“TOC’s towards the end,” Kacey said, continuing down the hall. “I’m not sure if you’re permitted in intel or not so we’ll just go there.”
The door was steel again, undisguised this time. Not as heavy as the vault doors to get into the basement area but still solid. Take a good breaching charge to take it out. Inside there was a young woman in digi-cam at a computer station with Colonel Nielson leaning over her shoulder. There were several more stations set up, most powered down, and a conference table on the left with a large map of the area on the wall behind it. Another wall had six big plasma screens, three of them set to world news the other three set to remotes somewhere in the mountains.
The major difference from any TOC Guerrin had ever seen was besides the usual coffee station there was a tea samovar and an espresso machine. Other than that, and the fact that every bit of equipment was state of the art, it could have been an American TOC anywhere in the world.
“Captains,” Nielson said, turning and nodding then turning back to point to something on the computer. He said something in a foreign language Guerrin didn’t get.
“Da,” the girl said, clicking the mouse. “Uploading.” The latter was English.
“Welcome to Chaos Central,” Nielson said, straightening up. “Captain Bathlick, we’ve got your LZs. Which to use depended on weather. There’s some really heavy weather coming in. I’m not sure we can make the drop early this evening. It might be late tonight. And the winds may still be high.”
“We’d better go get some crew-rest, then,” Kacey said. “Brief later?”
“That works,” Nielson said. “Brief at 2000 and lift-off based on weather?”
“Should work,” Kacey replied. “One helo?”
“You should have lift for it,” the colonel replied. “You’re bringing in the body armor on this one, though. It will probably require three sorties. Touch and go. Just dump the shit out the door and keep moving. Don’t stop. You’re getting into the edge of injun country on this one. The Keldara will be securing the LZ but that doesn’t mean it will be fully secure.”
“Okay, in that case I’m definitely gonna get some rest,” Tammie said. “Night ops in a new bird in the mountains doing a drive-by. Sleep is a good thing. Captain Guerrin, catch up with you later.”
“Okay,” Guerrin said. “Later.”
“Nice girls,” Nielson said after they’d left. “Marines. They got involved in a hairy mission and the Marine brass freaked and yanked all their females out of any potential combat missions. So they went looking for work.”
“The guy who plucked me out of the trees said he’d been a PJ,” Guerrin noted.
“D’Allaird, the crew-chief,” Nielson said. “He was a PJ once upon a time. Burned in on a jump and got too banged up. He transitioned to crew chief in the Air Force and then, for some reason, jumped to the Marines in rank. Spent the rest of his career as a Marine avionics guy.”
“Well, he seemed to know his shit,” Guerrin said.
“While there are some that are learning the trade,” Nielson said, looking fondly at the young lady at the computer, “we only hire people who ‘know their shit.’ There’s a fairly tight job market for such people at the moment, admittedly. But there are perks to this job that working in the sandbox doesn’t afford. Among other things, Georgia is just a prettier country than Iraq or Afghanistan. And you haven’t had a chance to sample the beer, yet, but you’re in for a treat.”
“Sounds good,” Guerrin, wondering, again, how one got a job working for the “Kildar.” “What’s up?”
“I thought we’d go over the local area and where you might want to operate in a bit more detail,” Nielson said. “And I thought you should get oriented to where the TOC resided. I don’t know if you’re planning on going out with your patrols or controlling from here. We can maintain commo pretty solidly. Our top commo guy is, unfortunately, ‘out of town’ but we’ve got a distributed network for the area that we can hook your teams into. For backup I’d say sat phones for each of your platoon leaders. We have plenty available. And I take it you brought your own commo.”
“Yes, sir,” Guerrin replied. “I’m planning on leaving Third Platoon in place and deploying First and Second. I’ll centralize our heavy unit where they can move to support either team. And, yes, I’ll probably stay here until there’s contact. I’d like to move forward if we get in contact or if we have to support the retreat of the Keldara.”
“That may depend on assets,” Nielson said. “We’ve only the two choppers and two pilots. They are probably going to be in support of the Keldara. On the other hand, I could see them capable of dropping you on or near your units on the way by. We’ll have to take that one on the fly. There’s a road, vehicle capable, that runs to quite close to where I anticipate the Kildar retreating. Again, that part is going to depend upon enemy reaction. I would suggest, however, that you bring in your platoon leaders and such and brief them in sometime this evening.”
“Yes, sir,” Guerrin said. “1700?”
“Fine,” the colonel replied. “Then we can repair to the bar to really discuss the mission.”
“Gentlemen, welcome once again to the valley of the Keldara,” Nielson said.
The Ranger officers and NCOs had been brought down to the headquarters room for their briefing and were looking around in interest.
“Sir, if I may,” First Sergeant Kwan said, “when they said we were going to be aggressing against some Georgian mountain infantry, this wasn’t exactly what I expected.”
“The commander is an American,” Nielson said. “What he was prior to ending up here you don’t have the need to know. Frankly, I don’t know the whole story. But when he moved here, he decided that he needed a militia. The Chechens had been using this area as their personal fiefdom and he chose to change that. Since he knew what good equipment, and training, could do for a militia, especially if they had the basic instinct to make good soldiers, he didn’t stint on spending. As it turns out, the Keldara very much do have that special trait, in spades. Any of you gentlemen history majors?”
“Here, sir,” First Lt. Mund, the third platoon leader replied.
“The Keldara are a remnant of the Varangian Guard, Lieutenant,” Nielson said with a grin. “Ring a bell?”
“Viking bodyguards of the Byzantine Emperors?” Mund said with a furrowed brow. “What are they doing up here?”
“Long story,” Nielson said. “For the rest of you gentlemen, understand that the Keldara are mountain fighters from way back. And they’ve kept the tradition even while being farmers. They are… fierce. Like the Ghurkas or the Kurds they are warriors first and farmers a distant second. Not that they’re bad farmers. However, you’re likely to not deal with them at all. What you are doing is covering their back and acting as if you’re fighting them. Captain Guerrin?”
“This is the Guerrmo Pass,” Guerrin said, pointing to the map on the wall. “While Second Platoon stays in place with the Keldara, First and Third will move to this region and perform patrolling, carefully staying on this side of the pass. The other side is serious Injun country.
“As previously mentioned, they should take both blank and live ammo. From time to time they can act as if they have raided or ambushed someone using blanks. However, they should only load blanks, fire, then reload with live ammo. For that reason, don’t actually have anyone in the kill-zone. Just play act. We’re supposedly aggressing against the Keldara. The impression is that we’re an American unit which has taken a hostile town while the muj types ran to the hills. We’re trying to comb them out. The reality is that the Chechens still, occasionally, try to penetrate the area. So keep your units hot at all times unless you’re performing one of the deception missions. I’ll give you each written op orders detailing your area of patrol. Second.”