The official function that Alexander had invited us to in Washington was being held in an extremely swanky hotel a few blocks away from the White House. Usually, the embassy would have hosted this soiree, but they were in the middle of renovations. Maybe the marble foyer wasn’t glitzy enough or maybe there were installing a new lederhosen display. Who knows? The upshot was that Alexander footed the bill for the team and I to stay at the hotel during our stay.
No one from the team had been to Washington before and they had created an itinerary for themselves with all the places they planned on visiting. Monuments, parks, museums, statues, and river cruises. They packed as much as they could into their three days. They’d even managed to squeeze in a tour of the White House.
I was very happy for them but when they invited me, I demurred. I had my own itinerary and it included trips to several new companies for my investment portfolio, as well as a visit to the basement archives where Congress was required to list all of their personal insider trades. It couldn’t hurt to take a look at what the people in the know knew. After that, I was going to take a private tour of the server rooms of a dozen banks around the city that were part of Gabriel’s list of banks that held information about Serpentine’s clients or suppliers. I’d had Howie prepare a few dozen of his special external hard drives just for this occasion.
Time permitting, I’d also check out the White House. A visit there in R1 would be way cooler than any arranged tour. I hear there are secret tunnels under the place and even a private subway station that can get the President out in a hurry in case of attack.
My invitation had come with an ‘and guest’ and I’d given serious thought as to who I could ask to join me on this adventure. Bobby was out. He couldn’t miss the football practice. Dad was out too. He had his teaching duties and he hated these types of functions. He’s not very sociable. Eva and James were working on their college applications. Uncle Magnum was busy with his classes and he had some get together with Margaret’s family. Given that it was a birthday party for an eleven-year-old girl, he probably would have preferred to be with me. He didn’t seem to have a choice in the matter though. That left Mark and I think he would have agreed to come, only I made the decision not to ask him because I needed time alone to get through my list of break-ins.
One by one I checked off my to-do list in Washington, except for the White House as I ran out of time, and before I knew it, it was time to get ready for the party. Shauna and I had gone dress shopping a few weeks ago and she’d helped me pick out a slinky black dress with cap sleeves. We’d also found a matching purse and pair of mid-heel pumps. I was more of a jeans and super-hero t-shirt kind of girl and getting all fancy like this was outside of my experience. Half an hour before the party was called for, Shauna came in and helped me with my makeup. I still sucked at putting in on and I really liked Shauna’s ‘less is more’ attitude towards it.
Shauna was wearing a sleeveless dress with tasteful sequins and an uneven hem and she’d had her hair done so that it framed her face in gentle curls. She looked great and I was sure that she’d turn quite a few heads at the party. She blushed when I told her this and I had the sudden insight that Shauna wasn’t very experienced in these things. When I thought about it further, I realized that like me she’d never had to go to something like this before. I’d heard about social functions in the army, but I guessed that you just wore the fancy uniform to that instead of your regular uniform. It made me feel better thinking that I wasn’t the only one that had never been to one of these before. At the same time, it made me feel worse because it’s easier to survive these things if you have a seasoned professional showing you the ropes.
Staying at the same hotel as the party turned out to be a great idea, as we heard that traffic all around the White House was snarled like crazy because of some protest against the upcoming G-20 meetings. These protests had been getting increasingly violent over the past five or six years and watching them on the news I got the impression that a lot of the violence was caused by a small group of professional protesters who came out to set things on fire and get more press coverage. They certainly seemed well organized. No one goes out for a peaceful day of protesting with all the ingredients to make a Molotov cocktail.
I was glad that I didn’t have to make my way here through all the traffic and demanding people. A simple thirty second trip in an elevator took us down to the main floor where the embassy had reserved one of the medium sized halls. The ushers, who were obviously embassy security guards dressed up for their alternate rolls tonight, carefully examined our invitations and waved us through to the event. Gabriel and Jenny followed Shauna and me inside the hall and we all stopped just inside the door for our eyes to adjust and to get our bearings. The room was elegantly decorated in what I would call ‘Standard Wedding’ with tables arranged in a semi-circle around a dance floor. Behind the dance floor was a raised platform with a band already playing some Eighty’s classic. To the side there was a podium set up with the flags of Germany and the United States in the background.
Before we could take a step further into the hall, we were met by Strudel and his wife.
“Hello Mr. and Mrs. Strudel. It’s good to see you both again.”
Mr. Becker facepalmed and his wife smiled warmly. “They’ve been calling him that at the office for the past few months. Ever since Alexander told the story of how he got that nickname. For some reason, everyone but Gerhardt thinks it’s hilarious. I heard that even the ambassador had to correct herself when she used it once. She apologized, but she was smiling the whole time. I don’t really care what they call him. I’m just glad to have him back.”
Mrs. Strudel, Emilia, greeted each of us like family and showed us to our table. With our purses set tastefully aside, she took us around the room and introduced us to various people whose names and titles I immediately forgot. There was a fair amount of embassy staff in the mix, along with important German nationals who represented large German corporations here in the US. Various ambassadors from other countries were present as well and somewhere in all the chaos we even managed to run into Ethan from the State Department. This wasn’t part of his normal duties, but he and Alexander had worked together on how they would use the server information that I’d given them from the prison and they’d developed a good working relationship. It was enough to get Ethan invited to this party and for Ethan’s boss to consider promoting Ethan and making him the State Department liaison to the German embassy.
The evening got off to a slow start, as the protest caused many of the attendees to be even later than they planned on being. The German ambassador herself was a full hour late and she came in full of apologies and stories of her adventures in the great Washington traffic jam. She didn’t have a kind thing to say about the protesters.
Hors d’oeuvres had been served while everyone had mingled and waited for the ambassador. Shortly after her arrival the guests took to their seats and the ambassador welcomed everyone and thanked us all for coming, in both English and German. She made some allusions to a ceremony after the dinner and invited everyone to eat and dance and enjoy the evening.
The dinner was ok, but I made a mental note to save an Italian diplomat next time. A nice ravioli in rose sauce beats schnitzel in a lemon sauce any day. As the dinner plates were taken away, the Ambassador walked up to the podium and started her speech. She spoke in English and peppered her words with the occasional German phrase, which I happily understood. She talked about the importance of service. Service to your family, to your community, and to your country. She explained that tonight was a celebration of those that had provided outstanding service to the Federal Republic of Germany and there were three individuals being honored tonight.
She followed this up by calling up the first recipient, one of the businessmen that I’d met earlier. He was awarded the Order of Merit for his entrepreneurial achievement and helping drive the growth of German interests into new markets. She looped the medal of his head and he gave a one minute speech where he thanked the Ambassador and extolled the virtues of his great country. The second recipient was a woman that spoke for way too long about the scientific work that earned her the award. Normally, I would have tuned her out, only I was next, and I didn’t want to miss my cue. Luckily, the ambassador was up to the task of interrupting her politely and ushering her back to her seat.
“Finally, I would like to call up Ms. Abigail Smith. Ms. Smith has earned the appreciation of the German people through her humanitarian efforts that led to the release of our very own Gerhardt Becker from political incarceration. In addition, her activities have contributed to the enhancement of relations with our host country and have resulted in improving German’s standing abroad. What is of extra significance is that Ms. Smith is only seventeen and has already created a foundation that is dedicated to providing assistance to those that have suffered from the devastating effects of human trafficking. It is rare to see such humanitarian achievements in one so young and the German people would like to show their appreciation by presenting to her the Order of Merit.”
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I walked to the ambassador and shook her hand before I bent down a little so she could put the medal around my neck. I began my speech in German and I registered the surprise in the ambassador’s face. “Thank you, Ambassador. Please excuse me if I mangle your language a little. I’m still learning it. I’ve never been to any official function, much less a German one, and I didn’t know what to expect. Part of me was hoping that I’d get to meet David Hasselhoff or Boris Becker. But this was nice too.” That got a lot more laughter than it deserved and I took the opportunity to end my comedy routine and switch to English as I thanked my team by name and gave a quick plug to the Hannah Foundation.
Following the ceremony, I was mobbed with people congratulating me and asking me more about the foundation. I was happy to give them more information and expressed my hope to eventually have several branches in Europe. Ethan and Alexander made their way over as the well wishers dispersed and added their congratulations.
“Abby, I’m curious about something. You didn’t speak German at the Hannah’s Home meeting, yet here you are, barely two months later, delivering a short speech in German, with almost no detectable English accent. You even managed to make a funny joke in German. Most Germans couldn’t even do that.” That earned Ethan a light smack across the head from Alexander and Ethan pretended that it hurt. Boys! Even when they were high level diplomats, they were still boys.
“What Ethan is trying to ask is how did you manage to learn German so quickly?”
“Uhm…I read a few books about it and watched some movies. Oh, and I listened to German podcasts too. I guess I’m just good with languages.” Ethan shook his head and wished he was good with languages as well.
With dinner and the ceremony finished up, the dancing began in earnest. Shauna got asked to dance a few times, but Jenny was far more popular and spend most of her time on the dance floor. I guess German men like tall women. Gabriel and his muscles also garnered a fair amount of interest from the women. I was invited to one dance each by Gerhardt, Alexander and Ethan, but everyone else kept their distance. I was below the age of majority and I supposed that none of the men wanted to be viewed by their colleagues as predators. That left me with Shauna standing beside the dance floor sipping a ginger ale when the first shot hit my outer shield and passed through, sending the bullet harmlessly into R2 before I even registered what was happening.
My habit of keeping my shields up all the time had just saved my life. I honestly didn’t expect to need the shield for personal protection. After my trip to the mines this summer, I’d seen how valuable it was for me to be able to send out my field great distances and I’d resolved to build up my field strength further using constant shield practice. I was at the point where I kept the field on all day, every day, and I barely noticed that it was on when it was within ten feet of my body.
My hearing registered another two shots, but neither came near me. Someone yelled for everyone to get down and the crowd dropped down into a crouching or kneeling position. I looked around and saw that one person, a man who was at the other end of the dance floor, was lying on his back and blood was seeping onto the floor from under his right shoulder.
I thought about which direction the first bullet had come from and sent out my field in that direction, just like I had done at the mine sites. This time I was looking to see if I could find any people with guns and I found them almost immediately. A block away, there was a squad of what I assumed to be policemen wrestling a man to the ground. His gun was on the ground, twenty feet further from him.
Coming out of my crouch, I ran over to the man who’d been shot. I ignored Shauna’s frantic shout for me to get down. Kneeling beside the injured man, I opened his jacket to look at the wound. There was blood staining his upper chest and I opened his shirt to find what I had already seen with my scan. The bullet had penetrated just below his right rear deltoid, specifically the infraspinatus muscle, and had come out of his upper chest. His right lung had collapsed and his plural cavity, the space between his lung and his rib cage, was filling with air and blood. This was very bad. He was either going to bleed to death from the wounds or he’d eventually die from lack of oxygen. My scan-reading had taught me all about this condition, called tension hemopneumothorax, and how to treat it in the field, but that description had assumed that I had all the necessary equipment. I had nothing.
“Shauna! I need a first aid kit. I need to stop this bleeding. Also, call 911 and tell them we’ve had a shooting and that we need an ambulance right now. See if the hotel has an infirmary or nursing station and raid it if they do. Gabriel, I need towels or anything that will help me staunch the bleeding. Jenny, find me some scissors.”
I didn’t check to see if any of them had even heard me. I had to slow down the bleeding. I covered the chest wound with my hands and applied pressure. The books had said that I’d need to apply more pressure that I expected and they were right. I put more of my body weight onto my hands and the blood flow slowed further, only my scans showed that the man was still losing blood from the entry wound in his back.
I needed more hands. I looked around and saw that Ethan was right next to me.
“Ethan, I need you to reach under this shoulder and put pressure on the entry wound.” Ethan didn’t hesitate and kneeled beside me. I walked him through what he needed to do. It was a very awkward position for him and after a bit of trial and error, he found that he could cover the wound with one hand and use his other hand in a closed fist position to brace it from underneath. This, combined with some of the victim’s body weight helped apply the required pressure to slow the bleeding from that end.
Jenny came in with the scissors and I had her cut away the man’s jacket and shirt. For his sake, I sure hoped it wasn’t a rental. Then again, he’d be lucky if he had the chance to pay that bill. Gabriel and Shauna ran in together with the first aid kit and towels. I switched places with Gabriel and instructed the men on placing the towels properly and then applying more pressure. As I rummaged through the first aid kit for gauze to clean wounds and dressing to close them up, Shauna told me that they didn’t have an infirmary in the hotel.
“The ambulance is stuck in traffic. Between the protest and the shooting, they can’t get through.” Alexander’s normally impeccable English had been replaced with a German accent so thick that it would have fit in perfectly in one of the old World War II movies. At his words, I took a second to lean over and place my ear against the victim’s chest. I was supposed to be listening for the crackling sounds or wheezing, but it there was too much ambient noise. Instead, I used the few seconds to deepen my understanding of what was going on. The bleeding had been contained, but the trapped air needed to be let out.
“He’s going to need needle decompression to remove the air and blood from his chest. I don’t have the tools to do that. Find out where the nearest ambulance is and get me the needle. It’ll buy him some time for the ambulance to get here and take him to the hospital, but we need it now.”
I left the details to Alexander and I started sealing the wounds. The back wound I cleaned with gauze and sealed over completely. I wanted to pack it with the gauze, but my readings had specifically admonished not to do that. The chest wound I sealed by taping a plastic bag over the wound and taping it closed on three sides. The idea was that air could escape, but the internal pressure of the sucking chest wound would help the seal to keep air from getting in. However, the plastic I had was too rigid and I ended up having someone go get some saran wrap. It was flexible enough and did the trick.
Over the next several minutes, I monitored his breathing and reviewed all the things that I could do. With no experience in this and no equipment, there wasn’t much. I briefly considered if there was anything more that I could do with my field to help the guy. If things got bad enough, I could remove some of the blood from his thorax, but it would be replaced by air in short order. Could I remove air? I’d never tried something like that before and this wasn’t the place to do it. Accidentally killing the guy while trying to save him would really suck.
I did roll the guy over onto his damaged side, though. Supposedly this would help his breathing by putting less pressure on his uninjured lung. My instincts told me that putting more weight on the injured side was wrong, but I suppressed them. Whoever wrote those books had dealt with hundreds of cases like this and my trauma experience involved putting a band-aid on a paper cut, so I listened to the voice of experience.
The door burst open and one of the embassy guards came running in at full tilt. He had a medical kit in his hand and he handed it to me. As I ripped open the protective bag holding the needle, I heard the guard speaking to Alexander in German and explaining that he caught up to an ambulance a few blocks away that was about to leave to take another gunshot victim to the hospital. They couldn’t spare the paramedics, but they gave him the kit once he told them that there was a doctor on site that knew how to use it. I wondered what doctor he was talking about before it dawned on me that he was referring to me. Shit! For a second there I had hope that someone would take over for me.
With no one else around to lift the burden off of my shoulders, I kept going. I mentally reviewed everything that I’d read about inserting the needle into the lung area and realized that there was some disagreement as to the best place to insert it. I tried tossing a mental coin in my head and found that it kept landing on the side that I was leaning towards anyways. Funny that. The coin toss was overseen by three impartial referees, so there was no denying it. The text also warned that only trained medical personnel were legally allowed to perform this procedure and I hoped that they wouldn’t take my pretend medical license away from me after all this. Joking aside, I couldn’t see any other options except letting this guy die from asphyxiation. I’d just have to hope that if this guy lived, he wouldn’t try to sue me for trying to help.
Using my field scanning as a guide, I slowly plunged the needle into between the guy’s ribs and into this thorax. When my scan showed that the needle was at the correct depth, I flipped open the one-way valve on the needle and air escaped. I carefully monitored the guy’s breathing over the next few minutes and it seemed to me that the guy’s breathing eased. He wasn’t out of the woods by a long shot, but at least he wasn’t getting any worse and he had a chance to get to the hospital where they could do a proper tube thoracostomy and repair the damage caused by the bullet.
A call to ‘clear the way’ was shouted from the entrance to the room and a pair of paramedics entered and headed straight for me. I rose from the floor and gave them a synopsis of the wound and the measures I’d taken and then they took over. They had him on the gurney and hooked up to an IV in no time at all and on the way to the ambulance, followed closely by Alexander and the Ambassador.