BATTLE HARDENED

The definition of 'battle hardened' was seeing a buddy blown away.

Well, I was in command. And now battle hardened. No time to think about that.

It was no wonder that we were taking fire from Commander Tiafoe's compound. We were certainly pumping enough fire into it. Standard operating procedure was to take double the number of bodies that you were trying to neutralize. Maybe I'd miscalculated in setting up this operation. Maybe we had a mole in our ranks. Ever since High Commander Blaine took his position, I'd wondered how porous our security was. Sometimes it felt like if I ever wanted to know what was going on with Blaine or his now expanded household, I should just ask one of his many opponents.

That thought was dispatched by concentrated fire from the compound. There was no point advancing directly forward. One of our guys was already down and unrecoverable.

My two originals were on my hip. I turned to them and said, "pistols only, over there." I pointed to some heavy brush to our extreme left. There'd been no fire from there - no wonder. Commander Tiafoe's staff had done a great job mixing landscaping with building natural defences. It's as if he knew this day would come.

Suffice it to say that my two guys were successful. Bursting through the hedge, one took a round to the leg. He wasn't recovered until the compound had been secured.

After that, access to the house was without resistance. They'd put all their eggs on the perimeter, which once penetrated, they folded like a bad hand in poker. I guess that's why their numbers seemed so inflated. Entering Commander Tiafoe's office I expected to take at least one round, but no. He was standing with his back to me facing a small unlit fireplace, his Handmaid was facing away, too, on her knees at his side in her red robe.

I barked, "Sir, hands!" He raised his, holding a Bible. I barked, "Bilhah-girl, too." Still facing away from me, she raised hers. She was holding an old-style Glock. I barked, "drop it or I drop you." She laid it on the carpet on the far side from the Commander. I yelled, "Robe!" The Commander turned back to me with a look of disgust, then reached over and pulled her robe off of her.

She had an AR-15 pistol slung down her back. Wow, the Handmaid program had had some upgrades since the last one I'd seen. My lieutenant's voice came over the radio, "Compound secure. Orders?" I replied, "Commander's office, first deck."

The lieutenant came in with four others. I said, "secure the Commander and the Handmaid." Once accomplished I walked over to the now zip-tied Tiafoe. One of my Guardians walked past me with the AR-15 pistol in his hand, muttering to himself, "Nice!" Another hustled the now robeless Handmaid out, leaving just me and Tiafoe.

I holstered my pistol and said, "Commander Tiafoe, you are under arrest for crimes of sedition and heresy against the State. You have a right to remain silent. You have a right to competent counsel. You have a right to choose the method of your execution."

Tiafoe looked at me, "Son, get on with it. But ask yourself, do you know who you're working for?"

"That's not my place, sir. Please come with me." I took Tiafoe outside, put him in the back of the prisoner's wagon, and went around, got into the front.

At that, the radio crackled. It was HQ. I id'ed myself. The voice said, "Take package to airport. South terminal. Signed, Nick Blaine. Out." So I turned to the driver, "You heard the man."

WHO'S YOUR DADDY?

Did I know who I was working for? I worked for Gilead. I had since the perilous over-country return. I had since enduring reeducation, where I could have led those simplistic basics courses, taught by the dimmest bulbs in Gilead. They'd not even tried to convey understanding of the Biblical principles at stake. For them it was recite, beat, repeat.

One could excuse the practical stuff which dominated Academy. I mean, I'd not have been able to lead today's operation if I had not had that minimal tactical training. We'd flanked the compound at key places, like we'd been taught. We had exposed the inherent weakness of their lack of numbers. Textbook.

We'd had prayer sessions, sure. That was what was missing these days. I still believed Blaine's household was righteous. But I saw seditious things, and being 'in the field' had taught that, as a Guardian, one must use their discretion. Most certainly as a hero of Gilead, High Commander Blaine did not need to distinguish himself to the likes of me.

Except that in the days leading up to the assault on Commander Tiafoe's compound, Beth informed me that Blaine's Handmaid had remained untouched. That's where my mind was right now, on the way to the airport. Despite a Commander's main duty of virility to Gilead, the High Commander was pulling rank for some sort of… should I write it here?…. seditious reason.

Then there was Beth's gaggle of marthas. Strictly from a security point of view, she did not need that many. Most of the Guardians assigned to the Blaine household had their primary dwellings elsewhere - the single guys still at the dorm at the Academy. There was a revolving shift of Guardians stationed at the seconded house next door. It's where my office was, not that I was ever there.

What did those marthas actually do? Their house was a no-go area for Guardians. Not good. In the weeks since the Chancery bombing, enough of the old Chancery had been reopened to have most of Blaine's meetings there. That had not been a security thing, it was 'political' as the Commanders had said. "Show the insurrectionists we won't be cowed." But there were still meetings at Blaine's house.

With an excess of marthas, no one knew what they did. Not me, and I was the head of security!

There was one - just one - service of praise for the dead, particularly the dead Commanders. Normally a High Commander would be front and centre in leading Gilead through mourning. Blaine had farmed out that responsibility. The official word was that it was because of his humility, that he had not aspired to be High Commander - that he was the new 'Matthias', the disciple who had replaced Judas. That didn't even make sense.

I'm not sure I am portraying it well here. One night in the week prior to the operation at Tiafoe's I was laying awake in my bed in the loft. I was second-guessing tactical plans. But it also occurred to me that if for some reason I did not return from the operation, that the safe on my floor at the foot of the bed would remain unopened, as would the manila envelope inside it. No one would know.

During all this planning, just me and High Commander Blaine in his office discussing how best to breach Commander Tiafoe's defences, I got no answer to my two most basic questions. One, why, High Commander Blaine, are we not centering this operation in prayer, with an invocation to God? And two, High Commander Blaine, it would be far easier for me to take half the strike force and simply take Tiafoe during his commute to Chancery? We, then, could control the location of the 'take-zone', as well as flood it with our assets when his were thinnest, including some of ours at prearranged elevation?

Blaine had his own reasons. That's what he said. Me, I was going to be loyal, but I was getting tired of it.

So, I've wandered from two narratives upthread. Apologies. The safe, as well as the trip in the prison van to the airport. I'll get to both now.

INEXPLICABLE NARRATIVES

Lying there replaying tactical options, but also needing sleep to be fresh and frosty, I wondered if I should just read the contents of the manila envelope now. Find out about the Červeňák's and the Jefferys before something happened. At that the radio sputtered. I reached over and said, "What?" My lieutenant was reporting in, saying that the 3 am round was complete. I said, "Fine," and put the radio down.

I decided to sleep. I had to be up at 5 am as it was. It also occurred to me that like most things in Gilead, I was not going to find any answers in that envelope. So it just may as well stay in the safe. Gilead was great on answers to questions one never really asked. Just light on the answers one was really interested in.

Look at me. Chief of personal security to the High Commander of our District. And I'm thinking seditious thoughts. At 3 am. I should self-arrest.

The prison van went through security at the south terminal without incident. I didn't know what I thought would happen. Tiafoe's men with guns waiting for us? Not possible. The survivors of his security detail were already back in the Academy basement for 'retraining'. To the losers go such. I'd seen to it.

Up ahead at the main door to the terminal, stood a statuesque woman in a blue-teal robe. Mrs Tiafoe. With one well armed Guardian at her side. One of ours, I assumed.

Don't worry. He was. One of ours. All Commander Tiafoe said was, "Where are my sons?"