Chapter 3

General Adam Gray walked slowly down the corridor with whitewashed walls leading into the briefing room. His mind swirled around as it commonly did with all factors about his day be they important or not. His National Guard dress uniform weighed lightly on the General who preferred more practical clothing instead of the smart but useless thing he wore now.

On the man's chest there sat three medals which clinked together as his heavy stride moved him forward. These were relics of combat in old days that had long since disappeared from the general. Gray was of average height at five foot eight and had thin black hair with a moustache and goatee. Grey hairs were showing here and there on his face which was common for those his age at forty-five and he cared not enough to hide them.

The briefing room was of medium size and contained seven men of various rank from Colonel to Captain, all National Guard and all wearing the same face of concern. Gray came in and sat down at the head of the rectangle, light brown polished table onto a very comfortable chair. In front of him there were two dossiers contained in brown cardboard folders

Around the table pairs of eyes stared at him waiting for a prompt. Gray flicked open one folder and was immediately greeted with an A4 sized picture of the hamlet that Ryder had visited. The black and white destruction lashed out at his eyes as he saw the burnt houses and broken bodies.

"Brutal" Gray said

"Yes sir. We believe that it was committed by a Polish or Chinese Spec Ops team, same as the other events"

"So I keep hearing people, I'll not rule anything out but we don't have anything to back that assumption up with. As for what's happening elsewhere we need to keep our focus on here in Texas"

"A similar event has been seen in New Mexico sir" One of the officers pointed out

"A detachment has been sent. Right let's keep as many eyes as possible in as many places as possible, I want to know when something happens"

He then flicked open the second folder which contained a single piece of paper; a presidential order from Washington which was mostly overly flamboyant in language as per usual. The main portion of the order was telling the General to put a stop to the attacks by hostile Special Forces in the state of Texas and in any other southern state in danger. He was to find out the nationality of the men conducting these war crimes and to find those if any, that support the foreigners in the country

"I see the President has already decided that this is done by Spec Ops"

"All evidence points to that it is sir"

"Wrong! There is no evidence currently. I'm looking at a burnt out hamlet with its residents slaughtered, nothing else, no motive meaning that anyone could have committed this. Either way it doesn't matter we have our orders straight from Washington. Hopkins, what you got for me?" A thin Captain stood up and spoke

"We're pulling up a few leads from the Texas police to see if this has any roots in the cities but we're also working closely with the rangers since they have the best knowledge of the rural areas. We have detachments monitoring all main road boarders out of the state and have placed troops in bigger communities as well but" He was interrupted by a soldier who ran into the briefing room and handed the General a piece of paper before salting him

"Sir, news from the rangers, they have spotted a village on fire and are requesting military presence" Gray stood up straight away

"Seems we are getting faster in spotting them. I'll lead this mission personally, get me a chopper and set the nearest detachment to head straight for the village" They both saluted and ran off followed by the officers around the table.

The detachment was sent off with lightning speed and within an hour Gray was in a chopper and on the way to the incident. He had changed his clothes and now wore closer to combat uniform which he had taken himself and modified so that it displayed officers' insignia but did not give too much away. While he was not afraid of snipers marking him as high value he had no wish to go through the dust in a pristine military dress uniform.

The Blackhawk he occupied moved swiftly through the sky with a few bumps now and again. Out of the side of the aircraft the long yellow desert could be seen from out the open left hand doorway which occupied the entire the view other than a thin streak of blue when the helicopter banked. Soon the smoke could be seen in the distance when Gray looked through the front view screen. It trailed up as high as it could, unhindered by the none existent wind

Gray scowled at the mighty black cloud that pretty much had engulfed the entirety of the village. He already knew from a mile away that all 120 inhabitants had been killed. The pilot spoke into his microphone which was amplified through the speakers

"We need to make a pass over the village, want me to go around or through" Gray responded immediately

"Take us straight through, slowly I need to take a look from the air" The men inside all strapped goggles on and peered out of the now both open doorways.

Smoke covered everything as they first went through, the pilot kept it fairly slow for a helicopter to make sure they got a good look. Without the goggles everyone inside would have been blinded as the black smoke gushed in. Even with his eyes protected his other senses took a beating and everyone coughed heavily for the few seconds they were exposed.

Even though they regretted going straight through they did get a decent look at the village which had all but been burned to the ground by then. However the village Church right in the centre had been left completely unhindered. This struck Gray as a very worrying sign, the worst killers were those with a religious motivation

The Blackhawk landed on the other side of the village were both ranger and military escorts were waiting for them. Not wanting to get the fire service involved the army had brought their own fire combatting equipment which they used to put out most of the blaze fairly quickly. This was easy since it had pretty much died out already.

What was left of the village at ground level as the smoke became less intense was simply a black and charred ruin much like the other places that had suffered the same. As the men approached the village from both sides they all felt the still intense heat coming out from the ruins. Gray walked down the main street with the still undamaged church lying in front of him. He looked down on his way up and stopped dead for a second. Mostly covered by ash there was a definite trail of blood heading up the street.