Operation Chaos

by Watkins, Richter

  She said, “Tell me something. You’re a Metzler follower, I’ve gathered, so what is his goal? What does he want, when all is said and done?”

  Duran gave her a look, smiled, and said, “He has no goal, as far as I know, other than making sure his people, the vets and contractors who worked with them in Iraq and Afghanistan, are not screwed and abandoned and left in the dust. There are people who want to use us for other purposes. He’s against that. He doesn’t want us used by anybody. And because of that, he’s pretty much worshiped.”

  “What about Keegan?”

  “That’s different. Keegan’s seen as part of the problem. But you need to understand that Keegan is also seen as one of the most dangerous people on the planet. And for that, well, he’s respected on that level.”

  As they waited, Rainee Hall processed this with growing anxiety and angst. She stood between two of the greatest warriors on the planet, who were in opposition, each determined to thwart the other. One for the program, whatever it was, and one against. And they were both her guys. Her former patients. The idea that, at some point, she might have to choose between them was painful in the extreme. These were not just patients—these were men she had a connection to in a deeper way than if they were her lovers, or sons. War is the responsible party. It creates connections, emotional bonds, beyond what is normal.

  War is very strange in that way. War is the breakdown of civilization. Those who engage, whatever their position, are in something extreme. War is the most primitive and essential of survival activities. Those who have known it are never like those who have not. It’s just an experience outside of the collective, tribal, usual matrix. Rainee Hall’s profession, history, and experience in war zones conditioned her to that phenomenon. But the one thing she’d never envisioned was that the wars would come home and become something dangerous.

  They were cleared to go. Now the pace picked up. They skirted dumpsters and trash piles, burned out cars and warehouses with broken out windows.

  It seemed like an hour of steady jogging. L.A. was beginning to fall behind them now. And the river ahead, off to their right. They slowed to a walk.

  Keegan came back to her after talking with Metzler. “How are you doing?” he asked, looking over and nodding at Duran.

  “Maybe more importantly,” she said, “how are we doing?”

  In the moonlight, that right eye of his had a nearly metallic shine. “I don’t know yet,” he said. “We’ll know more at camp. You’ll get your opportunity to talk to Metzler, see what you can do.”

  She saw that he still believed there was a chance Metzler might decide to come in out of the dark. He was one of those optimistic types, one of those true believers who thought at some point everyone would come to the reality, the necessity, the truth.

  No chance, she thought. You’re utterly disengaged from our reality.

  But she said nothing.

  They moved out again, Keegan going on ahead down along some railroad tracks to the river.

  She started to think seriously of some other course of action, like bringing in some of her contacts and seeing what they might come up with.

  She thought of one of the men who’d pleased her in so many ways, but a man she’d lost. Jason Styles. He was a superstar in her mind. He had his grip on some of the most sensitive and powerful intel operatives in the country. He led more dark operations than anyone she knew about. And he was her advisor in the congressional hearings. At the moment he was running a new psywar training center at the naval base on Coronado Island.

  He would be her guy. But first she had to have something to give him.

  The camp would be where things would be decided, where she would learn what the real situation was and how Metzler and Keegan would deal with each other.

  Both Metzler and Keegan were now undoubtedly on some kill list. Maybe she was there as well, but they needed her and that might give her some leverage down the road. If there was a “down the road.”

  She turned to Duran, as they were now reaching the river. “The men in these camps—are they Metzler’s?”

  “Yes. They’re a mix of vets, homeless alcoholics and druggies, some criminal elements hiding out. Many are former contractors. But Metzler is their hero. I’d say the majority in the river camps are contractors from Iraq and Afghanistan.”

  The highest rate of PTSD victims actually were contractors. They outnumbered the combat units in sheer numbers in war zones, had to deal with different and dangerous circumstances, and were often totally overlooked.

  They stopped along the bank in some trees.

  After a few minutes, Mora informed her that there were mini-drones at low altitudes. “Time for the butterfly killer,” he said.

  “What is that?”

  “Duran is the expert. It’s called a butterfly killer. Butterflies being the tiny drones everybody is using these days. Police, crooks, and feds. It tracks any getting close and can send out multiple search-and-destroy signals to the drones’ electronics. They have, generally, very tight inscription, but these killers are designed for that. It’s all a matter of staying ahead of the game.”

  They moved up to where Metzler, Duran, and Keegan were huddled; Duran had the little tube, which looked like a miniature shotgun with a smartphone.

  She saw the small screen of a device reading something from one of the screens. He fired off pulse after pulse.

  “Got two,” Duran said, looking at the small screen. “We’re good.”

  Mora turned to her and said, “Duran is the nerd. Man understands the digital world way beyond what I can even imagine. He lives in that universe.”

  Rainee said, “And what universe do you live in?”

  “I’m just a basic blood-and-guts kinda guy. Baseball and hotdogs.”

  Rainee smiled. She liked Mora.

  They headed off toward the river.

  29

  They moved in single file, at quickstep, along a trail to the river, dodging rusted-out grocery carts and other junk, moving like soldiers in a hurry, escaping a city under siege.

  Finally, mercifully, the air began to clear. No longer did her lungs burn from tear gas and tire smoke as they moved away from the combat zone of L.A.

  They stopped. A group of men moved across their path. There was some conversation between the men with Metzler.

  Rainee said, “I feel like I’m in a nasty episode of Game of Thrones.”

  Duran said, “Believe it—you are.”

  They moved out but again were stopped. Keegan and Metzler then talked for a few minutes to some long-bearded homeless guys who camped in the brush near the river.

  Another argument broke out between Keegan and Metzler. Duran went over to join in.

  Rainee stood with Mora, before them, the dark ribbon of water; behind, the city on fire.

  “If those two can’t agree on anything,” Mora said, “and they can’t, I think we are doomed.”

  “Sounds like a description of the country at large,” Rainee said.

  Mora nodded. “How the hell did things end up like this?”

  “Bad wars lead to messed-up societies,” Rainee said. “Some historian, whose name escapes me at the moment, said that intact armies never launch radical movements or rebellion, or are even subject to proselytizing, but a shattered army, reduced not by defeat, but by an absence of victory, an absence of reason, will return in pieces and under extreme duress, and will not transition well back to society. That’s what we have here. All these soldiers living in limbo are ripe for radicalization. I think that’s what’s very scary.”

  “You got that right,” Mora said. “There’s one hell of a lot of anger out there in the alleys, in the streets, and in the camps. And now it’s getting organized across the country. Add to that the nanobots, brain crawlers, minibots, and it’d scare anybody.”

  What she’d always liked about Mora, when she ran into him during the various Stand Down projects, was the ultimate dedication to his fellow soldiers and the sardoni
c personality. This guy went from combat to his return and continued his work, above ground and below, to help his fellow soldiers deal with their problems. The world around him might be going to hell, but Mora, and guys like him, never stopped.

  She watched the men who were in a tight circle talking down by the river just below her. She saw no good end to any of this.

  Duran came over to them. “Our river taxies are coming, folks.”

  “River taxies?”

  “Well, dinghies. But they’ll get us down to the camps. Hopefully. And then maybe we can figure something out.”

  Off to the north of the river, a chopper flew low and slow and they watched it. Then it turned and headed back toward L.A.

  It the distance, she saw two boats edging up toward them.

  30

  Their water taxies turned out to be two rubber dinghies operated by scraggly looking older guys.

  Keegan came over and ushered her into one of the boats, then got in with her. “We need to talk before we get to one of the camps,” he said.

  They sat in the back seat of the dinghy. Duran and Mora took the middle seat.

  The driver of their boat pulled out behind the one Metzler got in with four other men and they headed down the dark ribbon of water, away from L.A.

  “If Metzler doesn’t come down off his mountain,” Keegan said, “it’s going to be really bad for his people. We can’t let that happen.”

  They moved slowly through a junk-littered stretch before moving into a wider stream.

  Where the river was more open and the sloped cement banks were steep, they moved fast, so as not to get out in the open with no easy escape.

  The thin, fierce, older man who was driving the boat smoked a cigarette, referred to everyone as captain, talked nonstop, and reminded Rainee of her uncle.

  She turned to Keegan, “I don’t know if that’s possible. Metzler doesn’t look like he’s going to be amenable. And he’s killed a Blacksnake team. So he might not be well received even if he was.”

  Keegan didn’t look happy about her attitude. “You need to at least try and get through to him. It’s critical.”

  She didn’t reply. As they moved downriver, the boat driver informed them all about “his” river, how they had failed to revitalize it, get rid of the junk. “Long time the goddamn Army Corps of Engineers refused to even call it a river. Water moving is what? Somebody taking a piss. You take it all the way to Long Beach, you could die from the goddamn pollution because they didn’t deem it worthy.” He went on and on about his “river.”

  Rainee said in a low voice to Keegan, “He reminds me of my uncle—”

  “Who was your uncle?”

  “A riverine boat gunner in the Mekong Delta during the last years of the Vietnam War.”

  “Still alive?”

  “Very much so. He lives on the Silver Strand, which connects Imperial Beach with Coronado Island. Has his boat there. Goes up and down the coast fishing and who knows what. I think he has a lady in Peru. He’s the wild child of the family. Spent some time in jail in Costa Rica. Has alcohol and drug issues. I haven’t seen him in a while. But he’s one of my favorites. Doesn’t play games and does mince words. He’s as real as they come.”

  They entered a wider channel with sloped sides and picked up speed.

  “You really need to get to Metzler,” Keegan said. “It’s the only way to end this peacefully. This can end very bad for him and his people.”

  “You want me to convince him to go with us to the Facility?”

  “Yes.”

  “In spite of what’s happened?”

  “Yes. That won’t matter in the scheme of things. We’re not dealing with some small issue.”

  “Killing a Blacksnake team won’t matter?”

  “They’ll look at it as a mistake, collateral damage. It’s too big for something like that to interfere. What happened to him needs to be understood. It’s critical.”

  “And if I fail?”

  “Don’t. Look at it this way—your former patients, the ones you’ve been searching for, all depend on your success with Metzler. It’s as simple as that. What happened to him has happened to others. Some of them are dead.”

  “From the work done on them, or from being assassinated?”

  He didn’t answer. His face was severe, as if something had hit him hard.

  Rainee was astonished that he had still had no doubt about the mission he was on. This was the wreck she’d pulled out of the Swat Valley. He was to her at the time just a mass of destruction fighting to survive. Now he was a soldier in an army that involved her greatest nemesis—the man she’d tried to take down.

  They moved in silence and ease for a time. It was very strange being in the second largest city in the nation, yet here, just beyond its reach, it felt like it was some remote wilderness.

  They passed quietly under an overpass and left behind beleaguered downtown, into a stretch that was dark and quiet. They occasionally bumped into floating debris. It felt a little like some post-apocalyptic venue.

  The boats stopped. Something was happening on the banks ahead.

  Metzler’s boat was almost beside them now. He was talking to somebody in a voice she couldn’t hear clearly.

  They resumed and entered into the widest channel after going under what the graffiti announced was Cesar Chavez Avenue. That meant they were going parallel to the 710, heading in the direction of Maywood.

  The silence was broken by explosions somewhere behind and north of them.

  “What’s happening?” she asked Keegan.

  “Mini-drones in action. We’re not involved.”

  Moments later, the boats both retreated into the weeds on the bank. Keegan said they would walk from here to the camp nearby. She followed him up the bank and into the trees.

  Rainee said, “Are we clear?”

  “Not with certainty,” Keegan said. “We’re still signaling hot with the devices we have. But so much is out there that it’s difficult to differentiate. They can’t really know who we are.”

  “What do you mean by ‘hot’?”

  “Every device we have—encrypted phones, smart cards, biometric devices work on a level that’s like algorithms talking to higher levels of algorithms.”

  It was that simple statement that hit her. Was that the future? Algorithms talking to algorithms? Maybe it was. She decided that Keegan understood the future maybe better, in some respects, than she did. But not in others.

  After a short trek through undergrowth and palm trees, they reached the edge of an encampment full of tents, lean-tos, and a smoldering fire with a dozen men around it.

  They stood on a bush- and tree-covered knoll above the river.

  In the solemn, threatening dark of predawn, Metzler held everyone back short of the camps.

  Something’s happening.

  Keegan stood with her and waited.

  Metzler came back to them and said, “National Guard is tightening their grip on the roads. They’re going to cut off every exit. We either return to the underground or get the hell out of here before all the freeways get closed off and L.A. is isolated.”

  He walked over to Rainee and Keegan. “We need to settle this fast.”

  Metzler then said he needed to talk to Rainee, if Keegan didn’t mind. Keegan nodded.

  Metzler guided her away from Keegan and the others. “What is the situation with him and with you?”

  He pointed to some rocks and stumps.

  31

  The moment Rainee had been waiting for may finally have arrived. The truth about what was going on.

  She and Metzler sat in the dark, well away from the others. Metzler took a large rock, sitting with his arms crossed, then he uncrossed them, putting his hands on his thighs.

  Rainee settled on a nearby tree stump and waited for the conversation, the revelation, the reality.

  Metzler glanced at Mora and Duran in the trees some distance away, then turned back to her and said, “What you
need to know is that there are highly trained cells in every major city waiting for their orders. They are vets who have been upgraded and trained. They are strike cells.”

  “Their objective?”

  “I’m sure you have already guessed.”

  “I like confirmation,” Rainee said.

  Metzler studied her for a moment, turned, and looked toward the camp, and Keegan. He came back to her. “Their purpose is, when ordered, to trigger chaos through assassinations and triggered riots. When there is a full-scale crisis all across the country, quelling it will demand military intervention and martial law. That’s the goal. That’s what it’s all about. And I was, for a time, as much a true believer as Keegan in the need for this.”

  It was no shock to her. This was the dream of Raab and his generals. She’d just never paid serious attention. Rainee said, “These cells are in all the major cities?”

  “Yes. They can create a crisis that will make those in South America, the Middle East, and Europe look like strolls in the park.”

  She stared at him. “The cell leaders, are they—”

  “Yes,” he said, anticipating her, “many of them are your former patients.”

  She didn’t like hearing that.

  “Z3,” Metzler said.

  “Was that done at the Facility?”

  “Yes. That is where I, and most of your patients, ended up. It’s where the beginning of training started for almost all the cell leaders.”

  She stared at him. It was like her worst nightmare.

  He said, “This is a very big operation. It was started by some very angry retired generals and a few who are still active. It spread to various branches of government and the intelligence agencies. They’ve been recruiting in Homeland, CIA, and NSA. And, I’m sure, others. I don’t have access to the full scope of the tentacles, but I know they’re getting ready to do what they’ve been planning for a long time.”