Virtual Forensic Reality

36.

It is a phenomenon, that once detected and understood, I could manipulate. In the twenty seconds it took me to fish the dart gun from my kit, the thought appeared as a fully formed fact. Not a fragment of an idea, like a snapshot, but the entire sequence in high-definition, high-resolution video. What was once a troubling inability to 'Take the message and leave the baggage' is now a valuable tool with which I can review past events, instantly analyze and use the results to make better fact-based decisions. In the earlier stages of my career I would have second-guessed my decision to assign Bravo Unit, Neumann and Bromden, to assist Davis and Calahan. Especially right now as we toe the fine line between short-handed success and under-staffed disaster. By the time I was in range the process had played out in my head and I was completely focused on the task at hand. Which was green-lit to go in four…three…two...

I have one shot. My hunch is that he is not wearing a vest, still I target his upper shoulder, neck area. The stun-gun is hidden from his view by my right torso as I smoothly walk towards him waiting for his move in response. At twenty feet he says 'That's far enough pal what the fuck to you want?"

I respond with a half-turn, aim and fire. He had drawn his weapon but nowhere near fast enough and is now slowly crumbling towards the doormat that reads Welcome. On my way to the front door I kick his silenced Baretta off the deck, pull my Glock from the shoulder holster and remove the door from its hinges with a front kick that might have downed Chuck Norris.

There is no one in the living room but I hear footsteps rushing towards me. I move behind a wall separating the kitchen from the rear of the house and greet two hostiles, one toting a fully automatic AR and the other a nasty looking sawed-off twelve-gauge, with a command-voice "Freeze." They are either deaf or do not understand English as they turn and open fire. The audible signal for Drysdale to enter delivered, I move to the end of the wall, slide onto the wood floor hallway and get off two shots. They go down like sacks of dirty laundry.

Almost immediately two more turn the hallway corner, foolishly so without a precautionary visual check. They join their companions on the floor which is now accumulating a good deal of blood and spent brass casings. I hear Drysdale call "Clear" and I move to the rear bedroom. Drysdale is unfastening Saunders from her makeshift restraints, straps across her chest and legs along with duct tape over her mouth. I see a hostile bleeding on the floor at the opposite end of the small room. Other than the sounds of his emancipation work the house is now silent.

Drysdale tears a sheet into a makeshift triage wrap and tightly ties her leg. She is sedated but appears to be otherwise OK.

"Let's get her into the Expedition fast and back to the hospital for treatment." I say. On the way out the front door I dead-lift the former porch sentry and hoist him to my shoulders for the quick trip to the SUV.

I am giving thanks that the guy is not a fat slob when Davis comes on the com unit. "We have the building surrounded and ready to move, looks lightly fortified." Knowing that the two targets are connected I give the good-to-go engagement command and a brief sit-rep of our status.

"We need one that will talk." I close with labored breaths.

"Roger that."

I see the entire scene play out, our extraction of Saunders, her condition, the lost potential of a gold mine of intel we might have found with a deeper sweep of the house, what the guard might reveal under interrogation and the combined Alpha and Bravo Unit's pending raid on the auto parts store, which Davis has just reported as being about to begin.

All in real-time, high-definition virtual forensic reality.