No sooner had he gotten a large pot of coffee brewing in anticipation of more soldiers arriving, and a long night ahead, than Colonel Jacobs walked in with Warrant Officer Choi discussing the situation. They were dressed much the same as he, but looked a little mismatched. The Colonel was almost 6’4” while the Warrant Officer was only 5’7” or so. The Warrant Officer was one of the shortest men in the unit, and his Korean heritage was obvious at a glance. However, he was always the fastest in the group on long distance runs. He often said stamina was the only thing that mattered in their chosen profession.
Frank heard them agree that it would be days before any military response would be called for, if one were needed. They wondered if there was even the need for an alert right now. He also overheard them say that there was no known intelligence information indicating troop movement anywhere in the world, at least that they were aware of.
That at least, was some good news. Those two men had great sources at every major intelligence agency.
“Captain, how the hell did you beat us here?” the Colonel asked sarcastically.
“Sir, you know I live here pushing paper so the enlisted soldiers can be off training,” he was only partially joking. He always believed that the enlisted men carry the true weight in the Army, and anything he could do to alleviate their administrative burden he did his best to accomplish. He believed that if he did so, when they went to a far off land to get shot at, those around him would be much better at their jobs. That meant he could, hopefully, return home intact. Frank found the idea of getting additional holes in his body a less than pleasant thought, thus the true desire to make sure his enlisted men had all the time they needed to train. Some might call is self-serving, he called it common sense. He would train as hard, and put in longer hours on paperwork, but that was the cost of having the honor of leading such a unit, and it was part of why the men liked him as much as they did.
“Sir, all bullshit aside, do we even have a contingency plan for this if it isn’t a domestic thing? Is anything at all confirmed?” he asked, knowing the entire situation was less than thirty minutes old, and no good answers would exist yet. He thought he knew the answers before he asked the questions, but had to ask anyway.
The Colonel fielded the questions, “We really don’t know a lot, as you have guessed. The Speaker of the House was immediately taken to some undisclosed, secure location, and either has been, or shortly will be, sworn in as President under the Constitutional rules for Presidential succession. The soon to be former President is currently on the news, like the up standin’ citizen that he is, explaining why he feels he should remain in power until this time of ‘confusion’ has passed. He also says that he wants to appoint a new Vice President before leaving. Imagine that, the body isn’t even in the morgue yet, and politics has started.
“Finally, what we do know from reports confirmed in the last few minutes is that the gunman was of Iranian decent, and that he was shot dead at the scene. As a matter of reasonably solid assumption this whole thing had to be unplanned as no one knew, or probly’ even suspected that Vice President Sanders was goin’ to walk right through that damn crowd. It has also been confirmed that the Vice President made the decision himself to do so when the car met some traffic problems due to the overall size of the protest rallies going on today. That decision was made despite the urging of his security head to turn around and travel by helicopter.”
“Has any known group claimed credit yet?” Frank asked.
“Not a peep from anyone. However, my guess is that within’ the hour many groups will try to do so. Our job, as usual, is to hurry up, be ready, and wait to see if we get called. If we are lucky, after a short alert, we get to go home. If we are unlucky some group, country, or general bastard takes advantage of all the confusion we got at the top right now, and puts in motion one of the many planning stage attacks that our intelligence services claim are out there, only on a greatly accelerated time table,” responded the Colonel with his southern accent coming through loud and clear. He never really made attempts to hide it, but in moments of stress it was thicker than normal. Today was a very thick accent kind of day.
Other members of the Special Operations Group were rapidly filling the conference room. The Colonel excused himself so that he could go speak with those further up the chain of command to see if he could find out more official information.
“Sir, seriously, what data here is real?” asked Peter now that they were alone.
“Honestly, the Colonel laid out everything I have heard. You were talking with him longer, so you may have a better handle on this than I do. There were no known plans for this action. I don’t believe any of the intelligence services had a clue that this was coming down the pipe, even as an attempt. I will be willing to bet that the television news has better sources of information than we do at this point,” Frank said.
He could tell that the Warrant Officer was frustrated by not knowing more. However, given the situation was less than an hour old they were both professional enough to understand that these things took some amount of time to get correct. If the situation permitted patience, it was always better to have solid information rather than intelligence services guesswork.
Peter sighed, forcing himself to be patient, “Good to know. Fucking scary thought, us depending on the media for information, but it is what it is. Hopefully the Secret Service, or some other responsible agency, will start sharing something soon. Just in case we have to go someplace and get shot at.”
They waited for another ten minutes, chatting with the soldiers as they showed up. The rumor mill had gone beyond the “who did it” question. The focus shifted to what was known about the former Speaker of the House, who was now confirmed by multiple news outlets to be the new President of the United States.
Frank laughed to himself as he realized that there were a very limited number of questions and they were basically just circling the room without getting any kind of real answer.
Was the new President pro-military?
Was he the kind of man who would order a half-assed, knee-jerk response, or would he take a more carefully considered road to action?
Was military action going to be necessary, or desired in this case?
He found it interesting that the American people had not even seen the former Congressman since he had been sworn in as President. It had only happened within the last few minutes, but it seemed like a high priority given the situation. All of the news outlets were spouting the assumption that there would soon be a national address. Frank wondered what the man could possibly say. He was very glad he wasn’t on that particular hot seat.
In very short order the entire Special Operations Team was on site, and ready to go. No official briefing time had been announced. Frank realized that no official alert had actually gone out. These men just assumed it would, and showed up.
These soldiers were rewarded for this kind of diligence, and dedication to duty with low pay, hard work, and long hours. Yet there was not a man in the room who would change careers with anyone, anywhere on Earth. These men lived for this type thing. Theirs was a life spent in defense of a Nation, and it had been attacked. There would call to action.
The Colonel re-entered the room with the traditional announcement of “Atten-SHUN!”
Frank was glad he had come back to brief them so quickly. It could have taken hours, “Take your seats. This will be very fast. We don’t know much more than what they are saying on the news. Luckily the different news groups have not yet started the inevitable speculation, which will come across to most of the world as facts. Then will come the predictions of what happens next by some talking head, none of which do we want to pay attention to.