“I understand,” Carter said.
“The escorting Cheyenne took out the enemy patrol and the other Pueblo landed and the rest of team Delta and recovered the bodies. They’ll be shipped back to the States for the burial.”
Carter nodded, “Yes, Sir.”
Carter waited for the grief to overwhelm him. Instead a cold, coiled rage infused him. This was good. Rage was better than grief. Grief was never constructive but rage could be useful. He looked away from Hicks; not wanting him to see that rage.
“Sir,” Carter said after several seconds. Was team Charlie fired on during their egress?”
“Yes,” Hicks answered. “They were about twenty minutes out from their target and one of their choppers was hit by an SA-71. But the pilot of their Cheyenne was quick on the draw; he laid down a ripple of rockets on the patrol before they could get off another shot. The Pueblo that was hit just had its gun turret knocked off of it. It had to limp home, but it made it.”
“Sir,” Carter said, this time not attempting to hide his rage. “Do you really believe that two, missile equipped infantry patrols just happened to be patrolling along to the escape routes of both teams? Or that the enemy just guessed the locations of our extraction zones in Brussels?”
“It’s extremely unlikely,” Hicks admitted.
“Extremely,” Carter agreed.
Hicks moved closer and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Doug, I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “But you can’t accuse Pope without proof. Besides, even if you had proof; you know who his father is.”
“Yes, Sir, I know who his father is,” Carter said; “and I don’t care.”
“This isn’t the place or time for this conversation.” Hicks said.
“You’re right, Sir,” Carter consented.
Hicks’ face softened. “Doug,” he said. “You’re hurt, tired and grieving. Let yourself heal. Let yourself grieve.”
“Yes, Sir,” Carter agreed.
Hicks forced a smile. “The doctors tell me that they’re going to clone you a new arm.”
Carter looked at stump protruding from the shoulder cast. “That’s right; they say I rate a cloned replacement instead of a prosthetic because there isn’t any nerve damage. They say it will take a couple of months to grow the arm. Then they’ll attach surgically. I’m looking at a few months of physical therapy learning to use it and building up strength.”
Hicks nodded. “Sains is going to go through the same shit with his foot.”
“What about Roth, Sir?” Carter asked.
“They say she’ll make a full recovery. It’s going to take a long time and a lot of work, though. Pronikov is going to make it too. Counting air crews, Operation Swift Sword cost us twenty-six lives, but all of the wounded that made it back will live.”
Carter nodded. “That’s something, Sir.”
“Damn it Doug, don’t think of Swift Sword as a defeat,” Hicks implored. “We’re only eight hours into the invasion and we’re already six kilometers inland in Norway and we’ve already broken out of the beachheads in the British Isles. Thanks to you and the teams, we’re fighting an enemy who can’t effectively communicate; an enemy composed of individual isolated, cut off units that can’t maneuver or support each other, instead of a cohesive, well organized integrated fighting force. Make no mistake, Operation Swift Sword will save a hell of a lot more lives that it cost.”
“I know that, Sir,” Carter replied. “I know it, I just don’t feel it. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Yes,” Hicks said. “I do understand.”
“It’s not just the casualties that’s bothering you, is it?” Hicks asked.
“No, Sir; it isn’t,” Carter agreed.
“Then what is it?” The general pressed.
“I watched some of the Corporate Consortium’s news feed,” Carter said, pointing toward a video monitor on a shelf bolted the sick bay’s bulkhead. “The Consortium is already talking about brokering a ceasefire. They’re going to stop us before we finish the job, Sir; before we gain a real victory.” Carter said. “Five or ten years from now the European Block will still be intact and hostile and we’ll have the Asians to worry about as well. We’ll have to start all over again.”
“Do you really think that can happen; that the leadership will allow it?” Hicks replied.
“Sir, the dollar may be the United State’s official currency, but you and I both know that it’s worthless. In reality, it’s the corporate credit that our economy depends on. If the Consortium cuts us off from the CC our economy will come crashing down. It’s the same way with WCA and the Gaia; it’s worthless. They need the CCs too; especially since the Asians have pulled out of the WCA. The only currency that’s worth a damn is the CC.”
“And the Corporate Consortium is making a fortune playing both sides in the war against one another,” Hicks concluded.
“That’s right, Sir,” Carter said, “The Consortium has no interest in peace; nothing to gain. If they can’t keep the fighting going, they’ll try to preserve the war fighting capability of all sides so everyone remains dependant on them. A brief but tense peace is almost as good as all out war.”
Hicks nodded. “If the United States wins the war, and helps the European nations regain their sovereignty, all the nations, not just the United States, could start rebuilding their economies and start using their own currency again.”
“Yes, Sir,” Carter agreed. “For over a decade, the Consortium has lent money to both sides and both sides have paid those loans with precious metals, natural resources and even by ceding land to the corporations; that’s how they got the corporate exclusion zones. Now the United States and the WCA are pretty much out of gold and silver, and we’re paying those loans in things like natural gas and coal. The worse thing is that, even when we have Americans that are starving, we’re sending a lot of food crops to the exclusion zones to pay our debt to the Consortium. And we’re doing all of this while fighting a war against an enemy who is as much in debt the Consortium as we are.”
Carter shifted slightly in the bed. “And the corporations have built their security forces into what a really private armies. Their forces are smaller than what the WCA or the United States has, but they have a pretty substantial technological advantage. They have three big space stations in orbit now and the highest level executives are living on them. I’ll bet just about anything that they can activate the paragene too.”
“I don’t if they can activate the gene,” Hicks said. “But we always a few anti satellite missiles aimed at their space stations; just to keep the at least partially honest.”
“Still,” Carter went on. “They own low Earth orbit right now; the ultimate high ground. That alone can give them a lot of geopolitical leverage.”
“And about thirty percent of the planets mineral resources are in the corporate exclusion zones,” Hicks said. “Honestly, the United States would probably be broke already if it wasn’t for the minerals and precious metals we dug up when we drilled the volcanic vents for the DARC. Some people in government want to go into large scale mining in the deepest part of the Earth’s crust. We might be able to rebuild our economy with what we find in deep core mines, but we haven’t had the resources to start mining at full potential because we’ve been fighting the war.”
“The Consortium would rather have you paying for their services with that wealth than using to rebuild our financial system. Because of the war, the Consortium is well on its way to becoming the dominant power on the planet. While the WCA and the Nationalist forces have been killing each other, the Consortium has been pulling ahead technologically. They say that they’ll have a manned mining station on the moon with ten years, and they’re talking about mining the asteroid belt within thirty years. Meanwhile, the research efforts of the WCA and the United States have been totally dedicated to military technology.”
“Congress would have to approve any cease fire, though,” Hicks countered.
Carter sho
ok his head. “With all due respect to any honest politicians, they all have a vested interest in approving a ceasefire instead of a total victory; because continued tensions will give theme and excuse to prolong the state of emergency. America hasn’t had a real election in fifteen years. We’ve gone through the motions but, under the election rules during the state of emergency, no incumbent candidate has lost an election in all that time. Those politicians, most likely including the president, aren’t going to be in a hurry to see fully Constitutional government restored.”
“Damn it, Doug,” Hicks said dejectedly. “If you’re right, then the next war we’ll have to fight will be against our own country.”
Carter fixed the general’s eyes with his. “No, Sir, Not the country Sir; just its government and, eventually, against the corporations,” Carter said. “The corporations have tied themselves to all of the governments on the planet; even the Asians are still dependant on the CC. If and when any of those governments decides they aren’t going to pay off the loans they got from the Consortium they have large, sophisticated military forces waiting to force the nations to repay those debts.”
“Even with their edge in technology,” Hicks interrupted;”They can’t believe they can take on the US or the WCA.”
“Not by themselves,” Carter said. But what if they took on the Europeans or Asians as allies; or just gave one of them some of that superior technology? We’d be pretty hard pressed to against that kind of enemy. Even threatening to do that would enable them to dictate terms. They may already being applying that can of pressure to the government. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Consortium is already calling the shot in Washington from behind the scenes. The big, multi-national corporations all but ran the government before the war anyway. Between trillions of dollars spent lobbying congress and the constant exchange of corporate executives in and out of government we haven’t had a true capitalist government since the sixties or seventies; what we’ve had is corporatist government.”
“And corporatism is just a softer kind of fascism,” Hicks concluded.
There was a long silence between the two men before Hicks spoke again. “Sergeant Nagura is outside. She knows about Monica. Is it alright if she comes in?” he said, changing the subject of the conversation to a less disturbing one.
Carter nodded. “She and Monica were like sisters; I should see her. Thanks for coming, Sir.” Hicks nodded and walked away.
Nagura’s eyes were red from prolonged crying her head was bandaged and the right side her face was badly bruised. She had been provided with somewhat worn and ill fitting basic duty uniform. She approached Carter’s bedside cautiously; as though she was unsure how he would respond to her presence. She trembled as she looked at him. Words refused to come to her lips. Tears were welling up again despite her efforts to contain them. She forced herself to take step closer to Carter; sensing Carter’s grief despite his iron-willed suppression of his emotions.
Carter’s grief stirred as he watched Nagura struggle to contain hers. He fought back that grief, though. He would grieve on his own terms. Now was the time for compassion. The woman before him now needed strength and comfort. To deny her that comfort would be an act of emotional violence.
“Come here,” he said, holding his uninjured arm out to her. She stepped into his embrace and began sobbing into his chest. He found that, by comforting her, he too found comfort.
[][][]
The steady, discordant patter of rain striking canvas accompanied the chaplain as he read the final words of scripture over the flag-draped casket. Three volleys of rifle-fire were fired and a bugler sent the familiar and haunting sound ‘Taps’ drifting over the expansive field of memorials. A flag is presented ‘on behalf of a grateful nation.’
The remnant of his left arm still in a partial cast and held against his body in a sling, Carter accepted the flag with his right hand. At his right, Mary Hicks placed her hand lightly on top of Carter’s while her husband had her other hand in his. Unable to stop herself, Mary Hicks began to cry. Her husband slipped a hand around her shoulders. This ceremony was the last of a long series of memorials that had been held in the last few weeks; it had tested everyone’s composure.
Over the protests of many, the general had returned to the United States with the FIRE teams. The rest of the Paranormal Army Command was set to spearhead the cross-channel invasion into France in a few weeks, and he would not be really needed until then. He would leave for Great Britain on the morrow, for now, though, his wife needed him, and so did the teams.
Nagura, having been one of the pallbearers, had not cried during the ceremony. She had already shed many tears for her friend, and now it was time to honor her memory. Monica, were she alive, would have been the one to bolster the spirits of the surviving team members. Nagura would now take that duty on herself. The teams were battered and weary. It would take time mend their wounded bodies and shattered hearts; Carter’s most of all.
The ceremony ended and the mourners dispersed. Carter remained. He stood at the edge of the grave coping with the final, irrevocable fact that his wife was dead; the last irrational, but comforting ember of denial now extinguished. The simmering, persistent rage that had sustained him since the Brussels mission was sustaining him now. His wife was dead and so were many steadfast brothers and sisters in arms. He was alive, though; spared so that he could avenge them.
After allowing him several minutes of solitude McNamara and Williams approached him. “Boss, I can’t tell you had bad I feel. She was a fine woman and a great friend,” McNamara said.
Williams came to stand, with the aid of crutches, at his right. “Douglas, I can’t find the words,” he said.
“There are no words, Brandon,” Carter replied. “Now it’s all about what we do.”
“You’re talking about Pope,” McNamara said.
“Yes, my friend,” Carter said, “I’m talking about Pope.”
“OK Boss,” McNamara said. “I’ve minded my own business all of this time, but now I have to know; what is the history with you two and Pope?”
“We have been ordered not discuss it,” Williams said.
“To hell with that,” Carter countered.
“I’m all ears, Boss,” McNamara prompted.
“At the beginning of the war, WCA troops had overrun Southern Texas and New Mexico and the United States had no conventional forces to spare to retake that ground. But, there were a lot of armed civilians that formed partisan resistance units that did a fare job of disrupting enemy operations in those regions. Brandon and I were with Delta at the time, but there was more of a need for people to train and coordinate those partisan units that strait trigger-pullers, so we transferred back to the Fifth Special Forces Group and were dropped into Texas to join the partisans.”
“The Texas Regulators, right?” McNamara asked.
“Right,” Carter confirmed. “We linked up with the Regulators and formed a cohesive, effective unit but we were short of weapons and ammo so we decided to hit a military armory. This was a big armory that was established after the Amazonian War, in case there was more trouble in South America. Our original plan was to do a quick raid, grab what we needed for our little unit, blow up the rest, and get out.”
“Sounds good so far,” McNamara observed.
“Yes,” Carter continued. ”But we made a mistake; we told higher command what we were going to do.”
“And the micro-managers struck again,” McNamara predicted.
“Right gain,” Carter said. “When our headquarters found out that we were hit that big-assed armory, they decided that instead of blowing up what we didn’t take, we should capture the armory and hold it while the munitions were loaded onto helicopters. The idea was that they would use those munitions to equip all of the partisan and militia units operating in the southern United States.”
McNamara Chuckled, “If there was that much shit to load, you’d have to hold the place for hours. That’s crazy.”
Will
iams nodded, “We thought so,” he said.
“Anyway,” Carter continued. “They decided to drop a company of rangers in to do the actual assault. Our partisans were just supposed to be backup and help the rangers hold the place while the choppers were loaded. Pope was in command of the rangers.”
“I don’t remember seeing a ranger tab on his uniform,” McNamara said. “What the hell was he doing leading rangers?”
“His daddy used his influence to get him the command,” Carter replied.
“Why?” McNamara asked.
“Well,” Carter said. “Pope was a major at the time. But, even after serving in an infantry unit for almost ten years; four of those during the Amazonian War, he had never seen action. That wouldn’t look so good on his record when he was up for promotion, or later when he ran for office. I think that he wanted to get in on a small, relatively safe operation where he didn’t really have to do much. That way, he could truthfully say he was a combat veteran.”
McNamara chuckled. “So he basically wanted to pad his resume’”
“That’s about right,” Carter confirmed.
“OK, I’ve got to hear the rest of the story,” McNamara prompted.
Carter took a breath. “The plan was for the rangers to assault the rear of the armory compound, while half or our partisans held the perimeter, and half formed a reserve force that could back up the rangers in the assault or respond to any counter attack. I commanded the perimeter force, Brandon had the reserve force.”
“Sensible enough,” McNamara said.
“We, thought so,” Carter agreed. “But, when the rangers made their assault, Pope froze up, and everything went to shit.”
“There was a one-hundred meter killing zone around the armory. This was surrounded by a triple layer fence.” Williams said, continuing the story. “As the rangers advanced, they were fired upon by heavy machine guns and infantry. Colonel Pope panicked, threw himself into a shallow depression that was approximately half way across the killing zone, and ordered the rangers to halt as well.”
The Fate Of Nations: F.I.R.E. Team Alpha: Book One Page 30