by Mark Lemke
CHAPTER 21
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Jansen leaned back in one of the comfortable leather seats in the private Cessna jet owned by Waxman Industries, as he headed from John Wayne Airport to a private airstrip near Ft. Bragg, just up the coast from San Francisco.? He was drinking water and reading the NeXus report on the defensive systems at the plant.? He smiled to himself.? It was so easy.? He'd let Nick Connor do his work for him.? He knew Nick from the Army.? He'd been in the Army for eight years and was a veteran of several deployments to 'the sand box'-as the guys down range referred to Iraq-when he'd been selected for the Ranger program.? The program was as intense as any in the military and consisted of a very physical ten weeks, including several weeks learning small arms tactics at Fort Benning, Georgia, a few weeks in the mountains of north Georgia learning mountain climbing and cold weather tactics, and a few weeks in the swamps of Florida learning how to survive in snake-infested waters.? Only a few of the Army's toughest were selected for this school.? Of those who began the grueling school, only thirty percent made it all the way through and earned the Ranger tab and the right to wear the tan beret, signifying a member of a Ranger Battalion.?
It was a difficult program to get into, but one that Jansen felt he deserved to be in.? He was strong and experienced.? He had a barrel chest, tattoos on his well-developed arms, and a thick neck-every bit the part of what the movies portray as soldiers.? He knew how to fight and liked to prove it every chance he got.? To him, entertainment meant going to bars at night and picking fights with the biggest guys in the place.? He'd get some cuts and bruises, but it was nothing compared to the hurt he inflicted on his opponents.
Despite being an elite program, Ranger school was something of a consolation prize for him.? Before being selected, he'd tried to get into the significantly more elite two-year Green Beret program, otherwise known as Special Forces.? It seemed he was not up to the task and washed out in the assessment and selection phase-the grueling first three weeks of the program that used physical and mental punishment to drive most of the wanna-bees to sheer exhaustion and mental collapse.? Jansen could handle the physical aspects of the training, but the cadre of instructors kept riding his ass.? Always in his face with their rules.? They didn't tell you everything you needed to know, but somehow expected you to find out where to be and when to be there.? It wasn't his fault he arrived late at times, or showed up missing key pieces of equipment.? Everywhere else in the Army, they made it very clear where you have to be and by when.? But not in SF training.? They wrote instructions, including what to wear, on a white board outside the chow hall, and then changed them with little or no notice.? Because he showed up late or unprepared, the whole group got smoked with punishing physical exercises.? The cadre would work them until they dropped or puked their guts out.? This didn't endear Jansen to the other candidates.? So at the end of the three-week period, the final activity was for each candidate to rate the others.? If the other candidates rated you as someone they did not want to go to war with, they would 'peer you out'.? Not surprisingly, Jansen didn't make the cut.? He was just too much of a prick.? The cadre could have saved him if they'd wanted to.? But in this case, they chose not to.? And the senior instructor was Nick Connor.? Jansen, of course, let everyone know he blamed Nick and all the other pantywaists for his failure in assessment and selection, taking no responsibility for his own actions.
Following that, Jansen got a shot at Rangers, where he muscled through, served a tour in a Ranger Bat, did some work for Regimental, then got out and decided to put his skills to better-and more profitable-use.
Sitting in the luxury of the private jet, Jansen believed he got the better deal, as he was poised to make a lot of money off Connor's work. ?Connor had somehow started up a contract group called NeXus, short for Nuclear Electric Utilities Security, and had what appeared to be a lucrative business providing consulting work to nuclear power plants.? But all Jansen had to do was wait for Connor to do the site evaluation, steal the results, and use the purloined information in a very profitable way.? This was specifically what Waxman Industries hired him for.? Company executives somehow knew he had a past with Connor and would want to square things.? They were sure this gave him an added incentive to complete the job no matter what.? He wasn't going to want to let Connor get the better of him-again.?
Reading through the file, Jansen smiled to himself.? He had to admit, Nick did a good job.? He was thorough in his evaluation.? But perhaps more importantly, he drew conclusions based on what he found.? Those conclusions read like a playbook.? This was going to be a cakewalk, he thought to himself.? He already had his assets in place and money to finance the operation.? Wherever the money came from, he didn't need or want to know.? He was contacted periodically and given information either through intermediaries or on a clean cell phone provided to him via FedEx.? He'd been waiting for a few of the final pieces before he was ready to go.? Those pieces were intel on the site perimeter defense weaknesses, which were now all neatly outlined in the report on his lap.?
He would implement his takeover of the plant on Friday night; and by the end of the weekend, he'd collect the money owed him.? He fantasized about going to southern Spain, taking a well-deserved vacation in a house overlooking the Mediterranean, and hiring himself out to the highest bidder for a few 'specialized' jobs.? A few more jobs like this, and he could live extremely well the rest of his life.?
He put the file down, leaned his seat back, and closed his eyes.? One thing he'd learned in Ranger training was to rest every chance he could.? He'd be busy tonight.? He could sleep more next week when this job was over.