Not wanting to dwell on that matter, Nancy continued to rotate in place slowly. To the west there was very little in the track of land that lay between West Gowen Road and Interstate 84. The closest structures, sitting about a half mile from where she stood, were a pair of rust stained oil tanks. She had never paid much attention to them. Making a mental note, she reminded herself that it might be useful to know what, exactly, was stored in those tanks. After all, it could prove embarrassing to let fly a warning shot in their direction in an effort to ward off the curious or malicious only to start a conflagration. Now there would be something for the media sharks to gawk at, she chuckled. In her mind, the dark humor that most combat veterans seemed to enjoy conjured up the image of a diminutive blond newscaster, with makeup and hair freshly touched up standing out on the road as the oil tanks burned behind her. With microphone in hand and an expression that portrayed the appropriate look of dread and concern, the journalist would report to the world with an audible quiver in her voice, that the opening shots of the second civil war had been fired and that she, the brave, stalwart, and ever vigilant defender of the fourth estate, was there to report it, live.

Continuing her study of the perimeter for which she was responsible, Nancy faced to the south. It was from this quarter, along West Gowen Road and the open range beyond, that Nancy felt they were most vulnerable. Both the main post to the west and the Air Force facility to the north afforded the ammo storage site some degree of protection. While a threat from those directions could not be ruled out entirely, Nancy decided she had little to fear from that quarter. Any intruder choosing either of those approaches would have to pass through a number of barriers, gates, check points, and other obstacles that had been set up to keep the curious and uninvited at arm’s length. With the exception of a hundred meters or so of dead space and a singe chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, nothing separated Nancy’s ammo bunkers from the public road that ran along the southern boundary of Gowen Field.