Strike Force 11

by Forest Getter

  I walked out of my room at 0430 to find my kitchen filled with the usual suspects waiting around the coffee maker for the coffee to finish brewing. I noticed that Var and Kevlar were not in their usual defensive position around the coffee maker and that they had left a path to the coffee maker open. They allowed Melissa and Daniela to the coffee maker before they got their own cup. I knew that the new larger coffee maker that had been install had to have played a big part in their more relaxed posture. We all grabbed our coffee and sat down at the kitchen table.

  “Where are the two of you at on the upgrades to the satellites?” I asked Var and Kevlar.

  “It will be done by lunchtime today,” Var said.

  “We will be ready to upgrade your chip this afternoon also,” Daniela said.

  “Ok then let’s get off to PT and then get to work. I am headed to the reservation this morning with the Raiders and guys from the secret service to do a security check for the wedding. How long will you need to upgrade my chip?” I asked Daniela.

  “About 2 hours then you will be better than new,” She said.

  “Anyone know what Ensign Miller frond out from Papa Smurf?” I asked.

  “Not sure when I ran into him after dinner, he looked like he wanted to kill someone, then I heard him grumbling something about freaken Smurf. Sounded to me like he wanted to kill the blue bastard.” Kevlar said.

  “Have Jamie meet up with him and make sure Miller doesn’t kill the Smurf,” I replied.

  Kevlar snickered and said. “This will teach him not to bring back strays from patrol.”

  We finished our coffees and headed out to PT. When I arrived at the parade field, I saw that the Marines and the Rangers had joined us.

  I had just sat down to eat breakfast then I received a call over the Battlenet. “Master Chief, I have a six-man team from the Secret Service here to meet with you,” The guard at the main gate said.

  “Ok send them over to the Chief’s Mess,” I replied. A few minutes later, a 6’4” tall man in a suit walked into the Chief’s mess. I stood and walked over to greet him.

  “Go-go, you old salt how the hell have you been,” He said as he extended his hand.

  I shook his hand and replied, “Who are you calling old? If memory serves me, you’re a year older than me, Mark.” We embrace each other in a hug.

  “Come have a cup of coffee while I finish breakfast,” I said and lead him to the coffee pot. Mark Fillmore was the assistant director of the Secret Service. He was also another one of my old friends from high school. When I look back at the people, who were part of my high school’s JROTC Program most of them now worked for the Government in one form or another either as a member of the military, law enforcement or intelligence agencies. Mark was a Delta force Operative before he was recruited to the Secret Service. Rumor had it that the Commander in Chief had him on a shortlist for the next director of the NSA. “Couldn’t happen to a better man,” I thought. After breakfast, we loaded up into APC’s and headed out. It would take us about an hour to reach the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum where we would meet Alley and follow her to the Tribal Longhouse where the wedding would be held.

  Upon arrival at the longhouse, Holly and the Raiders split up and headed out into the surrounding area to secure a two-mile perimeter. The secret service agents, Alley and I went through all the buildings to check them all and decide where to set up security checkpoints. For the wedding.

  “The tribal council is in the main hall waiting to meet with you while you are here. Uncle Billy is looking forward to seeing you,” Alley said.

  “Well let’s go see them,” I said, and we walked into the main building.

  “Go-go how are you, son?” Came the voice of Billy Cypress my adopted uncle.

  “It’s good to see you, Uncle,” I said as I embraced the man in a hug.

  “We wanted to meet with you before the wedding, we have a couple presents the first is a Safehaven Marine XSV20 high-speed patrol /SAR and interceptor boat, it has reinforced armor and should withstand anything up to and including a direct hit from an RPG. The second is the Black Armored Hummer sitting out front we were told that it withstands as much damage as the APC’s you arrived in. We wanted you to have something practical that will help you stay safe. When you were young, your stepfather set up an account for you. The conditions for you to access the funds were that you become the leader of the tribe or marry. In this envelope is all the information you will need to access the account. The current balance is 210 million dollars, and as of today, it is yours.” Uncle Billy said.

  “Thank you all so very much for everything,” I said.

  I spent the next hour talking with the elders when Holly returned.

  “I’ve marked the areas where we need to station guards and patrol routes. Can we place some claymores out there during the ceremony along with cameras and motion detectors?” She asked.

  “Do whatever you need to secure the area,” One of the elders said to her.

  “We will have our people running patrols about 3 miles out from here as an advanced guard we will provide you with the radio channel. They will be under orders to contact you if they spot anyone, but not to engage unless your people tell them to or they are in direct danger,” Alley said.

  Just then, Mark entered “How large of a helicopter with the landing pad on the roof hold?” He asked.

  “The Navy had to do an emergency landing of a fully-loaded CH-47 Chinook on there once without a problem. We use the Airbus H215 Super Puma normally. The pad just had its annual inspection last month and passed with flying colors.” Billy said.

  “That will work fine, we will fly the CIC and the VIPs into Fort Myers and then fly them here on Marine One and land on the roof. Go-go can you have a security detail meet my people here Friday morning to secure the area?” Mark asked.

  “Yea no problem I will send our Marines and Alpha Platoon here,” I replied.

  “Also, I need a list of all non-military personal that will be attending so we can run a security check on them.” He said.

  “Here you go,” Alley said as she handed a flash drive to him.

  We said our goodbyes and loaded up and headed back to MBO. Holly and Gili loaded up in my new Hummer with me.

  42.

  Borrowed Time

  As soon as we arrived back at the hanger, Daniela was there waiting for me. “Come with me we are headed to medical to upgrade the chip in your head. With the new design, you will no longer need a command pad, and your bio-regeneration rate will increase by 150%. The surgery will take about ten minutes and with the new chip recovery that would have taken a couple of days will only take a couple of hours,” She said.

  “Ok, let me call the Skipper and let him know then we will proceed. Holly hold down the fort for a couple hours.” I said then I called the Skipper and let him know what was going on.

  Two and a half hours later, I was fully recovered and fully upgraded. From the medical building, I went back to The Grinder to meet up with the Skipper. I grabbed myself a coffee and walked into the conference room to see Papa Smurf sitting in my chair. I took a combat stance and drew my Desert Eagle.

  “NO! Go-go don’t shoot him!” The Skipper. Papa Smurf began to reach for my coffee cup sitting on the table.

  “You touch that cup again, and you’re dead,” I said in a tone of voice typically only used by drill instructors to a recruit as the recruit was about to do something legendarily stupid. At that moment, you could have heard a pin drop as everyone in the room slowly turned to see if this would be the Gnome’s last day on earth. The Gnome slowly pulled his hand back from the coffee cup.

  “Now get out of my chair and step away from my desk,” I said.

  The Gnome did as instructed, and I removed my finger from the trigger and flipped the safety back on.

  “I think the gnome may need to go change his pants,” Holly said as she noticed the wet spot on the front of his pants.

  “I hope you didn’t piss on my chair,” I s
aid to the Gnome as I holstered my pistol. He looked down then back up.

  “It’s a coffee stain I spilled my coffee earlier,” Papa smurf said. I picked up my travel mug the Gnome had been about to touch and turned to see Piper walking in the door,

  “Can you go have the barista sterilize this for me?” I said to her. She looked up at me in horror, no one had ever heard of a chief cleaning his coffee cup, recruits had died for lessor offensives.

  “Go ahead and do it,” I said. Piper looked over at the Gnome and drew her hand across her throat in a cutting motion then left the room. It was at that moment that everyone in the room knew the Gnome was living on borrowed time.

  “So why is Papa Smurf here in the office instead of in a deep dark hole covered with dirt,” I said to the Skipper

  “Mr. Go-go it seems to me that you have unresolved anger issues,” Papa Smurf said.

  “Listen to me carefully your little blue freak, you will address me as Master Chief, or I will grab you by your neck and twist until your head pops off,” I said to him, and he turned pale.

  “Well, it seems that the little blue guy here knows where the Base is in Swaziland is, and he is going to show us on a map. In exchange, I agreed to let him out of the brig, and we are going to assign him a room in the officer’s barracks and give him an escort. If his information is wrong, you can feed him to the gators. How did the security check go this morning?” The Skipper said.

  “Went great, the tribal elders were there and gave me an early wedding present,” I replied.

  “Really what did they give you?” He asked.

  “A New Armored Hummer, a Safehaven Marine XSV20 high-speed patrol /S.A.R. and interceptor boat, and $210,000,000,” I told him.

  “You’re Kidding me; they gave you an XSV20?” He replied.

  “Yea it has a pop-up gun mount perfect for an M134. They had it deliver to the Coastguard base in Everglades City. It is fully armored and will withstand a direct hit from an RPG.” I said.

  “We should take an M135 and a few thousand rounds of ammo over to it this afternoon and take it for a test run,” The Skipper said.

  “Roger that Skipper,” I replied.

  The Skipper brought up a Holomap of Swaziland on the table and had Papa Smurf point out the location of the Base. The Base was located north of Big Bend in the Lebombo Mountains.

  “Ok, I will contact the SECNAV and let him know about the Base he can get the President to get us permission to move on it from their King. We will plan to move out on Monday” The Skipper said.

  “We should put the little blue guy in the same room as Jamie; that way, we don’t need to post a guard on him at night. I’ll go let him know.” Kevlar said with an evil grin on his face.

  “You’re evil, you know that,” I said to him.

  “Yea sometimes I can’t help myself, besides I owe him one for the last prank he played on me,” He replied.

  “Oh, I’ve got to hear about that,” I replied.

  “Well, last year we were on a mission to A neighboring kingdom when he convinced the King’s daughter that I was in love with her and that me rejecting her advances was the way of courtship in our country worked. That for us, a woman’s persistence was a symbol of true love. I almost had to marry her.” He said, and we all laughed.

  “Take care of it,” the Skipper said.

  “Oh, can Leroy and I Join you on your boat ride? He is an Admiral and has never been on a boat before,” He said.

  “Sure, meet us at the hanger after lunch,” I replied.

  It was 1300 when we headed off to lunch. The Skipper gave a short briefing over lunch, catching everyone up to date on where our operations stood and the preparations that needed to take place before the wedding in two days. When we reached the hanger after lunch, Kevlar, Var, Leroy, Melissa, and Daniela were waiting to go with us on our short cruise. With four A.P.C.’s of security details in tow, we headed out to the Everglades City Coast Guard Station. The ride there was about 45 minutes. When I saw the flat black XSV20 with the Seminole nation crest painted on the side of the bridge and the flag flying on the fantail I was in love with it.

  “She is a beauty, what are you going to name her?” The Skipper asked.

  “Suzzie Q, after my Mom,” I said.

  “Fitting Name I will get Boats to have someone paint her name on her for you.” He replied.

  We Mounted the M134 on the front pop-up gun mount, loaded up the ammo and all moved onboard.

  From behind me, I heard a voice say, “Hey Go-go mind if I catch a ride.”

  I turned to see a man standing there in a Coast Guard Uniform with Commander bars on his shoulders. His name was Allen Collier. Commander Collier like me was a local over the years we had become friends and hunting buddies.

  “Come on aboard,” I said to him.

  “If you hadn’t shown up soon to take it out, I was going to have one of my guys hotwire it, and we were going to take it for a spin.” He replied.

  I sat down in the pilot’s seat and started the engines we could feel the rumble of the quad Caterpillar C8.7 650hp engines coupled to quad France Helices SD3L surface drives when they all came online. The design offered a maximum speed well over 50kts, a 40kts+ cruise speed and a range of 500nm. Before today I had only seen the XSV20 Thunder Child in videos online and had never dreamed of owning one. We pulled away from the pier and headed into open water then I gave it full throttle and tore across the open sea. After the first 30 minutes, I allowed the Skipper to take the helm. Followed by Cmdr. Collier. Two hours later we pulled back up at the pier shut her down and disembarked.

  “I’ll make sure she is refueled and reloaded for you” Cmdr. Collier

  “Thanks, I’ll leave the key here with you for safekeeping. Take her out anytime you’d like.” I replied and saw the smile come across his face.

  “We will take real good care of her for you.” He said.

  I shook his hand, and we loaded up and headed back to M.B.O. There was nothing like the open sea to make you feel alive.

  43.

  Ambush

  We were a mile from the base, an explosion came from the lead APC. By the fireball that flew up into the air, I could tell that this was not an Antitank mine; it was an IED. It was a massive explosion, and it caused the APC to go flipping into the air and landed next to my Hummer. Flames were rolling along the APC, I could tell that the engine and front axle were destroyed. The doors opened and the marines inside unloaded and moved to take cover around the other vehicles. I saw everyone but the driver exit the APC. Our Battlenet began to fill with chatter.

  “MBO I need you to scramble Raider’s one and two for support our convoy is under attack and scramble the Marines we are a mile out on the main road transmitting GPS location.” The Skipper said.

  “Roger that Skipper,” Commander Dallas responded.

  I exited the Hummer with my M46 in hand and scanned for targets. Fifty yards out, I spotted a Gate Jumper holding an M32A1 40MM Grenade launcher. He pulled the trigger, propelling a round in our direction. I fired two shots that impacted into his nose and exploded out the back of his head. The shell from his grenade launcher hit the ground in front of us and began spraying gas into the air.

  “Gas!” I yelled over the battlenet as I began to put on my compact gas filtration system.

  It wasn’t much bigger than an oxygen mask used in a hospital, but it could filter out airborne contaminants from bioagents to tranquilizers or even nerve agents. RANDI quickly informed me that it was a type of tear gas coming from the round and I shared that across the battlenet. I carefully scanned the area in front of us that I could see and spotted four more gate jumpers in the woods to the right of us about 30 yards in front of our location low crawling at us. I mark them on the battlenet tactical map “I have four more in the front closing on us, but I don’t have a clear shot. I heard a loud twoomp a sound made by one weapon on the planet an M224 60mm Mortar as a voice came across the battlenet

  “We got them Ma
ster Chief,” said the marine on the other end said as the mortar round landed and exploded where the four gate jumpers had once been.

  “Leave it to the Marines to bring a mortar to a boat ride.” I thought.

  “You got them, nice shooting Marine,” I said.

  I then heard the APCs Browning .50 Cal machine guns begin to fire followed by the sound of a plasma rocket impacting into a vehicle

  “Rear APC has been disabled; we have three men down,” Gili said.

  Upon the battlenet map appeared 10 targets all to the rear of the last APC split up into two groups, one on each side of the road. The Skipper had the base launch the medivac helicopter. Holly, Var, and Kevlar joined up with me as Skipper, Chief Profit and Senior Chief Walker exited the left side of the Hummer. Our plan was while the rest of the security detail kept the enemy pinned down, we would circle around behind them and kill them all. The gunfire covered any sound we might make running through the wood to get behind them, allowing us to take up shooting positions behind them in under a minute. Thirty seconds later, the encounter was over, and the 10 enemy troops were dead, three minutes later, the medics arrived and took away the three wounded and one dead.

  “Gili where did you come up with the idea to bring a mortar to a boat ride?” I asked the 1stsgt.

  “Ever since we got assigned to you, we have been hauling around the mortar. Major Harm told me that you were better at getting into trouble than he was and that we might want to take along a mortar or two. It seems like he was right,” Gili replied.