Nick checked on the patient in Treatment Bay Four. She wasn't looking too good. The attending, Dr. Allston, was trying to get her bumped up in the list for the MRI, but five other patients had already been bumped up the list for the MRI ahead of her. Each of them was just as dire as Treatment Bay Four.

"We need our own, separate radiology department.” He almost bumped into Mal, who'd been checking on the man in Treatment Bay Six. "That way we wouldn't have to bump anyone, and we could always have the damn machines available when we need them."

Mal acknowledged this with a nod. "You're not wrong. I'm not sure that we're getting a lot of big donors these days, but you never know. The thing is, sometimes we go for days at a time when we don't need the MRI at all. Or the CT scan."

"I know. And the chances of it staying our dedicated radiology department are slim to none.” He sighed and headed back out to the nurses' station. "A boy can dream, though."

"Dream away.” Mal chuckled. "Oh, good, looks like we've got a bird coming in from a wreck. I'd best go meet it. They get so cross when you're not right on hand like you're supposed to be.” He took off toward the roof access elevator.

Nick checked in to see if any new orders had been issued for the sick patients in the treatment bays. They couldn't do much for them, or for the people in the waiting room, until they got those patients moved out.

The phone rang. Elsie was sitting down next to the phone, and she picked it up right away. "Emergency department, nurse's station. How can I help you?" Elsie had one of those voices that was just made for phone sex. She could make even a standard, boring greeting in a professional setting sound like a come-on.

Nick didn't expect her to turn pale and grab for a piece of paper tacked to the low cube wall behind the desk.

"Okay, sir. Thank you for letting us know. Can you tell me where the package is located in the building?” Elsie grabbed a sticky note and scribbled on it. She passed the note to Nick.

Call 911. There's a bomb in the building.

Nick fumbled for his cell phone. With shaking hands, he punched in the numbers.

"Nine one one, what is your emergency?"

"My name is Nick Kosloski, I'm a nurse in the emergency department at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center, and my colleague is on the line with an individual making a bomb threat right now.” He rattled off the number for the nurse's station from memory.

The dispatcher assured him help would be coming, but kept him on the line. "Can you see any suspicious behavior around you right now?"

It was the ER. Everything was suspicious, if a person looked at it the right way. “Nothing that stands out. Every treatment bay is full. We have a helicopter on its way with victims from a car accident. Our waiting room is at about sixty percent capacity, and people are pretty uncomfortable. They're showing it in some unusual ways, which may not be healthy but it's what they're doing."

"I'm sure they are.” The dispatcher gave a little chuckle. "Trust me, I've been there. Does the hospital have an evacuation plan?"

"We do. I'm sure we'd only use it in extreme situations.” Like a bomb. Images of the carnage in Orlando sprang to his mind.

"Hopefully you won't have to use it. Do you see any officers from the US Navy Police?"

Nick paused. "I can hear sirens. I'm not facing out, so I can't see anyone but other staff and patients."

"Noted. Let's stay on the line until you see police with your own eyes. You said your colleague was on the phone with the one making the threat."

"Yeah.” Nick licked his lips. He shouldn't be sweating like this in November. "Yeah, it's true."

"Okay. That's fine. We've got the trap and trace going, which is good. Hopefully, she's had him on the line long enough to give us something to work with. Sometimes they just don't."

"I suppose that's true. I can see an officer now." Relief flooded through Nick, even though he knew the ordeal wasn't over yet.

"Okay. You're in good hands, buddy. Good luck."

"Thanks.” Nick hung up.

The patient in Treatment Bay Two, who was maybe ten and had a broken arm that needed to be set, poked his head out from behind the curtain. He wasn't supposed to be up and around, but the presence of police in the ER was probably exciting to him.

"Just wait for the doctor, Jaden.” Nick barely remembered the boy's name in time. "He'll be out to help you soon."

The first USNP officer was followed by several more. Two of them had dogs on leashes, and their noses were already to the ground. Nick's sweat went cold then. What if the bomber saw them and detonated the bomb out of spite?

Police searched the hospital thoroughly, from the emergency room on out. They took several hours to complete the search, and they found exactly nothing. By that point, of course, the hospital's director of security and the commander of the facility herself were there in person. They were concerned about the incident, of course, but they were also concerned about publicity.

"I wouldn't worry, sir.” The lead cop shrugged. "The whole country is on edge right now. You demonstrated that you have a plan in place. It shouldn't be bad publicity for you at all."

Any further conversations happened while Nick wasn't around, or was busy.

Tom, maybe predictably, hit the roof when he found out about the bomb threat. "Okay, so it was a hoax this time. What about the next time? What is this place doing to keep you safe?"

Nick just shook his head. It felt amazing, after so long, to know someone cared. "They're doing what they can. They're a hospital, Tom. They have to be open to the public, that's what they're for. It's a little scarier now that I know what we're up against. But it's not like it's my first bomb threat."

Tom gaped at him. "What?"

Nick squeezed Tom's hand. "I had a job working reception for this little recruitment outfit in Texas. It was a surprisingly sleazy place to work, and they're gone now, but anyway. I'm sitting there and I get this call. Guy with an Irish accent. 'There's a bomb in your building.' It took me three tries to understand him. I thought at first it was because his accent was so thick, but now I think it was just fake.”

"Anyway, after a second he double checked his phone number. Turns out he was calling the wrong number in the wrong state. It was just awkward all around. We still had to get the police to come in and check the place out, but even they were laughing about it.”

Nick was gratified when he saw Tom grin. "How does this stuff only happen to you?"

"It's a weird world.” Nick curled up by Tom's side.

The whole process repeated itself the next day, right down to the absolute lack of bomb and the terror among staff. It happened again the day after that, too, and finally Agent Aliprandi returned to Portsmouth alongside the USNP.

She called a meeting with ER daytime staff. "This bomb hoax stuff probably has you rattled, doesn't it?" she asked from the front of the room. She looked amazing, like she'd gotten a full night's sleep and was freshly showered and coiffed. How could she look so put together when he looked like crap after just a few hours on the ward?

"Why haven't they tracked down the guy doing it and taken his phone away?" Elsie demanded. She crossed her arms over her ample chest. "I cannot understand why this man is allowed to pester us like this. Can't you go and rap him on his knuckles or something?"

Aliprandi smirked. "Believe me, ma'am, I've got a ruler all warmed up and waiting just for him. The fact is, we traced the number he's calling from. I'd appreciate you all keeping this under your hats for now, but the number is registered to an office in the Orlando Oranges stadium. An office, I should add, that was completely obliterated in the blast."

Nick gasped. The sound was lost in the gasps that rang out throughout the conference room.

Aliprandi nodded. "Right. So we are taking these threats very seriously, because we have to. I can't think of any good ways for someone to have gotten that number. We're not going to ask Portsmouth to shut down. It's not a reasonable request, and I don't think they'd comply. You guys do important work, and you perform a vital service to the community. But I am going to tell you right now, you need to be extremely vigilant. If you see someone who doesn't belong, do something about it. I'm not suggesting that you launch an attack and try to gouge his eyes out with your key card, but maybe drop a dime to security."

Nick and Mal nodded. Then Mal raised his hand. "So you say the caller is calling from an Orlando number. Does that mean they're definitively linked to the Orlando bombing?"

Nick bit his tongue. Mal already knew the answer, or at least he thought he did. Nick just couldn't be sure if his friend was asking a "gotcha" question or if he legitimately wanted Aliprandi's opinion.

Aliprandi put her finger on her mouth and paused before replying. "I think we don't have enough information about Orlando to answer that question for certain. I don't want to give false information, that might fan fears. I will admit that the connection is deeply suspicious, which is why I'm here today.” She took a deep breath and continued. "And I'll be honest. The general public, outside the Virginia Beach and Hampton Beach area, isn't aware of Portsmouth Naval Hospital. It's not a place that's going to stick out as a target."

"Except for the fact that we took a lot of patients after the Douglass University bombing.” Nick hadn't intended to speak, but he didn't regret it either. "That's the truth."

"Yes, it is.” Aliprandi met his eyes. "I have no reason to believe, at this time, that these are isolated incidents."

Nick wanted to throw up. He held it together, but only barely. He just couldn't understand how someone could have so much hate in their heart that they'd be willing to cause this kind of carnage. "Thank you," he said, and shrunk back into himself.

Aliprandi distributed her cards, again, to the rest of the crew and then she launched into a general discussion about keeping oneself safe and observing one's surroundings, so as to increase the likelihood of catching the bad guys. Nick tuned about half of it out. He was too numb to absorb it.

When they were dismissed, he and Mal grabbed lunch. Nick wasn't up to much in the way of food, but he made an effort to choke down some soup for the baby's sake. "This is terrifying.” He looked up at Mal. "I get that this is all old hat to you, but I'm actually terrified."

"It's not exactly old hat.” Mal frowned. "I mean I've certainly fought this kind of person before, but even my old playmates didn't try murder on this kind of scale.” He rubbed at his temples. "The thing is, when a group kills a bunch of people for social or political reasons, they're generally quick to talk about it, yeah?"

"I guess.” Nick frowned. "Why is that important?"

"Well, look at Daesh. They'll claim anything and everyone was theirs. They'll claim freaking tornadoes were theirs, for fuck's sake, and you'd have to be absolutely daft to take them seriously about that. What they get from doing that, though, is attention and fear. It conveys the message to their target audience, who is not American by the way, that they can strike anywhere at any time and it's best to just bow down and accept their interpretation of Islam."

"But these guys aren't claiming the attacks.” Nick stirred his soup. "They're just hanging out."

"They traced Douglass to a bunch of racists nearby. There's no way those jerks are able to reach out from their swampy little bunker to go down to Orlando and pull off a job like that. I've looked into them. They're not going to be able to manage that without help.” Mal poked at his salad again.

"So that means they're what, waiting for orders? Planning something else, something big?” Nick pushed his soup away. "How do you get bigger than killing eight thousand people in one swoop?"

"I don't know. I don't want to know, honestly. But I've seen these tactics before. There's a group of white supremacists in Europe. They call themselves White Dawn, because they're super original.” Mal's eye roll might have pulled a muscle. "They work with other groups, even groups they don't like, if it will get them closer to their goal. When I fought them, they were working with Daesh because they had the same goal—keeping Muslim refugees out of Europe."

Nick mouthed Mal's words silently until they made sense, or some variant of sense. "Yeah, okay. Sure. But here's the thing. I'm just not...I can't...aren't White Dawn little basement trolls who go after women online and try to keep them in the kitchen and stuff?"

"That's part of what they do, but it's not the biggest thing. Personally, I think the troll army is a smokescreen, and a good one. When you tell someone that the troll army guys are murdering people, they're going to pat you on the head and fix you a nice cup of decaffeinated tea. Yeah?” He shook his head. "They've got funding out the ass, and I can't figure out where it's coming from. Believe me, that's saying a lot."

Nick sighed. "So you think these killers are part of White Dawn?"

Mal cracked his knuckles. "It's possible. It's possible that they're copycats or that they're working for someone who's a copycat. It's possible that they're legitimately doing all of this on their own and we're just along for the ride. I'm not sure."

Nick shuddered. "All we need is for these pigs to wind up connected to a bunch of European terrorists. Let's hope they all accidentally died in the blast.” He perked up a bit. "Hey, that happens a lot, doesn't it?"

Mal gave him a dark look. "Not as often as you think.” Then he relented. "I guess there's always hope. And hey—if the blast caught even one of them, that's one less that someone will have to shoot later."

Nick gave Mal a measuring look. "We have these things, they're called trials."

"I'll wait.” Mal folded his hands and smiled graciously. Nick tossed his oyster crackers at him.

***

Tom all but slid down the railing as he disembarked from the plane. Three days of "enhanced desert survival training" had sucked. He did it on the regular, but that didn't mean it still didn't suck. The only thing that sucked more was having to fly home with a bunch of guys who'd also gone through "enhanced desert survival training," all of them pre-shower.

At least they had a flight of their own, thanks to the Navy. If they'd tried to stick fifteen stinky guys on a commercial flight there would have been revolution in Phoenix International Airport, and the rebels would have been right.

"I want three things, in this order," he told Hopper, as they walked along the tarmac. "I want a shower. I want an actual meal, not a scorpion gently sautéed with cactus petals or whatever. And I want my own bed. No damn sand, and no damn vultures overhead looking to see if I'm dead yet."

Hopper laughed. "You could've eaten the vultures."

"Nah. Carrion eaters are a last resort. Plus, they're tough. That requires a long cook time, and the exercise said we had to keep moving.” He made a face. "It was only a three day thing, but hell if I don't feel like I was out there for a year."

Hopper shook his head. "Man, you complain the most about these exercises, but you always do the best when we do them."

"It's true.” Tom had to laugh at himself. "It's absolutely true. I can't pretend it ain't, can I?"

They'd flown into Virginia Beach, so they didn't have to deal with the absurdity of the bus. Tom could get right into the front seat of his car and drive back to his condo, like he'd barely even left. He'd just spent three days basically in isolation, running around in the desert like the Road Runner, but the world had gone right on like nothing had happened at all.

It was kind of chilling, in a way. If something happened to him while he was deployed, the world would still go right on, in just the same way.

What a way to emphasize his own insignificance.

He headed into his condo and got into the shower. He had no idea how long he was in there scrubbing all of the sweat, salt, dirt, and grime off of his skin. He took as much time as his body demanded, and that was all there was to it.

When he was done, he dried off and slipped into some clean civilian clothes. He liked to dress like a civilian, damn it. Now that Nick was back in his life, he liked dressing like a civilian even more. He wondered what that said about him.

When he emerged from the bedroom, Nick and Sammy had arrived. Sammy, whose nose was firmly in a book, picked his head up and smiled. "Hey, Tom.” Nick, on the other hand, wrapped Tom up in his arms and held him close.

"I'm so glad you're home."

Tom just about melted when he heard those words from Nick's mouth. His place hadn't been a home before, not really. It had been his place, but it had just been one of many places to stay. Now that Tom had a family, and they lived with him at least part of the time, it really was a home.

They had a nice family dinner of pizza that night, and just hung out and watched a mindless movie on the big TV. Tom had no idea what Nick's week had been like, but his eyes were ringed with dark circles and he melted bonelessly into Tom's side. Sam smiled when he saw it, so the week must have been bad. Well, Tom was here now. They could rest and relax.

The next day, Nick got a text from Tony, Chief's husband and the father of Sam's best friend Noah. Did they want to come over for a seriously informal get-together? The Kellys were coming, and they might as well make a party out of it.

Tom did not, in fact, want to go over to Chief's house and hang out. He saw enough of his platoon during the week. All he wanted was some peace and quiet. He couldn't miss the way Sammy's eyes lit up at the prospect of seeing Noah, though. And Nick could probably stand to have some social time. He saw Mal at work, but it wasn't the same. With all the threats they'd been getting at the hospital, it would be best if he got more support.

"Yeah," he said with a sigh. "Let's do it."

They headed over to Chief's house, which wasn't that far away. Sammy and Noah threw their arms around one another right away, and Nick and Tony just grinned and shook their heads at one another. Ah, so it was like that, then? Well, Tom couldn't exactly complain. He'd been in love with Nick since he was even younger than that.

Nick disappeared into the kitchen with Tony and Mal. Apparently Mal had confessed to not having a lot in the way of kitchen skills, so Tony was determined to teach him a few things. Kelly snorted as he watched them go. "By the time they come out of there Mal will be able to present himself as a master chef. Just you watch."

"Right?” Chief shook his head and reached for his beer. "It's not like you can complain, Kelly. You're the one that's going to benefit."

"True.” Kelly grinned. "I'm just saying. The guy's something else.” He turned to Tom. "How's Nick in the kitchen?"

"Better than me and Sammy, that's for sure.” Tom grimaced and tried to hide his blush. He told the story of the wretched chicken and cream sauce dish, only to have both men howling.

Chief pointed and laughed. "You should have taken them out into the desert for survival training. You could have fed them on scorpions and whatnot, and they'd have tasted just fine."

Tom hung his head, but he grinned. "Yeah, yeah. You're not wrong. I noticed that all of the canisters had bigger, clearer labels on them by the next weekend.” He sighed. "I really, really like having them around. Like, there needs to be a superlative better than 'really,' but the SATs were a long time ago.”

"Right?” Kelly laughed. "If you're so happy, marry Nick. Make it permanent."

"Seriously.” Chief nodded and leaned forward. "There's a lot that can happen to interfere. Marriage gives him legal protection, in case something happens to you. Or, conversely, in case something happens to him. What happens to Sammy if Nick gets hurt or killed? A long court battle and a stay in foster care while you fight tooth and nail for custody, that's what."

"I don't know.” Tom toyed with the label on his beer bottle. "I want to. I do. I'm in love with him, and I want to spend the rest of our lives together. I just—don't you think it's a little soon? Yeah, I want that, and he's pregnant again so we should probably do something about that sooner or later, but shouldn't we make sure we can actually live together first? I mean, we wanted to get married back when we were kids, but we're older now and wiser. Maybe we shouldn't just jump right in. We should be careful, and think things through."

"Go introducing logic.” Kelly waved a hand. "Me and Mal didn't do logic."

"Okay, but Mal's situation was so different from Nick's that it doesn't compare.” Tom laughed. "I mean for one thing no one was looking to kill Nick for getting pregnant."

"True.” Kelly snorted. "Still, the two of you need to work something out, just to make sure your ducks are all in a row. You've got a family now. You have to think about them and their protection."

"Speaking of protection.” Tom grimaced. He hated to change the subject with so little finesse, but he also hated to talk about marrying Nick without talking to Nick about it first. "I guess the threats keep coming in at the hospital."

"That's ugly.” Chief narrowed his eyes. "Why is someone threatening a hospital, for crying out loud?"

Kelly held up two fingers. "One, it's a visible, highly emotional target. Two, it's a place that treated the victims of the Douglass bombing.”

"Three, it's a military facility.” Tom sat back in his chair. "They haven't targeted a military facility yet, but they almost have to, don't they?"

Chief made a face. "Not necessarily. We already know the Douglass bombers were scumbag white supremacists. A lot of those guys have these weird, misguided ideas about supporting the troops. They think they're helping.” He rolled his eyes. "They don't look at the faces in the uniforms, I guess."

Kelly sighed and cracked his neck. "I have to admit that I'm getting really pissed off.” He held up a hand. "I get that these attacks are happening on US soil. I get that we're weapons, and deploying a weapon like us against Americans would be all kinds of not great. But holy shit, we already know White Dawn is involved here. Baldinotti confirmed it for us."

Chief slumped in his chair. "Christ, Kelly. Yeah. White Dawn is involved with these attacks. But we don't know how far, we don't know who came up with the plans, and we can't just go busting down doors until we have a better idea. This is America. We just don't do things like that here. We don't put on the uniform to treat it like a dictatorship."

"No one's saying we should. But, you know, maybe if we know White Dawn is involved, and we know we can get at White Dawn in Europe, maybe we should go handle them over there.” Kelly pursed his lips. "It's not ideal when it comes to the investigation, but at least they might stop blowing shit up over here. Which is kind of what I'm here for, to be honest."

Tom scoffed. "Come on, Kelly. You know damn well that every time we get close to White Dawn we get yanked away."

Chief tilted his head at Tom, an odd gleam in his eye. "What exactly are you trying to say here, Fitzpatrick?"

Tom swallowed. This was exactly why he didn't like socializing with Chief. Chief was a good enough guy, and he was a damn fine Chief. Running afoul of him could get very ugly, very fast, and Tom hated to run around on pins and needles. Now that he'd opened his mouth, though, he couldn't close it again. If Chief decided to make his life difficult, he'd just have to take the consequences.

It wasn't like it would be the first time.

"I'm just stating the obvious.” He swallowed. "Chief," he added, because while he was willing enough to take the consequences he wasn't eager to make them worse. "It happens every time we get close to those bastards. Every single time. We've all noticed it. I'm pretty sure you've commented on it. It can't be a coincidence that we keep getting dragged away just when we're getting close."

Chief scratched at his stubble. "You're not wrong.” Tom stifled a sigh of relief. "I initially thought it was just some stupid game down at the Pentagon, but I'm starting to think it might go deeper.” He glanced between them. "Obviously this discussion doesn't go any further."

"Of course not.” Tom could hear the shrieks of delighted children playing elsewhere in the house, but he ignored them. "Who would listen anyway?"

"The press, probably. They'll believe anything if it sells copy for them.” Chief let out a snort of derision and kept going. "Anyway, as I was saying. Lt. DeWitt has been making some discreet inquiries. So have some other people. Anyone who's ever put boots on the ground or fins in the water wants these fuckers bad, boys. It seems like a few senators have been making calls."

Both Kelly and Tom sat up straighter. "Senators are getting directly involved with our jobs, Chief?” Kelly covered half of his face with one hand. "Are you serious? I mean we're just one platoon. I'm surprised senators even know about us."

"We're the only platoon made up entirely of alphas. That gets us a lot of attention, whether we think it should or not.” Tom closed his eyes. "Is it that they want the supposed glory to go to a more conventional platoon or that they don't want White Dawn brought down at all?"

Kelly gave Tom a long look. "You know, it never occurred to me that they might want credit to go to one of the straight platoons. Congratulations for adding a fresh layer of paranoia and rage to this otherwise perfectly normal conspiracy."

Chief snickered for a second before sobering up. "I honestly couldn't say, boys. I really couldn't. All I do know is that the senators in question are deeply conservative. So that could mean anything."

Tom made a face. "Right? The thing is, are they bigoted enough to end the lives of—oh, we're up to eighty-five hundred now? Because without White Dawn, something tells me those bastards wouldn't have gotten these shows on the road. They might have been able to pull off a school bombing here or a synagogue bombing there. Which would be horrible."

"But not eight thousand dead in one swoop horrible.” Kelly nodded. "Not shutting down every public building in the country until it can be inspected...horrible."

"I spoke to Baldinotti. She told me all kinds of government agencies got warnings about threats to all kinds of buildings.” Chief sighed. "They spread those warnings around, like you're supposed to, but it still didn't stop anything."

"Maybe it did.” Tom leaned forward. "Maybe an attack in Detroit got called off because the dumbasses planting the bomb saw a cop and got scared off. Maybe an attack in LA was foiled when someone saw an abandoned backpack. I don't know. Have to hope they managed to stop something, right?"

Chief heaved a big sigh. "So the backpack thing did happen, actually. It happened in Seattle. And it happened in New York, near Madison Square Garden. So yeah, I think there was a plan for coordinated attacks. The problem is that if White Dawn is behind this, and no one's allowed to go after White Dawn, we're going to have more attacks that slip through. And I'm not sure how to stop it."

Tom chewed on his lip for a second. "Well, there's always the anonymous leak to the press route. It's risky, but it's been effective.” His brain shied away from the idea. He'd already been set up to take the fall for someone once. He didn't want to do it again. "And hey—we know if we're deployed back to the Mediterranean again, there's a seventy-thirty chance that we'll run into our good buddies. So we know we'll get more opportunities, and we'll find more evidence.” He grinned and spread his hands. "It's a matter of time."