Fueling the Rage

by Jim Wilson

  This was the SOD’s first test of cheap war. After two weeks of analysis and training, the nine new men were ready, but somehow the Secretary of the Army discovered the mission. He started a turf war with the Secretary of the Navy, and demanded one of his three star Army Generals control the mission and the new men. The Secretary of the Navy had no knowledge of The Group. The General realized a challenge to the Secretary of the Navy would reveal all their actions. He quickly transferred Bill to San Diego and dispatched the rest of his team to Ghana and Israel. When secrecy assured his men protection, he cooperated as needed.

  The Army General added paratrooper skills to the nine new men resumes, and soon his small team of highly qualified fighting men was ready. This General normally communicated his secret missions in advance with twelve very reliable news people. He trusted them to keep secrets with his life, and they never disappointed him. He invited them to observe the final secret briefing of his new team. The reporters demanded pool coverage of the mission, and he allowed three very fit reporters with previous military training to observe the attack.

  The next moonless night the Army General, two senior officers, three reporters, and the nine new men parachuted from two attack helicopters. The men were heavily armed and well prepared for the mission. They left the helicopters in a tight formation and floated towards the open field two thousand feet below. In the cover of the surrounding woods, the drug lord, Julio Cortez, and three hundred of his men waited for them. The attack helicopter tried to respond to the gunfire, but the forest and the darkness made it impossible. Six of the new men survived the parachute drop by steering their parachutes to safety of the dark woods, but the rest were lost.

  The drug lord left the bodies of the dead Americans where they fell, and he and his men abandoned the cocaine factory and rebuilt near the Venezuelan border. Every South American nation protested the American invasion. The Group wanted to go into the area and retrieve the bodies, but politics blocked any recourse except to ask Columbia for their help. The SOD had his first taste of failure. The President fired the Secretary of the Army, but secretly told the SOD, “This is only a lesson and not the end to Cheap War.”

  *****

  The Chairman of the SSIC called the DCIA and requested a private meeting. “David, I need your advice. Is it possible to meet at my home tonight?”

  “I can be there at eight o’clock.”

  “Don’t come in that big Lincoln, we need to keep this real quiet.”

  David Freeman loved secret meetings. The longtime director of the CIA had the nickname of Super Spy, but most of the time he felt more like a civil servant. His driver, George Clinton, used his wife’s Camry and the Director rode in the front seat. Senator Burns lived in an exclusive gated golf course community. They stopped at the gate, and an armed guard asked for George’s driver license.

  The guard called the senator’s home and talked to the butler, “I have George Clinton and a passenger at the gate.”

  “They are expected, you can let them in.”

  The Director had visited Senator Burns’ home several times, but this time he paid attention to the wealth of the community. “George, there is more money in being a Senator than working for a living,” and George agreed.

  Compared to community standards, the Senator and his wife lived in an average house. The two-story Antebellum Mansion covered twelve thousand square feet of their fenced five-acre lot. They arrived, the electric gate slowly opened, and George continued down the driveway. The Senator’s security guard stopped them. He told George, “Please use the garage” and walked beside the car until it was safely parked.

  He opened the DCIA’s car door, “Good to see you sir. Please follow me.” Both men followed the guard to the Senator’s very large poolroom. The Director entered, but George stayed with the guard. The Senator stood and said, “Thank you for coming on such short notice” and handed the Director a British newspaper. “Go to the top of page three.”

  David Freeman put on his reading glasses and read the first few lines aloud. “Nigeria is an impoverished African nation despite extensive oil and mineral reserves. High level sources of the American government revealed that there are plans to replace the elected government with a friendlier regime.”

  “David, I looked at the phone logs of the members of the SSIC. Someone in Senator Temple’s office called this newspaper one day before the story was printed.” He handed the phone log to the DCIA. “What really upsets me is the Columbia disaster has ties to this office.” The Senator handed the Director another phone log. “Someone in the office made three phone calls to Venezuela the day before the mission.”

  The Director answered, “The news group looked responsible for the compromise.”

  “They denied having anything to do with the leak to the drug lord, and now I believe them.”

  “The DFBI and I confronted Temple with the accusation, and he agreed to and passed a lie detector test. I believe Temple just trusted his staff too much. He asked for a day to determine the source of the leak. His investigation produced two suspects, and the FBI arrested them.”

  “Nine dead, is that the end of the story?”

  The Senator lowered his head. “No, President Watson called me. Columbia reconsidered their position. They have done a good job in fighting the drug cartels. Their reaction was nationalistic, and after a few days they realized their protest was on the wrong side of the battle. Including the DEA, we lost sixteen Americans. The Columbians finally retrieved the bodies and brought them to Bogota. Before their return to America, the President of Columbia paid his respects and watched the bodies as they were reverently loaded onto an aircraft. He called President Watson to apologize and told him that his own teenage son had been murdered by a drug dealer. Sir, I beg you to kill Julio Cortez and his men.”

  The Senator wiped the tears from his eyes and continued. “These worthless drug dealers butchered sixteen Americans. How could anyone side with these monsters? The President asked for and received SSIC’s approval, and requested I take the mission to you and the SOD.”

  “I will talk to SOD Cleveland tomorrow, but if we do this it must be my way. That way is harsh and secret.”

  The Senator answered, “If it is done, do it your way.” He held up the phone log. “What can you do about the Americans that were responsible for these nine deaths?”

  *****

  The next afternoon there was a meeting at the DCIA’s office. Only the Director, the General and the SOD attended. Freeman opened the meeting, looked at the General and said. “I did not invite the entire group because this is a mission that you may want to turn down. Your negative decision will have no impact on you or your men.” The DCIA briefed the two men on the situation.

  The General answered, “Columbia learned from their mistake, and it looks like we did too. In my safe, there is a plan to eliminate Julio Cortez and his cocaine factory. After he killed our men, he abandoned the targeted factory and built a new one on the disputed Columbia Venezuelan border. He has over three hundred fighters protecting his facility, and there will be international repercussions to our actions.”

  The SOD added, “America is ready to support Columbia in this matter. If The Group takes the mission, our story will be that Columbians destroyed a dangerous drug cartel. You will do the work, but they take the credit. If Venezuela acts up, The Secretary of State will inform them that America supports Columbia in their brave action. How many men does your plan require?”

  “Fifty, but I may adjust that number based upon more current intelligence. I accept the mission, and we will need a week to prepare. When can we do this?”

  The DCIA answered, “I am happy you agree to the mission. We need to determine when Cortez and his men will be at the new factory. So let us start there.” The meeting ended and the General returned to Mac Dill.

  *****

  The Group was scattered, but with two days’ notice they assembled at Mac Dill to finalize their plan. The meeting opened and t
he CIA agent briefed them on the reasons for the failure of the first Columbia mission. He announced, “The CIA determined Julio Cortez’s new pattern. Next Wednesday morning at 1000 hours, with about one hundred armed men, he will arrive at his new cocaine factory on the Columbia-Venezuela border. He will inspect the books, load his trucks, and pay his men. They will eat lunch together, and then he will leave with his armed escort. Tuesday night will be a new moon.”

  Sam and Bill left on the second day, joined their forty Seals already in Bogota, and prepared them for the action. The rest of The Group, including the six new men, spent five days in the Mac Dill basement meeting room formalizing their plan.

  The General gave the first half of the order. “When this meeting is over, we go to Bogota Air Station, and join the Seals. At 2300 hours we attack and clear the cocaine factory.”

  The Major took over the presentation, “We will wait for Cortez to arrive the next morning and kill him and all his men. There is a transport waiting for us on the tarmac. Remember we all come back together.”

  The men arrived in Bogota, were heavily armed and equipped with night vision goggles. Sam, Bill, the Seals, and a pair of Navy medics from the Bogota Air Station joined them. At 1900 hours they boarded waiting helicopters for the five hundred mile trip to the border, and two empty helicopters followed. The attack transportation and back up were super quiet Air Force helicopter gunships normally stationed in Bogota.

  At 2300 hours local time they landed in a field five miles from the bunkhouse and walked to the edge of a field that exposed the factory. The Major was a trained sniper and carried his fifty-caliber rifle. One of the new men acted as his spotter, and carried a night vision scope designed to communicate with the Major’s rifle. They gathered in the woods on the edge of the field exposing the drug operation. The Major and his spotter would clear all moving targets, and then signal the General to begin the attack.

  From one thousand yards, the spotter handed the barrel stand to the Major, and used his night vision scope to look for movement. “There are three guards sitting on boxes at both ends of the large building.” He moved his focus to a lighted area in the woods. “There are three men working at the cocaine processing plant. They are a good first target. The guards cannot see the workers from their positions.” The spotter gave the major the directions for his first kill. “Set distance to 3118, and direction to 346.83.”

  The Major used the data and adjusted his site for the target. The spotter sighted on the second worker and downloaded the data with a push of a button. He said, “Fire shots one and two. Set direction for shot three at 346.847, and fire your third shot.” The Major fired three times in eleven seconds, and the spotter commented. “All of the shots were hits and terminal.”

  The Major looked up from his scope and said, “We can get better shots on the guards,” and handed the stand to the spotter. The darkness allowed them to get within two hundred yards from the next targets. The Major stopped at a spot that offered clean shots on the guards at both ends of the bunkhouse. The spotter again handed him a stand for the long barrel of his rifle, and focused his night vision scope on three guards at the end of the building nearest to them. “Three side by side targets set heading 164.35,” and pushed a button to memorize the reading.

  The Major pointed his rifle until he obtained the same heading. “Set 164.35 for the mid target.”

  The spotter gave the second reading, distance. “Set distance to 673.” He memorized the measurement while the Major was setting his scope to the distance, and then memorized the reading of the targets on each side of the first shot. Then the spotter changed focus and memorized the positions of the guards at the far end of the building. “Hold your fire! I see a radio tower, twenty degrees left of target group two. I am sending your scope group one, targets two and three. Only the direction changes but hold your fire.”

  The spotter radioed the General. “I see a radio tower thirty yards west of the bunkhouse. The Major is holding fire. All targets memorized, and he has hard focus on group one for three shots. Eight seconds are needed to complete group one.”

  The General had the spotter stand by and contacted one of the helicopters. “Can you see a tower at five miles and about ninety magnetic?

  “I need to go to fifty feet, hold on.” He lifted the helicopter out of the cover of the trees. “I see it.”

  “What will it take to make it disappear?”

  “We have programmed a single shot. The missile flight time is five seconds.”

  “Hold your shot. I will give the order.” The General contacted the spotter. “How many seconds will it take the Major from the last shot of the first group to the first shot of the second group?”

  “The aim and first shot will take twenty seconds, and the following two shots will be completed in eight additional seconds. The Major is still ready for the first shot of the first group.”

  The General ordered, “On the number three have the Major begin firing, one, two, and three.” He followed his second hand and switched to the pilot. “On my ‘mark’, count twenty seconds and fire the missile. “Mark, fire your missile in twenty seconds.” The General switched his radio to Sam and Bill’s channel. “Close the distance to the bunk house at the other side of the field.”

  The pilot replied, “Roger, we are now counting down twenty seconds.”

  Bill answered, “Roger.”

  Sam answered, “Aye, aye sir, we are beginning the attack.”

  The spotter alerted the General, “Six shots, six targets are down, and there goes the tower!”

  There were Ninety men sleeping in the bunkhouse. A few of the light sleepers were awake after the Major fired the six rounds. The lights in the bunkhouse came on, and they all reached for their AK47s after the missile struck tower. The Seals wore black ninja suits and night vision goggles, and carefully approached the barracks.

  The missile destroyed the tower, and a fallen section blocked the door of the bunkhouse. The explosion of the missile, loss of the second door, bullets coming through the three windows facing the field, and the dead bodies of their comrades panicked those still inside. The Major replaced the clip in his rifle, and followed the instructions of his spotter. His aim was deadly as the men ran through the only door of the bunkhouse, and their lack of night vision enhanced the black darkness of the moonless night.

  The spotter followed them about twenty feet, announced their coordinates, and the major pick them off. A few of the cocaine workers became reluctant to enter the darkness, and blocked the only exit. The spotter yelled, “repeat the shot,” and the Major held the numbers in his scope steady and repeatedly pulled the trigger. The spotter lost track of the Major’s kills standing in the doorway.

  The helicopter could take out the bunkhouse, but the carnage would alert Julio Cortez a mile down the road. The Group would save the building and kill men the old fashioned way. The Seals fired at the windows facing the field and hit many inside, until the smartest man in the bunkhouse turned off the lights. There was no glass in the three windows that faced the open field. Seals continued firing at the windows, and the added darkness allowed the new men to reach the field sidewall of the bunkhouse. They lobbed a percussion grenade through the windows, and hit the ground. The explosion was strong enough to blow open the blocked door and remove the remaining window glass. Seals tossed grenades into the building from both open doors, and killed the last of the cocaine workers. It was 0200 hours local time.

  The Medics treated one of the new men for a leg wound and loaded him on a helicopter for a trip to Bogota Air Station. There were no survivors of the enemy force. They collected DNA samples and photographed the ninety-six bodies. Everyone else cleared the debris that was visible from the road. Before daylight, they had burned the factory and destroyed all of the packaged cocaine. The two medics brought twelve body bags to the fight, and stayed for the second round. Some of the Seals joked about the body bags.

  A satellite tracked the night battle using real
time technology, and the CIA viewed the battle. At 0900 hours local time The Group received notice that more vehicles than expected were heading for the camp. The satellite counted twenty-two cars, eighteen small trucks and six large four-door trucks. The General and his men were outnumbered. This would be a daylight battle against a superior force. The DCIA used his satellite phone to call the General, “Do you want to leave?”

  The General answered, “No, but secrecy no longer precludes us from using the gun parts of the helicopter gunships.”

  At 1100 hours local time the caravan arrived at the camp. The large trucks led the pack and stopped in front of the bunkhouse. Julio Cortez was in the first truck and became concerned when no one from the camp came out to meet him. The Group divided their force into three sections. The Major and the General were in charge of the first six large trucks, and Sam and Bill would lead the destruction of the last eight vehicles. The General gave the signal to fire on the front and rear vehicles. The remaining section opened fire on the rest of the vehicles, but not to be out-done, the two gunships each took a pass at all the vehicles and riddled them with large caliber bullets. Within three minutes, all concerns about being out numbered were gone.

  The men of The Group boarded the helicopter that took them to the battle, and headed to Bogota. They dropped the two medics at the Air Station. Their wounded new man rejoined them, and all of them boarded a waiting Air Force transport for the long flight back to Mac Dill AFB. It was 1400 hours local time.

  Plans take shape will wait to act