Incident Command

Barbara Butterfield

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Sujets

• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 21 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669838814
• Langue: English

Extrait

INCIDENT COMMAND
 
 
 
 
 
Barbara Butterfield
 
Copyright © 2022 by Barbara Butterfield.
 
ISBN:
Softcover
978-1-6698-3882-1

eBook
978-1-6698-3881-4

 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 
Cover Photograph:
Compliments of iStock.com
Photograph by: Kaybe70
 
 
 
Rev. date: 07/19/2022
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
843399
CONTENTS
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
Dedication
My heartfelt thanks and appreciation are extended to:
Dan Templeton
Former El Paso County Sheriff’s Deputy
and
Andrew Thompson
Former El Paso County Sheriff’s Deputy
For their outstanding contribution to this work by
ably and patiently lending their knowledge and expertise
borne from years of hard work and dedication to their field.
* * *
My deepest thanks are also extended to my long-standing friend:
Sue Teeple-Gardner, RN, Ret.
For not only diligently proofreading every single page,
but also, for her extensive medical expertise borne from
dedication to her career as a Registered Nurse.
* * *
This teamwork came together to improve the final
outcome of the story and for that I am eternally grateful.
Thank you all.
Blessings always, and Stay Safe!
Chapter 1
Andrew stood frozen in place, his right-hand trembling at his side. His fingers clutched tightly to the pistol he had fired only seconds prior. A haunted, yet stunned expression darkened the countenance of this young man as his chest first swelled and then relaxed with the type of sigh that only mortal danger can induce.
With his eyes fixed on the man he had just killed; Andrew was already replaying the moment over and over in his head as he desperately attempted to resolve a problem that had no solution.
He pondered how something like this could happen. But even more perplexing was… why did this happen? The question would be asked a thousand more times, and the answer would remain just as elusive.
Sheriff’s Deputy Dan Temple, whom the young man had just rescued, struggled to rise to his feet. The officer was bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound he received from the thug who now lay dead just a mere eight feet away from the two men. Stoically, Temple gingerly limped over to where his rescuer stood.
“You okay?” Andrew asked the officer.
“Holding on,” came the officer’s simple reply through tightly clenched teeth. It was apparent he was badly hurt and in a lot of pain.
“Okay, you stay here. I’m here to help,” Andrew offered as he reassuringly patted the officer’s shoulder. From there it had all gone downhill in a hurry. Within seconds, the day had dramatically changed for everyone.
* * *
Now, in an apparent state of shock, Andrew Thomson looked at the bleeding police officer as his countenance pleaded for an explanation for what had just transpired. Each passing second brought new questions that silently paraded across the face of the civilian who had just become a reluctant hero.
After applying a tourniquet to his own leg, a skill Officer Temple learned from his time in the Army, he looked at Andrew and solemnly shook his head from side to side.
“Thank you,” were the only words Temple could speak at the moment. As the violent action and the sharp rapport of gunfire gave way to somber silence, it was simply all he could think of to say.
“Um, uh...no problem,” Andrew uneasily replied. Alternately, he cast several glances between the dead assailant, and Officer Temple. To the civilian, what had happened here was simply unfathomable.
Andrew’s dark hazel eyes widened again as he looked back down at the body lying prone on the sun-warmed pavement. In silence, he tried to absorb the fact that this man…only a minute prior, drew his final breath.
“Maybe you should stop looking at the body,” the wounded officer suggested.
Inwardly, Andrew winced at the officer’s use of the word ‘body’. Although he felt his actions were justified based on the apparent intent of the thug, Andrew was suddenly and shockingly confronted with the reality that sometimes death was the consequence of poor and sometimes evil choices.
“He was a thug…a crook,” Officer Temple solemnly commented. It was as though he could hear Andrew’s thoughts, and that seemed to cause the young man even more anxiety. It had only been the officer’s hope that he could help to salve the young man’s conscience with his implied rationale that the man’s death meant less because of his criminal lifestyle.
“It’s hard to believe that was a living person a minute ago,” Andrew mused.
“A creep,” Temple corrected, and his words earned him a puzzled look from his rescuer.
“What’s wrong with you?” Andrew asked indignantly, before back-pedaling. “Look, I’m sorry. But he was a living, breathing human being. Shouldn’t we give him the tiniest bit of respect in his death?”
“Look at him,” Temple responded with a stern expression; his left hand clutched firmly to his thigh as searing pain threatened to overwhelm him. “This man lived his life as a felon, and he died as many felons do. Remember, you shot him because he was attempting to murder someone else.”
Andrew silently pondered Officer Temple’s statement.
“It was his choice,” Temple persisted, but more gently this time.
As the adrenaline that coursed through Andrew’s system diminished, the enormity of what just occurred began to descend on him. His chest felt tight, and his knees weakened.
Recognizing what was happening to his new friend, Officer Temple astutely directed Andrew to sit on the nearby curb as tremors began to overtake his body. As a physiological reaction to the aftermath of an ‘adrenaline dump’, the shakes were often mistaken for a sign of fear. Andrew warily eyed his trembling hands and wondered if there was something wrong with him.
Officer Temple limped over to his car and pulled a candy bar from his lunch box, returning to Andrew’s side he handed it him. Andrew’s face demonstrated his confusion, wondering why this was the appropriate moment to enjoy a Snickers bar.
“The simple sugars will help level out your blood stream,” Temple explained. “You just ran your body up to 100 miles per hour and back down with no time for warm-up. The candy bar will help you recover from the rush of adrenaline that got slammed into your system. Simply put, it will help you feel better.”
“Thanks,” Andrew replied, as he accepted the generous offer.
Normally, Andrew was an easy-going sort of guy. The ‘live and let live’ sort. But there were times, and this was apparently one of them, when he was not only intensely aware of who he was as a person, but also what he could be capable of under the right circumstances. Today, this college-age student had taken the life of another human being. Though it was an action that was necessary to defend and protect another person’s life, he was still having trouble coming to grips with it.
Finally, Andrew turned his gaze from the man lying dead in the street to the officer whom he had rescued by intervening in the escalating situation.
* * *
Andrew’s afternoon would have seemed routine and familiar to most average American men. Planning to host a BBQ later that evening, Andrew drove to the local grocery store to round up the remaining provisions for the get-together. But before he could complete the errand, an event that would forever change his life waited just around the next corner.
In a relaxed posture in the comfortable bucket seat of his Dodge Charger, his mind mentally checked through a to-do list of tasks pending completion for the evening.
It was when he turned right onto Harrison Street that Andrew suddenly sat upright as he observed a black and white police car pulled over to the curb with its red and blue lights strobing vividly in the dusk of early evening. The presence of the car, however, was not what startled him. It was the image of a police officer in a navy-blue uniform, lying on his stomach in the street, illuminated solely by a nearby streetlight.
“What the hell…?” Andrew started to ask himself, but as more of the scene came into focus, his reaction changed from confusion to horror.
As he slowed his vehicle to a tentative stop behind the police car, Andrew observed a man wearing a dingy shirt with matted hair, standing over the prostrate police officer. The man held a gun in his right hand with an out-stretched arm, aiming the weapon directly at the back of the downed officer’s head.
“Oh shit,” Andrew gasped. Startled by what he was watching, Andrew ref