injuries, but our it’s our chronically ill patients who are going to be the real challenge. For instance we’ve got a few dialysis patients who are going to get super-sick if we can’t evac them soon. We need somewhere else to go now, too. We’re not letting anyone back in that building and we were using it as a small shelter.”

“We’ve got plenty of space for you and your vehicles. We should have plenty of food now, too.” Tam explained the arrival of the five trucks full of food. “We also have the staff to watch your patients while you and your crews get some sleep.”

They divided all the non-ambulatory patients from the EMS station up between the five surviving NOEMS ambulances and transported them to the convention center. The rest of the evacuees were shuttled there in the demo ambulances. While the demos were turned back over to the food procurement teams, Tam led the city’s EMS providers into the exhibit hall and to the aid station.

One of the NOEMS EMTs recoiled in horror when he saw the gang from the first night segregated from the rest of the patients, as well as their condition.

“Charmaine!” he cried. “These people need to be evacuated! Look at them!”

Jack Blanchard cut in before the EMT’s supervisor could reply.

“And where would you like them taken? From what we’ve been able to gather from the radio transmissions we’ve overheard over three-quarters of the city is flooded! That includes at least one of your trauma centers! Not to mention these people need to be charged with armed and unarmed robbery, assault, battery, conspiracy, weapons charges, and – oh, yeah – attempted rape! We’ve been trying to raise someone who can get them out of here but, so far, no one’s answered. You’re more than welcome to babysit them until they leave.”

“Problem, Jack?” Ezra Washington asked as he approached.

“Not for me, Chief. But this gentleman has a problem with how we’re treating these punks here.”

Ezra’s brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed while glaring at the EMT.

“Now that you and your coworkers are here with your fancy toys and your pharmaceuticals, maybe you’d like to offer them some relief from their pain, mister? We had the splints and stuff they’re wearing, but nothing else. Since we got the power turned back on they’ve gotten ice packs when the ice makers spit enough out.

“These men held a gun to the head of one man while they got ready to rape another’s wife in front of everyone here. That husband and I stopped the rape, then the intended victim demonstrated some self-defense techniques for the ones with the broken jaws. The one with the broken wrist pulled another gun and tried to raise it before he was shown the error of his ways. Suffice it to say these men chose poorly and paid for it. If you’re looking for sympathy for them look in the dictionary between ’shit’ and ’syphilis.’”

The EMT wilted as he listened to the tirades. He went to go recheck his ambulance. Charmaine Jones turned to Ezra.

“You two were pretty hard on him,” she commented.

“We were just getting started, miss,” Ezra replied while Jack snorted. “He may be a good EMT for you out there but this was survival in here until our CO started getting things organized. The city didn’t give us shit. We figured out how to turn the power back on. We figured out how to provide all these people with food and clean water. Most of us running things in here are veterans or still on active duty. We understand ‘adapt, improvise, and overcome.’ I don’t know much about your job, but I can’t imagine it’s too different for you out there.”

“No,” Charmaine agreed, “it’s not.”

“Here’s something else we understand: neutralizing threats. That usually means eliminating them with extreme prejudice, but civilian courts frown on that when it happens outside a war zone. We’re feeding these men, taking care of their injuries as best we can, but we’re at the limit of what we can do. If you want to take responsibility for them – give them some happy juice or whatever – that’s on you, but we want them out of here. Until they leave, they’re not going to be given another opportunity to terrorize us.”

“You’ve still got it, Chief,” Jack muttered as the two sailors walked away from the aid station. “I think my asshole puckered while I listened to that.”

“The veneer’s thin enough out there on the streets, Jack. You know that. In here it’s even thinner, or was until Jeff got us moving in the right direction.” Ezra sighed. “I wish I had leading petty officers like him when I was on the Connie. We owe him a lot and we will not let him down, understand?”

“Aye-aye, Chief.”

“Reverend Watson and Father Beauchamp offered to work with me on my project, Jeffrey,” Keiko explained while she and Jeff stood in the second floor hallway. “In actuality, it will be more of me adding to the spiritual support they are giving to the others here.”

“How so?”

“They are part of the community here, whereas we are not. They are known to the majority of the people in the building whereas we, again, are not. They have already approached another two teachers with ‘their’ idea to keep children occupied until we can be evacuated.”

“And you’re okay with all that?”

“Certainly, Jeffrey,” Keiko assured him. “This is a time to get things accomplished, not assuage our egos. There are thousands here who need to see stability for a time before they face the uncertainty which lies ahead for them. This city – this entire region – faces an unprecedented clean-up and rebuilding effort. Many here escaped the rising waters with only their lives and the clothes on their backs. Many of those people likely will not have homes to return to. This will simply be one more way to help them get their feet under them before facing the challenges ahead.”

“Like I said, Keiko, I leave it in your hands. If you’re okay with what’s going on then so am I.” Jeff held out a yellow ’STAFF’ shirt for Keiko to take. “Ezra ‘liberated’ these from the stockroom. They might allow people pick us out of the crowd easier if they need help or to point someone else our way.”

Keiko put the new shirt on over her current one. Pulling her arms in she worked some magic and soon pulled her old shirt out through the neck of the new.

“You know we could have stepped into our room and you could have just taken off the old shirt before putting your new one on, right?”

“Yes, I’m sure you would have preferred that, Jeffrey,” Keiko smirked while she tied the bottom hem of the too-large shirt in a knot. “I must return to the theater and continue planning with Ernest and Abraham.”

“Who?”

“Father Beauchamp and Reverend Watson. They asked me to call them by their given names.”

“Ah. The kitchens should have lunch ready soon. I don’t know what they’re making, but five trailer-loads of food showed up while you were up here. Make sure you, our clergy, and anyone else who shows up get something to eat. I doubt we’ll have to let the others know because I could smell something good cooking on my way up here.” He sighed. “With any luck we’re gonna pull this off.”

“Operations to Wicked One?” Jeff’s radio squawked. He pulled it off his belt.

“‘Wicked One?’” Keiko asked.

“My call sign, and Ezra’s idea of a joke.” Jeff raised the radio. “Wicked One.”

“Wicked One, the chief is asking you to come to Operations. Company’s coming.”

Jeff and Keiko’s eyebrows rose. “Wicked One, I’ll be right there,” he answered.

Jeff kissed Keiko before he headed for the stairs.

“All right, Ezra, what’s up?”

“Gary picked up transmissions from Coast Guard helos operating over the Ninth Ward. The floodwaters there forced lots of people onto their roofs. The Coasties have been plucking them off all morning. Gary was able to dial in the frequency they’re operating on and hailed one helo as it returned for another rescue. He asked if they could have someone call him on one of the MARS frequencies so he wouldn’t tie up the operational channel.”

“‘MARS?’” Jeff asked.

“Military Affiliate Radio System, that amateur-military radio tie Gary talked about earlier,” Ezra answered. “A helo from NAS New Orleans will be landing in the parking lot to our southwest in a little less than ten minutes. We’re sending one of the demo ambulances over to pick up the seven-man team they’re sending. We’ll send the crew of the helo some food after the ambulance gets back.” Ezra looked at Jeff. “My guess is they’ll be armed for ‘personal protection.’”

“I’d be disappointed in them if they weren’t, squids or no.” Now it was Ezra’s turn to flip Jeff off. “I know I’m number one, Ezra. You don’t have to remind me.”

“Rein it in, Sergeant.”

“You started it. What are we showing our guests?”

“A little of everything I figure. We’ll make the case for them to get those assholes from our first night here out of our hair, or find someone who can. The Navy wasn’t officially named in the Posse Comitatus Act, but they try not to get involved in domestic law enforcement if they can help it.”

“A Coast Guard port security unit maybe? They’re Homeland Security, not DoD – federal law enforcement and free of any Posse Comitatus restrictions.”

“Maybe, but the offenses violated local law, not federal. Anyway, my thought with the tour was to show that things are under control here, but we could stand to be evacuated sooner rather than later.”

“Good plan. Even those five trucks of food won’t last forever. Plus I hear there are a few dialysis patients in the group that came over from the EMS station. They’ll need their treatments soon before they start having problems. Are the ambulances coming to the front door, or the garage where we’ve been parking them?”

“We’ll meet them outside the front door. I want to control things a bit.”

“‘Trust, but verify?’”

“I’m a paranoid bastard,” Ezra shrugged. “What can I say?”

Seven armed Navy personnel stepped out of the back of the ambulance and onto the curb near where Jeff and company first entered the convention center. The shore party’s CO glanced around, taking in his surroundings while the rest of the men fanned out. The lieutenant (j.g.) noted the steel security shutters rolled down across the entire front of the building.

He was about to say something to the crew of the ambulance when the sound of one of the shutters opening reached his ears. He saw two men wearing bright yellow t-shirts step out of the building. To his surprise, when they stopped two paces away one of them saluted.

“Welcome to the Morial Convention Center, Lieutenant. I’m Staff Sergeant Jeff Knox, 10th Special Forces. The gentleman with me is Ezra Washington, our chief of security here.”

“And what is your position, Sergeant?”

“The chief here tells me I’m in charge, sir. I respect the opinion of my elders.”

“I’m not too old to kick your ass, you know?” Ezra grumbled.

“Yeah,” Jeff snorted, “maybe if you get your fellow sailors here to help you.”

“They can have what’s left after I get done with you.”

“You realize that Keiko would avenge me, right?”

Ezra blinked before turning back to the lieutenant.

“His wife can be kinda scary, sir. Could you call the air station and have them send some Marines out? Maybe a company or two, if you have ‘em?”

The Navy folks turned to look at Jeff. Jeff shrugged.

“Fifth-degree black belt. I say ‘yes, dear’ a lot. Anyhow, come on inside out of the sun. How many folks are back at the chopper, sir? We’d like to send lunch over for them, if that’s okay?”

“You have food?” Lieutenant Carreiro asked. “We were told the city didn’t supply you folks with anything.”

“Your intel is correct, sir. They didn’t give us shit, if you’ll pardon my French. We got a little lucky with the food supplies but we’ve got plenty of people here who volunteered to help out where they can.” Jeff led the way into the building. He waved toward the lobby restaurant where the main kitchen was.

“We’ve got one kitchen which does most of the cooking. There are three others here we use for basic prep and low-heat cooking since they can’t roast, broil, or anything that needs more than a two hundred fifty degree warming oven.”

“And you’ve got power!” blurted one of the enlisted sailors.

“There are six generators on-site. We were able to get them running our first night here. We have clean water, clean bathrooms, on-site medical staff, and security. What we don’t yet have is a plan to relocate all these folks.”

“My guess is FEMA has that plan,” Lieutenant Carreiro said. “I’m also guessing they haven’t contacted you yet?”

“Not yet. Let’s discuss this over lunch, sir.”