Chapter 4

Guthmiller Ranch, Medina County, Texas

Lieutenant Chapman stopped the truck next to the browsing donkey, exiting without acknowledgment of Spock. The donkey’s response to Chapman’s arrival was a non-response. Spock considered Chapman to be among the most boresome of humans, as that particular soldier had never bothered to converse or otherwise socialize with either himself or Troi, much less any of the horses or dogs, proving himself to not be a reliable herd member. As such, Spock walked away, seeking a better patch of weeds for his late night/early morning snack, ignoring the insociable human.

Lieutenant Chapman was a product of an American aristocratic upbringing, thus never having a pet or having normative childhood associations or any other childhood experience with ‘nature’. Converesly, Chapman, while somewhat aloof and detached, was pointedly not aristocratic. his three years as a soldier had provided him with a world view and a knowledge of human behaviors unimaginable to his parents and their ilk.

Chapman’s parents, as per their expectations as elitist corporate lawyers, did not approve of their only son’s participation in the military, much less being in an infantry vocation. Chapman was a graduate of the army airborne and ranger and jumpmaster and free-fall schools, and he was combat-decorated. He was an accomplished soldier. These accomplishments went unrecognized by Chapman’s parents, and their resultant non-approval of his lifestyle choices. Chapman’s parents sincerely believed that the conduct of the nation’s wars were best left to those ‘other’ peoples that had no better pursuits.

Lt Chapman scanned the sky surrounding open area, lit by the gibbous moon, until he glimpsed the outlines of two parachutes. The first parachutist to touchdown, gracefully and softly, met the weeds and dirt with the zero-rate descent of a full canopy stall, not requiring a PLF, and not more than 100 meters from the tree line. When the outline of the jumper was recognized as Staff Sergeant Green, Chapman closely followed the other parachutist. In three jumps, Corporal Vera had progressed from the basic T-11 canopy that he had mastered at Benning, to becoming adept at free-fall using the MC-4 system.

Carlton pulled her travel bags out of the truck bed as Pistochini remained next to the truck, observing the training evolution while his mindscape was buried among various thoughts concerning the captain’s decision. Pistochini was uncertain about sending out a team lacking a principle shooter. His personal investment in Vera increased Pistochini’s level of concern and his determination to ensure that the training and preparation was complete as possible. As the second parachute canopy blossomed out of the darkness, Pistochini walked away from the truck onto the unkempt and fallow bottom land.

Vera, having correctly determined the wind direction, maneuvered a final turn to the southwest, away from the donkey. This was Vera’s first full-load jump with over 70 kg of additional gear, plus rifle, hanging off of his body. Hearing no flutter from the trailing-edges, Vera closed the rectangular canopy’s slots to decrease his descent rate then dropped his tethered jump bag. Using the turn slots minimally, Vera maintained his horizontal directional vector without affecting his descent profile.

Alighting within 20 meters of the donkey, Corporal Vera’s ‘stall’ was implemented by opening all vents, resulting in a non-zero descent rate, but the touchdown did not require the full measure of a parachutist’s impact-absorbing PLF. The ending of his flight did not have the grace of the army ranger’s expertly-controlled descent, but it was functional and competent. Spock approved of the arrival of the soldier and the Marine from above, not understanding their bizarre actions but allowing these unusual arrivals into the realm of acceptable strangeness that the donkey had come to expect from his ‘herd’ members.

“Get the last two packs, sarge?”

Green was not surprised at the Marine’s enthusiasm; he had long stopped being overly impressed with O’Brien and his Marines ability to master new skills a la their ‘Improvise, Adapt and Overcome’ creed.

“Uh, don’t know. We’ll have to talk to the pilots ... Get it wrapped and into the bag. We’ll do a debrief later.”

Chapman delayed, watching Vera dragged his chute out before folding and stuffing, then addressing Green, “How is our airborne Marine, sergeant?”

“He’s there, sir. Maybe one more jump. He’s having issues with directional control during free-fall, nothing unsafe. Who will sign off the logs, sir? The top is not available.”

“Carlton will return within forty eight hours. Have her make entries into the system for the training jumps and I’ll endorse. It is a moot point anyway, sergeant, as we are not bound per the TMs. Captain Garza will also return in two or three days; he will provide the final approval.”

The conversation was interrupted by the approach of the MH-47, without landing or position lights. The donkey’s blase reaction to the noisy and windy machine was observed by Chapman. The lieutenant was impressed with the animal’s poise, but took the ‘tactical composure’ of the animal as pro forma behavior per its Marine training. As the machine wound down, the crewchief exited to talk to SSG Green.

“Got enough fuel for one more, sarge. Ready to mount up?”

“Give us at least twenty to see where we are. Anyone want coffee?”

“Mrs Sanchez’s brew?”

“You know it.”

“Damn right, man. Let me go and get my bus drivers.”

As Vera went into the tree-line, retrieving a thermos he had stuffed into saddlebags, the crewchief retrieved his pilots.

As the pilots removed their helmets, Vera was given momentary pause upon the realization that both were female. The 160th SOAR aviators, with the exception of the two enlisted crew chiefs, thus far, had remained an unknown to most Hornblende personnel.

SSG Green, ever the resourceful ranger, pulled two insulated cups from his drop bag. Handing the cups to the pilots, he obviously was one of the few organization’s members that knew the aviators, “Ms Halley, Ms Caetano. Have some of the good stuff.”

Vera briefly stared at CW3 Agueda Caetano, and not necessarily because she was an attractive black women, but because of her unusual sidearm choice; she had a six-inch Smith and Wesson N-frame revolver in her shoulder holster. Warrant Caetano and Corporal Vera exchanged a fleeting glance before he returned to retrieving and stowing jump gear.

Lt Chapman’s arrival into the gaggle found Green and the three aircrew discussing the next jump, while Vera collected and added the expended chutes to Spock’s load.

“Ms. Halley, have you completed your mission review?”

“Gave it to Carlton this morning, LT. She said she would give it to the captain.”

“Captain Garza has been on travel. He will not return for at least two days.”

“Understand, Lieutenant. But I need command response today. Have to send in the requirements to MacDill by 1300.”

“Summary of issues?”

“The first would be the commander’s release of assets for the target area. For the actual mission, we will be flying without enroute controllers through active MOAs, while under transponder blackout. Do not know if it matters that there are no engagement rules for aircrew. And the riggers out at Bullis gave me ration of shit.”

“The 19th group?”

“That’s affirm, LT.”

“Too late to use the PJ riggers out of Randolph?”

I’m guessing that’s also affirm, LT.”

“I will have Staff Sergeant Carlton handle local command laison, and air controller issues. As for ROE, that belongs to Sergeant Green and Corporal Vera per the Hornblende P&P manual.”

“Who wrote the unit policies?”

“Captain Garza, Top Hoerner, and Staff Sergeant O’Brien.”

CW4 Halley raised an interested eyebrow at the mention of O’Brien.

Chapman tersely informed the pilot as he turned to talk to Green, “Carlton and myself will address aircrew issues per your review later. And you can talk to her on your way north.”

Carlton nodded to the two pilots as she carried her bags onto the MH-47, boarding ahead of the two jumpers.

Spock, with patience and a particular devotion to his duties, stood still, only moving his head to watch Green and Vera unload the last two packed MC-4 systems from the donkey’s load.

Vera and Green strapped up under the dim illumination of two red-LED flashlights, checking each others rigging. Both jumpers were then checked by Lt Chapman. The ranger officer watched the two men board the aircraft for the night’s final training jump, doubting the exigency of the mission, but certainly not doubting the skills and determination of his soldiers and of O’Brien’s Marines.

Frankfurt, Germany - Team One

The FedEx van circumnavigated the Frankfurt metropolis in a clockwise manner, on the bundesautobahn A-45 to the east and south. Exiting the main road to the east, then immediately turning south into a semi-rural parking lot, adjacent to an open-pit recycle center, the van turned into a parking area. The public parking lot was about 20 km east of Franfurt and just west of Alzenau. The area was dotted with heavily subsidized farm plots of dubiously-grown crops, punctuated by strips of wooded land.

Malone and Everton stared at their respective wrist watches in the dark. At 0125 local, Everton held his breath. Upon hearing nothing unusual, the soldier jerked his head up, looking at Malone with concern and doubt. When Malone did not react, Everton started to reach for the radio. The Marine shook his head at the soldier and whispered “3... 2... 1”

The explosions’ multiple shock waves reached the three Americans as a short series of wan ‘woops’, followed by weak braying of distant urban alarm systems, breaking the calm of the German valley. Malone verified that their hooded prisoner was secure, let the bolt fly forward to jack a round into the M25 rifle, holstered his pistol, then exited the delivery van, disappearing into the tree line. Everton followed the Marine out, going into the tree-line normal to the brushy enclave touching the rear of the van, leaving the Company’s driver to watch the prisoner and wait for the local contact.

Rhine River, Budemheim, Germany - Team Two

The transfer of the two bodies up up the side of the port bow from the small kayak was, if anything, comically calamitous. Acorn severely adjudged the lack of discernment from Sifuentes and O’Brien as they roughly hoisted two human bodies onto the conex barge, then carried the same limp bodies over their backs, well lit by the moon, down the length of the barge, all in partial view of the two tourist barges docked 100 meters to the south.

After O’Brien bagged the dead body and dumped it into the ‘meat locker’ conex, Sifuentes secured the live body into an ad-hoc ‘prison’ conex. As Sifuentes and O’Brien dropped their gear onto their racks in the control-center container, Acorn patiently waited for their commentary.

“I’m gonna say that you spook folks earned your cookie ration today, Mr Acorn. That fuckin tango did exactly as you said, and at the place you identified. For once, you people were good to go, sir”

“Staff Sergeant, I will say we got lucky tonight. You should know that your snatch operation removed one of the two EU primaries from circulation. The Germans lost track of that man last month, so we got damned lucky.”

“Yeah? Where is this other ‘primary’”

“He’s in Austria, and would not be available to us until he exits Austria.”

“Doesn’t surprise me, Mr Acorn. Austrians are all fuckin Nazi shit-bags, anyway ... So the asshole we snatched; what’s his malfunction?”

“The most dangerous breed of fascist insurgent - an organizer of the organizers. He’s a man driven by, at least to his mind, a clear cause.”

“Other than fascism, what’s this fucker’s alpha and omega?”

“He wants to organize the next American civil war...”

Sifuentes’ reply was limited to a stunned open-mouthed expression. O’Brien paused to get rev’d up a few more rpms.

“What the fuck?! The U.S. sure as fuck ain’t no 1930s Germany. Ya think these German pussies got a legit plan to actually start shit on another continent, Mr Acorn?”

“Their plans to foment an American insurrection is what we need to know more about. He is a brilliant logistician. Those rifles you sunk into the Gulf of Mexico? He is the one that somehow arranged their transport to CONUS. It is possible that the European cells have already implemented a basic trans-Med and trans-Atlantic logistics train.”

“Damn. Large-scale shipments of military-grade weapons. That’s the one thing that the South did not have in the Civil War. Shit, an open, full-up civil War back home. Could it happen, Opie?”

“I dunno, Mickey. I just dunno...”

Harry Acorn was secure in his assumption that O’Brien did, in fact, have a deterministic opinion on the subject. He wanted to hear some of that vaunted O’Brien logic and historical analysis that Dr Richmond and Mark Cameron had heard. Acorn wanted to hear it for himself, and the deputy director wanted more insight and understanding of Hornblende team principals.

“You are thinking that a twenty-first century American civil war is not probable, Staff Sergeant. Tell me why...”

O’Brien pulled and cleared his pistol, then stood in front of the small workbench to disassemble and clean his weapon. Mickey Sifuentes followed the action with his pistol as O’Brien set the stage for his pedantry.

“Ignoring the precursor conditions from the 1830s to the 1850s; ignoring the comparisons of all of the incongruent socio-economic shit; ignoring the apolitical stance and policies of our most politically-elite senior flag officers (when compared to the generals of the 1850s); and ignoring any underlying long-term strategies that would result from any follow-up foreign interventions; we have some big fuckin tactical delimiters that would inhibit chances for a full-scale war within CONUS.”

“Just tactically, and not talkin ‘bout nothin else, a full-scale civil war doesn’t seem likely. Its really fuckin stupid to think a 21st century civil war would sequence as it did in the 19th century. Think ‘bout how well-defined the lines were back then, both geographically and culturally. Think about how the military formed and controlled units in the 19th century.”

O’Brien waved the disassembled pistol slide through an arc to emphasize a ‘sweeping’ point.

“We could say that’s bullshit. Lets look at the shit we’ve being doin for almost ten years in the sandbox. It’s all been devolved into chasing fractured, asymetrical, and fought at the edges along poorly-defined lines formed by constantly-changing AOs.”

“Now think about the tactics we’ve been layin down the last two years. Look at what and how we are fighting these shitheads in the sandbox now. Fucking networks of cells where they push their power at the edges. The army and the Marines quickly shifted away from the large monolithic forces that we hammered them with during Desert Storm. We’ve formed our own network of smaller units pulled out of the deployed MEUs and BCTs.”

“Now look at how hajis have changed their training. Small-unit, more formalized, slightly less asymmetrical tactics. Look at the most recent training camps where haji war efforts are based on a cadre from peoples with wide-spread suffering that don’t have shit for agency. People that have been ignored by the world or their government are a people that are easily manipulated by larger global powers. So that leads us to the American version of religious fundamentalists. The American religionists no longer understand implementation of large-scale war. So what element would be capable of importing a civil war to America, of a centrally-controlled large-scale insurgency?”

O’Brien paused for effect, and to think of a direct, but non-simplistic way to make his point.

“So if the fascists can’t understand how to organize large-scale open warfare in America, they become limited to wars by proxy, which would have to be mostly small insurgencies. Think about American mind-set vs the insurgent mind-set. A civil war in America could only be based on the tribal conflicts resulting from racial, religious, familial, and economic divisions. But to get to a violent and armed large-scale insurrection, they would need to develop and manipulate these many internal tribal conflicts by limiting or controlling resources at a national level. When the imbalance in resources is increased to a critical point, then America has the civil crucible where violence becomes a logical and necessary solution.”

Acorn saw a flaw in O’Brien’s ‘vaunted’ historical logic.

“Okay, staff sergeant. That seems logical, I will grant that there are rarely simple, two-sided conflicts. But we could be susceptible to a large exogenous influence, which would provide the necessary elements to control and equip a supply chain.”

“Correct, Mr Acorn. Its not a simply binary problem. But only for the tactics that would result if we ignore the first outbreaks of coordinated disruption and violence. If we continue to shit-can the theater-level shit, as defined by huge movements of armies, as was done for most of the Civil War, and use what we’ve learned in the sandbox, we’ll be fighting a series of severely delimited and isolated battles, perhaps small enough to be largely unnoticed by the public. It would emerge as a networked, hybrid warfare. Shit, thats what we’re doin now in southwest Asia and central Africa. And as for control of American industry, that’s my premise. Its too fuckin global, its too fuckin big. The supply chain can be fucked with, but it cannot be controlled. And the diverse supply chains of new style of logistics was the juggernaut that helped the north win.”

Acorn recognized the rebuttal for what it was, but he was convinced that O’Brien was being purposefully shallow. He wanted to see the next layer of O’Brien’s onion.

“So, for CONUS, we would see asymmetrical, distributed, mixed conflicts. Your supposition is that modern American internal conflicts would entail multiple dynamic factions organized by internet tools around ideological and affinity networks. What would be the resultant tactics and targets be of an American insurgency based on this?”

“I’m gonna guess we would have a gaggle-fuck of numerous regional insurgent groups seeking shortened attacks where these groups would over-lap geographically and ideologically, its what math dweebs call the network’s edges. Centralized, theater-level control would be improbable and extremely fuckin difficult for the insurgent organizers. This low-level violence would occasionally be organized to do high-value terrorism. But this is where the assholes risk losing the general public support, unless the targets are soft, well-defined, and do not have a publicly-respected face.”

O’Brien knew he had addressed Acorn’s primary premise, but did not dismiss CIA officers premise in toto.

“Going with your internet shit, the corporate oligarchy that makes the world wide web and siphons off and builds big fuckin databases of our personal data, are making geographical boundaries less relevant by that same flow of data. Look at the Islamic State and al Qaeda. Any haji can read any shit, remotely claim allegiance while living ‘normally’ in any suburb, and start whipping up violence against their targets. Jake has been tracking a growing number of loosely-linked extremists. On the left we have some violent anti-fascists wannabes and hippy anarchists, and on the extreme right we have thousands of various anti-state groups, also loosely coupled, and as we now see, are increasingly coordinated across global networks. One thing that no one seems to notice is that these fuckers are not always running top-down hierarchies unless they’re large groups. They’re small, moving targets. They have no fixed formation. They can quickly form, then disappear. Its all effected by the network’s dynamic nature.”

O’Brien, again, addressed the large llama, lurking to the side.

“But we could still have a constant shit-storm of external influences. Jake says that Russia and China are stepping up their attempts at manipulation. And that damned Marine is always fucking with my paranoia when she shows me shit that indicates there are many external influences pouring in, not being tracked, that are intended to incite civil unrest that do not necessarily come from state-supported actors.”

“Shit, Opie. Are you saying that there is no way we can track these groups and that our tactics are not usable against these people because they’re being run from outside CONUS?”

“Not so much, Mickey, but, other than simple search and destroy ops for cell elimination, we don’t need any complex doctrinal book of tactics to counter these shitheads. We can make shit up as we play this stupid game. My point was that the delimiting tactics of modern warfare will probably not allow any large-scale insurrection. Which means we will not see anything like the 1860s. In some ways, we’ve been at a civil war since the 1990s, and I ain’t talkin ‘bout the dumbshit ‘culture wars’. We are in the middle of this civil war, fuckin literally in the middle.”

“In the middle of what?”

“The glib answer is counter-insurgency ops to mitigate Oklahoma City-style attacks. But the accurate statement is that we, referencing all the Hornblende folk, are in the middle of fuckin everything. We will become an invisible confluence for American politicol society. At times, us and the agency folk will be societal traffic cops, directing the streams of shit coming from the left and from the right. Other times, we’ll be the sole force, by our lonesome, defending a hill that’s under siege from multiple factions. And there will be many times when we will, preemptively, enforce the enforcers.”

As Sifuentes and Acorn attempted to internally analyze the metaphors and analogies, O’Brien re-assembled his pistol, and re-loaded a magazine with ‘normal’ rounds.

“I’ll take the watch, Mr Acorn. Wanna relieve me in four hours, Mickey?”

O’Brien stepped out of the control and barracks conex, then onto the barge without further comment.

Harry Acorn discretely ended his phone’s audio recording mode, closed the app, and sent the file to the Hornblende duty project controller in Langley, Virginia.

Fort AP Hill, Virginia

Command representatives from the Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group and CERDEC talked among themselves, with a pronounced and circumspect and careful deliberation. The delimited exchanges among the small group of soldiers and civilians were the resultant of the paranoia among senior field-grade officers and civilian directors and command sergeants major that had followed the wholesale personnel changes in most Army intelligence and R&D commands.

The tense atmosphere in the army intel community had become rampant and pervasive. These feelings of unease and danger were not decreased when they had received orders from the Secretary of the Army to prepare unlimited classification briefs for unknown individuals.

The black Chevy Suburban was staffed with two Marine security/drivers in the front. As the SUV neared a nondescript structure, marked only as ‘BLDG 372’, the non-driving Marine removed his M4 from a mount between the front seats, racking a round into the chamber. The vehicle circled the parking lot, enabling the two security Marines to view the various approaches and to verify that the seven observed vehicles in the parking lot were empty. The driver stopped the vehicle in front of the building, but spaced away and off-center from the main entrance.

Staff Sergeant Carlton yanked her Glock from an ankle holster to quickly pull back the slide, releasing it to jack a round into the chamber. Carlton exited the SUV, along with the two security Marines, from the aft-most door, holding her pistol close to her side.

When the senior sergeant nodded to Carlton, she opened the door to enable the exit of Captain Garza, Mark Cameron, and Brigadier General Stewart. Carlton fell in at the aft end of the entourage while the two sergeants led the group to the main building entrance. As Garza was about to enter the main hatch, a soldier stepped out from a side door, standing close to a decorative bush, and directly to the side and slightly behind Carlton.

As Carlton pivoted to her side, her first fleeting notice was that the soldier was holding a small Nikon digital camera, and her second notice was that there was a civilian standing at the same side door, holding it open.

Jake Carlton’s 0.1 second of analysis left her with no good rationale to not assess both individuals as threats, regardless of the lack of visible weapons. Their mannerisms and timing allowed her believe that neither was benign. As Carlton rotated, she smashed her pistol into the soldier’s face. The soldier dropped the camera as he struggled to remain standing. The soldier’s struggles to remain erect ended when Carlton kicked in the side of the soldier’s knee that was adjacent.

When the soldier yelled out in pain, the civilian just outside the side door froze, stunned into an immobile form from surprise. Carlton closed the short distance to the civilian, throwing the short man into the door then kicking his legs out from under him. The civilian’s impact onto the concrete sidewalk provided Carlton with a satisfying dull thump.

The junior security sergeant and Captain Garza, having heard the muted ruckus behind the column, ran to Jake’s position to find her standing over two men with her finger inside the trigger guard of her pistol. Garza was convinced that his staff sergeant was hoping for a reason to shoot one or both of her newly acquired, prone and in pain, guests.

The security sergeant said nothing to Carlton as he proceeded to handcuff the soldier and the civilian. Not allowing the prisoners off the deck, Carlton and the other Marine stood ready, scanning the area.

“Get the general into a secure area, sergeant. These people aren’t going anywhere.”

The sergeant nodded to the staff sergeant, trotting off to re-join the other security Marine, to continue escorting the general and the senior CIA officer inside the building.

“Sir? Would the captain look at the images in that camera’s memory?”

Garza played with the small camera’s convoluted menu system until he could view the images.

“Interesting. This guy took pics of each of us as we left the truck. I’ll cover, Jake. Let’s get their IDs.”

CSM Ashford called the room to attention as General Stewart and Cameron entered.

The Marine sergeant that preceded the general and the CIA officer stood to the side, his rifle at port arms, closely watching the group of four soldiers and two civilians, until the general ordered, “at ease, gentlemen. Sergeant?”

“Aye, sir. People, please remain standing in front of the table. With your left hand, please place a government ID in front of you, then stand back a step from the table, with arms at your side and hands visible. I will shoot anyone that does not comply.

One of the two civilians was shaking and had his shirt with heavy perspiration. The six people placed their federal IDs in front of them. The four soldiers, confused over the extreme level of security, nonetheless complied. The second security sergeant pulled an index card from his waistband and weapons utility rig to verify each name and the matching photo on the ID.

“Thank you, gentlemen. Please be seated while we wait for other members of our group to arrive.”

When the security sergeant handed the list to General Stewart, nods were exchanged when the security Marine pointed to a name.

“Is Ms. Elizabeth Crawford not attending?”

A civilian answered when the army colonel shot a questioning glance at his technical director.

“Uh, she called in for a personal day off, general. I will handle her portion of the brief.”

The Marine general gave the index card with the personnel list to the senior CIA officer, with a terse instruction.

“Get her, Mark.”

Cameron went to the back of the room to make a phone call to some rather unpleasant federal law enforcement officers. Jake Carlton entered the room; seeing Cameron in a rear corner, Carlton walked directly to the CIA officer without any further exchange with the group gathered at opposing sides of the conference table.

“Here’s their IDs, sir. Both are bagged and in the truck.”

“Any reason they would not survive transport, staff sergeant?”

“One of them is a bit messed up, but nothing serious.”

It was obvious to Cameron that Jake Carlton was a bit smug from her efficient take-down of the (assumed) two cell operatives. Cameron knew better than to provide an approval of her violent action, regardless of the successful outcome; as a Marine simply did not need further encouragement to enact violence, as some level of physicality was typically a Marine’s commonly acceptable solution to the problem at hand.

After the commanding officer of the Army CERDEC command delivered opening comments, he introduced the heads of the various CERDEC directorates. The I2WD director provided the first brief, droning monotonically, talking much but with a content devoid of useful information.