CHAPTER 29
It was time to spill the beans to the team about Tristan Dent’s new project.
“A lawful, in-extremis operations network,” Tristan had told me back at CSTC headquarters. “I’ve been working on this for a while, and it’s a perfect job for you and your team. You’re made for this kind of shit. You ran that THUNDER op like nobody’s business.”
He’d been approached a few months back by some hotshot DC players with an idea to establish a team of operators who could, if needed, augment the existing paramilitary and law-enforcement organizations within the United States during times of national crisis.
Much like the military’s need for additional bodies to support its operations overseas, the law-enforcement community was in the same predicament back home.
Rank-and-file officers were just not trained to deal with national security–level crimes.
Translated loosely, the local cops couldn’t stand toe-to-toe against terrorists on the home field.
The president was restricted in the use of military forces domestically, and the federal agencies were simply overwhelmed.
“We’re calling it Rocket’s Red Glare,” Tristan had told me during that private sit-down at our Maryland compound.
“What the fuck are you even talking about, bro? And who’s this We?”
The recently formed Office of Domestic Strategy would be responsible for the program, he had replied. I’d never heard of it. Oversight would come from a board of select congressmen with national-security interests.
“‘Rocket’s Red Glare,’ like the line from ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’? Based on the Congreve rockets in the War of 1812—the ones that burned bright in flight and could be fired faster than a cannon?”
“Exactly,” Tristan had said. “Just know that this thing has great possibilities. It’s a game changer, and we are on point. It has your name written all over it in bold letters.”
I’d thought about it for a few long seconds.
“Interesting concept. Where’s the rub?” For starters, I was concerned about the legality of the proposition.
Though I knew CSTC would never willingly engage in anything even close to illegal, I could spot some obvious friction points. But I wanted to hear them from Tristan.
“Rubs, plural,” he had said. “There are a few of them.”
Rocket’s Red Glare teams would ultimately answer to the president, but obviously in a completely unattributable way. The first point of contention would be dealing with operational security around state and local law-enforcement agencies. It had to be extremely compartmentalized.
In this new role, Team Rhino would be navigating a modern Wild West, our own take on Marshal Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke.
The possibilities of fighting terrorists, human traffickers, drug smugglers, and dirty oligarchs were endless.
We would be able to green-light almost any mission.
We just couldn’t ask for help or tell any of the good guys about it.
We’d have no overt support from anyone outside CSTC, federal guys included.
Though the CSTC computer networks would be masked to allow for high-level secure intelligence feeds, that was about the extent of the support from Uncle Sam.
If we got ourselves in a jam, it would be a toss-up as to whether we could expect help from the cavalry.
We would be on our own, with thanks from a grateful government.
Quite simply, we could not be compromised.
“Just taking a stab at this, buddy, but is Martin Jennings on the oversight committee?” I’d asked Tristan.
“Shit, the whole thing was Jennings’s idea. His and the president’s. Total happenstance that he was over there when you guys were getting after it, though.”
Tristan had closed out our meeting by saying he and his wife would come up soon, and that I should take my time wrapping my mind around the enterprise.
That’s what I’d been doing more or less continuously over the last few days.
When I was in the Army, there were always whispers of units outside the commands—back-channel spook shit that sounded too good to be true.
Certain guys and gals would disappear from the ranks, only to have someone bump into them years later at LAX or Dulles or Kabul and receive a knowing nod that said, Keep walking, buddy.
You never saw me—got it? It was a fun fantasy, but I’d never believed such units existed.
Now I was being asked to run a completely off-the-books strike force for the President of the United States. You can’t make this shit up.