GWOT IV - Resistance Officer

GWOT IV - Resistance Officer


There is what I can only call a delegation at the gates of Alviso Prison.

My commanding officer, Major Janine. Some asshole I haven't met, in full battle rattle but with a major's rank tabs and the SF RESIST name tape, like hers and like mine. A severe looking woman dressed as if for a funeral with a ID card and one of the strangest badges I'd ever seen. Like a Federal agency ID, but with an angry snarling bear carrying an axe in place of the US seal, and the words SF RESIST spelled out in bold where another agency would read FBI, etc.

Homeland has shot prisoners on capture for wearing those two little words.

My prison is full of Homeland detainees. A bit of a turn around for them.

We meet in my office. I have several chairs for meeting with the prisoner delegation, and a safe in which I keep my notes and the inevitable laptop. Otherwise the space is bare. Not even an "I love me" wall which is a standard feature of a commanding officer's work space.

I already know who I am. I don't need to dirty paper to tell me, or anyone else.

In the hallway outside is a mirror. Across the base of the mirror is a question.

"Would you fight the person in this mirror? If you did, who would win?"

It's a reminder to dress the part, guards controlling inmates, many of whom have done our jobs for longer and with less scruples.

Janine is brief.

"Echo 18, I've been transferred. I'm taking a battalion command in Fairfield. Your new boss, Major Simpson, South Bay Logistics Group. Your other new boss, Resistance Special Agent Knight, yes it's a pseudonym. She is your point of contact with Collections and the PG's office."

Provisional Governor, PG. Collections, Resistance Intelligence. She's both a politico and a spook. Great.

Janine gives me a quick hug and leaves. We are always on the run in our business.

"I wear a lot of hats, Echo 18," Agent Knight snaps. "Right now I'm putting on my investigations hat. Audit."

I look at Simpson.

"You are ordered and directed to comply with Agent Knight. Now."

"How can I help?" I ask quickly.

"Open your safe. We'll start with your notes."

"Yes, Agent," I reply.

###

"I am reluctantly impressed," Knight concludes after an exhaustive inspection that includes private interviews with my officers, a site tour, and a review of all our paperwork.

"I was prepared to arrest you for theft and peculation, given the volume of supplies you were requesting. I see that you are putting them to good use."

Arrest me, in my own prison? A neat trick, Agent.

"Now we must review the executions. This is a criminal investigation under the authority of the Provisional Governor. As a civilian law enforcement officer, my authority is to investigate, arrest and recommend for prosecution. If I recommend charges, your commanding officer would convene two other officers for a tribunal. As you are an officer under military discipline, you do not have the right to remain silent. You do have the right to testify on your own behalf and to call witnesses in your favor. Do you understand my authority and your obligation?"

"Yes, Agent."

"You hung a man by the neck until he was dead, with your own hands pulling on the rope. Explain."

###

Seven executions later, which is the number of people I've legally killed since getting out of the Homeland Rest Spa For Suspected Traitors, Agent Knight is satisfied.

"My preliminary finding is that your actions were lawful and justified, and no further action is appropriate. I remind you that there is no statute of limitations on murder, that I do not have original or sole jurisdiction, and neither Homeland nor the Untied Snakes give a rats ass what a rebel government thinks or does. The Snakes consider you a murderer. But they consider any rebel officer a murderer anyway."

I nod.

"From this point forward, any execution for a crime other than a future murder committed by an inmate on the prison rolls, or on the grounds of this facility, must be approved by the Resistance Commission. Again, as I am an investigator but not a military officer, I cannot be on the Commission. I work for the Commission, I gather the facts based on which the Commission must make decisions. I also advise the PG's Office. But I am not a member.

"You wear both hats. The PG's Office has determined that the Warden of Alviso Prison must also be a member of the Commission. Finding someone able to do one of those is hard; both, nearly impossible. Yet, here you are.

"The Commission's next meeting will be at Alviso Prison next week. Make sure you have temporary quarters for six officers and twenty enlisted available. The Commission will be considering death sentences for violations of the laws of war by Homeland command staff and unlawful paramilitary adherents.

"Do you have any preliminary lists?"

"Only in soft copy," I reply, and pass over the laptop.

"Holy. Fucking. Shit. Is this what I think it is?"

"A charge list indexed by UC status for everyone in UC status with names, dates, evidence and known witnesses?"

"How in the hell did you come up with this?"

"Working on it for the last three weeks, ever since we established Geneva compliance for the POWs."

"I saw the roof markings on the way in."

On the buildings housing Prisoners Of War, the letters PW are painted on the roof in ten foot tall stencil font.

Smart bombs can't read. But their targeters can.

The infirmary has a red diamond on a white field, both painted on the roof, on huge signs on all four walls, and flagpoles at all four corners.

In Afghanistan, US targeters mistakenly destroyed a Doctors Without Borders hospital because it displayed signs and flags but not roof symbols. Learn from other people's mistakes when you can.

The only red crosses permitted in my facility are on the arm bands that must be worn by representatives of the International Red Cross.

The UC buildings are not marked.

Please, bomb them. Do us all a favor.

But neither is the guard barracks, or the administrative offices in which we sit. In war you take your chances.

Agent Knight considers me carefully.

"I know most of your story. You weren't Resistance?"

"No."

"I wasn't either. I'm retired US Army, CID. I was quietly enjoying hospice when this shit went down, and Homeland called me up. I disappeared for a bit. Now I'm doing this for a little while."

I looked again. Hospice.

She looked thin, almost frail, and when I looked carefully, her arms were visibly bruised.

"Leukemia," she explained. "I'm transferring my medical records here. I'll need to start chemo again. You need me for as long as I can hold out."

I nodded.

"Well, where's the wardroom? I could use a sandwich."

My real new boss was shown out by my orderly.

My nominal new boss stood up.

"Don't call if you need anything. E-mail only, or radio for the Quick Reaction Force. Good luck, Captain."

I saluted and he left for the next fire.

Hell of a way to run a war.

But civil wars are like that.

GWOT VI - Midwest Music

[Captain '18' has returned from holding the Border. His reward for hard work is more work. There are debts to pay, and those of honor must be paid with cash on the barrel, in the only currency worth anything in the affairs of nations.]

I'm putting on a dress uniform for the first time ever.

I mean, EVER. I was never a cop. Security guards don't have dress uniforms. The kind of soldiering I've been doing started in nightmare and has continued at full throttle pace since. Even at Alviso Prison, where wearing dress uniform would have lent a certain gravitas to lawfully killing hundreds of genuine war criminals, I did my work in BDUs because the better uniforms were needed at the front.

So I need an orderly's help for reasons other than my still misbehaving left hand.

It will never heal. The missing nails are the tell, but the repeatedly rebroken fingers hurt every day and wake me up every morning. No, the surgeon won't let me amputate.

After flirting with other animals, California has finally settled on the Golden Bear.

I don my captain's bars, little realizing that I would be doing so for the last time.

There is just enough time for my orderly to hand me off to my escort, and for us to walk from the temporary officer's quarters to the auditorium.

###

It's a stage, with a podium. There are about eighty officers here. Two California Republic generals are running the event.

"Attention to orders!"

We stand to attention.

"The 2nd California Guard Division announces the following personnel actions. When your name is called, come to the stage."

Several names are called. Lieutenants are becoming Captains.

"[Echo 18]"

I walk up to the stage, salute the presenter.

"... promoted out of zone to Major, effective date of rank set back to first day of enlistment, by direct order of the Provisional Governor..."

Not only am I promoted, which I had never expected, but I am promoted above many current majors. That's out of zone twice, in two different ways.

I accept my stars, return to my seat and start putting them on.

"Awards," booms the general on stage.

The California Republic has necessarily built her awards system on that of the Untied Snakes, our all too recent foe. But the award system is high protein, low fat. Very few administrative awards. There is a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star, a Silver Star ... and these are awarded in turn.

"For gallant conduct above and beyond that expected of a commissioned officer of the California Republic, at great personal risk..."

"For the saving of life in close combat..."

"For resisting assault by superior forces for over eight days, allowing relief forces to ..."

"For ..."

"[Echo 18]"

I find myself standing up on stage.

"For commissioning and honorably operating Alviso Prison, for the scrupulously fair adjudication of suspected war criminals, for the capture of notorious American war criminal General Batesman in foreign territory, and for the rescue of over five hundred persons from human trafficking on the California-Mexico Border, the Bear Cross. With two fish.

"The Bear Cross is awarded as equivalent to the American Distinguished Service Cross with the exception that it may only be awarded for extraordinary military or civil service directly engaged with the protection of innocent human life."

I salute. I wait while it is pinned on. I accept the certificate and tuck it under my arm. I return to my seat.

"To all who hear this message, greetings. By authority of the Provisional Governor of the State of California, the following persons are posthumously awarded the Golden Wreath. There is no higher award. 'Greater love hath no one but that they give their life for a friend.'

"The heroic actions of these persons are so many that we cannot recite them all here. Without them, NONE of us would be here today, the California Republic would not exist, and many thousands if not millions of Californians would be dead or dying at the hands of felonious foes, enemies general of human kind.

"Ahmed, Samir; Albert, Doug; Anderson, Alan; Amador, Doris; ..."

The list goes on. And on. And on.

"... Brooke, Deborah ..."

I try my best to remember her, typing at our shared desk. Running forward with her rifle, even before I knew her name. In the Oregon desert. Training. Convoys. Operations.

She single handedly broke a Homeland armored column at the knowing cost of her life. If she had not, I wouldn't be here. Janine wouldn't have survived. And the San Jose Resistance's first essential revolt would have dissolved in chaos.

The list goes on. These lives do not submit to mathematics. Each one is a Brooke to someone, often to several someones.

"They gave all that they had that others might live. There is no greater gift. May their sacrifice not be in vain. By my order, Governor Pat McGregor, this day of ..."

"SALUTE!"

Three volleys of rifle fire sound INSIDE the auditorium.

Even expecting it, and with blanks that are barely larger than a squib, I am still slightly shocked.

All of us have much experience of indoor gunfire.

So did they.

That's why we are here now.

With what they paid, how can we let them down now?

###

I am numb, half drinking a drink I do not even taste, at the reception. The congratulations are pro forma. I am not liked in the California Republic's officer corps. And like the Millwall Fight Club, I don't care.

"Major," a general says, as if casually.

"Sir," I say, but do not salute.

"We have a tasking from UNNAPD. California has been asked to contribute a reinforced military police battalion to the situation in Iowa. Interested?"

"I go where the Republic sends me," I replied mildly.

This is true. One of the two 'fish' on my Bear Cross is for invading Nevada.

UNNAPD is the United Nations North American Peacekeeping Detachment. It is either our last best hope of peace, or a horrible sick joke. Maybe both at once.

"'I say to one 'Go' and he goeth," the general quoted from the Bible. The parable of the Centurion.

I salute again and after a short time leave the reception.

My orders are already waiting for me at my quarters.

Going to Iowa. Paramilitary fundamentalists are rounding up non Christians.

It is the first stages of genocide.

Again.

But this time, the world is watching.

California has an opinion.

Sending me is like spitting in America's face.

I've been and done worse.

I start with an Internet search and online maps of the troubled state.

Not. Again.

I feel certain that Brooke would approve.

Her wife was from Iowa.

GWOT V - Reunification Talks

GWOT 5 - Reunification Talks

I have been summoned to Las Vegas.

The battalion helicopter catches me working a field problem with 2nd Platoon. They are drilling, again, in preparing a hasty anti-armor defense.

One anti-tank crew per platoon is simply not enough. I have determined that everyone needs to be cross qualified as an anti-armor gunner, and this is a severe pain in the ass because we have no standardization at all.

None.

Some of our equipment is Russian bloc. Some of it is European, what is beginning to be called Pan-European but if you peel off the labels is French, Swedish, British and German. And some of it used to be American. We treasure Javelins when we can lay hold of them, they are the only long range ATGM with a prayer of taking out a Mexican main battle tank.

So having the helicopter land is an interruption and the order a nuisance; to get on board, dusty and dirty, and be flown to Barstow, then on a puddle jumper to Vegas.

But duty is duty. I turn the platoon over to its LT, the unit over to my XO and get on the chopper.

I literally don't have time to change, nor do I have a uniform to change into. I am literally chased across the tarmac at Barstow from the one aircraft to the other, which immediately takes off.

A crewwoman on the puddle jumper hands me an envelope. It is orders.

I recognize the signature of the Adjutant General of the California Republic. Not just my boss. My great grand boss. The head of the California Republic's Armed Forces, outranked only by the Governor.

I am ordered and directed to proceed to the Venetian Hotel "without the loss of a moment" and upon arrival "to take command of any California Republic Forces present" and "take into custody the notorious war criminal US Homeland General Batesman."

I read it carefully twice.

"Airman, hand me your radio."

I change frequencies and nets, and call my unit.

The RTO replies, puzzled. Only because we are airborne am I able to reach him at all.

"I need direct confirmation of written orders received. Send this on the encrypted datalink direct to Republic HQ in Sacramento, urgent priority. I need authentication for a change of mission."

The puzzled reply comes in mere minutes.

"Sir, I am ordered and directed to tell you an authentication. Seven one five three."

This matches the authenticator on the piece of paper.

"Pilot. What are your orders?"

"Fly you to Vegas."

"This is now a combat mission. I am taking operational command of this aircraft. I need you to prepare for a combat short landing."

"Sir?"

"You're going to land on the public street parallel to the Las Vegas Strip, behind the Venetian Hotel. You will not request permission to land or flight clearance. You and your crew will defend this aircraft, which is the soil of the California Republic, with force up to and including deadly force. I will dismount and return with a prisoner. You will then take off. Will you have fuel for a return flight to Barstow?"

"Maybe."

"Can you make Zzzyx?"

"Yes."

The pilot and both crew look at me as if I have lost my mind. So I pass around the letter.

"If I do not return within one hour, or it appears that overwhelming force will not permit you to take off, you will return to California territory and report the failure of my mission as soon as you have radio contact. I will be in custody or dead."

Soon enough the pilot must focus on what he's about to do.

When my cell phone gets coverage over Vegas, I call the Republic Consulate in Las Vegas.

It is a brief and tense call.

"This is Captain [18]. I need a callback, right this instant, life and death, from the head of the Talks security detachment. On your honor."

Thirty seconds later my phone rings.

"This is Colonel Hernandez."

"Colonel, Captain [18]. I have been given very unusual orders. Are you aware?"

"I have been ordered to take my orders from you, Captain, but not what they are."

Understandably he is pissed about it, too.

"We are going to combat land a puddle jumper behind the hotel. I need two of your people to meet me, preferably with a light vehicle, and take me directly to the talks. Are they in progress?"

"For another two hours, yes."

"I am evacuating a member of the delegation back to California. I expect that there will be a problem."

"Yeah."

"A big problem. A guns problem. Be ready for anything."

"Our whole delegation, or just one person?"

"Just one. But be ready to protect our delegation, and you may have to fight our way out of the city."

"Copy." He abruptly disconnects. As the head of the delegation he has contingency plans. But not for what I'm about to do.

When we land on the side street, it has been coned off by the heavily armed Venetian Hotel security. During the Firecracker, Vegas took some of her velvet gloves off and became a corporate feudal state. But still allowed thousands of prisoners to be processed through the city by Homeland.

A black SUV with California Republic flags and Nevada diplomatic plates awaits me. My face is clean thanks to a borrowed pack of baby wipes, but otherwise I am fresh from the field.

"To the talks. We interrupt them."

The diplomatic SUV has heavily tinted windows. So it's not obvious that it is carrying a full tactical team.

I introduce myself.

"This is an arrest. I am going to go into the Talks and I am going to personally, physically apprehend our target. You will then enter, lift and carry him with us back to this vehicle, then to the aircraft. This is your only mission until the aircraft takes off with the prisoner on board. This takes precedence over the protection of our delegation."

They nod grimly.

Escorted only by a single California Republic guardsman, I am shown into the hotel conference room.

The tables are arranged in a pentagon shape. There are five delegations: California, Nevada, Utah, Texas and America.

What I am about to do may restart the war.

I have my orders. They are authenticated.

I identify my target. He is sitting to the right of the American delegation. He is wearing the uniform of a US Army general with a Homeland tie pin.

I have my orders. That is the only reason that I do not immediately draw my pistol and shoot him dead.

"General Bateman!" I shout as I vault the California table. At a motion from Colonel Hernandez, all the California personnel, not just the security detail but also our diplomats, rush forward with me.

This catches everyone else utterly off guard.

The General freezes. He is just starting to stand up when I smash into him and put him into an arm bar, grinding his face into the plush carpet.

"Hands up, hands up!" our detachment is shouting, having sprouted a forest of pistols, submachine guns and even a rifle.

I zip tie the General's hands behind his back and as I do so, shout towards the ceiling.

"I arrest you in the name of the California Republic for genocide!"

The Utah and Arizona delegations draw weapons and retreat in tight knots from their tables, protecting their diplomatic staff from the breach of the peace I and my nation have committed.

The Nevada delegation is caught utterly flat footed. They have had the home field advantage. Their security detachment ... calls the police. They dare not draw, as we might shoot.

The American delegation carefully keeps their hands in the air.

They know that we will shoot and that their only hope of survival is not to even try to resist.

"This is an outrage," the American ambassador begins, to be interrupted by our ambassador.

"This IS an OUTRAGE," she screams in his face. "An OUTRAGE that your government brought THIS CRIMINAL, THIS BUTCHER, to these Talks!"

She is still screaming as the tactical team lifts General Bateman under his armpits and we rush out of the room.

Venetian Hotel security is standing there in numbers, with cradled rifles.

We rush through them as if they do not exist.

They do not shoot.

He is bundled into the SUV. He is looking around frantically, hyperventilating, starting to panic.

"I am an American..." he starts to say and I interrupt him by fisting him in the solar plexus.

"You are a war criminal, General, and I saw your handiwork with my own eyes," I hiss. "From San Diego to Redding, you turned my state into a charnel house of death! The only reason you are alive is because I have my orders! My only regret is that I am no longer Warden of Alviso Prison, because then I could give the order to hang you by the neck until you are dead, Dead, DEAD!"

He meets my eyes.

I have stared my own death in the eyes so many times. I have seen so many people die. Some of them fighting against that last dying of the light, some in so much pain they didn't know what was happening to them, some in so much pain they were grateful for it to maybe stop.

For the first time in his life, he is looking his own death in the eyes. My eyes.

The crotch of his trousers turns dark and there is a sudden sharp stink of ammonia.

The tac team has to drag him out of the car. A crowd is starting to gather. We spread out.

A single Las Vegas Police car drives up and the one officer gets out.

"What is this?" he asks mildly, muzzled by a dozen heavy guns.

"An arrest of a war criminal," I reply as he is bundled past. The cop's eyes widen.

General Bateman's fame precedes him.

I reach down to my radio.

"Take off right now," I order as I face the cop.

"I'm not going to do that. I'm the law here. You're guests and you're behaving badly. Everyone is going to stay right here until my sergeant gets here."

General Bateman is lifted aboard the plane, which immediately firewalls the engines.

"I wasn't talking to you, officer," I say without keying the radio.

The plane starts to roll.

The cop turns his head frantically.

"I of course have committed kidnapping," I say as I walk up close, too close. He pushes me back and then by instinct and training draws his firearm. Then pauses at low ready as he realizes that he is being muzzled by a dozen guns.

I raise my hands.

"I submit to your arrest, Officer," I shout as the plane rolls forward quickly, committed to take off. "I have committed a crime on your soil and I take full responsibility for my actions!"

I turn to the California Republic tac team.

"I have been arrested. I have no authority. Protect our delegation."

I draw my handgun slowly and give it to the nearest tac team member. She takes it gingerly.

Then the entire team heads back towards the ruins of the Talks.

The cop looks wonderingly at me, at the plane, at me again.

"I am not arresting you," he says slowly. He holsters and takes out a notepad and pen.

"What is your name, sir? For my report."

The plane banks towards California.

There is about a twenty minute window in which someone could scramble interceptors and force it down.

But it seems as though the cop has forgotten his radio.

Funny that.