East Mall Sector
0502 EST
Ryckmen couldn't quite bite down a brief giggle as he looked to the east, seeing the looming silhouette of the Capitol haloed with pre-dawn light. Tarvey and Bundmeister looked back at him with raised eyebrows.
"Not starting to crack on us, are you, Lowell?" asked Bundmeister tartly. "Because if you are, your timing absolutely sucks."
"No, Bunny, not cracking on you. Just thinking about Robert's Rules for Rangers." He grinned ferally at Bundmeister. "Dawn's when the French, Indians, and Division agents attack."
This produced a low chuckle from the team. They were heading along Pennsylvania Avenue towards 1st Street. The remnants of a tropical depression had pushed north, cooling the area down slightly and dumping a large amount of moisture in the air, setting up a somewhat misty morning. It would likely burn off by midday. With any luck, it wouldn't be the only thing disappearing today.
Surprisingly, the True Sons didn't seem terribly interested in trying to advance against the crash site. Ridgeway had probably deduced that the final battle was upon him and he wasn't going to fritter away his remaining forces trying to attack a firmly entrenched opponent. Particularly one who was in the best possible position to intercept anybody he might try to send out to stir up trouble behind the lines.
It had been tempting to simply launch the attack from the Air Force One crash site, still held by Theater militia and heavily reinforced over the last 48 hours. But Ryckmen had held out for coming in along the perimeter fence surrounding DZ East and across the front of the Capitol. The chain link fencing and stacked Jersey barriers would provide cover while the Theater forces would be a very large distraction. Sawyer had promised some support for the initial insertion on to the Capitol grounds, but once they got past the outer defensive works, Team Peacemaker was on their own.
"Where do you think Ridgeway has the briefcase?" Gregory asked softly as they turned south.
"Ricky, you might have a thought about that," said Ryckmen.
"Ridgeway's not stupid. Prouder than Lucifer telling off God, but not stupid. My guess, it'll probably be somewhere which he might be able to make use of some of the contents. The briefcase has to have been carrying information aside from the entry codes for whatever bunker those antivirals were being stored in. Ridgeway would never let potentially useful intelligence sit idle in a safe somewhere."
"I don't like the idea of going in blind, guys," grumbled Bundmeister.
"It's the Capitol, Bunny. The House is on one side, the Senate's on the other, and the Rotunda is in the middle. How could we get lost?" chuckled Tarvey.
"We don't know what they've done inside. They've almost certainly repurposed sections for functions such as barracks, infirmaries, armories, and general storage. And since you mention the Rotunda, the fact it is in the middle makes it ideal for a command center. Everything naturally flows through there."
"Which, in turn," said Gregory, "suggests it's a good location to search first once we get inside."
Bundmeister shrugged, then nodded. "Yeah, it does. Thanks, Peace. Feeling a little jittery."
"Just take a page from Brother Henry and remember Sheppard's Prayer. 'Lord, don't let me screw this up.'"
The team chuckled again, the last of the pre-battle jitters working themselves out as they felt themselves focusing on the task at hand. They passed through the Peace Memorial Circle and over to a small knot of Theater militia. Jury-rigged mortar tubes were aimed at a high angle. One of the militia members came over, smiling in the early morning gloom.
"Morning, guys. Looks like it's a great day to save the city." He gestured to the mortar tubes. "They're not mil-spec, but they'll do the job. As you can see, we've got a breaching charge on that wall there. Looks like they put Jersey barriers behind the chain link. We're going to pop some smoke rounds, help give you some cover. Blue Parrot should be coming on station in about two minutes." The man looked slightly abashed, then stuck out his hand. "I want to thank you guys for everything you've done. We wouldn't be here without you." One by one, the team members shook the man's hand, then nodded to the mortar teams and received acknowledging nods in return.
"Peacemaker, this is Blue Parrot. Drone is on station."
"Blue Parrot, this is Peacemaker," said Gregory, "we copy you. What's the opposition look like?"
"Right now, looks like one roving patrol. Mortar crews are standing by. There's a lot of open ground to cover, but there's a bunker which might just be under the guns. Two man team in the bunker. It's open at the top. They have a minigun set up and aimed towards the street. There may be a couple of guardhouses occupied with rapid reaction teams, but we can't get a definite count. Expect heavy resistance."
"Copy that, Blue Parrot. Stay on station as long as you can, let us know when you have to bug out to recharge."
"Will do, Peacemaker. Good luck and God bless."
Ryckmen looked over at the militia team leader. "All right, it's game time. Blow the wall, pop the smoke, and bug out when you're out of ammo. Fall back to the crash site." He pulled out his AR shooting glasses and set them over his eyes, the others following suit.
Nodding, the militia leader took a remote detonator and flipped up the safety shield. "Fire in the hole!" he said as he pushed the button. The shaped charge shattered the concrete barriers and obliterated the chain link fence. The mortar teams quickly slid into position, launching smoke rounds downrange, as Team Peacemaker scrambled up and began to move towards the Capitol building.
The morning mist and smoke mixed together, making it difficult to navigate the western grounds. Tarvey triggered a targeting pulse, illuminating True Sons and potential cover locations. Reaching the first position, they opened up on the roving patrol as the first enemy mortars coughed. Shells screamed down and detonated, more than a few hitting True Sons fighters rather than their intended targets. The minigun in the bunker began to open up, traversing the area, laying down a wall of lead to try and slow up the intruders.
"Peace, take that gun out!" barked Ryckmen.
Nodding, Gregory unlimbered the grenade launcher, waiting for a moment when the stream of fire wasn't directed close to him. Peeking over, he looked through the reflex sight, shifted the aimpoint slightly to ensure maximum effect of the 40mm grenade, then pulled the trigger and sent it through the firing slit. The explosion killed the True Sons inside and cooked off the ammo container. "Go!" he shouted as he hooked the launcher back on his pack and brought his M249 to bear, keeping the left side of the bunker clear of hostiles. Tarvey and Bundmeister rushed to the bunker and took up positions.
"Heavy grenadier on the right, Ricky," subvocalized Bundmeister, her voice almost toneless as she sent a short burst towards a knot of shotgun armed troops. Tarvey nodded, sent out another targeting pulse, then worked his way inside the bunker from the left side and clambered up to the top, loading an explosive bolt into the crossbow. He popped up, fired the bolt into the grenadier's EOD suit just above the sternum, then ducked back down. The small explosion drove the broadhead through the Kevlar, through flesh and bone, and out the back of the suit, killing the grenadier and causing a final spastic trigger pull to launch a 40mm grenade, killing four True Sons who'd been hiding nearby.
Ryckmen moved up to the bunker alongside Peace, the latter staying on the ground while Ryckmen moved up to the top of the bunker, his Model 700 back in his hands as he began servicing targets. Tarvey assisted with his M1A, pausing only a fraction of a second before stroking the trigger against a True Son wearing a medic armband. Medics and corpsmen were normally people he would never have taken a bead on, much less shot at. But the Hippocratic Oath didn't excuse violating the oath of allegiance a soldier gave to his country, and Tarvey wasn't in the mood to take prisoners, no matter how useful they might be later on.
With the guardhouses cleared out, the team refilled their empty magazines from the True Sons' own stock, then opened a gate on to the terrace. A squad of True Sons raced down the stairs to try and intercept them, their eagerness to stop the intrusion overriding basic discipline with predictable results as they were quickly dispatched. Making their way up the terrace, the team stopped dead as they beheld an element of the defenses which they had seemingly missed.
"I don't believe it," said Bundmeister, a stunned look on her face. "They gutted a Warthog and tried to use the main gun for ground defense. I don't know if it's the stupidity or the sacrilege I find more offensive."
"Stupidity works, Bunny," Gregory said quietly, not entirely believing it himself. "But at least we weren't heads-up against that thing. That monster would have completely ruined this little excursion."
Tarvey went over to the doors leading to the Rotunda and tested them, finding them locked. He tapped on various spots, trying to see where the weak points might be, scowling as he heard the same solid tone. Frustrated, he triggered a pulse, and got nothing usable back from the results. "Well, damn," he spat. "I don't know what Ridgeway did here, but these doors are not going to open. It's not that they're locked. They're sealed off completely. Could be anything from plate steel bolted into the masonry above the door to poured concrete."
"Will a breaching charge get us in?" asked Ryckmen.
"I don't know," Tarvey replied, shaking his head. "I know it's there to be used, but I would hate like hell to blow up all our of plastique trying and failing to break in through here."
"Then perhaps we can use something with a little more punch," Gregory said, a vicious smile starting to cross his face as he went over to the hardened laptop sitting near the Avenger cannon. He began to tap through command menus, smiling wider as he found what he was looking for. "Everybody, I suggest you get behind me and cover your ears. This is gonna be loud," he warned as the muzzle of the cannon slowly swung towards the door.
"Uhhh, Peace, I think that might be overkill," Bundmeister said as she clapped her hands over her ears.
"It's only overkill if it drills through to the east side of the building. Commencing fire." He tapped a key, watching as the built-in macro spun up the barrels, then engaged the ammunition feed. A hundred 30mm rounds tore through wood, steel, and masonry, annihilating the barrier the True Sons had erected behind the doors. Tarvey cautiously went over by the hole and looked up the stairway.
"Nice job, Peace. A couple holes in the steps, but nothing that is going to cause us any problems."
"Good," said Ryckmen. "Now will you safe that damn thing, Peace? I really don't want to be shot by an anti-tank cannon accidentally on our way out of here."
"Sure thing." Gregory entered a few more commands, shutting down the system completely. "Safed." Getting up, he took a moment to disconnect the cable connecting the laptop to the cannon. Ridgeway apparently didn't believe in the advertised security of a Wi-Fi connection with the Division running around.
As the team began to move up the stairs towards the Rotunda, an explosion from further ahead sent dust and small bits of debris flying down the stairwell. "Intercepting True Sons communications," chirped ISAC.
"General, proximity charges just detonated in the Rotunda. One package blew, the rest are not showing as hot anymore."
"Understood. They're inside. Move to intercept."
"The man has some sangfroid, I'll give him that," muttered Ryckmen. "Though I'm beginning to think he's experiencing the classic 'strongman' problem. People telling him what he wants to hear, not what he needs to hear."
"What makes you say that?" Gregory asked as the team stepped into the Rotunda, eyes drifting up to examine the damage. A large chunk of the dome's base had been destroyed, the rubble littering the floor of the Rotunda, several workstation areas either smashed or superficially damaged. As Bundmeister had suspected, the True Sons had been using the central location as a command center of sorts, but the destroyed server racks ensured there wouldn't be anything in the way of incriminating records recovered.
"Peace, we used an Avenger to blow our way in here. No way those rounds took out any sort of demolition charges. They screwed up or they didn't rig them in the first place. ISAC, continuous intercept of True Sons communications, no audible warning."
"No audible warning for further True Sons communications intercepts will be given." There was a pause. "Electronic signature detected. Electromagnetic interference detected."
"Must have one of those pulse jammers set up," grunted Gregory.
"They're evil, not stupid, Peace. Ricky, let's find that jammer and trash it."
Tarvey nodded, brought up the MP5, and advanced on point. As he approached the doorway to the Statuary Hall facing the passage out of the Rotunda, he pressed up to one side, motioning for the others to fan out. The jammer was pulsing away slowly, True Sons nervously pacing the floor. From Bundmeister's position, she could see the briefcase sitting upright on the desk, the latches closed.
"Now," Ryckmen subvocalized. The team fired on the True Sons, catching them completely unaware, hitting them from all sides. With the room swept clean, Tarvey shot the jammer as Gregory went over to examine the briefcase.
"Casablanca, this is Peacemaker. We have the package."
"Copy that, Peacemaker. Skyhook is on the way. Get it to the roof as quickly as possible."
Another True Sons intercept came over their earpieces. "General, our team in the Statuary Hall is not responding. The Division most likely has the briefcase."
"They'll try to extract it by helo. Do what you can to delay them, Captain."
"Yes, sir! We're on it!"
Ryckmen watched as Gregory put the briefcase into his backpack. "All right, guys, we're heading for the roof. Fastest access should be through the House Chamber."
Moving along the corridors, the team saw how the True Sons had repurposed areas of the Capitol for their own needs. Gregory felt a chill as he saw the CERA seals on supply crates and the hospital beds which had been moved down a side corridor to create an infirmary. How many of those supplies had been simply taken by the True Sons before ever being used to help Green Poison victims? How many beds had been denied the sick and the dying simply because Ridgeway had deemed them more important for his men than the civilians they were intended for? He found himself lagging behind the rest of the team and started to catch up, only to stop as he saw a door marked "Office of the Speaker."
Gregory tested the door, found it locked, and decided that subtlety wasn't necessary. He drew his sidearm, shot out the lock, and went inside. Rummaging around Andrew Ellis' former desk, Gregory smiled a little as he found an appointment calendar. He quickly stuffed the book into his backpack as he heard a chirp in his earpiece.
"Peace, what the hell's keeping you?" growled Ryckmen over the comm.
"Sorry, Lobo. Thought I found something back here. I'm on my way."
Running down the corridor, Gregory saw the rest of the team waiting to enter the House Chamber. Ryckmen said nothing, shouldered his MDR, and had Tarvey go first before following close behind. From the upper gallery, True Sons forces began to file in and take up positions. Bundmeister calmly unlimbered the minigun, flipped up the safety shield, and spun up the barrels. Tarvey pulsed the area, giving her targets to aim for, and grinned as Bundmeister began to clear the gallery in short coughing bursts. The True Sons, for their part, refused to retreat. It took only thirty seconds, plus a hundred and fifty rounds of 7.62mm NATO, to end that engagement. Bundmeister returned the minigun to the hardpoint on her pack frame and recovered her AKM. The team climbed up some scaffolding into the gallery.
"Peacemaker, this is Skyhook," radioed Torres. "I've got Kelso riding shotgun with me. She's seeing True Sons on the roof. We're outside small arms range for right now, waiting on your signal when they're cleared out, but don't take too long. I'm running light on fuel right at the moment."
"Copy that, Skyhook," Ryckmen replied. "Peacemaker is headed for the roof. We'll pop a flare once the LZ is clear." He glanced over at Gregory, an eyebrow raising slightly. "You still with us?"
"All the way, Lowell," nodded Gregory. "Let's get this thing done."
The team did a quick ammo check, replenished their supplies from another True Sons ammo cache, then double-timed it to the roof, Bundmeister on point, her SPAS-12 tucked into her shoulder. The True Sons closest to the door died in tightly choked clouds of buckshot as the team took up positions and began targeting the other forces.
"Peace," called out Ryckmen. "Rocketeer near the dome. Bounce her out." He snap shot two True Sons riflemen trying to move in from the right side.
Unlimbering Sledge, Gregory found the rocketeer, captain's bars gleaming on her tactical vest. He bracketed her with a pair of grenades, then fired a third directly on her position, the explosions tightly sequenced as the final grenade detonated her supply of rockets sympathetically, sending her body flying off the side of the building. Tarvey and Bundmeister slowly worked their way forward towards the dome, the muffled chatter of Tarvey's MP5 mixing with the roar of the shotgun as the two agents got in close with their enemies.
"LZ clear," Bundmeister reported.
Ryckmen nodded and headed over to the ledge near the hole in the dome, then pulled a flare gun and sent a green flare skyward, a trail of green smoke following it. He smiled as he saw Torres start to bring the helicopter in, then felt his eyes go wide as she slewed the tail around, moving backwards near the face of the dome as a series of eye-wateringly bright flares popped out from the side. Half a moment later, a missile roared past them, missing Torres by a wide margin and detonating.
"God damn Ridgeway!" snarled Kelso over the comm. "SAM launch almost got us! East side of the building."
"Had to have been a Stinger," Ryckmen muttered, brain racing furiously. "But they didn't go for the flares. Just shot right past. Blue Parrot, get me eyes on the east side of the Capitol and don't spare the battery power. Look for radar units."
"Roger, Peacemaker. Stand by." A brief pause. "I have two radar trucks parked in custom laagers. Looks like they're running on external power sources."
"Copy that, Parrot. Skyhook, you've got a good news/bad news situation. Ridgeway's using the 'K' variant Stinger. Probably doesn't have a lot of them, but I don't imagine he's only got one. Good news is they don't have an internal seeker. They rely on vehicle datalink and telemetry for guidance, so don't worry about using flares."
"What's the bad news, Lobo?" asked Torres tightly.
"They've got a switch for a proximity fuse. No such thing as a near-miss with these guys. If it can't generate a direct hit, it'll switch to proximity detonation automatically if the target falls within a certain sphere. And with two trucks, he's got a rough Doppler capability. Honestly, I'm kind of amazed he missed that first shot."
"Remind me not to get a cancer diagnosis from you. Shall I stick to the west side, use the Capitol for cover?"
"Not entirely. Play hide-and-seek, see if you can't get him to pop a few more SAMs your way. The more he's focused on you, the less he'll be worried about us."
"Copy that. Be advised, I've got about ten minutes' worth of fuel before I'm bingo, so don't dawdle."
"Roger. Peacemaker's rolling. Out."
While Ryckmen had been explaining the situation to Torres and Kelso, the others had secured ropes to anchor points and were ready to descend back into the Rotunda. Ryckmen nodded and the team fast-roped down one by one, heading for the east side of the building.
"You guys good on ammo?" Ryckmen asked as they dropped off a portico to a dumpster below them.
"Good enough to finish off these mutts," replied Tarvey with a feral smile. "And if we happen to run out of bullets, grenades, combat knives, and arrows, we'll just use our standard issue teeth."
Gregory trotted over to a gate, punching in the code to open it, then put the CTAR to his shoulder, moving in with the others, each of them reacting almost on instinct as they put True Sons troops into their sights. A tornado of lead and death moved through the east terrace, heading for the first laager. As each member clambered up to the raised platform, the others covered the ascent, sending bullets downrange at anybody stupid enough to try and advance on them. Gregory was the last up, making a beeline for the radar truck.
"Shutting down first radar unit," he said as he began entering commands. "It'll take a couple minutes. Skyhook, how are you doing?"
"Five minutes to bingo, Peacemaker. Don't keep me in suspense."
"Perish the thought," Gregory chuckled as he reloaded Sledge. The True Sons began converging towards the laager, Tarvey and Ryckmen picking off hostiles at long range, letting Gregory and Bundmeister handle close-in defense. A series of beeps came from the radar unit, the LCD screens and indicator lights going dark. "First radar down. Moving to second," he said, trying to step forward, but finding himself driven back by a hail of gunfire. Several True Sons had apparently deduced the Division agents' plan and had positioned themselves near the second laager, cutting off access. "Screw this," he growled as he brought Sledge to his shoulder and walked a trio of 40mm grenades across the defenders. Screams of shock and pain were cut short by the detonations, Gregory and Bundmeister rushing to the second laager while Tarvey and Ryckmen trailed behind them.
A large column of True Sons began running straight for the second laager. As Gregory started the shutdown sequence, Bundmeister brought out Jormundgand, her second drum attached, cold fire in her eyes as she spun the barrels up and held down the trigger. She burned through the entire drum in less than two seconds, but in those two seconds, some three dozen soldiers were slaughtered, turned into shredded and broken lumps of meat almost unrecognizable as human beings.
"Peacemaker, I am sixty seconds to bingo. Whatever you're gonna do, do it now!" warned Torres.
"Second radar unit down!" Gregory crowed.
"LZ clear, Skyhook!" declared Tarvey. "Get in here!"
The helicopter came in low and fast, dropping a rope with several thick loops set at regular intervals. Gregory attached the briefcase to a loop and the rope with broad zip ties. "Package is secured, Skyhook. Haul it up." The rope rapidly retracted.
"Skyhook is didee mao, Peacemaker. Give'em hell!" said Torres as she turned and made a beeline for the White House.
Ryckmen had taken up a good position, bringing out Scythe and having it close by in case he needed it. Some twenty meters away, he caught some movement from the corner of his eye. Without thinking, he brought Scythe to his shoulder. He'd had the chance to zero the weapon the day before and the variable zoom scope worked flawlessly. Looking through that scope, he saw the saturnine features of Antwon Ridgeway coming out of a shed, leading the last organized True Sons in the Capitol, an M3 'Carl Gustav' rocket launcher in his hands. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Ryckmen brought the crosshair over Ridgeway's chest, dead center in the sniper's triangle. The trigger broke at three pounds, the rifle bucking hard against his shoulder once.
Charles Harding had made sure the ammunition Scythe fired would be of the highest quality, precision fuel for a precision machine. The ounce and a half bronze slug, turned on a lathe rather than simply cast in a mould and highly polished to reduce drag, left the muzzle at almost 2800 feet per second, not much faster than a standard round out of Ryckmen's Model 700. But it carried over eleven thousand foot pounds of kinetic energy. At twenty meters, with no wind and virtually no bullet drop, and with the initial point of contact barely one thirty-second of an inch across, Antwon Ridgeway had the mercifully brief but exquisitely agonizing experience of being hit in the chest with the equivalent of a lightly loaded cargo container. The ceramic plates in his armor, along with his sternum and ribs, were turned into jagged shrapnel which obliterated his lungs and heart. The hydrostatic shock of the bullet's passage through the thoracic cavity, and the subsequent damage to his already pulverized blood vessels, nerves, and spinal cord were almost a gratuitous insult to the man's corpse as he hit the metal plating of the platform across from Ryckmen. The colonel's body did virtually nothing to stop the round's passage from carrying through to four other True Sons before it finally slowed and tumbled enough to kill a fifth soldier and not exit the corpse.
When the last True Son had been killed, the silence seemed deafening. Team Peacemaker looked around, then looked at each other, an awful and triumphant shared moment which seemed to defy explanation. Securing their weapons, the team slowly walked back up to the east portico, through the Rotunda, and back on to the west terrace. Ryckmen loaded his flare gun, raised it to the sky, and pulled the trigger to signal that the war for the nation's capital was over.
* * *
The White House
1335 EST
Alani Kelso frowned in puzzlement as she watched Paxton Gregory scanning pages from an appointment calendar into ISAC's database. The rest of the JTF staff who worked in the server room had all gone upstairs, helping with preparations for a victory celebration, getting the word out to the Theater and the Campus that their leadership elements, along with anybody who wanted to come along, were invited to the party. "Something's seriously wrong in the world when half of the team who saved the District is being all mopey and morose," she sniffed.
"What's eating Lowell?" Gregory said as he continued to scan pages.
"How'd you know it was him?"
"The man's got soul, and he didn't come here looking to help out initially. He had his own scheme going. Saving D.C. has probably gone and screwed that plan to death."
"Yeah. Somehow, killing the second greatest traitor in America just isn't quite as satisfying to him. But he's not sure how he's going to find Keener now."
"He'll bounce back. Lowell's persistent. He'll pick up Keener's trail again sooner than he thinks."
"And what about you?" Kelso asked quietly. "You don't seem particularly thrilled with ending the threat to D.C."
"I don't think it has ended, Alani. I think there's a threat we haven't been aware of this entire time, and it's one which President Ellis seems to have at least peripheral involvement with."
"I've heard the theory, Peace. I can't buy it. Not completely. I need something more."
"You and Lowell. Well, I'm looking for a smoking gun, and when I find it, you're first after Lowell to find out about it." Gregory went back to scanning pages. Shaking her head, Kelso left the server room.
When he'd scanned the last written page into the system, and confirmed ISAC had performed the necessary OCR processing, Gregory sat down and began combing through the records, starting New Year's Day of 2015. Most of it was routine meetings with party subordinates, opposition leaders, President Waller on a number of occasions. The meetings which didn't involve political figures were either personal meetings with friends and family or the occasional lobbyist. None of them suggested anything nefarious.
As he began reading December's entries, Gregory's eyebrow quirked. A private meeting with somebody only listed as "B.S." in the calendar, a representative from a company called Colmillo Negro Internacional. He started looking at the company's records. A U.S. subsidiary had filed paperwork in Wilmington, unsurprisingly. Delaware had the most corporate friendly laws in the nation, if not the world. But the company's home office was in Paramaribo, Suriname. Something itched at the back of Gregory's mind. Why would a company choose a Spanish name when their home office was based in a country where the official language was Dutch, and where Spanish probably wasn't spoken much of anywhere except certain docks in major ports?
The more Gregory tried to dig into CNI's records, the less he actually found. It practically screamed "front company." But to what end, and for what entity, he couldn't say. There were loose connections to a financial services company Ellis had served on over a decade ago, its stock part of what appeared to be a hedge fund, but nothing recent enough to suggest it directly tied to Ellis in any fashion. It wasn't a smoking gun, but there was definitely some residue left behind. He checked the clock and rubbed his eyes. Part of him didn't want to be attending the party he knew was being organized. But another part of him recognized he had to at least make a brief appearance.
Closing his eyes, Gregory thought back to Nags Head. Only a couple of months in the past, yet it felt like a lifetime ago. From second string handyman to hero. He shook his head at the sense of the surreal. Standing up, Gregory closed down the workstation, then made his way up to the kitchen. He felt a sudden thirst for tequila and a need to commemorate those who'd been lost.