//------------------------------// // Chapter 13 // Story: New World, Old Fight // by SGTBRONY //------------------------------// Exigent Circumstances Earth, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge Mass. Time:2115 *BEEP*, *BEEP* *BE- “Hello”? “Todd?” “Speaking” “It’s Mike, I need your help” “Where and when?” “Cambridge, yesterday” “Legitimate?” “I wouldn’t be calling you if it was. Potential for huge blowback, no questions asked” “That’s rough Mike, I don’t know.” “Todd, You fucking owe me, remember J-Bad?” “….” “Todd?” “0900, no later, Tracey’s grill downtown, bring me a workup and we’ll talk” “See you then ” *Click* Tracey's Grill Cambridge Mass Time:0830 I settled in a booth facing the door and waited for Todd to show. There are a handful of units at the Tier 1 level of Special Operations: Army Delta (or ACE), Navy DEVGRU and the Air Force’s 24th STS, all with their own special ways to make bad guys disappear…Todd Fuller was a relic from my past, a member of a unit called ISA, whose name was only whispered in the darkest recesses of the Pentagon, a unit that makes the assholes of the world hold their blankets a little tighter around them in the dead of night… In the world of Intelligence gathering and black operations there is one rule…”The Activity always knows”. I first met Todd when OGA and Activity elements in Jalalabad were running an op at the Amirshahi Garden hotel, they needed an extra shooter and I was available…. Jalalabad Afghanistan November 2014 Amirshahi Garden Hotel Time: 0430 “Blacklight, Werewolf, you guys settled in?, we‘re in the OP across the street” “Rog‘ , room 225, we‘ll ping you when Marwan shows his ugly mug” “Keep us in the loop, out” I leaned back in my chair and lit another cigarette, the op was as clean as any I’d been on, there was an intel swap between the OGA element, ISA elements and Pakistani ISI regarding the recent rise in cross border incursions. Seemed simple enough, but simple didn’t apply when dealing with the Paks. I exhaled, filling my little corner of the room with blue tinged smoke, “How we looking for time?” Todd looked down at his watch,”0445,15 till the meet” I checked my weapon for the third time, I was carrying a Glock 19 for this little outing, if shit went sideways we had a couple LWRC PSD assault rifles in the closet. I didn’t expect trouble, but we were ready all the same. With a minute till the meet my radio crackled to life. “Blacklight, Werewolf, we’ve got three vehicles making their way up the street, gotta be our boys.” Todd keyed up his mike, “Rog’, meet is a go” A few minutes later a knock sounded on the door, I dragged my hand off the table and onto the butt of my Glock as Todd went to answer it. Marwan al Saeed our ISI contact and a guy I didn’t recognize walked in, Marwan carrying a nondescript black briefcase. Todd wasted no time in getting down to business, “Salaam, Marwan, do you have what we need?” Marwan bowed shallowly, “Salaam Mr. Jameson, Everything is here, just as we agreed, do you have the money?” Todd nodded and knelt down to pull a black duffel bag from under the bed, Marwan’s buddy had taken up position by the door. Something about the guy was odd, maybe it was the disgusted look in his eye as he swept the room, maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t taken his hands out of his pockets the whole time, I had a close eye on him all the same. That may have been what he wanted all along, I was too busy watching him instead of the street…. I never saw the van slam into the lobby of the hotel where Werewolf was in their OP. I sure as hell felt the blast as over 500 pounds of explosives detonated, killing Werewolf element and bringing the building down on top of them, we were all thrown to the floor. Todd was the first to recover, he fired a round at close range directly into Marwan’s face, his brains spraying across the wall behind him. I drew my Glock just as his buddy was going for his weapon, I waited till the front sight came flush with his chest and fired twice, he staggered and I drew the Glock up and shot him in the head. “WHAT THE FUCK!” Todd yelled, deaf from the blast and the gunfire “I DON’T FUCKING KNOW MAN!, WE GOTTA ROLL!”, I picked up the briefcase while Todd grabbed the money bag and our back up long guns from the closet. We hustled down the stairs to the vehicle I had waiting in the alley, I threw the car into gear and we were off. “What the fuck happend to Werewolf?!” Todd cried “Fucking dead man!, I watched the fucking building collapse!, we got a plan?!” “Shit! Fuck!, ok, uh, Embassy! We gotta get to the Embassy!” “Peshawar!, you fucking kidding m-” the back window shattered as I was cut off by a hail of gunfire, I had been so distracted by Werewolf’s sudden demise that I hadn’t even noticed the tail creeping up behind us, Todd turned in his seat bringing the PSD up and hammering away at the trail car. “GODDAMN,GOAT FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!!!” “Todd!, intersection coming up, we’ve got one shot!” “Rog’!” I gunned it as we approached the center of the intersection, weaving in and out of the “Jingle Trucks” that dominated the road. Our bad guys weren’t so lucky, I checked my mirror long enough to see them drive right under the rig we‘d just cut around. “Fuck yeah!” I crowed “He ain’t comin’ back from that one….Todd?”. I glanced over at him, blood was pumping from a wound in his chest, he was out cold. “FUCK” I pulled off my keffiyeh and pressed it to his wound, hoping to Christ we’d make it to Peshawar in time…. “Hey man, Earth to Mike?” Todd said, snapping his fingers in front of my face “Shit man sorry, I kinda zoned out waiting for you” He took his seat opposite of me, “No worries my friend, so what was so important that I had to drive here in the middle of the night?” I tossed the target profile of the DOE Headquarters on the table, ”This is all the OSINT I could gather” Todd opened the file and paled, “Are you fucking high?, this is a US Government building!” “I’m quite with it Todd, I need your help getting some info off of their database, nothing more” “Can I ask why?, I think you owe me that much.” “Sorry man, I can’t. This has to be kept under wraps. Just know you‘d be doing me a personal favor I could never repay” Todd rubbed his temples and sighed, “Fuck me, alright I’ll help, but this makes us even ok?” “You’re a lifesaver man, how long would you need to prep?” Todd turned all business, “An hour at max, we can run the advance tonight, have it done and dusted by the end of the week” “You sure about that?” “The pope shit in the woods?” I chuckled, “Alright man, if you say so” I scribbled down the address of a hotel near the campus, “Meet me here, 2100 tonight” “Wilco, take care of yourself” Todd and I stood, shaking hands as we went our separate ways, it was gonna be a big night….