Chelsea
Friday morning, Knot interrupts close-quarters training to call out two teams, Sadie’s and ours. That’s a giant red flag. CQ training is vital to keeping our asses alive, and Spatch is considered god on this dance floor. In this room, everyone is of the same rank, and no one leaves until Spatch says so. Not even Knot himself enjoys CEO privileges during these hand-to-hand sessions.
The sixteen of us scurry off the mat to get cleaned up, wondering what the emergency could be. My first thought is of Iron Strike, but Cargill won’t be here until later today.
Alongside Sadie and Dani, I rush through dressing, pinning up damp hair, and soon cram into our boss’s office with the men. Birdie is already seated in one of Knot’s guest chairs, and the rest of our two teams hover around Knot’s huge office.
The boss nods to Aaron, who closes the office door. The room instantly begins to change when Knot initiates lockdown procedures. The door seals, audio and visual shades lower over the windows, and air stops flowing from the vents.
I assume this has to do with Cargill. I glance at my watch. Seven a.m. Birdie hasn’t had a chance to review his files yet. This has to be about something else.
The first words out of Knot’s mouth prove me wrong. “Iron Strike’s PMCs were set up to take the fall for the massacre in Jordan.”
We all look toward Birdie, but she shakes her head. Knot continues. “Roman left a copy of the audio recordings. I listened to all the tape last night, and what I heard contradicts the reports coming out of Washington that the PMCs were careless and leaked mission details. At the time of the ambush, the team from Iron Strike had no knowledge of their target, objective, or possible payload. Someone set up the mission for failure, but it wasn’t Roman’s men.”
Questions about the circumstances overwhelm my brain, and I ask the most obvious one. “How did the contractors walk away unharmed?”
“I believe that to be intentional. Iron Strike’s team getting out cleanly lends credence to the charge. It makes them appear derelict in their duty as security for the mission. In the eyes of the public, if something was to go down and these men were doing their jobs, they would have taken the heaviest losses.”
Sadie, crosses her arms. “You didn’t call us up here to tell us this, especially when you don’t have admissible proof yet.”
Knot glances at his phone and disarms the room’s anti-espionage security. “No, I didn’t. Birdie will work on getting that proof, but I have no intention of waiting.”
Bash leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “So, what do we do?”
“Now we cut these sons of bitches down.”
Everyone in the room turns at the voice, and Bash jumps to his feet, standing at attention. His reaction is pure instinct upon seeing the white uniform. “As you were, son.”
Knot emerges from behind his desk and greets the oldest of the two officers. “Admiral.”
The white-haired gentleman pats Knot on the arm and shakes his hand. Knot then introduces the man to the rest of us. “Team, this is Admiral Jameson of the US Navy SEALs. Most of you know Commander O’Reilly.”
The commander, dressed in a working uniform, steps up to Bastien and pulls him in for a hug. “Good to see you, Laurent.”
“You too, sir.”
Knot locks down the room again, and the admiral perches on the edge of the executive desk, studying the group. “Someone in my house is selling out our country because they want you gone. A lot of good people are dying because of it. The audio from Iron Strike is proof enough of the problem but not criminal evidence. I understand you have people investigating, but I’m not willing to wait around while more people die. Since you’ve all got a vested interest in ending this threat, I trust you’ll get the job done.”
The admiral nods toward O’Reilly and Knot, who disengages the room’s security. The admiral marches from the room as if he hadn’t just rattled our cages. What job? Knot doesn’t reengage the lockdown after Jameson leaves. He also doesn’t clue us in as to what this mysterious job is.
Knot and Commander O’Reilly move toward the office door before finally addressing the contractors. “All of you to the war room. As of right now, you’re deployed. You don’t speak about your mission with anyone but the thirty-five people assigned to this op.”
“What mission?” I whisper to no one, moving in unison with the rest of the group.
Knot leads us into our strategy room, which is half-full already. Well, that explains the other sixteen people. No big deal. This is just like any other deployment. Activate Work , and… Oh, shit.
Jackson and the three men with him at the Taphouse are seated in the center of the room. Fuck fuckity fuck-licker. That’s it. God hates me. There’s no other explanation.
I restart my frozen legs and walk stiffly toward an empty spot in the back, keeping my eyes ahead. Oh look. A screen with maps on it. And hey, another. Just look at all those cool desks with built-in adjustable touch screens.
Once seated, I look around at my team and give myself the peppiest pep talk. This is your team in your house, and you can work with anybody. You are : badass Marine, ass-kicking PMC, and all-around mother…no, father fuc…no, that’s even worse. You’re the shit, and no one can say otherwise.
I’ve just about got myself talked from the ledge when Knot takes the floor. “This mission is designated the highest possible classification. You are not to discuss details with anyone outside this room. Not to other operatives, SEALs, Admiral Jameson, or even the damned president. Have we got that clear?”
The room agrees, and Commander O’Reilly takes over. “Knot and I watched the tapes and listened to the audio recordings last night. Iron Strike was set up. It’s possible they were to die along with their Army clients. Dead contractors can’t defend themselves. Whether they were or weren’t marked for death, we may never know. The details are buried so deep, they’ll never see the light of day.”
“Roman Cargill told me this morning that no one has even asked to speak to his team leader.” When the room responds in disbelief, Knot adds, “Our sentiments exactly. This kind of coverup shouldn’t be possible.”
“Unless this mission was never on the books,” Jackson pipes up.
His boss nods. “That is something we’ve considered. Another possibility is that someone is planning to manufacture evidence to color the outcome of a sham investigation. In either case, we’re up against a juggernaut whose goal seems to be eradicating private military firms.”
“A juggernaut who can conjure a slaughter mission and cover it up. And you’re asking us to do what?” one of the younger SEALs asks.
Jackson rolls his eyes, but the commander ignores the man. “Since our guy hates PMCs so much, we’ll offer them a target they can’t resist. Knot Corporation.”
O’Reilly nods to our boss to take over in the tag-team briefing. “We’re setting up a fake mission, leaking the details, and planning an ambush of our own in the field. Our net won’t catch those responsible, but catching anyone will be proof enough for the Pentagon to launch an investigation, vindicate Iron Strike, and put a muzzle on the asshole, Congressman Harding.”
The plan is sound except for one small detail. “If Harding or whoever doesn’t set up the mission, what makes you think they’ll bite? I’m guessing our juggernaut likes to control the board if he’s going to play.”
O’Reilly takes this question. “Knot Corp. is the biggest and best in the business. If you guys can be taken down, there won’t be any stopping the domino effect. Our guy won’t pass on this opportunity.”
No one else offers any objection, and Knot looks around the room before delivering what I expect to be our fake mission parameters. Instead, he says, “You know your theatres as well as we do. Let’s get to planning.”
No one expects the two powerhouses to share operational control, but the two sit with the rest of us to brainstorm. Bash is the first to speak up. “If our sleeper is in the Pentagon, we should stick to Team Two’s normal territory.”
Having been in SEAL Team Two, Knot is familiar and punches up a map of Europe. “We don’t want to involve Russia, Ukraine, or Crimea,” O’Reilly advises.
Yeah. No kidding. “Picking a country that shares a border with Turkey would be more believable,” I suggest.
Knot tips his head to me and zooms in to Bulgaria and Greece. Bash shakes his head beside me. “That’s nothing but empty farmland.”
“Not quite,” Knot responds. “Just off Bulgaria’s southernmost tip in Turkey is a large rail yard.”
O’Reilly perks up. “We could say the CIA reports that Turkish separatists are trying to smuggle bombs across the Bulgarian border for easy access to targets in Europe. That’s exactly the kind of situation my men would deploy for.”
Sadie, who’s worked with this platoon of SEALs before, shakes her head. “Yeah, but I don’t see that being a scenario where the Navy would want or could explain sixteen tagalongs.”
The room goes quiet, each operative deep in thought. “So there won’t be,” Knot announces. “Not exactly. Officially, sixteen of you will go. One SEAL squad and one PMC team.”
“And unofficially?” Aaron asks.
Knot regards the senior operative before turning briefly toward Commander O’Reilly. “Officially is all we have right now_that and motivation. We need to find out who is killing off troops and framing PMCs. The only way I know to do that is to set a trap. The problem is they only target warm bodies.”
“So, we give them warm bodies,” I say with a shrug.
“How do we do that without getting my men blown up?” Jackson asks me directly.
“You could always volunteer.”
SEALs and PMCs alike snicker, and Jackson cracks a smile. I ignore them all and continue my train of thought. “Or we could use human analogs.”
The same young SEAL sneers, dismissing my suggestion completely. “I don’t think scarecrows are going to help.”
I glare at the man and his ignorance. “Haven’t you ever heard of deception warfare?”
The guy doesn’t answer, but Knot does. “Yeah. I’ve seen inflatable rolling tanks and planes.”
“And people,” I add. “And before I get any dirty looks, these analogs produce infrared signatures. We lay out a few fake people in real uniforms with real weapons, and no one looking will know the difference. All we have to do is set up an observation post in an accessible area and be ready to take down whoever comes to destroy our decoys.”
Jackson has apparently heard enough. He’s no longer moony-eyed when he argues against my idea. “We’re supposed to make it look like a team of SEALs would have the kind of lapse in judgment that we’d pick a vulnerable spot to launch an attack?”
“You’re missing the point,” I counter. “Considering the location and its historical lack of enemy activity, no spot would be considered vulnerable. That’s what makes the setup foolproof.”
Jackson turns contemplative, as does the rest of the group. The room is quiet for several beats, and O’Reilly asks, “You can get these decoys on short notice?”
Knot stands and pulls out his phone. “I’ll know in about five minutes. O’Reilly, come with me. The rest of you get to work on the details.”
With the bosses gone, I expect to catch hell from doubters in our blended team, but no one shits on my idea. We leave that room two hours later with good news from Knot about the analogs and a solid plan in place.
To set up the mission, a secret contact O’Reilly and Knot share will leak a fake intercepted communiqué concerning bombs being smuggled into Bulgaria via train through Kapitan Andreevo. The message says the exchange will happen between eleven p.m. and three a.m. ten days from now.
The mission brief will outline how the SEALs are to disable and capture the train when it reaches the midpoint from Kapitan Andreevo and Generalovo, the next small village beyond the Bulgarian border town. The eight documented PMCs are to fan out along the rail line between Kapitan A and the border to act as spotters, meaning they wouldn’t be within attack range.
A few in the group argued against this strategy, but I was emphatic. Knot and O’Reilly agreed. With Iron Strike’s PMCs walking away without a scratch, it was much easier for them to be convicted in the court of public opinion. That’s what’ll make this opportunity too good to pass up.
The beauty of the setup is that there’s only a mile separating the two villages and only a thousand feet from the track to the road. The rest of our people will be able to stage close enough to our decoy target without the proximity of extra warm bodies appearing suspicious.
To catch our killers, a SEAL called Bandaid suggested we use benzilate gas. I’m shocked to find out the man is an actual medical doctor. Wrench, one of the guys at the bar with Jackson, outlined how we could remote activate BZ gas canisters around the area to knock them out. The bad guys go to sleep, we move in to restrain them, and Knot’s CIA blackhat arranges to get them out of the country for questioning. Easy peasy.
Since Commander O’Reilly suspects military frequencies will be monitored, all radio chatter will support the faux train spotters and SEAL strike team. Our real communications will be via satellite phones. Inconvenient but necessary.
Ready with a solid plan of action, the only problem left to solve was logistics. We can’t let it be known when we leave for Europe. To solve that part of the puzzle, we decided to fly out commercially and enter the area by private car.
So, in one week, we’ll leave, and Knot and Birdie will work some virtual voodoo, so it looks like we’re still stateside for another three days. At that point, Knot and O’Reilly will dispatch empty planes to an airport fifty miles from the target zone.
The jets will meet a helicopter and fly empty to the staging point in the daytime. That will prevent infrared scans from revealing the empty bird. Meanwhile, we’ll advance to the site undetected, set up the inflatable SEALs, and get into our watch positions. As if that weren’t enough, we’ll have to maintain radio contact following a script depicting a several-hour delay in action.
I swear. Real missions are never this hard to plan. Fortunately, battle planning is something I’ve always enjoyed. I was in my element today, working out such intricate details.
The distraction was enough that I could mostly ignore Jackson studying me the whole time.