Fortress Doctrine (Maelstrom Rising Book 5)

by Peter Nealen

  AMBUSH

  The Humvee hadn’t mounted a full armored turret; aside from the splinter shield around the M2, the gunner was completely exposed. The rounds tore through him and he dropped, getting caught up on the M2’s grips and the turret ring, his corpse hanging partway out on the roof.

  LaForce had already opened fire next to Hank, hammering more rounds into the front tires. They apparently weren’t run-flats, as they immediately collapsed as the driver stomped on the gas, making the vehicle swerve off the road and onto the softer shoulder.

  To the other two enemy gunners’ credit, they reacted quickly. Machineguns swiveled toward the golf course and roared, spitting fire and red tracers over the Triarii’s heads.

  Fortunately, they didn’t know where the fire had come from, and were shooting far too high. The bullets crackled as they flew overhead, sailing out over the golf course and back toward the curve of the river beyond.

  Unfortunately for them, they weren’t watching their six. And those other two trucks weren’t armored.

  Suppressed gunfire tore through the gunner and the cab of the rear vehicle before any of the narcos knew what had happened. The paired HK-21s’ roar had drowned out the softer cracks of the suppressed 7.62 M5s. The rear machinegun falling silent was the only warning the second gunner got.

  As the middle gunner started to swivel back toward the rear, a single shot from up on the hill behind Hank tore through his torso. He lurched, seemed to grasp at air for a second, then bounced off the HK-21’s receiver and collapsed into the bed of the truck.

  FORTRESS DOCTRINE

  MAELSTROM RISING BOOK 5

  Peter Nealen

  This is a work of fiction. Characters and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Some real locations are used fictitiously, others are entirely fictional. This book is not autobiographical. It is not a true story presented as fiction. It is more exciting than anything 99% of real gunfighters ever experience.

  Copyright 2020 Peter Nealen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, to include, but not exclusive to, audio or visual recordings of any description without permission from the author.

  Maelstrom Rising is a trademark of Peter Nealen. All rights reserved.

  Printed in the United States of America

  http://americanpraetorians.com

  Prologue

  To: Santiago@bastion.info

  From: MerovichG2@bastion.info

  Subject: Current Situation Brief

  Sir,

  As requested, I’m including an overview of the last month’s significant events. As you are well aware, the Stateside situation is still volatile, and while we have troops in contact overseas, the information we are getting from Poland is necessarily sparse. As we continue to build our own radio mesh network, that should change, but the Transatlantic gap will still throttle information, simply due to the nature of long-range HF comms. So, the bulk of this report will focus on the CONUS situation.

  Both coasts and many of the major Midwestern and Southwestern metro areas continue to present significant operational and logistical challenges. While we have eliminated several of the IED cells that had all but brought long-range transport to a halt in many states, we still assess the threat on many major interstates as high. Another truck bomb was detonated on I-5 just south of Tacoma two days ago as of this writing, killing at least fifty people, wounding close to a hundred more, and destroying three semis loaded with food and medical supplies.

  The IED cells, however, while a significant threat, are not the only factor. The continued domestic unrest poses the greatest threat to any relief or stability operations. The fact that electrical power still has not been restored in approximately seventy-five percent of the affected areas—in no small part due to the unrest and rampant crime that has accompanied the blackout—has only made matters worse. Desperation has led many people to attempt to take what they need by force, which has only exacerbated the violence. Furthermore, the lack of essential services has not only led to deaths from exposure as winter has set in, but disease is reported to be rampant in many of the affected metro areas.

  Clashes have also been reported in many surrounding rural areas, as refugees from the cities have been met with hostility, some of it apparently justified, some not. Reports of desperate refugees attempting to storm rural homes and small towns for supplies seem to be roughly evenly matched with rural residents turning them aside at gunpoint before they can reach said towns and properties.

  It is impossible to give hard and fast numbers at this point in time, but we believe that a current death toll of no less than 150,000, with considerably more than that to come as winter continues, is a relatively conservative estimate.

  The financial and economic repercussions are still being assessed, as the extent of the cyber attacks on the markets just before the grid went down has not yet been fully cataloged. I don’t think that anyone disputes that the damage is profound and will be extremely long-lasting.

  The West Coast situation is still being dealt with piecemeal. San Diego and Long Beach ports appear to now be under mostly Marine and Navy control, and the Chinese presence in those cities has pulled back. Local unrest, fueled by those who had become dependent on the Chinese aid packages, has continued, and San Diego especially is still plagued by Soldados de Aztlan and other gang violence.

  San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle are believed to still be partially under Chinese control, though they are still maintaining their façade of “humanitarian aid,” further bolstered by what remains of local government. That said, those local governments appear to be little more than figureheads, propped up and enabled by Chinese tech, without which they would be as silent as any other basic service providers in the affected areas.

  We have inserted small reconnaissance and surveillance teams into the target areas, and they are reporting similar activities as those that Grex Luporum Team II and their trail sections reported in San Diego. While their resources and manpower are limited, the Chinese appear to be putting “grassroots” control measures in place, utilizing existing insurgent networks, supported by the local governments, to target any of the more outspoken opponents of their presence, while bolstering security on any vital infrastructure under their direct control.

  So far, the Chinese do not appear to have attempted to extend their influence outside of those metro areas. Their focus still appears to be primarily directed toward control of the ports. Rangers and Special Forces out of Joint Base Lewis McChord have conducted operations in and around the Seattle Tacoma area, but as yet, their effectiveness has not been determined. They seem to have limited their attentions to Chinese personnel exclusively, while ignoring their proxies.

  We have yet to mount any further major operations in the West Coast crisis zones since the San Diego operation. The major targets there have long been low on our target priority list, due to the local governments’ hostility, and current logistical concerns make long-term operations in such non-permissive environments extremely difficult, at best.

  Washington DC has begun to issue official statements, somewhat delayed by the power outages, DDOS attacks on main communications outlets, and political wrangling. While disappointing, it appears that the official line on the Chinese incursions has been weak, at best. While recognizing that they were incursions, the blame is being deflected from Beijing toward “overly aggressive responses on the part of private security firms contracted by the relief organizations.” A direct attack on our West Coast ports is being dismissed as a misundersta
nding.

  It is our belief that this is due in no small part to two main factors. The first is simply fear that we do not have the resources—never mind the national cohesion in the aftermath of the attacks—to deal with internal strife, a humanitarian disaster of unprecedented scope in American history, a war in Europe, and war with China. The other factor would be continued Chinese financial and political influence at the highest levels of our own government and industry, despite the pull-back over the last few years.

  Regardless of the above mentioned factors, there is a growing body of evidence—not least the speed with which Chinese “relief efforts” appeared off the West Coast—that China is a central player in the current crisis on both sides of the Atlantic. To ignore that fact for expediency’s sake would be imprudent at best. That said, the current domestic crisis is of such scope that it will likely take years, if not decades, to stabilize.

  I know that you are well aware of this, sir. But I fear that if we concentrate too much on the domestic situation, by the time we can turn our attention to Beijing, they will have maneuvered so far ahead of us that we will be defeated by default. Our current resources are limited, but it is my belief that we still need to act internationally as well as internally, as soon as possible, before we find ourselves on the back foot permanently.

  We have discussed the so-called “Fortress Doctrine” before. I believe that it will be our best option going forward.

  Chapter 1

  It was starting to get chilly as the last of the sunset faded away. Hank Foss didn’t shiver as he walked down toward Overwatch Three, but he could feel the desert chill sinking into his bones. The nearness to the river only added a sharper bite to the cold. It wasn’t near freezing yet, but mid-forties in the desert at night can still sap body heat quickly.

  Getting old.

  He had to admit that he wasn’t quite as robust as a retired Gunny as he’d been as a hard-charging Lance Corporal. The cold bit a little more deeply, his knees ached a lot more, and it took more effort to get up, whether in the morning or the middle of the night.

  But I ain’t dead yet. And there’s still work to be done.

  The gravel crunched underfoot as he and Huntsman walked down Paul Estevez’s driveway. The Rio Grande river valley was deathly quiet in the winter evening, making the sound of their footsteps strangely loud. Even the wind was barely a whisper. A coyote yipped and howled in the distance, but there was no telling how far away it was in the otherwise unbroken desert silence.

  The lights were off. Texas had fared somewhat better than large swathes of the rest of the country when the grid had gone down, and some intermittent electrical power was coming back. But the key word there was “intermittent.” It had been on for about six hours in the last week. Everything else in Lajitas was running on generators, batteries, or was back to the 1800s.

  The two Triarii infantrymen, dressed in desert khakis and full combat gear, their M5E1 rifles hanging on slings in front of them, would have appeared incongruous in a resort town like Lajitas even a few months before. But when they stepped up to Estevez’s door and knocked, the portly older man didn’t even blink when he cracked the door open.

  “What do you want?” Estevez was wearing sweats and house slippers, lit from behind by a roaring fire in a hastily-installed steel drum wood stove. A lot of those had been going into houses as winter came on and the electricity still wasn’t reliable. Not all of them had had good results, either. A lot of people had already died of carbon monoxide poisoning due to poor stovepipe installation.

  “We’re just here to check on the overwatch position, Mr. Estevez,” Hank said. “And to make sure that everything’s all right.”

  “Everything’s fine, except for a damned machinegun nest on my property.”

  Hank sighed quietly, though he didn’t let his annoyance show more than it normally did. His hatchet face and semi-permanent scowl tended to get the impression across, anyway.

  They’d been over this many times. Only the pressure from the rest of the local militia, not to mention Sheriff Trujillo up in Alpine, had finally prevailed to get the overwatch position placed in Estevez’s back yard. He’d even conceded the fact that it was the most logical position, but he still bitched about it at every opportunity.

  “Well, then, have a good night.” Hank wasn’t going to rise to the bait. He was too tired.

  Huntsman hadn’t said a word; in fact, he hadn’t gone all the way up onto Estevez’s porch. The younger man had been in the running to be a squad leader; in fact, Hank still had him pegged to fill a slot if one opened up. But he didn’t like dealing with the more combative civvies in Lajitas, and Hank couldn’t say he blamed him.

  He turned and stepped down off the porch, not bothering to look over his shoulder as Estevez shut the door. Huntsman fell in at his flank as he started around the two-story house and toward the dug-in Overwatch Three.

  “That was pleasant as always.” Huntsman might not have liked to deal with the locals much, but he’d opened up a bit within the section. What was left of it.

  Hank scanned the rocky, barren hills that loomed above the Rio Grande. This was a bit of a change from the section’s previous assignment in Phoenix, but in a way, he couldn’t say that he minded. Sure, they were still right on the front lines, as much as the likes of Estevez might want to deny it, but it was a lot quieter in Lajitas than it had been in Phoenix, never mind San Diego.

  San Diego. He still had nightmares about that last stand in the hotel overlooking the Naval Base, even months later.

  Tom Wallace would never say as much, but Hank suspected that the losses they’d taken in San Diego were a large part of why they’d ended up working a Combined Action mission with local militia on the Rio Grande in the Big Bend area of Texas. That, and the fact that Hank had seriously ruffled some feathers in Phoenix before going to San Diego.

  They still weren’t up to full strength. Everyone was spread thin.

  He and Huntsman rounded the back of Estevez’s house and paused, within sight of the low dugout that was Overwatch Three. They waited, as the breeze whispered by and another coyote answered the first.

  Hank felt his scowl deepen. They’re still learning. Only a few of the militia are vets, and neither Costa nor Peterkin have any experience. They’re bound to forget some stuff.

  Except that while he was waiting for a challenge from the guys who were supposed to be on security for the whole village, somebody could very well sneak up and roll a frag into their position.

  He knew that the likes of Estevez would have sneered at the ridiculousness of the suggestion. Hank’s section, re-designated Tango India Six Four, since they were no longer part of the Phoenix unit, had fallen in on an odd situation.

  A lot of the local ranchers knew the threat that hung over Lajitas as well as anyone who had worked security near the border did. But a lot of the local residents and even more of the tourists who’d gotten caught at the golf resort when the lights had gone out were of a different sort.

  Lajitas was, after all, the site where thousands of people met to freely wade across the Rio Grande every year, in an act of “civil disobedience” to defy the government’s ability to secure the border.

  Many of them would be the first ones that the cartels would rob and murder.

  It had led to some distinct pushback when the Triarii had showed up, working hand-in-hand with the Texas Rangers’ Border Recon Unit, to train a militia unit to secure the border crossing. There wasn’t any Border Patrol presence in Lajitas; they were all either up north in Presidio, or down south in Del Rio and Eagle Pass. Which meant that the locals knew that their ford across the Rio Grande was a fucking superhighway for smugglers.

  Not all of the locals had resisted forming the local defenses because they were bleeding hearts. Many had resisted because they were afraid of what would happen if they openly resisted the cartels. Hank couldn’t say he entirely blamed them. He’d been fighting these savages for months. He knew what they wer
e capable of. And he’d been on the American side of the border. It was worse on the Mexican side.

  “Friendly,” he hissed through clenched teeth as he got up and moved toward the Overwatch position.

  He heard rustling in the sandbagged dugout just ahead, and a whispered, “Shit!”

  “That’s not the challenge and pass, Costa.” He slid into the pit, narrowly avoiding landing on Peterkin. “Why the fuck weren’t you watching your six?”

  “We were focused on the crossing,” Peterkin whispered.

  “Not good enough. How many times have I told you that you’ve still got to maintain rear security?” Hank kept his voice low, but let his anger bite through it. He wasn’t quite as pissed off as he made it sound, though. He just needed to get it through to these two kids—and the two ranch hands almost were kids, being still in their early twenties—just how serious their situation was. “We’ve got eyes on the most likely crossing points, but there’s nothing that says the bad guys can’t come across elsewhere and work their way down the river toward us, especially if they’ve been paying attention and noticed that we’re watching the crossing.” Or somebody in town has told them about it. “You’re the northernmost post. You’ve got to pay attention.” He squinted through his NVGs toward the river. Still quiet. “Now, what’s the challenge and pass?”

  “Donald Duck.” Costa still sounded a little confused as he repeated the name.

  “And the parole word is ‘Darkwing.’” Hank looked over at Costa, who was looking back and forth between him and the river. “What is it, Costa?”

  “Nothing.” Costa hastily turned his attention back to his sector, peering over the ancient M-60 that had been dredged up from somewhere Hank didn’t care to speculate about. For all he knew, it had been from one of Colonel Santiago’s friends’ personal collection.