Chapter 18: General Advances

Brigadier General Robert Branch sat stoically in the canvas-slung seat of the helicopter. Conversation with his security team was essentially curtailed by the noise of the whirling blades, even if anyone on the team had the nerve to talk to the cold-eyed general. That was fine with General Branch. He wasn't a big fan of small talk. In fact, most social interactions irritated him. He didn't play well with others.

He acknowledged to himself that his rapid rise through the ranks had more to do with gaming the system than diplomacy. His rise also had a lot to do with his ruthless drive to accomplish his mission. He tried to ensure his missions matched the Army's assigned missions, at least superficially, most of the time; General Branch was a driven man.

He used to be called Bobby when he was young, a state that he had to strain to remember. His friends called him Bob when he was a little older, when he had friends. Most of his 'friends' had been sacrificed on the pyre of expediency, or self-preservation. A few had fallen in his drive to achieve a mission. A few of the other, more sanctimonious 'friends', had to fall when they disagreed with his methods. He felt no remorse, or even second thoughts about his fallen comrades. There were a few still kicking around the Army that called him Bob, in private. Most of them got a nervous tic when they did. In fact, most of them got a nervous tic when they were alone with him! All except Dick Denison, that is. Dick was an exception.

General Branch mused on his relationship with the Master Sergeant, while watching out the window as they raced over the mottled browns of the desert. He didn't wonder why Dick was different than his other long-time acquaintances. He knew why Dick was different. Dick was nearly as ruthless, and probably more amoral, than Missus Branch's little boy, Bobby, whoever Missus Branch was.

'Maybe it's because of our similar backgrounds, ' the General thought.

Both came from spirit-crushing poverty as children. Dick Denison grew up in the west Texas oil fields with a mean drunk for a father. Dick never knew his mother, and his father would never talk about her. Dick believed that her bones were buried in some forgotten oil field after his father beat her to death. Robert was born in 1961 as Robert Blanchard. He grew up in central California with a mother that was also a mean drunk, and a whore. She didn't have a clue about who his father was, and didn't care. Robert earned a beating whenever he broached the subject. Robert was the 'mistake' that was the cause of all her problems. Both Robert and Dick left home in their teens; Robert was fifteen, and Dick was sixteen.

Dick lived on the streets for two years, before managing to avoid a statutory rape charge by joining the Army when he was eighteen. The fifteen year old girl's parents didn't want their daughter to endure the graphic court trial that Dick promised. The military had halted the practice of taking criminals in lieu of sentences. A large gift to the judge by the girl's father ensured Dick's record was clean enough to enlist, and get him out of his little girl's life.

Robert had been luckier. He had fallen in with one of the Hippy communes that had survived since the sixties. They had survived because of connections with certain elements in higher education, and the American Underground that had supported the sixties antiwar effort. All he had to give up for his food, lodging, and education, was his body. He didn't mind the women. Not even the women that were in their sixties and older. He didn't like it when some of the men decided a boy's company would be a fun change of pace, but every one of them paid for the pleasure they took, later.

Robert knew that he had a dim future when he joined the commune. He knew that he could coast until he was old enough, and return to the life he had escaped, but with some low paying job. Robert was smart, as in highly intelligent, and he was cunning from his years of virtually raising himself, and surviving, with his mom. He didn't want to return to that life. He knew that he was the only one that could ensure that didn't happen. Knowledge was his price for access to his body, and he soaked up knowledge like a sponge: all kinds of knowledge.

The old Hippies in the commune had provided false documentation for fugitives during the Viet Nam war, both draft dodgers trying to get to Canada, and members of the violent underground. Robert learned how to create false documents. He figured out on his own how to create paper trails to ensure the documentation would prove valid.

He sucked up conventional subjects like math, history, science and philosophy like water for a man dying of thirst. Robert quickly passed the grade levels he would have sat through in a normal school setting. Within a year, he was wading through college courses, via the commune's contacts with college professors.

Within two years, Robert had a new name, Robert Branch, and he spent the next year building the paper trail necessary for that persona to stand up under any scrutiny. The Robert Branch persona wasn't the only false identify that he created. Robert Sinclair and Gerald Fleming also arose from the dead. All three identities had real birth certificates on file, because each of them had truly been born. They had all died within days of their birth. Bureaucracies runs on paper, and it was a simple matter to get the right documentation into the proper hands to correct the 'erroneous' record of his death.

In June, 1980, Robert Blanchard, now known as Robert Branch, left the commune to begin his life in the Army. He was nineteen years old, but as Robert Branch, he was twenty-three years old, and a college graduate. Officer Candidate School was a piece of cake. Jump school and Special Forces training were a snap. Everything the Army threw at the young imposter, bolstered his self-image, and fueled his rise through the Army's officer ranks.

Robert saw his first military action as a Special Forces Lieutenant in Grenada, during that country's 1982 power struggle. Grenada is where he met Sergeant Denison. The following year, they were together in Panama. Both missions were successful militarily, and monetarily. Robert had established bank accounts under his other aliases. Many influential power brokers from both countries contributed to his coffers, both voluntarily, and involuntarily.

Panama was the first time Robert joined Dick in the Sergeant's favorite proclivity: rape. Finding unwilling participants for sexual liaisons was something of a specialty for Dick Denison. Robert certainly had no objection to it, and even found it a useful tool for coercion in the years that followed.

Robert became a key operative for the CIA and Military Intelligence, as an Army liaison, in the years that followed. He took teams into South America, Africa, the Middle East, and the Orient. Each mission added to his assets, and further blackened his soul. Dick was on his coat-tails the entire time.

Robert was waiting for his discharge to process, when he was called about an object in space that changed direction and trajectory. He had over twenty-five years on active duty and wanted to enjoy the nest egg that he had stashed, while he was still young enough to enjoy it. However, he was the only person that the military and intelligence communities could agree on to handle this operation. Robert agreed to take the assignment, after he received certain guarantees, and the promise of another star upon retirement. He didn't need the extra pittance from the government the star would provide for him, but it suited Robert's vanity very well. The guarantees were important, though.

He had run roughshod over any opposition he had encountered in previous missions, but they had all been in other countries. In twenty-five years of active duty, this was Robert's first mission within the borders of the United States.

Americans still clung to their fantasies about rights and freedoms, and some misguided police officers tried to bolster those fantasies. An open warrant from a helpful judge at the Department of Homeland Security solved that little problem nicely. Robert could overrule any law enforcement officer of any jurisdiction for nearly any reason. He was assured that his warrant wasn't unusual, and wouldn't cause any awkward questions. The Homeland Security writ would certainly make his military mission easier, and provide the latitude necessary to accomplish a few of his own goals.