“A lot of things were supposed to happen, General. The one thing that shouldn’t have though, this damn cold war turning hot, is the only thing that did occur. Do you want to go on slugging it out with Washington or end this war by the Fourth of July? Would make for one hell of an independence day.”
Salazar studied the general. The steady jabs of reason and threats were wearing him down. Time to zero in for the kill. She came around the table and touched his arm.
“But we’re past all that now. General Stewart, you orchestrated a miracle defense last year by holding off the federal assault. We were outnumbered two to one, yet you knocked Washington’s goons back on their heels. This should be far easier… with you at the helm. Your country is begging for your help. Please don’t abandon us now.”
The room was dead silent until finally Stewart lifted his chin up. “Of course, ma’am. We’ll get ready as soon as possible.”
Salazar savored his dismay. In victory, she could afford to be magnanimous. She beamed at her unofficial intelligence chief. Mr. Esterline, the freelance spy turned URA top spook, bounded out of his chair. With his usual intensity, the odd man ran circles around the map table, gesticulating wildly.
“Do not fret, legatus Augusti. Fresh hordes of auxiliaries, raised within the very heart of Darkness, will greet your legions! I’ve seen to all the details personally.”
Stewart refused to speak to the nut. “Ma’am, what in God’s name is he talking about?”
Salazar smiled indulgently. “I said the same thing at first, but he’s made a strong case. We won’t be invading alone. All those insurgents throughout the Deep South will rise up when we liberate them. Just kick in the door and the entire rotten structure will come crumbling down. If you keep the pressure up and never slow down, Washington will be paralyzed by indecision. With a couple million pissed off Southerners raising hell and covering your flanks, our armies could be laying siege to Washington in a month!”
General Stewart wanted to share in the enthusiasm. He needed to taste their boundless confidence. So he broke his own rule and sized up Mr. Esterline. “If a wide scale insurrection breaks out, then yes. I think we have a chance. Of course, we’ve heard these promises before. Are you positive you can deliver this time? Am I the only one that remembers the Miami fiasco?”
Esterline waved him off, already planning the next phase of his fantasy war. “Ah, legate, leave the details to me. Just focus on your triumph march!”
President Salazar cocked her head. “General, are you already getting cold feet? Your skills could save many lives and improve our chances, but you aren’t indispensable. Are you on board or do I need to find someone else?”
General Stewart sat down and crossed his arms. He buried his face in his chest so long the president wondered if the old man had fallen asleep. Stewart’s eyes were open though; he just kept them locked on the service stripes running down his sleeves.
Ten hash marks, thirty years in uniform, and this was the pinnacle of his career.
Invading his homeland.
“We’ll kick off tomorrow morning. Now if you’ll excuse ma’am, I have an unholy amount of work to do.”
US Army Master Sergeant Wilkes stuck up his right fist and raised his thermal sight yet again. Behind him, the other six Rangers in his Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol fanned out, took a knee and brought up their weapons in a 360-degree perimeter. Like true recon professionals, he neither saw nor heard any of them. Still, after years of working together, from the deadly Hindu Kush Mountains to the far bloodier fields of Kansas, Wilkes knew his team’s reactions as well as his own. They were the best at what they did.
Which was why he was so nervous.
They’d been behind enemy lines for 24 hours, ever since HALO jumping into the southwest corner of Nebraska, right up against the Colorado border. Smack in the middle of a “massive buildup,” according to US Army intelligence. This wouldn’t be the first time the geniuses back at headquarters were wrong, but they’d never been so far from reality before.
He’d seen the satellite images of thousands of vehicles staging in the area. Even video from the infrequent, and high-risk, flyovers by ballsy Air Force pilots. Yet, here on the ground, there wasn’t so much as a discarded MRE wrapper to be found.
Wilkes keyed his throat radio and whispered to his point man at the crest of their hill. Hilltop was a generous name for this 20-meter zit rising above the endless plains.
“You’ve got to have something. Let me know about any heat source, no matter how insignificant.”
“Boss, I’m telling you. There isn’t anything here except for those empty tents we saw earlier. I’m scanning 360 with the thermal and there’s not a single human or vehicle heat signature for miles. Not a damn thing except for a few raccoons and a coyote. Should I detain and interrogate him?”
Wilkes felt his team’s tension fade as they snickered, but his only grew. This modern thermal gear could display a cigarette cherry at a mile’s range like a spotlight. There should be over hundred thousand rebel troops and ten thousand vehicles right here, all staging for a counterattack along the Federal flank in Kansas. That many troops would make for one hell of an ambush if his team kept stumbling around blind.
“Sergeant, you want my opinion, I say this is a wild goose chase. Let’s go back to the road junction. That’s our best chance to get some Intel.”
Wilkes grunted, but knew his point man was sadly right. What more could he do? After landing and burying their parachutes, his team established an observation post along the Highway 34 and 27 connection for most of the day. Precious little to show for their efforts though. Instead of counting supply convoys rushing east, all they’d seen were the same twenty trucks running an endless loop back and forth. It was curious that the convoy would always head east exactly every two hours… just in time for the next satellite pass. Strange bastards. What were they hiding?
Well, no news is still some news. “Roger. Everyone sally up and we’ll head back to the highway OP. We can wait it out there until extraction in two days. Let’s not go back the way we came though. We’ll file downhill, cut through the gulley and take the long way north, straddling the irrigation ditch. Any questions?”
Unlike everyone else, Wilkes flipped off both his thermal and night vision sights and relied on his old-fashioned Mark I eyeballs while he trudged along the deer trail back to camp. Without artificial enhancement, his naked eyes caught a circular ring of large shadows slightly darker than the rest.
“Ground!” He hissed.
Every Ranger dropped prone without hesitation and clicked off their weapon safeties.
“Nine O’clock, three hundred meters. Fucking armored company in the open. How did you miss that?”
His point man sounded more confused than cowed. “There’s no heat differential. Not even the slightest. Doesn’t make sense. Even if the tanks haven’t moved all day, they would cool slower than the ground when the sun set…”
Someone else chimed in over the radio. “Assuming they’re made out of metal. Sergeant, come take a look at this.”
Wilkes raised to a crouch and rushed over to one of his men at the rear of the line. The soldier pointed at some collapsed hunter’s shack below the trail.
A strange and dilapidated shack. Wilkes snapped his fingers and two of his men slid down the short slope for a closer look. In the pitch dark, they lifted one of the fallen plywood walls back into place. There was something familiar about that silhouette.
“Oh shit.” Sergeant Wilkes dug out his satellite phone.