The Weapon

  With retirements and expansion, the FMF found space, and I was promoted to warrant leader and made a squad leader. It was often easier to get promoted in Special Warfare units, I'd found out, but this was still a decent deal even considering that. It wasn't unheard of or unrealistic; we won't let anyone become an officer without being a soldier first, but anyone with potential is promoted as fast as we can. I was officer material. I was second in my class at OLS. Two years of service had proven my abilities. There was no friction over this; Rutledge moved out of Special Warfare and became a lieutenant in intelligence.

  "I'm not young anymore," he said. "I've done my time. Good luck, Ken. But do try to tone down the attitude, eh?"

  "Will do, sir," I said. Well, I did try.

  The standard squad arrangement is a senior sergeant as leader, sergeant as assistant, three fireteam leaders of corporal, assistants of senior specialist, and the rest privates. In actuality it would vary somewhat. Special Warfare units, however, are elite and small. We needed a certain number of ranks to fill slots, rank to go with the awesome responsibility we wielded by comparison, and enough rank to make us "respectable" to our contemporaries in other units. Besides, on a rank-per-damage-inflicted basis, we were on the low side anyway. So we filled our operational squads (as opposed to the backfill and training slots) with stripes. I was a warrant leader squad leader, with a senior sergeant as my assistant, three sergeants as fireteam leaders below them, and several junior troops who were Operative specialists or corporals. We had no Operative privates; by the time an Operative is trained, he's at least a specialist. I was warrant leader because I needed enough rank to operate on my own authority when attached to a larger unit. The same thing was true with other attached units, such as logistics and occasionally engineers. The rank may seem a little high for the position, but the pay we receive is comparable to others, we simply have more authority and responsibility to go with it. Fair trade, right?

  Sorry. I'm not good at sarcasm.

  It wasn't hard to fit into the slot. I found us lots of exercises, and got the troops used to me the hard way: I was a hardcase asshole bent on making their lives hell. Since I abused myself just as much, they could hardly complain without appearing to be non-hackers and wimps bitching about the world as it was.

  I was still in 3rd Special Warfare Regiment, and still assigned as support for 3rd Mobile Assault Regiment. Whenever they or 3rd Legion got called to do light, fast forward deployment, we'd be along as eyes, ears, force multipliers and the enemy's worst nightmare. To my thinking, this was a better tasking than divisional or army level support, as it kept us where things were happening. It was harder to buff egos for a promotion, but would result in much better chances for decorations. Since the FMF is very stingy about giving out decorations, they count a lot toward promotion. It was a fair tradeoff, and lots of fun.

  In the meantime, I had all my old friends to play with. Deni and Tyler were the only two women present, my old friend Frank was along, and we formed the core of the squad. I posted Frank as my assistant, gave Barto our first fireteam, and Deni was tasked as leader of the weapons team. With Adam Verani as second team leader, I had no concerns about the quality of my personnel; they were ass-kicking, hardcase killers who shot first and didn't bother asking questions later—answers weren't that important to them. They existed, as did I, to outthink, outfight, outmaneuver, and outgun anyone we were up against, and to keep score by the pile of bodies.

  We were notorious, as we played by SW rules, not by anyone else's. Our first exercise, we were given a time and place to attack and told the rules of the game. I elected to stage a broken down civilian vehicle along the convoy route, just before the ambush area. Deni and Tyler could still pass as college girls, and they got the convoy bunched up and gathered around. When troops started to hear pinging in their helmets, and realized it was an attack, they grabbed the women and took them along into cover. At this point, my lovely ladies "killed" the headquarters squad with concealed pistols (two each and lots of spare magazines inside their autumn coats) and took the captain hostage. By the time his lieutenant figured out she was in charge, my flitting wraiths were popping up behind trucks to hose the occupants with fire, vanishing again to land on the hoods and glacis plates in front of the drivers, then to squirm into the equipment to plant mock charges. The pouring smoke and teargas, pops and bangs from simulators and blanks and the natural disorientation on top of psychoacoustic blasts was all the score we needed. The lieutenant never did get her remaining troops under orders, and we defeated them in detail. It was sweet.

  Then came the complaints about us having troops out of uniform, which was against the rules. We had not attacked at the time and place we were told to. We shouldn't have stapled the captain's hat to our unit trophy wall, etc. It was just like the exercise on Caledonia, and I'd frankly expected better of our people.

  Those complaints went nowhere, fortunately. The new doctrine was to play hard, fight hard and expect surprise at any moment. Marshal Dyson was wise enough to realize that troops get bored in garrison, and also get bored doing nothing but silly exercises. To that end, he instituted a bonus program. Troops who responded well in exercise got passes, extra leave, and bonus credits. They quickly became enthusiastic about responding, reacting, and stopping us. And then they started anticipating and planning responses ahead of time. The first time I actually got outflanked and shot up, I was chagrined at my failure, but equally elated at how our regular troops were progressing. They were reaching a level that few armies achieve in wartime, much less peace.

  Captain Maron regretfully took a promotion to Commander of 2nd Mobile Assault Regiment and left Special Warfare. She was replaced by Captain Stig Erson, a former teacher at Officer Leadership School and fresh from Blazer Combat Air Control School. He was a hardass son of a bitch, and I loved him. We lived in the field, ran urban exercises through town with stiff penalties for getting seen, much less IDed by civilians. I drilled my people mercilessly, and they enthusiastically dreamed up new, even more impossible scenarios for us to deal with. We practiced our covert missions by sneaking into factories in local dress or shop uniform, planting simulated sabotage devices, and then having others sneak in to verify the "damage" and remove all evidence of the event.

  It was arrogant of me (arrogance is when you can back it up, conceit is when you can't) to start thinking of Operatives, and me in particular, as gods of covert warfare. It wasn't long after that that I had an opportunity to prove so.

  Chapter 6

  Commander Naumann of 3rd MOB, mentioned previously, was exactly the type of thinker I was, and one of my role models. Dyson clearly had him pegged to get experience, move up, and take command of major units. He was barely twenty (thirty Earth years), but was in command of a regiment and heading up fast. He was a sheer genius at accomplishing outrageous feats with small forces and minimal gear. He knew his history, philosophy, weapons, tactics, and even his art and music. He would have made a marvelous Napoleonic Era colonel, except that he had no regard for fair play whatsoever. Imagine the Duke of Wellington crossed with a Viking marauder and you'll get the idea. He was a sociopathic killer who could masquerade as a gentleman when needed. It was much later I learned to hate his dispassion.

  I knew him slightly from service, respected him, and was flattered when he decided I was perfect for a mission he dreamed up. He was forever thinking up missions and training people for them. Then when SHTF, someone would beg for a solution, he'd lay out the plan, it would be executed, and they'd stop bugging him about operating beyond his authority for a month or so.

  He had a thing about terrorists. He was convinced we faced a threat, remote and detached as our system was. Many thought he was nuts, and ignored his obsession with a shake of the head. "Madman Naumann," they called him. But he requested that Captain Erson maintain and improve our capabilities in that direction. Erson relayed that request to me, along with instructions to Special Projects to put a team at my disposal and ask none
of the wrong type of questions. I got my people cracking on scenarios and languages and accents and everything else I could think of. Technically, I had more than a squad under my orders, and was thus a platoon leader.

  Now, I hate terrorists. To me, anyone who attacks civilians in lieu of soldiers (collateral casualties do happen, but aren't an excuse to be abused) is a gutless turd. I don't care what the historians have to say about Lenin, the "Irish Republican Army" (which was neither Irish, Republican, nor an army), Hamas, al Qaeda, the Covenant of God, Free Canada, or any other group of thugs in history, or those running around now. They attack civilians to create terror, to force a government to yield. They do not attack politicians directly, or soldiers or cops. They attack civilians "because they have no choice" (and because their penises are too small for real fights and they lack the intelligence to stage real revolutions), and were and are, in fact, human fucking shit to be scooped up and flushed. I don't care how "noble" the cause is, how oppressed you feel you are, how "romantic" or "elegant" it is to shoot kids, blow up offices, destroy marketplaces, you will get naught but a bullet from me. If you want a fight, call me. That's why I'm here.

  * * *

  With that in mind, let me tell you about the mission we took against the Fruits of God. Yes, that's how their name translates. Feel free to snicker at the name. Don't snicker at their operations, because they like to throw big tantrums and blow people up. This is never their fault, of course. It's the fault of anyone who won't give them money, agree with their brand of extremism, and worship God in their fashion. Aren't you ashamed of yourself for causing so much anguish? No?

  I was called in to Erson's office one morning, he said, "Hi, Ken, read this," and lit a screen without any further preamble. It was a report on the Francolin, a small liner registered out of Piedmonte and in service mostly between there and Novaja Rossia. It had been making an approach to orbit around Piedmonte when Fruit terrorists had jumped out of the passengers and seized it.

  "I heard about this," I said. "What's our involvement?" It was tragic and disgusting but not in our area.

  "Keep reading," he said shortly but not rudely.

  I read. Further down were details that weren't yet on the news. It got uglier. According to witnesses, one of the passengers had begged Ali Muhammad Ghassan, their chief turd, to allow his daughter to be put off in a rescue ball. The passenger offered to stay voluntarily and give no resistance, if only they'd let his daughter off before initiating this plot.

  Ghassan shot the daughter and stuffed her out the airlock. She was five years old by our reckoning. Then he shot the father and four other passengers. Jenny Marlin. Remember her. She was a young girl with a promising life ahead.

  His point in doing this was that he didn't like the "infidel" influence that various nations (us among them, though we weren't named) had on the Ramadan system. Apparently, trade and exchange of ideas might lead true believers from the Path of Righteousness. I've always felt that if one is secure in one's ethics and morals, there's no threat from other philosophies. If one is not secure, one should seek out other ideas for consideration. Apparently, I lack the proper view to be a religious fanatic. Thank God, Goddess, Allah, Jehovah, Yaweh, Jave, Nature, Science or whatever.

  Shortly after the incident, after much ranting and posturing, the politicians in Nuova Agrigento (the capital of Piedmonte) offered him free transit and freed the rest of his people. In exchange, he agreed to keep his activities elsewhere. In other words, they gave him a base.

  I don't think words exist to express my loathing. No life form I could compare him to is disgusting enough to make my point. I won't even discuss the gutless slime who gave him more than the bullet in the neck he deserved.

  Then I saw the key part: "Mister Marlin and his family were residents of the Freehold of Grainne." That made it our business.

  "We're responding, then?" I asked.

  "That depends," he replied. "Can you get to him without getting IDed? Can we decide on a message that will convince them to leave us out of their squabbles?"

  I'd have to think about that. "Probably," I said.

  "Decide soon," he said, putting me on the spot. Could I handle the mission? Or should I be replaced with someone who could? Was the whole exercise pointless and counterterror operations not something we should bother with? It all came down to me.

  "Yes, then," I said. "I'll need more intel, of course."

  "You'll get it," he said.

  It was felt among our Citizens that not responding would send the message that Freeholders could be treated like that in future incidents. The Citizen's Council spoke to Marshal Dyson. The Marshal spoke to the General Staff. They decided to contact Commander Naumann (as the pet thug and former Operative they could talk to at their level), and Naumann admitted that some exploratory operations toward combating terror had been made, outside the normal chain of command. He was cautioned again about exceeding his authority, the caution accompanied by a wink. Naumann expressed his guilt over the matter, then spoke to Erson and me. Then I spoke to the General Staff and the Marshal. That was a first for me.

  I stood before those august ladies and men and gave my professional opinion that my "platoon" could find them, and express our extreme displeasure with their choice of targets. Captain Erson agreed that I was competent, even ideal to do this, and recommended me as the tool of our vengeance. It was decided that killing Ghassan would only strengthen the ardor of his followers. I agreed. I suggested that I would keep him alive, but had my own theories on how he should be handled, and would discuss them with Naumann and Erson so as to keep things official, but not involve the GS and the Marshal in case it was necessary to deny the incident. I said it quite casually, now that I look back on it. I didn't realize just how much I was leaving myself open for.

  They all agreed, after some pointed inquiries that I didn't want to answer, and didn't. They hemmed and hawed and relented. I told Naumann and the Captain what I had planned. They agreed, chuckling. I was told to go forth and be a violent bastard, deliver a stern message, but not to kill the target. It was official, and I was to handle the operation from start to finish on my authority as commander of a roving unit. Heady stuff.

  * * *

  The first problem was how to infiltrate a squad (plus one team of Special Projects) into Nuova Agrigento without being IDed. The second was how to exfiltrate afterwards. The third was how to dispose of all evidence. The fourth and smallest detail was the hit itself. Killing isn't difficult. Not getting caught doing so is the hard part. We were at peace with Piedmonte and officially neutral and thus could not get caught assassinating anyone, no matter how badly they deserved it.

  Special Projects provided each of us with three IDs. They were a mixed bag of legitimate and faked passports and visas from several different nations, all well-worn documents or rams so as to look old and used. We booked hotels ahead of time in various locations, and would plan to cancel some, use some and get new ones. It's expensive, but it makes it harder for the other side to plant bugs. Weapons we'd get on-site. Every embassy detail gets regular shipments of weapons under diplomatic pass. Freeholders are simply better at hiding them in transit and caching them insystem, if you recall. We would make a note, to be submitted after the fact, to replace the ones we'd use.

  Some societies can get away with assassinations. It's a case of "We want you to know we did it as long as you can't prove it." It sends a message. Ours had to be better hidden. We needed the surviving terrorists (such a tragedy, that) to tell everyone how vicious we were, but not a hint that any government could even suspect against us, except for hearsay from the terrorists. We as a society had a political position to maintain.

  I went in as a visiting political science major, made up in my best chair-warming, screen-watching getup. I actually have the ideal build for an Operative. Depending on dress and presentation, I can look like a skinny, wiry laborer; a slim academic; a lean, handsome businessman; a career military officer or administrator or a s
haggy college punk. Huge vid show muscles and chiseled features are unnecessary and a hindrance. The sniveling geeks will be the death of you.

  We took a week to trickle in from five different directions under various covers while the intel gophers and Operatives in the embassy kept tabs as they could. They knew something was planned, but had no idea what. Nor would they ask. Just as I'd had some odd inquiries while working on Caledonia. I don't know what for to this day and will never ask. I know I performed the tasks in a satisfactory fashion, because there was no political fallout. It's all part of how we defend freedom, ensure peace, etc, etc. There were two other squads that were attached to the mission as decoys, an identical team heading in a totally different direction to play games with the Novaja Rossian army, and the rest flew in and out along our route, confusing people as to how many of us there were and what exactly we were doing.

  First thing we had to do upon landing was find this anal pus pocket. We had an idea as to where to begin, but it still took quite a few days of surveillance and travel to find him. We had a basic profile, and added to it by the second, electronically and with human intelligence.

  I loved Nuova Agrigento, or at least what I saw of it. It seemed to cascade off steep hills into a deep harbor. It was on a peninsula that turned into a mountain range inland, so was compact and crowded. Maybe "cozy" rather than "crowded." Snug little blocks of houses with small lots and deep terraces of flowers. They loved flowers here, and had colors found nowhere else, blues and purples predominating.

  But further back were steep streets and narrow alleys around lifter landing pads. This was the industrial zone. It even had a railway, which will likely surprise some, but made sense with the size of the widening peninsula and tech base. It was an efficient way to transport materiel through hills. And around the pads, the railway and the truck accesses, were apartments, restaurants and warehouses where terrorists and regular, decent thugs and murderers could hide and stash weapons and loot. They spoke an Italian dialect predominantly, with some Greek and Romansch, but other languages were used around the docks, the lifter pads and the ports, as anywhere.