by Peter Nealen
“First things first, then,” I said, before Tom could get started. “Where is Bob Sampson?”
“You asked me that before,” he said. “I don’t know who that is.”
“The wounded guy, the big dude with a bunch of bullet holes and stab wounds in him, who disappeared from the hospital,” Tom said, following my lead. “He sure as hell didn’t check himself out.”
But Gage shook his head. “We didn’t take him. Shit, I didn’t even know he was there; we thought we had y’all bottled up on the ranch. Shows how good our intel was.”
“What was the job?” Tom asked. “Start at the beginning.”
“Same as always,” Gage replied with a shrug. “We got a target package and a list of assets. They wanted it done quick, with overwhelming force, and they wanted everything secured. The orders were very specific about that.” He grunted. “Obviously, that didn’t go according to plan. Which I’m sure is why they sent Baumgartner.”
“That’s the second time I’ve heard that name,” I said. “Who is this Baumgartner?”
He looked at me curiously. “Gordon Baumgartner,” he said, as if I should have known.
And he was right. “Fuck!” I snarled. “I was afraid of that.”
“You know him?” Tom asked.
“Crossed paths with him,” I said. “Dammit! I knew I’d seen him before. Bryan did, too.” I took a deep breath. “The guy’s a fucking legend. Ranger, then Delta, two Distinguished Service Crosses, both for going into utter fucking hornet’s nests, killing everybody inside, and getting out alive, once in Afghanistan, and then again in Libya. The guy’s a beast and a hell of an operator; a few of the more melodramatic types started calling him ‘The Terminator.’ He’s the kind of single-minded killer who makes a great door-kicker but doesn’t seem to be interested in much of anything else.”
“Sounds like this Carnivore character you told me about,” Tom mused.
Gage snorted. “Carnivore wished he was Baumgartner. He wasn’t even in the same league. Baumgartner’s the real deal. He just doesn’t give a shit about who he’s working for or why he does what he does, as long as he gets to do it. The Army wasn’t scratching his itch anymore, so he went ‘private sector.’”
Tom looked at me, and jerked his head to indicate he wanted a word alone. We left Gage where he was and headed downhill to where he couldn’t hear us easily.
“If he’s telling the truth,” he said quietly, “that leaves us rather hanging when it comes to finding Robert.”
“The way I see it,” I replied, “if he’s telling the truth, there are three options. Either these ‘Sulla’ assholes who sicced Mara Salvatrucha on us have him, Renton has him, or The Broker has him. Unless there’s another player who’s close enough to grab him to get at us, those are the options.”
“You think Renton or The Broker might be holding him as a way to get us to play their game?” he asked.
“I think it’s entirely possible at this point,” I said grimly. “Yes, both of them have helped us out, but The Broker straight-up admitted that he was helping us because we’re potentially useful to him. Same thing with Renton. We’re assets, not friends.”
Tom nodded. “So, our missing lad is completely in the wind, and we’re on the run in the mountains. Ideas?”
I frowned, looking up at Gage. “Our options are pretty limited. We can say ‘fuck it,’ and head out, see if we can get a line on who has Little Bob from somewhere else and go after him. But this is our rear area; unless we want to rely entirely on Renton and The Broker, neither of whom we can be one hundred percent sure of, we need to secure our own house. And I’m not going to rest easy until Baumgartner’s off our trail. Not only that, but we spent a lot of time and effort building rapport with Brett, and he’s in one hell of a tight spot right now, largely thanks to us. We owe him. Hell, we may be the primary targets, but having these jackbooted motherfuckers stomping on our neighbors is pissing me off. If this ain’t the right fight, maybe we’re in the wrong business.”
“Agreed,” he said. “First things first. We break the TF, then we reassess.”
I started back up toward Gage’s rock. He might not or might not be telling the truth about having no real big picture info, but I was going to squeeze him dry about the TF’s dispositions, or he was going to have one hell of a hard time.
Chapter 15
“Fucking amateur hour,” Eric muttered.
I hadn’t gone on the recon mission this time; I’d been prevailed upon to let somebody else do it. In fact, both my team and Eddie’s had stayed back while Tim had taken out one of the newer teams. While both Eddie and I might have had some reservations about leaving it to the new guys, Tom had upbraided us roundly about it, pointing out that both of us had had a hand in the selection process, that none of these guys were wet behind the ears anymore—they wouldn’t even have been considered if they had been—that trying to do all of this with only two teams was stupid, and that Tim’s boys were getting restless for a piece of the action anyway.
I wasn’t sure what to think about that last part. Sure, I didn’t think there was a shooter alive who hadn’t, at one point in his life, hoped for Red Dawn to become a reality, in some way. There is a cleanness, a clarity to defending one’s home against an invader that is appealing to the warrior, especially when he’s spent most of his adult life fighting murky shadow wars in distant lands with uncertain results for uncertain causes.
But this wasn’t so clean-cut. This wasn’t a foreign invasion; this was a shadow civil war. Even the foreign invaders, the Mexican narcos, had apparently been invited in by our domestic enemies.
I shook off the reverie. We had reporting and imagery to go over.
Eric had some experience in the intel field, so he was our go-to team intel guy. I was looking over his shoulder at the images on the tablet in front of him.
One of the recon patrols had tracked down a couple of the trucks that Eddie had seen among the attackers hitting the Task Force’s Cody headquarters a few nights before. Since the mysterious new players hadn’t seen anything wrong with driving a lifted, heavily modded Ford Raptor to a firefight, a truck that would stand out under normal circumstances, they hadn’t been all that hard to find.
My suspicions about the new factor’s identity had proven to be pretty accurate. There was an impromptu camp set up a few miles on the other side of Cody, mostly tents and trailers, with lots of US flags, Gadsden flags, and Oathkeeper banners in evidence. They had security out, in cammies and kit with rifles, though they looked a little anarchic and slipshod compared to the Task Force. Their choice of terrain also sucked; it might make a good campsite, but if the TF decided to roll through there with those eight-wheelers, the militia weren’t going to last long.
“We probably should have expected these guys were going to show up,” I said. “Hell, this is a dream come true to some of them.”
“I’m amazed any of them can move,” Eric said. “All the blood must be going to their massive, throbbing erections. They’re probably well past the point of needing to see a doctor.”
“The funny part is, this is precisely the sort of situation where they’re not entirely in the wrong,” I said. “They’re not right, either; I don’t even want to know what kind of fantastical explanation for what’s going on they’ve got cooked up. But they organized to fight back against tyrants and terrorists, and that’s kind of what’s going on here.”
“Kind of,” Eric replied grudgingly. “But not exactly. And if somebody really is trying to spread chaos? This will just make it worse.”
“I’m pretty sure it already is worse,” I told him. “Does that look like all of them came from the local Three Percenter group to you?”
He frowned and shook his head. “Nah, way too many people. And I don’t remember seeing that Raptor around before. Although,” he continued, rubbing his chin with a thumb, “for all we know, little enough information has gotten out about what’s going on that the TF might have inadvertently d
one some recruiting for them.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But if the rioters can use social media to get things rolling over some dead narcos in Pueblo, who’s to say that it can’t work the other way, too?” I scratched my beard. “How much would you be willing to bet that this same mysterious ‘Sulla’ bunch made sure that word got to the Three Percenter sites about the ‘jackbooted thugs’ in Wyoming?”
“No bet,” he answered. “What are we going to do about this?”
I thought about the options available. There were a few, none of them particularly palatable.
I stood up with an annoyed grunt. “If we can avoid it, I don’t want these clowns getting underfoot.” I sighed. “Guess I’ve got to make a phone call.”
With Baumgartner sweeping the Beartooths around The Ranch, we had relocated again, pushing our own camp south, and deeper into the mountains. We’d moved far enough that we only rarely heard the buzz of drones overhead anymore, but we were still cautious about open ground.
We were also being extremely careful about phones, whether we were using the sat phones or the local cell network. Alek and the rest overseas had only the barest knowledge of what was going on; until we had more assurance of comm security, we couldn’t send more than the most cursory details.
So, I was several miles and a terrain feature away from the camp when I pulled out one of the sat phones and dialed a number.
Van Williamson answered cautiously after a few rings. “Yeah?”
“Van, it’s Jeff Stone,” I said. I waited for the inevitable.
“Oh, now you want to talk to me,” Williamson said after a moment. There was a certain note of triumph in his voice, though I wouldn’t call it gloating, strictly speaking.
This was going to be painful.
“When we asked to train with you, like you were letting those militarized cops train with you, you turned us down,” he continued. “Now, all of a sudden, the cops can’t do shit, and here we are to get your asses out of the fire. Not such a bunch of ‘delusional wannabes’ now, are we?”
I sighed. “You’re not pulling anyone’s ass out of any fires, Van, you’re making things worse,” I said tiredly. “You people already fucked up one of my ops.” I’d debated telling him that, but figured that it wouldn’t tell him, or anyone listening, anything that hadn’t already been implied by our hit on The Ranch the same night. “I’m extending you the courtesy of asking you to get out of my AO and leave this problem to us.”
There was a long silence. I’d been afraid that this wasn’t going to work, and the longer the pause went on, the more likely I thought it was that I’d been right.
“So, that’s it?” he demanded. “We’re still not good enough? I tried to warn you before, that this kind of thing was coming, and that you were going to need our help, but you didn’t want to listen. Now it’s come to your own damned door, and you still want to play high and mighty with me?”
“You don’t have any fucking clue as to what’s really happening, Van!” I snapped.
“I’ve seen the signs!” he replied, before I could continue. “I’ve seen it coming for a long, long time, and so have you, or you would have if you hadn’t let the powers that be string you along, shutting your eyes and ears with their money! Now that you’re no longer useful to them, they’re trying to bury you, but you still can’t get their narrative out of your head, can you? You need us, Stone!”
“Listen to me,” you little shit, I didn’t say. Van Williamson was in his late twenties and had never enlisted, preferring to “prepare for the collapse,” while badmouthing those who did serve as being dupes of the aforementioned “powers that be.” He wasn’t one hundred percent wrong, necessarily, but he wasn’t nearly as right as his self-righteousness told him he was. He had a lot of very strong opinions for his lack of experience. “You want to talk about ‘powers that be?’ You want to talk about corrupt politicians and Leftists taking over the country? There are assholes trying to sow chaos and disorder right now in order to do just that, and the more you follow through with your fucking John Milius fantasy, the more you play right into their hands! You’ll get more of your Second American Civil War than you can stomach!”
That was probably the wrong thing to say, and I realized it as soon as I finished talking. I’d just pushed a button, and there wouldn’t be any getting through to him after that.
“Well,” he said, with that false calm that you usually heard from a green kid who was simultaneously excited as shit and scared shitless at the prospect of facing his first firefight, “maybe it’s time. Maybe this is it.”
I hung up. There was no point anymore.
“Fine,” I muttered, as I turned back toward camp. “I guess we have to do this the hard way.”
The flash from the direction of the TF camp lit up the underside of the low clouds, bright enough that it had to draw every eye for miles. A few seconds later, the rolling boom of the explosion rumbled across the sky, as a great cloud of smoke and dust roiled upward toward the clouds.
That was my cue. I moved as quickly and silently as I could, through the shadows between several tents and trailers, until I got to my target, a small pop-up trailer near the center of the campsite. There were plenty of people up and about, most of them armed, but all eyes were to the west, toward the explosion. Nobody noticed me, or if they did, they didn’t notice that I didn’t belong there.
Inside, the trailer was surprisingly neat, with clothing and gear stowed with military precision. A copy of Resistance to Tyranny was lying on the table, but that was about the only thing remotely out of place.
I sat down on the couch across from the table, hunkered down with my TRP on my lap, and waited.
After a few minutes, as the furor from the IED blast died down, Van Williamson came back into his trailer.
Van was a fit young man, unlike more than a few of his compatriots, though he lacked some of the hardness of the likes of Gage or Baumgartner. He’d grown an “operator” beard, that was thicker than mine, and was dressed in the Tactical Timmy Starter Kit: 5.11 tuxedo, Ranger green ball cap with an upside-down US flag velcroed on the front, Merrell boots, and a Glock riding high on his hip. Apparently, drop leg holsters—which I admittedly hated, myself—were “last year.”
He didn’t notice me, but was reaching for his gear tree, where his plate carrier and helmet were carefully hung, when I spoke.
“Hello, Van,” I said, letting every bit of unfriendliness I could muster into my voice. I sat up straighter as he jumped and spun around, starting to reach for his Glock until he noticed the 1911 in my hand, indexed on his sternum.
“Yell, or move one more millimeter for that gun, and I’ll kill you,” I told him. He nodded ever so slightly, his face gone pale and sick, slowly and carefully moving his hand away from the pistol on his belt.
“You want to know why I don’t have any use for you and your pack of glorified airsofters with live weapons?” I asked, my voice low. “Here’s a good one: you idiots are so easily distracted by a fireworks show that I could waltz in here without being noticed or stopped. If I’d wanted, I could have snuffed you as you came through that fucking door. I could still do it, and the guys I’ve got out in the dark would sow so much chaos and bloodshed in here that I could walk out just as easily as I walked in. You’re amateurs. Hell, you’re not even amateurs; you’re kids playing at being soldier, without any of the real-world experience or discipline that I need.
“Which brings me to the heart of the matter.” I didn’t know how well he could see my glare in the dim light inside the trailer, but then, his eyes were pretty much glued to the pistol in my hand. “I can’t trust any of you. You’ve got these visions of a Second American Revolution crossed with Red Dawn dancing in your heads; you think that you’ll be the brave guerrillas who will hit the reset button and bring some kind of new American utopia in the aftermath. But how many of you have actually ever heard a shot fired in anger, much less seen what a country tearing itself apart for two fu
cking decades in a civil war actually looks like?
“I’ve spent the better part of my adult life in places like that, kid. You know what? There is no fucking ‘reset button.’ This isn’t a fucking movie; everything isn’t going to be all neatly wrapped up at the end. If this kicks off, it won’t be 1860, with set battles and a final surrender. It’s going to be fucking Lebanon, and Libya, and Syria, and Iraq. It’s going to be neighbor against neighbor, with the grudges lasting the next hundred years, and whatever comes out the other end isn’t going to be recognizable as the United States.
“Maybe it’s inevitable,” I continued tiredly. “But I’m still going to do what I can to head it off. Because this is my fucking country, and I don’t want to see it turn into the shitholes I’ve been fighting in for the last twenty years. And that’s why I can’t trust you. You actually want that shit to happen. And that plays right into our enemies’ hands.”
I stood up. “You’ve got six hours to get yourself and your drinking buddies out of my way, or I’m going to come back here and put a bullet through your skull. You got me, Van?”
He nodded again, his eyes wide and his face very pale. He looked scared as hell, which was what I’d been hoping for. Hopefully I’d scared some of the piss and vinegar out of him, and he’d listen. I didn’t want to have to kill him. I just needed him out of the way, and preferably not flying off the handle and triggering a conflagration that we’d never recover from.
It was entirely possible that we were already past the point of no return. Renton had made that point earlier, and I had to agree with him. But I’d be damned if I’d just go with the flow and bring a civil war on any faster than could be avoided. As matters stood, this was still essentially a war in the shadows. The longer we could keep it that way, the better.
We might still be able to end it without tearing everything apart in the process.
Keeping my .45 trained on Van, I slid off the couch and out the door. He watched me go, but didn’t move a muscle. Just as I quietly closed the door, I caught a glimpse of him slumping bonelessly to the floor.
