Fantastic Schools, Volume 3

by Emily Martha Sorensen

  ***

  It was dry; it was dusty; there were flies everywhere. In other words, it was a typical summer day in Iraq. Staff Sergeant Donald ‘Duck’ Drake, U. S. Army, was riding shotgun in the Humvee, leading his armored platoon on a routine patrol. The platoon, mounted in five Strykers, rolled through the irrigated areas of Iraq south of Baghdad. Drake, twenty-seven, 6’5” and 240 pounds, and heavily tanned from the desert sun, was in his third tour in the Sandbox. As such, he had both the physical presence of a leader as well as the rank and experience. To him, this was no different than any other patrol he’d led over the last few months. The thing was, the patrols over the last few months had been different. He had been able to anticipate IEDs and insurgent attacks far more accurately, to the point that his CO was taking note. To Drake, that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. A good NCO was supposed to do his job without getting noticed, and being noticed was not always a good thing in the Army.

  So far, the patrol had been uneventful, which was the way he liked it. Ordered to check out the irrigated farmlands south of the city, they had rolled south, crossed over the river and had headed back up towards Baghdad along the other side of the river. A few miles south of Baghdad, Drake had begun to relax; they were on the home stretch. Suddenly, alarm bells went off in his head. He abruptly sat up in the Humvee, and told the driver to stop. As the Humvee came to a halt, he keyed his radio, telling the troops to dismount and set up a perimeter. At that moment, he didn’t know why, but he knew something was wrong. Again, his senses were working overtime. Over the last few months, just based on his instincts, he’d pulled his platoon out of more than one bad situation with either no casualties or very low casualties, so he had learned to trust his feelings.

  The troops quickly set up a perimeter, taking cover in the low ditches running along the edges of the road as the gunners in the Strykers and his Humvee started scanning the surrounding irrigated farms. Standing beside the vehicle, Drake found his attention being pulled towards a small hummock alongside the road some fifty yards ahead of the vehicles.

  But, before he could investigate the hummock, his head whipped around, almost as if it was being pulled by some unexplained force. He found himself looking at a low wall, the type used to corral the goats that were ubiquitous in this area. As he looked at the wall, it was like he was looking through the wall. There, hidden by the wall, were armed insurgents and it was very clear his unit was the target. Without turning his attention from the wall, he pulled up his sling-mounted M4, bringing it to bear on the wall while stepping back to take cover behind the Humvee.

  “Action right! Insurgents behind the wall!” he shouted. Even as the order passed down the line, the troops took aim while the Strykers swung their heavy weapons around to face the wall. Drake knew they couldn’t drive on down the road with the IED ahead, and he was betting that a similar one was just now being set behind them. The only action was to take out the ambush, then clear the IEDs, while trying to avoid casualties.

  The insurgents, seeing that their ambush was blown, started popping up above the wall. At the same time, the IED ahead of the patrol was triggered. Moments later, there was an explosion to the rear of the platoon. The road was temporarily blocked, but there were no casualties. The insurgents had succeeded in trapping the patrol on the road, but that was a fatal mistake. Even as the shooters began opening up on the patrol, the Strykers began ripping the wall with a combination of .50 caliber machine gun rounds, 7.62 mm Gatling guns and 40 mm rapid fire grenades. The wall was shattered along with the ambush by the combination of heavy fire coupled with accurate aimed fire from the troops. Some tried to run but were quickly cut down. In a matter of a very few minutes, except for the rumble of the vehicle engines, the sounds of battle faded away.

  Drake looked around at the patrol. No one had been injured. At his command, two three-man teams advanced on the wall, with Drake following along with a support team. There was a sudden burst of fire at the far end of the wall, followed by the explosion of a grenade. Then all was quiet again. Weapons ready, Drake and his team stepped around the remains of the wall. There lay approximately fifty dead insurgents, most torn up by the heavy weapons. A corporal walked up with his team.

  “There was one that was injured,” the corporal explained. “As we approached, he tried to pull a grenade. We shot him, and the grenade rolled away from his hand and went off, which is what you heard.”

  Drake looked around at the bodies. Even now after so many patrols, so many battles, the smell of death, the torn bodies, the futility of the fights still assaulted his senses. He shook his head and sighed. At least none of his troops were injured or worse. “All right, load up and let’s get home. We’ll let the Iraqi troops clean up this mess.”

  As he led the patrol away and around the crater in the road, all he felt was relief that he and his troops had survived one more fight that meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. The only good thing was that the end of this tour was in sight.

  Once they rolled into the base and the platoon dismounting to their barracks, Drake sat down to do the paperwork. Even in war there was paperwork, and in this case, the After-Action Report. After thinking about what happened, he carefully prepared a very sterile report. It wasn’t quite as short as Caesars’ “I came, I saw, I conquered,” but it was concise and to the point. As he summarized what happened, he was determined to leave out the details as to how he came to realize that there was an ambush. He didn’t want to open that can of worms. However, that didn’t stop the members of his platoon from talking.

  It was two weeks and three more uneventful patrols later that he was called into the office of Captain Reynolds, the company commander. As Drake stepped into the office, he noticed the civilian sitting in a chair to one side. He was very nondescript, wearing a short-sleeved shirt, khaki slacks and laced-up boots. Focusing on his captain, he came to a halt, saluted, and barked, “Staff Sergeant Drake reporting as ordered.”

  Reynolds waved an off-hand salute in return and motioned at a chair in front of the desk. “Sit. I’ve got some questions for you. They’re going to sound odd, but I want straight answers, no evasions, no equivocations. Understand?”

  Drake nodded even as he felt sweat breaking out on his forehead. What the hell is going on?

  “All right. Here is the main question. How in the hell do you keep avoiding getting caught in ambushes? How do you keep avoiding IEDs? Your platoon has the highest rate of any unit under my command in terms of not being caught in an ambush, and, instead, turning the tables on the insurgents. Your platoon hasn’t had a single IED hit a vehicle in months, and the casualties are the lowest. Now, this can’t be an accident, so spill it. How are you doing it?”

  Drake glanced around at the civilian who was lounging in the chair, head leaning to one side, chin resting on his hand. Whatever was going on, this person was involved.

  “Ignore him, Drake,” Reynolds barked. “Answer the question.”

  Drake closed his eyes for a moment. “I’m not real sure how to answer it. I know what I see; I know what I feel, and I trust it; but I am going to have a hard time explaining it.”

  Reynolds leaned back in his chair, hands clasped across his chest. “As I was taught a long time ago, you start at the beginning, walk through everything one step at a time, and stop at the end.”

  Drake nodded. “Yes, sir.” He paused in thought and then began. “I call it a feeling, a hint. The best example is the recent patrol where we encountered insurgents and an IED. As we approached the location of the IED, it wasn’t that I saw some indication of the IED; rather, I felt that something was very wrong. I’ve learned to trust these feelings over the last few months as they’ve never been wrong; and when I first began having them, I found out the hard way that to ignore the feelings would result in bad things happening.”

  “So, I halted the patrol and dismounted the platoon, who set up a perimeter around the vehicles. I found my attention drawn to a low wall some fifty yards distant
from the road, set among some scattered trees and a wadi. It was if I could see the insurgents hiding behind the wall. I directed the troops to engage the insurgents, which they did. While the insurgents added an additional IED to block us for retreating, when the IEDs were activated by the insurgents, we were well away from them and suffered no damage or casualties. As we were aware of the attack as opposed to being caught off-guard, we were able to effectively ward off the attack with no casualties.”

  “Does that answer your question, Captain?” Drake concluded.

  Rather than responding, Reynolds looked over at the civilian. “Mr. Jones, is that what you were looking for?”

  Jones stood up, walked over, and, placing a hip on the desk, placed his hands in his lap. He looked down at Drake. “Sergeant, when did these ‘feelings’ start taking place?”

  Drake thought back and considered things. “I would guess about March, more or less. It wasn’t like ‘boom, they’re here’ but just sorta began happening.”

  Jones nodded. “That makes sense.” Jones looked up towards the ceiling, and then back at Drake. “What do you know about all this stuff people are calling ‘magic’?”

  Drake’s eyes opened wide. That was not a question he’d expected. “I haven’t paid it much attention. I know that some troops have had to intervene in tribal actions where they’re trying to kill some of its members for using sorcery, even to the extent of relocating the people to one of our bases.” He paused for a moment. “The odd thing is, I know of more than one case where our platoon relocated a family or individuals, but when we went back to check on them, they had disappeared from where they were resettled.”

  “Fine,” Jones continued with a dismissive wave of his hand, “but what do you know about what is happening in the U.S.? Specifically, about the person called the Witch of New Orleans?”

  Drake shook his head, wondering where this was heading. “Not much. I think I’ve seen a couple of things the family’s sent me, but that’s about it. I’ve been watching baseball, reading, doing my extension studies, that sort of thing in my off time. I haven’t been out on social media except to talk to the family from time to time.”

  “Well, let me bring you up to speed,” Jones replied. “What people call magic, or power, or ‘the force’ if you will, the ability to do things with their minds which are not natural, this ability to manipulate this power, actually is a fact. Now I’m not talking about pulling a rabbit out of a hat. I am talking about real, honest to God, blow a hole through a wall power. We have seen evidence of portals, individuals capable of creating shields invulnerable to bullets, even doing surgery without opening up a person. Real ‘oh my GOD’ stuff. And on top of that, we have solid proof of mythical creatures returning to this world. Elves, gnomes, flying horses, well, you name it. If it hasn’t appeared, it doesn’t mean that it won’t. And to top it off, this so-called Witch has been acclaimed Queen by all these beings, along with a bunch of people who apparently can also use this thing they call ‘magic’. She’s bringing them into her enclave outside of New Orleans for training.”

  “Now, the President has assigned a White House assistant as a go-between between him and all these beings. But,” Jones held up a finger, “there are those in various agencies who have reasons to believe he may be compromised, that he may not be providing all the data needed to make solid decisions. So, our analysts have given us two options regarding what may be taking place; one, that these people can be an asset, or, two,…” and he looked straight at Drake. “They are a huge threat to our country.”

  Jones glanced around at Reynolds, who reached over to a folder on his desk and pulled out an envelope, sliding it across to Drake. “Here’re your travel orders. You’re headed to New Orleans. There, you’ll be contacted with your operating orders. You would normally stay at one of the bases in the area, but for this, you are going as having just ended your tour of duty and have been honorably discharged. There’s even a DD-214 in there, but don’t get excited, it’s a fake. There is also a cell phone that will be used for people to contact you and for you report in, along with two credit cards in your name that have already been activated. There’s not a credit limit, but don’t go crazy; you will have to provide receipts." Drake groaned at that while Reynolds grinned. “So, go pack and turn in your weapons. Your flight leaves in three hours.” Reynolds stood up and extended his hand across the desk with Drake standing up and shaking it. “Good luck, Sergeant.”

  As he walked out of the company headquarters, Drake looked down one more time at the orders which he’d been handed by Captain Reynolds. They didn’t make sense. He was supposed to go on detached duty. And not just any detached duty, such as a rotation at the Pentagon or to assist another unit. Nope. He was supposed to become a spook for this Jones guy. He didn’t know who he was, but whoever he was, first, his name wasn’t Jones and, second, he worked for some three-letter agency out of D.C.

  Instead of going straight back to the barracks, though, Drake found an out-of-the-way corner where he could watch the Captain’s office but not be readily noticeable. After a few minutes, Mr. ‘Jones’ walked out, hopped in a car, and headed towards the base entrance. As he drove away, Drake noticed a U.S. embassy tag on the car. Nodding to himself, he headed back to Reynold’s office. Nodding to the aid at the desk outside his office, he stuck his head back in the door. “Captain, do you have a few minutes?”

  Reynolds looked up from the paperwork on his desk. “I figured you’d be back so I told them to let you in. So, haul up a chair and we’ll talk.”

  Drake looked once more at the orders. “So what do you think is going on?” he asked, sitting down in the indicated chair.

  Captain Reynolds clasped his hands in front of him on his desk. “As you probably realize, all this is courtesy of one of the intelligence agencies. There’s been a lot of back-channel talk about recruiting people from our forces who have been affected by this so-called magic, and what you did, what you saw, tends to fall into that category.” He held up one hand. “Now I’m not calling you a magician, but you smelled out that ambush that would have caught virtually any other patrol flat-footed. So, someone up the command chain called someone else, probably in the NSA, and, bingo! You get to go back to the world, specifically New Orleans.”

  “Yes, they want you to spy on what is going on in that school, enclave, whatever they call it. But, be honest about what you see. Tell them the good along with the bad. And, find another secure site to save all your reports to. These people always have an agenda beyond what they tell you. They may want an honest report, but they may want to have an internal enemy to support their actions. You never know unless you are on the inside, and,” Reynolds pointed at Drake, “you’re not privy to whatever is going on inside.”

  Drake shook his head. “So, do my job but cover my ass. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  Reynolds nodded. “You got it in one. From my situation, I’m losing one of my best men. At the same time, you’re getting to go back to the world. Now, one more thing. PTSD is always an issue. If you have problems, find help, either in this group or from one of the psychologists attached to the VA hospital. In any event, don’t let this job add so much stress to you that you break down. What you are dealing with in terms of what you have done here, coupled with both the changes taking place in you and the stress of what you are being asked to do, it may break you. So, if it gets to be too much, don’t be afraid to bail. Understand?”

  Drake looked down at his orders once more. “And my unit?”

  Reynolds smiled and nodded understandingly. “You know the drill. You feel responsible for your troops and a bit guilty of leaving them.” Drake nodded back as Reynolds continued. “Almost every soldier who has ever commanded a military unit feels that when they receive orders sending them off to another job. But, turning over command is part of following orders, whether you are a squad leader or a commanding general. So, you’ve got your orders, and I’ve got to find a replacement for you, hopefully o
ne as good as you. Now, get out of here,” Reynolds finished with a grin and a wave of his hand, “I’ve got work to do.”

  Drake sighed as he nodded. Standing, he gave a picture-perfect salute to Reynolds and then spun in place, and left, headed for the barracks. There was a lot to consider, but the good thing is that it was New Orleans, with Bourbon Street and a lot of loose women. He grinned. It was time to go to work.

  ***

  Two weeks later, Donald Drake found himself wandering down Royal Street in New Orleans. During the day, the French Quarter was quiet, with shops and bars open; but most people were looking for places to eat at some of the famed restaurants, like the Court of Two Sisters. Drake, instead, was following some esoteric orders. The orders he’d received over his phone were somewhat bizarre. Instead of going to an office or meeting someone at one of the bases, he was told to show up at Ryan’s Irish Pub on Decatur at 11:30 a.m. Once there, he was to order lunch, and someone would meet him.

  So, at 11:30 sharp, he’d walked into the small pub. Like so many of the older spots, it was narrow and deep, all dark wood, with a bar running along the left side, and a scattering of tables on the right, restrooms and kitchen at the rear. The small sign at the door said ‘seat yourself’ so he found a table about halfway back, up in the shadows of the lighting and sat down. Glancing around, it was either early, or the locals were still asleep, since the bar was pretty much empty; there were only a couple of men nursing long-necks at the bar. He expected one of those to approach him, but no one paid him any attention, focusing instead on their drinks and a rerun of a baseball game on the TV over the bar.