by Eric Thomson
Ulrich sighed, something neither of them had ever witnessed before.
“This might explain why Kotto and Darien vanished without a trace,” he said, naming two of the section’s other officers. “We last heard from them when they arrived in Hadley four weeks ago. Since then, nothing. The Pacifica police are even more ruthless and less concerned with human rights than their Celestan counterparts, so if someone pulled a similar stunt on them...”
“Considering that neither Kotto nor Darien have Zack’s genius for escaping with guns blazing,” Talyn replied, “it could well be they weren’t able to play their last resort. They might be dead by now. We were lucky in many respects, sir.”
“Me being a loose cannon as usual probably helped,” Decker added, winking at Yang. The chief of staff scowled in return.
“No doubt.” Ulrich nodded. “Manfred, we should reach out to the other teams and warn them they might be compromised.”
“Half of the teams aren’t reachable by any means, unfortunately.” Yang looked like he had bitten into a sour lemon. “If there is action afoot to wipe us out, it’ll jeopardize a lot of intelligence operations.”
Decker grunted. “Smert Shpionam.”
“What now?” Yang stared at him with a bemused expression.
“Death to spies. It’s Russian — the motto of a Second World War counterintelligence organization in Communist Russia called SMERSH.”
Talyn chuckled.
“That’s my partner. A veritable fount of obscure historical trivia. Glad to see you’ve added useless data about our line of business to your fund of military knowledge.”
“Useless? Please, my dear Commander Talyn.” Decker blew her a kiss, mostly to annoy Yang. “Remember the great George Santayana? He famously said those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
“Two pieces of historical trivia in one conversation. We are truly blessed.” Her sardonic grin vanished, leaving behind a thoughtful mien. “What if the big guy with the glib aphorisms is actually on to something, sir?”
A cold smile tugged at the corners of Ulrich’s mouth. “For someone who hasn’t been a field agent long, our Marine is perceptive, I’ll grant you that. Perhaps there is a concerted effort to eliminate Naval Intelligence’s most capable operatives. We’ve given the Coalition enough bloody noses in the last few years to leave a mark. You two, in particular, have cost them billions.”
Decker nodded.
“I also wouldn’t be surprised if our tacit agreement with the Sécurité Spéciale to avoid hunting each other’s operatives was no longer in effect. We’ve given them just as many bloody noses along with a growing list of dead agents, never mind they died in action rather than through assassination. And what happened to us on Celeste was just that, an assassination attempt with a layer of plausible deniability.”
“You don’t sound particularly worried, Zack,” Ulrich remarked.
The Marine gave a nonchalant half shrug.
“If I was afraid of dying, I’d have stayed home on the farm instead of enlisting in the Corps. When it’s my time, it’ll be my time, but the Grim Reaper better be ready for a fight.”
Talyn chuckled.
“I can almost picture you taking away his scythe to cut him down instead. Just promise you’ll do that before he takes me.”
“Since we’re both still here, I’d say so far, so good.” He looked at Ulrich again. “Sir, I think something larger is going on. Sure, it feels like we’re walking around with targets on our backs. But the community of Fleet folks who routinely blow up Coalition schemes is more than just this section. I’m talking about the conventional intelligence units, my Special Forces friends, regular Pathfinders even. Maybe someone’s targeting them as well in a wider campaign to cripple the Fleet’s covert operations capacity. We ninja spooks are just one part of a larger team.”
“If we accept this death to spies fancy of yours, that is,” Yang said.
Ulrich raised a hand to still his chief of staff and gave Decker a quizzical frown.
“What brought on that leap of logic? Not that I either agree or disagree right now, but indulge my curiosity for a moment.”
The Marine’s square face took on a thoughtful expression.
“It’s a gut feeling, sir, nothing more. But looking back at the last two or three years, I can almost sense a wider pattern of sorts. We’ve always known there’s a low-level cold war between the Fleet and various factions inside and outside the government. What if someone decided to turn up the heat? It would explain a few things.”
An uneasy silence followed Zack’s statement, then Talyn said, “Huh. I guess my partner is developing the right instincts. I think he may be on to something, Captain. Since we’re grounded for a few weeks, how about Zack and I go through the list of operations gone wrong? And the list of people in the wider covert ops community who disappeared or died over the last few years? We’re one of the rare sections with broad enough access to classified information, so I don’t think anyone has so far tried to map out disparate events and find connections.”
“Somehow, I can’t see Major Decker as a desk analyst,” Yang said. “He doesn’t have the training, and even your days riding data streams are long behind you.”
“Actually, Commander,” Decker replied with a sweet smile, “if anyone around here can analyze Special Forces and Pathfinder covert ops gone wrong, it’ll be me. Hera can take care of the spook cases.”
Before Yang could utter a retort, Ulrich nodded.
“Make it so. Let’s see if there’s a pattern or if Major Decker’s historical fancies are nothing but vapor.”
*
“And another one.” Decker looked up from his screen at the large display covering one wall of the room they had taken over for their analysis. A new name winked into existence in the column ‘Spec Ops Personnel,’ joining others who had a notation indicating deceased. This one didn’t.
“She’s the first exception I found. Contrary to the others, she might still be alive.”
Talyn and Decker had so far come up with the names of over one hundred individual members of the wider covert operations community who vanished or died under suspicious circumstances during the last twenty-four months. In addition, Decker had compiled a depressingly long list of failed Special Forces and Pathfinder missions, joining the failed intelligence operations itemized by Talyn.
“Ariane Redmon,” Talyn said, glancing at the newest addition to Decker’s so-called Smert Shpionam list. She looked down at her screen again and tapped it. “Former major, 1st Special Forces Regiment. Dismissed from the Armed Services in disgrace and condemned to exile. Classified court-martial. I assume you obtained access to that file?”
“Yep. And it looks screwier than catching the boss in a tutu.”
“I assume by the boss,” a deep voice boomed from the door, “you mean your immediate superior, Major?”
Decker swiveled his chair around and grinned at Captain Ulrich.
“Hera in a tutu is a frightening thought, sir.”
“Indeed.” Ulrich scanned the crowded display. “Are these names and operations associated with inexplicable events? Or at least events you consider to present suspicious features?”
“Yes.” Talyn nodded. “They represent about half of the files we’ve examined so far.”
“And do you see a pattern yet?”
“No, sir,” she replied
“I disagree,” Decker said. “There’s a pattern. It’s just not obvious.”
“Oh?” Both Ulrich and Talyn turned to stare at the Marine.
“None of the disappearances, incidents, accidents, and failed operations are linked in a manner that would attract our attention or that of our counterintelligence colleagues across the hall.”
“Sorry, Zack,” Talyn said, shaking her head. “I’m not following you.”
“The covert ops community is relatively small in the grand scheme of things, right? We’re pretty much only two degrees of separati
on from each other, three at most, including Tier One and Tier Two Special Forces.”
“Sure.” Talyn sat back, a thoughtful expression transforming her severe features.
“So it stands to reason that among almost a hundred and fifty suspicious incidents involving the covert ops community, we should find a few that show obvious connections. Stuff like a Pathfinder Squadron NILO vanishing right before a combat drop that turns into a disaster, for example. So far, nothing has cropped up, and we’re both smart enough to detect connections when we come across them.”
This time, Ulrich nodded.
“I see what you’re getting at, Major. If there is a concerted effort directed at covert ops, they’ve taken pains to keep individual actions compartmentalized. It prevents folks such as us from noticing that different events are tied together. Of course, some would say the notion reeks of paranoia.”
“Even paranoids have enemies, sir,” Decker pointed out. “But if I wanted to cripple the Fleet’s covert warfare capabilities with no one noticing, this is how I’d do it. Don’t carry out actions which, if taken together, might alert a sharp analyst. Keep it nicely spread out until you’re in a position to go for the jugular.”
“If you’re correct, then what actually frightens me,” Ulrich said after a moment of silent reflection, “is that we — Naval Intelligence writ large — didn’t realize we’re under attack.”
“There’s no ‘if’ about it, sir. Someone’s revived a version of SMERSH, or at least its underlying idea.” Decker waved at the crowded display. “I doubt we’re looking at just one or two traitors in the ranks. It takes a lot more to do this much damage. We need to sort it out before we’re too far gone to fight back.”
When Ulrich didn’t respond, he continued.
“Okay, maybe it sounds like I’m smoking wacky weed here. But tell me, Captain, in your time with intelligence, have you ever seen this sort of butcher’s bill in such a short period? And if not, ask yourself why a dumbass Marine is pointing out something that should trigger alarms all over the place, especially in the counterintelligence division. Yet no one’s said a word. This isn’t just failure to realize we’re under attack, sir. It’s fucking treason, in this very building, under the Chief of Naval Intelligence’s nose.”
Talyn grimaced.
“On further consideration, I’m afraid Zack, who’s the furthest thing from a dumbass Marine I know, could be right. He has a different way of looking at things. It probably stems from not being tainted by years in this business. But where does that leave us? I can’t even see a single straw I can grasp.”
Ulrich pulled up a spare chair and sat at the room’s single table, forehead creased in thought.
“I’m about to let my inner paranoid out for a breath of fresh air and order you to keep your theories, and the results of your analysis restricted to us three and Manfred. No one else is to know we’re investigating. Now, as to grasping at straws, you were about to discuss a case with differences from the others, Major?”
“Yes, sir. Ex-Major Ariane Redmon. She was the 1st Special Forces Regiment’s S-3, responsible for operations. A year ago, the military police charged her with twenty counts of culpable homicide. They supposedly stemmed from a classified operation during her time as officer commanding C Squadron. A closed, classified court-martial found her guilty. She was dismissed with disgrace from the Armed Services and condemned to exile for life on Desolation Island.”
“How does this tie in with the rest?” Ulrich asked. “Most of the people on your list have vanished without a trace or died under suspicious circumstances.”
“There’s too much wrong with the case file. First, no member of the Special Forces has ever been charged with culpable homicide for something that happened on operations. People die during missions, sometimes even innocent civilians. But the one thing the Special Forces do well, is keep nut cases with a defective sense of morality out of the unit. I can’t see someone make major in the Special Forces Regiment and have a lapse of judgment severe enough to cause the wanton killing of twenty civilians. It simply doesn’t happen.”
“Exceptions will always exist, Zack,” Talyn said.
“Not like this. But as they say — wait, there’s more. The charges came unexpectedly almost three years after the incident and the indictment doesn’t list a complainant. It’s as if this materialized through sheer magic. The charges claimed Redmon ordered an operation against a suspected guerrilla hideout, knowing full well beforehand they would need to kill those twenty civilians to reach the target, hence the term culpable.”
He took a deep breath and exhaled before continuing.
“Going back to my first point. No Marine in the Special Forces Regiment would ever, under any circumstances, engage in the wanton killing of innocents. They’d either scrub the mission or reconfigure it. It can happen by accident, sure, but never with full foreknowledge. How long do you think it would take the troops to figure something was wrong? They’d abort and withdraw in an instant, and then report and I mean make a formal statement, for the record. Yet it took three years for this to surface?”
“Okay, now I’m interested,” Talyn said, cocking an eyebrow.
“It gets better. The defense witnesses denied that these civilians even existed. To a man, they testified the casualties were guerrillas and stated that they’d taken extensive imagery along with weapons and equipment as proof. But when her defense lawyer tried to obtain the visuals from the mission log, said records had vanished. The prosecution, however, provided evidence to the contrary, although none of the witnesses from C Squadron recognized a shred of it.”
Decker shook his head.
“You’d think that would have been enough for reasonable doubt, but no. The court found Redmon guilty. Strangely, no one laid charges against the troopers who allegedly pulled the trigger, even though the excuse of having merely followed orders went out of fashion a few centuries ago. Not to mention that special operators are held to a higher standard precisely because they so often find themselves in morally ambiguous situations.”
“So you’re saying this Redmon was falsely accused and condemned?” Ulrich asked.
“Sure looks that way. No one up the chain of command seems to have questioned the findings and leave to appeal was denied within hours.”
“Assuming someone railroaded her, how does that fit with your Smert Shpionam theory?”
“Redmon was S-3 of the Special Forces Regiment. She had a finger on the pulse of every special op carried out by her unit, and only the smartest get that sort of responsibility. It made her a high-value target, considering how closely our lot works with her former unit.”
Ulrich nodded.
“Plausible. What do you propose doing with this information?”
Decker gave him a lazy grin.
“I’m due for a visit up the road to Fort Arnhem anyhow, and I believe my partner here is about to lose her NILO qualification if she doesn’t do a refresher jump. While we’re there, I want to exchange a few quiet words with the folks of C Squadron and anyone else involved.”
“You know participants in a classified court-martial can never speak of anything related to it, witnesses included, right?” Talyn asked.
“These are my people, honey,” he replied. “If Redmon’s been screwed over, they’ll be waiting for someone like me to show up and ask about the truth. Or was that question really to hide the fact you’re not happy with the notion of jumping?”
“Captain Ulrich’s presence prevents me from giving you the reply you deserve. But if he doesn’t object, then sure, let’s take a road trip and visit your crazy friends who voluntarily step off perfectly good shuttles in low orbit. I haven’t enjoyed the warm comfort of a pressure suit in a while anyhow.”
Five
“Well, well, well, the prodigal son returns. It’s like we can’t keep him away,” a loud voice boomed when Decker and Talyn climbed out of their aircar on the doorstep of the Pathfinder School. “Did you lose your dag
ger again, Major, sir, or is it time for your semi-annual qualification jump?”
Decker turned and glowered at a dark-skinned, bearded man with a sergeant major’s starbursts on his sleeves and gold Pathfinder wings on his chest.
“Neither your looks nor your manners have improved since the last time, you reject from a gargoyle factory.” The two men grasped each other by the forearms. “I understand you’ve been lying to the newbies about me.”
“They wouldn’t have believed the truth, so I had to make things up. You know how it is.” Joshua Bayliss gave Decker a wicked grin. “How are you, buddy?”
“One still hanging lower than the other. You?”
“Never better, even if every crop of trainees tries to kill me.”
They let go, and Bayliss turned to Talyn.
“How about you, Commander? It’s been a while since we’ve seen you around here. Is Zack becoming a proper spook?”
“I don’t think he’ll ever lose his appetite for blowing things up, and we spies need to be discreet, so I have to say no.”
“You’ve played with high explosives often enough, my dear Commander,” Decker said. “Besides the last time I was indiscreet with firepower, it blew our asses out of the frying pan and into a shuttle, so I see no basis for complaint.”
Bayliss snorted.
“Nope. He hasn’t changed a bit. What brings you two here?”
“Some not so ancient history, Josh. We need to speak with a few folks who were in C Squadron under Ariane Redmon. And maybe Hera and I can do a few jumps with whatever class you’re running. Even spies like us need to stay current. You never know when the best way in is from above.”
“Or Zack could, while I watch from the ground, like a good NILO,” Talyn said.
“Every Naval Intelligence liaison officer goes through the basic course nowadays, Commander, not just the ones working in special operations,” the school sergeant major replied, giving Zack a conspiratorial wink. “If you want to keep the qualification current, you need to keep your jump status current.”