Operation MESA VANTAGE

POTUS looked at the document in front of him.  The discussions were done, the cabinet secretaries with equities had said their piece.  There were two signature blocks on the bottom of POTUS’ document.  On the left, over his signature block, there was a statement NOT AUTHORIZED/DISAPROVED.  On the right side, over the signature block, was stated AUTHORIZED/APPR0VED.

POTUS’ bottom lip curled out, maybe a little churlishly.  He hated crossing out his own signature block, even if on the other side of the page he’d be signing.  He crossed out his signature block on the left, and signed over the right side block that stated AUTHORIZED/APPR0VED.

Leo and Coker sat outside the dojo, on the tailgate of Leo’s pickup, sipping beers.

“So,” said Coker, “the job’s lined up?  What is the job?  I did the reading you told me to brush up on, but I got no clue what the mission is.”

Leo fuzzed the label on the beer bottle with his thumbnail.  They were both still slightly steaming from the workout in the dojo.  After the wet-sauna conditions inside, the soft North Carolina summer air felt like a little slice of heaven.

“Go to your headquarter’s SCIF tomorrow morning.  I’ll meet you there about zero-eight.  I’ll lay out the whole thing for you then.”

“Great.  Until then, in a manner that won’t violate OPSEC, can you give me hint?  Just a little one?  So that I’ll be able to sleep tonight?”

“Well,” said Leo, trotting out a time-worn cliche that was evergreen, “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

“Yeah, well, just give me a hint and then slap me around a little, wouldja?”

“We’re conducting a demonstration for the cartels pushing contraband into the US,” said Leo. “They’re getting a little rambunctious.  It’s almost like, with all the new emphasis on border security and lockdowns, they’re thumbing their noses at us, saying ‘you’re not the boss of me.’ We are to disabuse them of that notion.  We’re going to spank them, on US soil.  They can back off or go to war, their choice.  But they won’t be going to war with just local law enforcement or CBP; it’ll be against guys like us.”

Coker wondered at the fact that he could actually hear when Leo spoke a sentence with a semicolon.  Dude looked like a Cro-Magnon man, but he had a fifty pound brain.

“Oookay.  Won’t we have an issue with a little thing called posse comitatus?”

Leo cracked a grin at him. “Nah, brah.  Once you sign the paperwork in the SCIF tomorrow, you will have been officially seconded to the Department of Homeland Security.  Congratulations.”

“You too?”

“Nah.  I’m a private contractor.  Different sort of status.  You’re my ‘government assist.’”

“I thought private contractors were supposed to have government leads.”

“This ain’t that kind of contracting, hermano.” 

“Yeah, so I think it’s time you came clean,” Coker announced.  “How much do your gigs pay, really?”

Leo opened the top of the igloo cooler, threw in his empty bottle, and pulled a new one.  He offered it to Coker, who shook off.  Leo popped his new beer and said,”Well, the money’s just silly.” As Coker started to lean forward—and Leo knew it was to ask how he got in on that game, probably jokingly,  “And it ain’t enough to leave orphaned kids and widows behind.  Even if the widow is an ex-wife.”

Leo knew that Coker was aware that many of his missions were singleton ops, with no back-ups or enablers.  The only time Leo pulled in government assistance was when he couldn’t see a tactically sound method of going it alone.  Sometimes he worked with other contractors, but some of them, good a guys as they usually were, proved to be a little too mercenary.  Leo didn’t have to be mercenary, he’d raked in enough that he could never work another day in his life, if he so chose.  He also, being aware of the danger of his jobs, had his estate planning wired tight.  Should he pull a terminal hand during a contract, his siblings and their kids would be taken care of.  So, too, would Coker’s kids.  Leo knew Coker was aware of this, as he’d had to sign some of the trust paperwork.  Coker being Coker, he’d signed the papers without reading them and never said another word about it.  Leo’s philosophy was that he couldn’t take it with him, but he could make sure it went to the right place.

“We going to pick a fight. Then we win the fight. Then we consider the message sent,” said Leo. “But the kind of fight we’re going to pick, we’re going to have to lay down some scunion.  I want you to get us the best machine gunner you can.  Go through Deanson at First Special Warfare, then hit the Sergeant Major telegraph. Run a selection to make sure he’s the right guy. Find us a guy that loves crew-served weapons, and can use them like a surgeon uses a scalpel. After we do the mission concept brief and the paperwork in the SCIF tomorrow, work out a gunner assessment and selection plan, then work out a training plan to turn a guy that knows how to paint into DaVinci and send it to me.  I’ll push you back a concept of support.  Then you run the selection and training.”

“And what’ll you be doing while I’m busting my hump with this stuff?”

“Easy, I’ll be setting up our fight. Out in the southwest, I’m pretty sure. I’ve got to scout it out.”

“So, I do all the hard work, and you’ll be out ‘scouting,’ probably riding a hawg, gosh, that sounds fair.”

“Yeah, I know. Coker always gets the dirty end of the stick. Coker always has to do most of the work. Can you hear it? Sounds like someone’s tuning a section of itty-bitty, teeny-tiny violins.”

“Sure, denigrate my efforts, make light of the injustices I suffer. Heartless bastard. And you’re the one that’s going to be traipsing the southwest on a Harley.”

“And finding us some dirty cops,” sighed Leo. “Everything I’ve read about cartel incursions, there’s got to be some ‘oro o plomo’ going on. So for this to work, I got to find some dirty cops, have them pull me in, then have you and our as-yet-to-be identified gunner show up when it’s time to exploit the situation.”

“‘Oro o plomo?’ Gold or lead? You figure they’ve managed to threat leverage some US law enforcement?”

“Yeah, there’s no way we’d be seeing the numbers we are, otherwise. Plus, look at the morale of most of our cops right now.  Given what they’re going through, it’s probable some can’t resist the temptation to get a li’l sump’n sump’n.  So I got to find a corrupt LE department, come to their attention, and have them try to exploit me so that I can use them to set up the cartels. The LE bait ’n switch will probably entail taking a world class whupping. But hey, if that’s the job you want, take it and I’ll find us a machine gunner.”

“Uh, nah brah. I’ll get you your machine gun Michelangelo.”

“Good man,” said Leo. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” said Coker.

They dapped and departed.

***

The next morning, Leo and Coker walked out of the Intell building that held the SCIF, down the walk and to the parking lot.

Leo asked, “So, you good?”

Coker flashed his wolf man grin. “Oh yeah.”

***

Eli Hanson hit save, and waited the interminable time for the document to be saved on the official portal. While he waited he collated all the various pages of his training plan for both Team cross-training on weapons and weapons employment and the Partner Nation marksmanship training the team would be conducting during their next deployment.

Rule on the team was, ‘you ain’t done til the portal’s updated and the hardcopy is in the safe.’ Eli slammed the file cabinet shut and, putting both feet on the front of the multi-drawer safe, launched himself in his chair back to the computer, which immediately pinged that his document was saved.

“Yes!,” hollered Eli, throwing both arms above his head. “Yes! Hanson shoots! He scores! And the crowd goes wild!” Eli initiated his spin-the-chair happy dance while doing his best to imitate the sounds of a crowd that was, in fact, going wild. “Rwhaaaaah!”

The door opened, and the Team Sergeant stepped in.

“What’n hell you doing, Eli?”

“Tim, I’m just celebrating the fact that once again, Hanson wins!” Eli executed another couple rotations of the desk chair. “Woo-hoo! Yay, me!”

As he stopped spinning, Eli noticed that the Company Sergeant Major had followed Tim through the door.  Oops.

The Sergeant Major raised an eyebrow and looked at Eli, then Tim. “Hey, Sergeant Major,” said Tim, “Kid loves getting his work done. He’s well trained, that way.”

“Right. Battalion Command Sergeant Major wants Hanson in front of his desk ASAP.” The Co SGM looked at Tim and asked, “How much time does he need?”

“In twenty minutes, we’ll be standing tall in front of his desk.”

“Swing by my office and pick me up en route, Tim. No way one of my pipe-hitters gets summoned to Battalion without me being with him.”

“Roger that.”

Due to the ravages of the deadly, plague-like Coronavirus, Eli’s whole Special Forces Group had gone to minimum manning, with individual Battalions, Companies and Teams left to figure out what “right” looks like. Eli’s A-Team had established a What’sApp group, and conducted a one-hour Zoom conference every Tuesday and Thursday.  Tim was fanatical about keeping the meetings at an hour or less, publishing the agenda the day before the Zoom link up, and rigorously kept the team on track. It was an article of faith with Tim that meeting discipline was, in the main, as important when they weren’t deployed as fire discipline was when they were.

Tim always went in, and when a team member was scheduled to show up to perform the specified tasks they’d cleared through him, they had to come in early enough to do Physical Training with him.  Tim called it a “pulse check” on the boys; usually the boys called it a “gut check.”

As a result, Eli had done PT with Tim, and then started knocking out his tasks in his PT clothes.  So, when given the twenty minute hit time to be ready to present himself before the Battalion Command Sergeant Major, Eli knew that he and Tim had to move.  Shower, shave and hit the personal gear cage. Uniform on.

“Tim, what headgear you want us wearing?”

“Patrol caps will be fine.”

“Roger that.” Eli popped his patrol cap against his thigh and then pushed it into his cargo pocket.

The patrol cap was easy. Hold it by the brim, slap it on your thigh, put on your head, and you’re good.  Eli always found it funny. The green beret, the headgear for which Special Forces was famous, was kind of a pain.  When you got a new one, you had to shave it down so that the beret didn’t shed little wool-balls over time. Then, you had to spend time shaping it, so that you looked badass instead of like the Stay Puff marshmallow man.  Then it took two hands to put on properly.  And the woolen headgear was uncomfortably hot in the summer.  And it did zero to keep the sun out of your eyes.  Trademark headgear of the soldiers that were supposed to be cunning and canny and maybe just a bit smarter than everyone else.  Right.

Eli ensured that he had something to write on and to write with stowed in his uniform, then he and Tim went to the Company Sergeant Major’s office, and all three headed up to Battalion.  At the office, the Company SM knocked on the door and stated, “Sergeant Major, I got Staff Sergeant Hanson, here.”

He and Tim and Eli all stepped into the office, obviously at some signal from the Command Sergeant Major that Eli, out in the hall, couldn’t see.  The Command Sergeant Major, Dan Channing, sat behind his desk. Thinning, short hair going a little gray, with pale gray eyes that always reminded Eli of a falcon identifying its prey.  Channing was tall, and looked like he might be developing a wee bit of a paunch.

Command Sergeant Major Channing had a tradition of, every couple of months, taking all the new guys in the battalion out on a run, and running til every single man—most ten to fifteen years younger—fell out.  He was an ultra-marathon aficionado, the kind of guy who would run with new shoes slung around his neck. After five or eight or ten miles he’d stop, switch to his new shoes, run in them for a couple/three miles, then switch back to his current shoes to run back. Eli still shuddered when he thought of his introductory Sergeant Major Run.

In one of the leather chairs across from Channing’s desk, Eli saw a tall, rangy but solid guy. His face and hands looked pretty dark, but it looked due more to sun and weather than to his gene pool. Dark eyes, bright teeth when he shot a grin, and dark shaggy hair.  If that hair was within regulation, it was just barely. Guy must have some stones, thought Eli, to walk into the CSM’s office with hair that raggedy. 

“Fellas, this is Master Sergeant Coker.  He’s going to be interviewing young Hanson, here, for a job. If he gets the job, he’ll be detached to Coker, for a short but indeterminate amount of time.  If he gets the nod after the interview, then whenever Hanson says he’s working on business for Coker, you assist and facilitate to the greatest extent possible. Copy?”

In unison, “Roger that, Sergeant Major.”

CSM Channing looked at Coker, “Dave, the XO is out today. I’ve got his office laid on for you.”

“Thanks, Dan, appreciate it.” The casual use of the CSM’s first name made Eli do an internal eyebrow raise.  That implied a history, and from what Eli knew, CSM Channing had done high mileage in hard times.

Eli and Master Sergeant Coker moved down the hall to an office marked by a small shingle next to the door with the legend Executive Officer, with the guy’s rank and name below that.  Master Sergeant Coker moved through the door, sat behind the desk, and threw up his booted feet onto the desk like he owned it.

Master Sergeant Coker waved to the chair in front of the desk and said, “Have a seat.”

Eli pulled his notepad from his pocket, opened it, then set his pad and pen on the desk and took a seat.  Master Sergeant Coker leaned over and picked up Eli’s tactical pen, made of rolled aluminum with a glass breaking point on one end.

“Smith & Wesson?” asked Master Sergeant Coker.

“Uh, Atomic Bear, Master Sergeant.”

“Sweet.” Coker put the pen back on the desk, then he flipped Eli’s notebook closed with a grin.

“You won’t need any notes.  From now on it’s just Coker.  No more rank.  I guess if you ever see me at the Green Beret Club you can call me Dave.  But you know what?”

“What, Ma—Coker?”

“You ain’t ever going to see me at the Green Beret Club.”

“Roger.”

“The CSM tells me your first name is Eli, you good if I go with that?”

“Eli’s fine, uh, Coker.”

“Good.  Here’s the deal, Eli. If you volunteer, right here, right now, I’m going to interview you to see whether you’re suitable for participation in a SAP mission.  You know what that is?”

Eli racked his brain. He knew that he knew before he walked in this office. Dang, dang, dang, “It stands for Special Access Program, Coker.”

“That’s right.  You know that saying that ‘when you join up, you’re signing over a blank check to Uncle Sam, payable up to your life?’ This is that. You in, at least for the interview?”

“Sure,” said Eli, a little bit eager, a little bit trepidatious.  

“Okay.  So on your last deployment, I understand there was a little bit of a dust up.”

Dust up? Dust up?  It was a complete balls up.  Outmanned.  Outgunned.  Terrain of the enemy’s choosing. Eli had figured none of his patrol would survive.  None of them should have survived.  Eli had been a believer before, but now his faith was confirmed; nothing but the hand of a Divine Providence could have pulled them out of that firefight.

“Yeah, things got a little hairy, there, Coker.”

“I’ve read everything about that patrol.  The perspective changes through all the literature, depending whether it was written by guys on the ground in that country, guys at the higher level, or guys at higher’s higher.  Three things that were consistent in the after action reviews, assessments and investigations, though: Staff Sergeant Hanson kept his composure through that whole, crappy day.  Staff Sergeant Hanson took control as appropriate or necessary. And Staff Sergeant Hanson’s skill and judgement in the application of fires from the team M240-Bravo machine gun were decisive in anybody surviving that ambush.”

Eli shrugged, maybe a little uncomfortably.  When your only choices were to fight like a demon at the top of your game or die, you got pretty motivated to fight as hard as humanly possible, and then even harder.  It was the way he was raised, it was the way he was trained.

“You’ve been in Group twenty-three months. You’re single. You’ve got one deployment in the ’Stan, and that abortion over in Africa. You’re an 18B [Special Forces Weapons Sergeant], you’re a Level I sniper, and you’re slotted to go to Jump Master school in about six months, Coronavirus-dependant.”

“Yeah. Tim—my Team Sergeant—wanted me to get some more jumps under my belt before I went to Jump Master school. Now though, who knows—”

“Who knows what’n hell is gonna happen.  Copy.

“So, weapons sergeant, let’s talk weapons…”

Eli perked up.  For once, military prognosticators had gotten something right.  A good 18B had to love everything that went bang, blam, or thump.  He had to love the massive amount of tech specs and performance data that he needed to know not only for every weapon on the team roster, but every weapon they might encounter on a deployment.  He had to love not only firing all those weapons—and firing them well—but also tearing them down (far, far more down than “field stripping”) and putting them back together, and love putting them back together so that they worked at least as well, probably better than they had before.  Eli was that guy.

Eli grinned, “Let’s go.”

The discussion lasted well over two hours.

At the end of the interview, Coker reached in his cargo pocket, and unfolded a couple of pages of paperwork.

“This is the Non-Disclosure Agreement you need to sign.  Ever sign an NDA before?”

“Just for some stuff in the schoolhouse.  Not for anything operational, before.”

“First time, cool.  That’s a case of beer.” It is an old and hallowed SF tradition that the “first time” you did anything related to the job, you owed your crew a case of beer.

Eli gave Coker a wry grin.  Ambushed!  Coker hoped that over the next five to eight years, that grin didn’t transmute from wry to cynical.  “So, ah, Mr. Coker.  You want me to sign an NDA for a mission I know nothing about, at a location I got no clue of, for a period of time that is totally unknown.  Have I got that right?” Eli scribbled his name on the signature line on the top half of the page, the signature on the bottom part of the page he left blank.  That was for after the mission.  The paragraph above that bottom signature block described how he’d be charged, imprisoned, and denied dessert in perpetuity should he violate the NDA.

“See, kid, they told me you were bright.  You catch on fast.” Coker scribbled his name on the witness line, dated the doc, then folded it up and shoved it back into his cargo pocket.

“Stay flexible, Eli. You’ll hear from me in a while.  Probably.”