August 25
Here was your Henry lineup for last night:
Henry 1 – moi
Henry 2 – Lee
Henry 3 – Orwad
Lee and I were assigned an actual mission tonight, the first hotel mission in recent memory. Appropriately, it was all very covert at the beginning. I was actually on another call, a guest assist, when the deal started going down.
– Control, Henry 1
– Henry 1, 10-6 (busy), guest assist.
– Copy. When you’re 98 (available for assignment), 85 (go to) to the 21st E-Core and give me a 21, code four.
All right. It certainly is intriguing getting sent to the insertion point and being told to call for further instructions. Immediately after issuing me my instructions, Junior gets on the horn with Lee.
– Control, Henry 2.
– Henry 2, 10-6 with Henry 3.
Lee was helping Orwad with a lost property report because Orwad was unable to handle getting the required information – difficult stuff like a description, when it was last seen and its value – on his own and needed backup.
– Copy that. Henry 2, break away and 85 to 21-302. You are going to help Henry 1 with a mission.
This transmission is key; it makes clear we are on an actual mission and not just some run of the mill guest assist or some crap like that. The chips are down and MCSD is sending their top hotel units in. Also, it establishes that I’m on the point. Lee is under my command for the mission. This means that if Lee buys the farm I will be responsible for the paperwork, though probably not next-of-kin notification.
I get to the 21st floor and call Junior for the details. We are to infiltrate the room, find the safe, and extricate a beeper the previous guest had left behind.
Exactly how we are to enter the room and open the safe is left to us.
Lee arrives soon after I hang up the phone. This is an official mission and the time element is key so I get right to the point. I tell him the previous guest left his beeper in the safe when he evacuated the room and we are tasked with recovering the beeper, which probably has nuclear codes or something on it. Lee nods significantly.
“It’s a good thing we have master keys,” he said. “It’ll make it easier to open the door.”
Typical Lee; always thinking, always analyzing, always two steps ahead of the game.
“Junior also gave me the combination to the safe, so we don’t have to blow it open,” I said.
Lee laughs. He’s at the door and volunteers to be the first one in.
This is a tough one. I’m in command and should probably be on the point here, but the latest Intel from HQ had the room vacant and I don’t really see any problems with letting Lee go first; the experience will serve him well.
The room is actually a Monaco Suite; the plan, after initial entry, is for Lee to secure the half bath that is immediately to the left of the door while yours truly fans out and secures the main living area. Once these key areas are secured, we’ll then turn our attention to the master bath. On entry, we both have our flashlights drawn.
The only problem was we couldn’t find the goddamn safe!
It wasn’t in the half-bath or in the main living area and we didn’t find it in the master bath, either, even though that’s where it was, because we lacked the investigative skill to notice it behind the door. We stood there wondering where the hell it could be.
“Are these people on crack?” Lee wondered. “Who the hell designed this place?”
Then I almost compromised the entire mission when, in total desperation, I inadvertently pulled the iron and ironing board off the wall in the hall closet, probably waking up the entire floor. Scrambling, we finally find the safe, in the master bath where it had been patiently waiting the whole time. Using the combination given to me by Junior, I open the safe, Lee removes the beeper and we goof off in the suite for a while before radioing dispatch the mission had been successfully completed.
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