“Listen, I believe him. All the higher ups are nervous as hell and suspicious of every damn little thing. As I said, you should watch what you say. Speak your mind around me; I don’t give a shit. I think you’re all idiots anyway, but remember, these are ultra-sensitive issues with the officer folk.”
The driver spit out the window. “You are what you lead, boss!”
The NCO reached over the radio mount between them and playfully punched his helmet. “Shit, they’re wasting money with these new loyalty tests nowadays. What we really need are IQ tests!”
The driver flipped him the bird. “Seriously, Sergeant. Think about it. What they’re doing is stupid, even by the Army’s low standards. Just let these bitches go if they want to puss out.”
The new guy was the thoughtful type. “Most of them aren’t chicken, really. I know at least one of them pretty good. He was a real badass. Even got a Silver Star back in Helmand. When Big Army started these loyalty tests, he just went AWOL and drove back home to Idaho the day they joined California’s new government stunt. He emailed me after he enlisted in their ‘Army.’ They gave him an immediate promotion to staff sergeant and now he’s a damn drill instructor. He has a class of a hundred civilians that he’s turning into soldiers. Say what you will about his politics, but he’s got guts. That’s no pussy.”
The gunner hollered down the hatch. “Speaking of pussy, when are we going to get a chance to mingle with the locals, hmm? Try to win some hearts and ass.”
“It’s hearts and minds, dipshit.”
“Believe me bro; I ain’t picky about her mind!” Even the uptight new guy laughed.
Their NCO took one last look around the peaceful, idyllic beach island. “Maybe we ought to mosey our way back to the FOB.” He radioed the rest of the section.
“Alright, boys, let’s head on back to Naples.” The horny soldier above him moaned. The NCO grinned and added a quick FRAGO. “On second thought, let’s grab a bite to eat along the way and do some ‘relationship building’ with the natives.” The gunner clapped him on the back and hooted.
It didn’t take long for the hulking armored trucks to get off the island. After the dense beach district traffic, the two-lane causeway heading towards the mainland felt wide open. The convoy crossed a bridge and roared onto an even smaller sandbar called Lovers Key State Park. What a beautiful name for such a terrible place.
A few seconds after crossing the bridge they saw something that made them slam their brakes hard. A 10-foot gator lay sunning itself in the middle of the road. None of these fellows had ever seen one before. This was Florida after all, but still…
Novelty spooks a professional soldier like a break in routine puts a dog on edge. The NCO barked immediately over the radio. “Watch your spacing. Crew served’s: give me 360°. Dismounts out and do your 5 x 25’s, over.”
The convoy took up defensive positions without further discussion. Those soldiers that weren’t driving or manning a “crew served” machine gun got out in pairs and began searching for threats. The “5x25” system is, by now, a basic counter-insurgency tactic. One soldier would take a knee and cover his partner. The other man advanced in five-meter increments, scanning intently his immediate vicinity for signs of IED’s, until he got 25 meters away from the vehicle. The whole effort seemed incredibly out of place in this vacation retreat, but SOP was SOP. No matter how ridiculous.
Even after each element reported clear and any possible moment of surprise had clearly passed, their section leader still felt uneasy. He personally approached the gator and cleared the surroundings. No telltale signs of anything. Only after his gunner scanned the full perimeter twice with the vehicle mounted thermal set did he begin to relax. The hi-resolution imaging equipment was top of the line. Even in broad daylight it could penetrate through the thick bush on both sides of the road and find anything lurking nearby. No one was around for at least a hundred meters.
“Is the Warlock still on?” shouted the section leader.
His gunner back in the truck made a quick check of the vehicle’s electronic signals jammer. The manufacturer claimed that this big green box created an impenetrable “bubble” of electronic jamming within a 300-meter radius. The entire electromagnetic spectrum, except for those bands used by friendly radios, was thoroughly denied to the enemy and any radio-frequency command detonated IED’s. From cell phones to garage door openers, nothing was supposed to get through. It even worked, more often than not. What more could you hope for with technology?
“Roger. Full strength and not actively intercepting anything.”
Maybe he was overreacting. This wasn’t freaking Afghanistan, after all. Let the dumbasses take a few pics with the gator. “Alright, get your damn photos, but stay alert.”
Despite his standard issue gruffness, the sergeant figured it was pretty damn cool too. He took photos for his guys while still throwing one eye on the Mangrove trees around them. He couldn’t quite put his finger on the problem, but something puckered his asshole. A car horn honked behind the convoy.
“Keep them back! No one passes us until we’re done. You know the drill.”
At that point, something clicked. The whole time they were playing there, not a single vehicle had come from the opposite direction. They were just so used to the traffic parting for them that no one thought twice about why no oncoming cars came their way. After so long stopped here…that couldn’t be an accident.
The gunner who swept the entire area with his thermal sight paid no attention to the heat signature from the gator. It never crossed his Minnesotan mind to wonder why a cold-blooded reptile would have a warm belly.
One of the soldiers, the bravest, if not the brightest, poked the mini-dinosaur with his rifle. “This gator is dead,” he announced with authority as he also lifted the tail.
“Contact 12 o’clock. Get down!” The explosion drowned out everything the NCO screamed after “contact.” Not that hitting the deck does much good when a 50 pound artillery shell, surrounded by hundreds of BB’s packed in a bag inside the gator’s belly, blasts off at your feet. It took hours to police up all the tiny pieces of the two guys that stood over the gator.
The bomb even shredded the NCO diving to the ground five meters away. His body parts were mixed in a bag with his men. They would need DNA testing to sort it all out.
The troops in the high speed “Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected” armored trucks were unscathed. Of course, all that advanced armor did little good if you were dismounted. They’d always feel a little survivor’s guilt after nearly every man outside the vehicles were killed or to some degree wounded.
Several hundred yards away, blocking the other bridge on the far end of the island, a couple of exceptionally well-armed policemen didn’t jump when they heard the blast. Instead, they hopped back into their squad car and tore off back to the mainland, away from the explosion. The piled up traffic could finally go ahead.
A few minutes later, a report reached the occupation headquarters in Orlando. An aide stuck a black flag pin into a wall map of Florida. The colored pin represented location and type of lethal insurgent attack. This was the first entry on the map, but far from the last. The board would be full by the end of the month.
A hot spring
Admiral Zheng He, rising star of the People's Liberation Army Navy, lowered his parka’s hood. The artic wind nibbled at his exposed neck, but he only grinned. Zheng drank in the freezing air from the bridge of his flagship and peered over his shoulder. Attu Island, which the Japanese briefly overran during the early days of WW2, lay over 1,200 miles behind him. His historic fleet should just now be entering the Gulf of Alaska.