Page 45 of The Inheritance
London stared at him for a second. “Because it isn’t my call.” He bit the words off.
“The security of the mining site is your call. You are responsible for the safety of the escorts and the miners,” Elias countered. “Do you understand the scope of your duties, Escort Captain Wright?”
London glared at him. Angry red blotches colored his face.
“Malcolm wanted to keep the tunnels open. I brought up the possible risk. Malcolm reiterated his desire to keep the tunnels open. The survey showed no predators larger than the stalkers, and my team was well equipped to handle the stalkers. I requested a secondary sweep of a half mile from the entrance to the tunnels. The scout confirmed the sweep was done. You are not going to hang this on me. Malcolm fucked up. Malcolm is dead.”
It was all pouring out. They broke him.
“We can split hairs all day, but in the end, all of us in this room know that the ultimate responsibility lies with the assault leader. As the escort captain, I must maintain a good working relationship with the assault leader. That is the system that you put in place. You put Malcolm in that position, and you put me in my position.”
Shifting the blame again. If it wasn’t his fault, it was Malcolm, and if it wasn’t Malcolm, the system, the guild, and Elias were to blame.
“Malcolm and I respected each other. I was not going to go behind his back, because I had to work with him in the future. I brought three people out with me, three people who otherwise would have been dead. I am not going to take the blame for what happened. This outrage and scrutiny are disingenuous. A fatal event happened; people died. People die in breaches every day. This was no different. Either get used to it or get out of the game.”
London’s brain finally caught up with his mouth. He shut up.
Nobody said anything.
“You can judge all you want,” London said. “But you weren’t there. You didn’t see them. The speed… They were so fast, they blurred. My reaction time is half that of an average human and I couldn't follow it. Elias, seriously, whatever assault team would have been in that fucking cave, none of them would have made it. You want me to say I ran? Yeah, I did. Like I told you, I saved who I could and got out.”
Elias leaned forward. “Look me in the eye and tell me that everyone else in that cave was dead when you threw the grenade.”
“They were dead. All of them. The miners, the K9, the scout - everyone was dead. I saw the DeBRA cut to pieces. You have my word.”
They hounded London for the next ten minutes, but they didn’t get anything else. Elias knew they wouldn’t. In the end, they told him to stay put at the site and let him go.
Elias leaned back in his chair. London was lying. It was in the eyes. That direct unblinking stare when he said, “You have my word.”
“It wasn’t the gold,” Leo muttered.
“It wasn’t.”
London’s demeanor confirmed what Elias already deduced from the record of the survey meeting. He didn’t know about the gold, and he didn’t see it as relevant.
No, this problem ran deeper.
Leo steepled his fingers, his tone methodical, almost clinical.
“Assault Team 3 is the best performing team in the yellow and orange tiers. Malcolm and London worked together frequently. London saw Malcolm as his professional equal. In his mind, they were laterally positioned. If he pushed against Malcolm, there would’ve been tension and conflict. London abhors tension. He didn’t want to rock the boat. Was it a misguided professional courtesy?”
“And professional arrogance,” Elias said. “You heard him. Nothing larger than a stalker was found. Breaches are unpredictable. Nothing can be taken for granted. He’s grown complacent.”
Leo’s eyes flashed with white. “He’s lying. I can’t prove it, but I feel it.”
“It’s the lack of guilt,” Elias told him.
People who lost their teams in the breaches came out fucked up. Some were manic, others catatonic. He had to put divers on suicide watch before. That’s why they had a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and several therapists on staff.
“London is too aggressive, too confrontational,” Elias said. “He’s absolved himself of all responsibility. He’s right about one thing – I put him in that position. The buck stops with me.”
“It’s been three years since Lansing,” Leo said. “He hasn’t fucked up until now.”
“That we know of. One of two things happened in that breach. Either London is telling the truth, and he is a hero who saved three miners, or he’s a coward who abandoned his team to their death.”
“Which do you think it is?” Leo asked.
“I think he saw something that terrified him, and he bugged out. The only way to prove what happened is to examine the mining site and the bodies, assuming there is anything left of them. I need cause to remove him from his position.”
