The Ghost & the Shadow

[Floyd Looney]

The Ghost & the Shadow
by Floyd Geron Looney

Over the Pacific, space

The jets shut down as the scramjet engaged, pushing the speed of the craft to more than mach 7. As the altitude increased the scramjet became less and less efficient. Just as it was shutting down due to lack of oxygen the rocket boosters flashed. The boosters placed the craft into a low Earth orbit.

The black-colored craft was sleek and carried a two-person crew who never took off their spacesuits. These suits were much less bulky than the ones worn on the moon or even by present astronauts.. It orbited with its topside facing the Earth, because its camera and weapons bay were both on top.

Computers aboard the fighter-jet sized craft zoomed the long-range cameras in on a pre-determined location. Deep in the deserts of Algeria, in territory controlled by radical Muslim terrorists, they picked up what had been found by spy satellites.

The missile was at least two hundred feet tall and at its base there were six smaller boosters strapped to it. Analysts for the CIA, DIA and NRO agreed that it could indeed strike almost anywhere on the planet. Intelligence agencies were still trying to determined how the ICBM came to be in Algeria, under terrorist control and how they had gotten the technology to add boosters.

It had all the design of a medium-range Chinese ICBM, but the additional boosters now made it a long-range threat. The computer fed the targeting information to the weapon carried in the small cargo bay of the military spacecraft. The orders had been approved, and they were clear to launch their attack.

The bay doors opened, the oblong object inside was thrown out using C02, its small booster engaged when it was two miles from the ship. The oblong object was a bomb, covered with ablative material and cooled with liquid nitrogen to prevent detonation during re-entry.

Anyone on the ground looking in the right part of the sky would see little more than a quick streak of light. The light came from ablative shielding burning off the bomb. The dozens of technicians and engineers at the site were all near the missile, pumping highly explosive fuel into the deadly weapon.

None of them had a clue as to what was about to happen.

The bomb went a miniscule amount of distance off-course and struck one of the fuel trucks. The explosion could be seen for a dozen miles, the explosion caused the fuel in the lines to explode and then it reached the missile itself.

Earthquake detection devices all around the world measured that explosion. The explosion could be seen for more than a hundred miles on the ground and was easily spotted by US spy satellites overhead.

The spacecraft looked almost round from beneath and above while its wings were retracted, as they were during re-entry. Re-entry occurred over the Pacific and landing took place at a secretive military base in southern Nevada.

Immediately upon landing the spacecraft moved into a hangar, just as the hangar doors shut the floor began to drop. The giant elevator brought them more than five hundred feet underground, where it was towed to its spot.

Maintenance crews swarmed the ship as a ladder was pushed to the opening cockpit and the two astronauts climbed out. No one discussed the mission, no one gave them high-fives or pats on the back. They simply did their own jobs. None of the others even knew what the mission had been.

They were led to a special debriefing center where their commanding officer would ask many questions that he already knew the answer to. Images taken from their ship and from spy satellites were being played on monitors in the room. The pilot and weapons officer were glad to see the missile and fuel trucks were in flames.


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The Algerian government, which had declined to allow US and allied countries to send troops or an air strike against the terrorist target, issued a press release condemning US imperialism for an attack on their soil. The US government would deny the allegations that they conducted an air strike or Special Forces raid against the targets.

Neither country mentioned the missile or its warhead. Algeria was actually a moderate Muslim-dominated country. They tried hard to keep radicals in check and the verbal assaults on the US were part of that. So was keeping foreign troops off their soil, fearing it would inflame the extremists.

The United States didn’t want knowledge of the missile to encourage other terrorists to find them, nor did they want to alarm their own citizens any more than they were already. A small radioactive patch of desert in Algeria was a small price to pay for ‘peace’.

Of course there would never be any evidence of a US strike against the country and the world press would treat the denouncements as yet another Muslim assault against the west.

Had the missile and its nuclear warhead come straight from China? Or did it go through other countries to end up with the Algerian terrorists? These were questions that western intelligence agencies were trying to answer.


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Verdun, Texas

Congressman Paul Orson was running for re-election against a weak opponent in this sprawling rural district. As a member of the majority party in the House of Representatives he could talk of his influence with those who led the party and made policy. As an opponent of war, through his libertarian leanings, he promised to support policies that would be beneficial for the economy. War was bad for the economy, he argued.

It was the only hope his opponent Wayne Kestrel had to beat the incumbent, even though he himself had a weak record on national security issues.

Paul Orson was in his district office, in the city of Verdun when President Rodgers gave a speech. One of endless speeches about the endless war on terror, they were starting to get on Orson’s last nerve.

“As you know the radical Islamic movement has grown to control a vast swath of Africa from Kenya to Nigeria. Terrorist training camps litter them just as they once littered Iraq and Afghanistan. I want the American people to know that we are and will always be vigilant against terrorism. My administration has requested the budgetary resources…”

‘Blah, blah, blah’ thought Orson. More wasteful spending that will bring us more enemies to fight. A vicious never ending circle that justifies new government programs and spending, it was enough to make him wish the Libertarian Party had more support. He was once their man, but he found that a party that received less than two percent of the vote to be almost meaningless.

They are taking resources away from the private sector economy and putting it into government. Wasteful, bureaucratic government that drains the economy of its engine of growth, it was the opposite of the way things should be working. Orson saw the war on terror the same way he saw any other government department and agency, as superfluous.

The very same people who usually agree with him were hammering him on talk radio and the internet. They used the words ‘crazy’ or ‘nuts’ to describe his position in the war. They said the west and the US were under assault and that the country had no choice but to fight back.

Paul Orson saw it as a way to empower government, to take away the rights of the people and to justify the theft of more hard-earned money from the people who earned it. He would not change his position and on that he was resolute.


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Gulf City,

Texas Coast Petroleum Refinery

The night guard was engrossed in the movie playing on the 5” television in the guard shack. He thought Chevy Chase was funnier than John Cleese ever was, and this was a great performance. A tanker truck rumbled up to the gate, one of hundreds that came and went every day.

What the heck? The Guard decided and opened the chain-link gate without ever inspecting the vehicle. Like anyone would notice and besides, he didn’t want to miss one of the funniest scenes in film history. It was a classic.

Twenty minutes later the refinery became a giant fireball. More than eighteen were confirmed dead with thirty hospitalized, including some who were asleep in houses a quarter of a mile away. Homes several miles away were evacuated, the National Guard was called in.

Terrorists had struck again.

Oil prices shot up around the world as the media began to report on the attack. US oil and gasoline prices shot up before most people had even woke up, it was the first thing they heard from the television or radio. The media also told them that refineries were running near capacity before the attack and that demand might not be met with existing facilities.

A political battle erupted with environmentalists and the EPA on the losing end. They had blocked and stalled the building of new refineries and had created this scenario, one that threatened US national security.

As the host of the Top News Channel Business Link told his audience “If there is another refinery explosion, our goose is cooked”. Cars were lining up at gas stations reminiscent of the Carter administration. Sometimes the prices were upped by a nickel or dime two or three times in a day.

[Floyd Looney]

Verdun, Texas
The radio commentary of Chuck Mason cut to a commercial that had been taped only hours before. It was Wayne Kestrel “My opponent says that fighting terrorists is a drain on the economy. I say that doing nothing in the face of terrorism is a far worse thing for the economy, and surrender will only make us slaves or kill us”.

Paul Orson stopped taking calls that day and instructed his staff to give angry callers a cherry “piss off”. He was in no mood to face angry voters and he knew that his re-election chances had been harmed even in a heavily Republican district.

He didn’t want to talk to the media either, but he wrote a quick statement and had it pasted to his website.


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White House,
Washington DC
President Rodgers was holding a meeting with several of his top cabinet officers. The meeting included Secretaries of Homeland Security, Defense, Commerce and the National Security Advisor, Economic Advisor and his own Chief of Staff joined the Secretary of State. They discussed the attack in Texas and what was known about it. The implications for the economy and for the war on terror were joint concerns.

The meeting lasted several hours, they even received new data from the attack site while they were talking. The CIA was sure that the attack had been planned in Mexico by a known splinter terror cell. Mexico’s Ambassador denied the attack had come from across their border.

Some of the fires were still burning when they broke up the meeting and the President headed up to his residence for lunch. Just as he was leaving his office the National Security Advisor Jessica Rosemont came in waving a white sheet of paper.

“The ARCHIVA computer came through with this one” she told him as he accepted the paper. “It seems that an Islamic cell based in Mexico, Ciudad Juarez to be precise came over the border more than two months ago, we could never track them after they crossed.”

“You think this cell may have carried out the Texas attack?” he asked, “What else do we know about this group?”

“Jorge Ruidoso is what we know,” she told him “That name ring a bell?”

Indeed it did, Ruidoso had been convicted of raising millions for Islamic terror groups in the guise of a chain of charities. He had spent less than a decade in prison when the last administration had pardoned him. A last minute pardon, as the media called it.

“Jorge Ruidoso is the leader of this terror cell, he has spent more than a year organizing and training his followers. We’ve been trying to keep tabs on them but they are extremely slippery and we don’t get a lot of cooperation with the Mexican government” she explained to the President.



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Urduni,
Southern Somalia

The large mosque at its center dominated the small village in southern Somalia. The region was sparsely populated and the village had very little contact with the outside world. The Friday call to prayer brought hundreds of men to the mosque with their prayer mats.

The town was also the headquarters of the Al-Nadir terrorist cell, an organization which never claimed responsibility for its actions and that stayed as secretive as possible. The residents of Urduni were all members, and they came from all over the Muslim world.

The prayers called for war with Israel and the United States, which was not unusual, but they also praised those who would give up their lives in the forthcoming Martyrdom Operation. It was one of the few acknowledgements that an attack was going to be carried out.

Jabril Yassan was the leader of the Al-Nadir group, and he had planned the current operation against the infidel imperialists. Nabil Jabali would be the leader of the attack, he would command two other martyrs. They practiced, planned and prayed over their coming assault.

“Strike at the throat of the devils and occupiers. Kill the infidel invaders, praise be unto Allah,” they would chant for hours everyday. They would fast for the last two days before their operation was launched. They were isolated from the others and watched over carefully for any sign of weakness or hesitation.

Jabril Yassan had promised them eternity with a harem of beautiful maidens and piles of gold and jewels. They would have the favor of Allah himself, honored as heroes in the after life. Yassan had also promised that their families would be well taken care of and should not want for anything.


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Old Ahmed Deif ground some dried corn on a concrete slab with a rock in his small mud hut. He would soon have enough wheat and corn to start baking the flat bread for a tiny bit of income. Old Ahmed was painfully thin, he had few teeth and his eyesight was leaving him a bit more blind everyday.


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Gulf City, Texas

It took three days to get some of the fires at the refinery put out, families had still not been allowed to return to their homes within a quarter of a mile. Most of the homes inside that perimeter had sustained some damage from blown out windows to damaged roofs that exposed the inside of houses.

The clean-up operation continued even after they found the remains of a tractor-trailer that had no business being on the grounds of the refinery. Very little was left of the vehicle but they found enough to trace it to a rig sold just a week ago near Shreveport.

They also noticed the vehicle had not been logged by the Guard that was on duty that night. The guard had died from the concussion of the blast, the entire shack had been blown to pieces over a forty-foot area.

Wayne Kestrel had visited Gulf City and commiserated with the families of those killed and injured. He gave an impassioned statement against terrorism while taking a single stab at his opponent, Paul Orson, who had not visited.


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Shreveport, Louisiana The white wood-frame house needed some paint and the lawn was a little past due for mowing. There was an old pick-up truck sitting in the driveway with a rusted tailgate. In front of that was a rusted Camaro on blocks, its color was primer gray.

The federal agents arrived in their black sedan but there was also a large van filled with more heavily armed agents parked right on the road in front of the house. As the agents got out of the sedan a dog in the chain-link fenced backyard started barking at them. It looked like a black Labrador to the lead agent.

A black cat on the porch also eyed them and ran around to the side of the house when they approached the porch. They had called ahead to the man who had sold the big rig, so it was not a surprise when he opened the door before they knocked.

James Jeff Clay was about fifty, Caucasian, large around the gut and wearing a gray t-shirt that said ‘Bite Me’ on the front. The agent wondered what it said on the back, his partner wondered if this was ‘dressed up’ for the man.

“I don’t see why you want to come out here and make a scene when I already you everything I know about those people” he said as he pushed the ragged screen door open for them to enter. The lead agent answered “You might be able to give us a better description in person”.

The news about the million-dollar reward had hit that morning, but evidently Mr. Clay hadn’t seen the news even at thirty minutes until noon. The agent didn’t blame him, the news could depress people who got too much of it.

The lead agent introduced them “I am agent O’Brien and this is agent Hanes,” he said referring to the lean black agent. The agents sat on the couch while Mr. Clay sat across from them in the Lazy Boy recliner. Agent Hanes opened his briefcase and retrieved some documents and photographs as O’Brien explained what they would be asking.

Mr. Clay had been suspicious of the buyers working for a company that only seemed to have a Post Office Box, but he never suspected they were Muslim terrorists. He hadn’t recalled seeing Mexican terrorists before. The pictures of Jorge Ruidoso got his attention.

“He was one of them, but he didn’t talk much” Mr. Clay told them “Those other guys did seem very respectful of him though”.

The fake company had been a PO Box in Houston, with a phone number in Beaumont. It had been a cell phone, one that had been dumped in the trash days before the refinery bombing.

James Jeff Clay was obviously innocent of anything, the sale paperwork had gone through the bureaucracy normally. No one had seen anything wrong with it until after the explosion in the refinery. Agent O’Brien noticed a pile of magazine on a side table. Gun magazines, a very dusty pile of magazines that looked as if they hadn’t been read in a while.


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The unmanned fleet of Global Hawk spy planes was getting a work out over various hot spots where terrorists were known to have a foothold. Spy satellites tried to find anything out of the ordinary in places where the possibility of radical Islam expanding. The intelligence services were hard at work attempting to forestall any new terrorist attack.


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Ciudad, Juarez/El Paso
Immigrant and drug smugglers had used the underground tunnel for years. Many of those smugglers were dead after they showed the tunnel to some new partners who wanted to buy in. Those partners were now the sole users of the tunnel, but most of what they wanted to send through had already been sent through.

Jorge Ruidoso was long gone from El Paso when the federal agents began their massive search. Even if they found the tunnel entrance in the small warehouse it would matter little to the operation of the group. There were other ways to get over the border.

The ACLU and immigrant-rights groups held protests when dozens of illegal aliens were picked up in the sweep. Lawsuits were filed seeking to stop the federal agents from questioning the illegals about how they got into the country and if they knew anything about Jorge Ruidoso’s group.

[Floyd Looney]

The USS Cortez, a frigate was steaming along with a destroyer, the USS Scoop and a supply vessel. They were in route to meet up with an Expeditionary Strike Group in the Persian Gulf. They were slowing to drop off some supplies at a small US outpost in Djibouti. It would be a brief stop.

The Captain of the 445-foot Frigate was alerted to a small wooden fishing vessel nearby that was moving toward them. Several armed officers were sent onto the deck to keep an eye on the fishing vessel and the 76mm rapid fire gun was also trained on the boat.

There were three men in the small boat throwing out nets and pulling them back in again. This seemed very odd to at least one of the sailors because he called it in, it was something you would do in much shallower waters. Since the small boat was still more than fifty yards away there was probably no danger as the frigate passed.

After passing the small fishing vessel they let down their guard a bit, they didn’t think any harm could happen. They barely noticed the bow of the fishing boat rising in the air as a hidden engine turned the sleepy fishing boat into a speedboat. The sailors aboard the Cortez fired with their machine guns and managed to hit at least two of the occupants.


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Nabil Jabali looked forward to heaven and his promised eternity in paradise with his own harem, living as a hero. The bullets in his leg and thigh caused him to be almost lying down but he still controlled the boat. He still controlled the detonation device too.

Terrorists around the world had learned from the attack on the USS Cole, the ship was repaired and put back into service by the Americans. They learned uses of more powerful explosives because they did not want the ship to survive. But the terrorist boat would not get close enough to sink the 4,100-ton ship.

The explosion at the stern of the ship threw those inside forward, many were wounded from the jarring alone. The explosion killed more than thirty of the two hundred on board the ship. There were more than thirty others who were heavily injured, and the Cortez was in danger of sinking.

The USS Scoop and the supply ship both began rescue operations. The news of the attack spread around the world in minutes and defense sources were quickly leaking it to the civilian media.


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Urduni, Southern Somalia

Celebrations began as the news of the attack came through the radio and satellite television that Jabril Yassan owned for himself. There were a few other radio receivers from he knew that he had the only satellite television in the whole village.

Yassan had his men give out candy and bread loafs to people in the celebrating crowds. Loud speakers kept the crowds informed that the will of Allah had slaughtered infidel Americans. They kept reporting new details of the attack as they were reported by CNN.

Old Ahmed Deif, with his bad eyesight, bad teeth and being nearly deaf was usually made fun of and taunted by youths of the village. Now he had started baking a new kind of sweet bread that earned him a bit of money. He could only bake a few of them everyday but it was his only income.

He watered a tiny plant in his mud hut and wondered if the great leader Jabril Yassan would accept a specially baked loaf? If it is Allah’s will, Ahmed supposed, it will be.


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El Paso

Chris Grant had been a member of the El Paso Police Department for more than six years, he had been on the SWAT team for two. He and his squad were now acting in coordination with three federal agencies in a search of possible locations for the Jorge Ruidoso terrorist cell.

That search now brought them to a rundown part of town with many abandoned light industrial buildings. The target building looked empty from the outside, with a parking lot broken up by overgrown weeds, cracked front window and graffiti painted over its concrete walls. It looked to Chris like it hadn’t been used in a decade.

He checked in on the radio and learned that snipers were in place on the roofs of three different buildings. Agents out of sight on the ground had the building surrounded, looking for any suspects that may make run.

He looked in the back of the van from his position in the passenger seat and saw that the ten SWAT members back there were ready. They all had on their newest ceramic body armor, rifles and the battering ram. They would shoot flash-bang grenades through the window just as they left the vehicle.

On his nod the driver gunned the engine and they zipped around the corner, stopping feet from the entrance of the non-descript building. The back doors flew open with agents yelling “Go, go go!”

Chris followed them out of the van and was at the back bumper when the he heard the flash-bang break the window and making a loud popping noise. He followed the SWAT team into the building as they broke down the front door and poured in carrying his .45 caliber pistol.

The front office was empty and the agents carefully spread through the rest of the building. In the back of the building they found no suspects either, but they did find detritus suggesting people had stayed there. Food packaging, trash of all types and even a few blankets were found.

If the terrorists had been using the building they were long gone, although it didn’t look to Chris any different than if homeless squatters had been there. Then an ICE agent showed him something that was found in the bathroom, it was a Spanish-language Koran. The FBI agents were talking to each other in the corner, Chris could see them nodding.

How far behind the terrorists were they?

[Floyd Looney]

Internet, chat room


Tahi: The police ignore us, they consider us nothing more than a political group. They even stopped monitoring our rallies after concluding it was all bluster.

Smiley: Thanks for the help, we have managed to elude them.

Tahi: The next step is the last?


Smiley: You will not hear from us again. Allah willing, you will see that on television. You are sure that you won’t be found out?

Tahi: No problem on that.


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Houston, Texas

Anti-war rallies were held all over the country, a few hundred people showing up in a dozen major cities. There was some television coverage as the crowds chanted and sang songs about peace. Their signs generally denounced Israel and the US.

The media mostly left after the first speaker. Many of the other speakers made it more clear that they did not want peace, they wanted the US and Israel to lose. They denounced ‘imperialism’, ‘colonialism’ and ‘globalism’ in their statements.

“This war has been going on for more than a decade, ever since George Bush declared war on poor Arabs” said Rebecca Warner who was one of the leaders of the Student Palestinian Freedom Association. “This genocide against the impoverished mirrors the domestic policies of the corporate establishment. We need to make a stand and support those who are fighting for their lives and their land. We support the freedom fighters where-ever they have risen up to fight the US and its allies.”

This brought a loud cheer from the crowd. Other speakers denounced the imperialist propaganda from the ‘right-wing corporate media’. This would be the media that almost took the same side as those at the rally.

Rebecca Warner and her organization had launched the rally and now collected donations and sold memberships to those in the crowd. She promised them that they could, indeed, defeat the warmongers.


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Washington DC,

“Ruidoso and his group are not using the usual fronts. The man is not an Arab, he’s a Mexican,” The President’s National Security Advisor Jessica Rosemont told her colleague over lunch. Her guest was a top agent in the CIA and the link between Arab terror groups and the Ruidoso cell had occupied a lot of his time and thoughts.

“There are not a lot of Mexican-Americans who would be hiding this cell, especially without raising suspicions” Peter Malcolm told her “Any organization that radical would have been on our radar a long time ago”.

“A lot of people have become very tired of this war, as if we had a choice in the matter. These people want us dead, they will not rest until that is a reality. Maybe we need to see what we have been missing” Rosemont told Peter, as she took another bite from her baked chicken.

Eating in her office had become a habit during stressful stages on the job, and a string of attacks and crises was definitely stressful. Peter Malcolm had pored over everything they knew of Jorge Ruidoso.

He had been born into poverty in Chihuahua Mexico where his father had been a garbage man. The union they belonged to had been taken over by the Mexican Mafia, and his father accepted that. His father had died in a turf war between the mafia and a rival gang.

Jorge was fourteen when he wired a warehouse used as a headquarters for the rival to explode. The explosion had killed more than forty people and ended the reign of the rival gang. Its leadership had been in the building, crushed under the weight of several floors.

The local police was under the control of the Mexican Mafia and they left Jorge alone. It was no secret that had carried out the attack, the Mafia bosses had rewarded the boy handsomely. When the federal police had taken the case, Jorge was sent to prison.

It was in prison where he had renounced his Catholicism and converted to Islam. He didn’t join an existing cell but started his own because he wanted to be in charge. Then he crossed the border in California and began raising funds for several Arab causes.

Those causes turned out to be terrorist organizations of various stripes including Palestinian, Nigerian and Egyptian-based groups. He had raised millions over the years before he was sent to an American prison. In December of 2012 the outgoing one-term President pardoned Jorge Ruidoso.

That was less than a year ago, time he had spent mostly in Mexico gathering his cell and strengthening it. The US intelligence services knew very little of what he had been doing but they still considered him a threat. They found very little cooperation in many countries in the war against terrorism, a lot of countries had simply grown tired of it.

“We think his cell is still in Texas somewhere,” Jessica Rosemont said as she threw her leftovers into a plastic bag destined for the wastebasket “but we don’t know where his help is coming from”.

“That’s a job for the FBI” the CIA man told her “but as I said, we are finding nothing that indicates they are coordinating with foreign, Arab terrorist organizations”. That bothered both of them, even the quietest terror cells had communications with someone somewhere, even if rarely. Ruidoso seemed totally independent from anything outside the group.

“What about the attack on the Cortez? What do we know of the terrorists who carried it out?” Jessica asked.

Peter Malcolm shook his head and answered, “Nothing we haven’t told you. We have nothing new and nothing being worked on. We still believe that they are based in Northeast Africa or possibly Oman or Yemen.”

“The President wants both of these solved, he wants to know if we are going to have to send troops into another country” she said and shook her head “The man doesn’t want to see soldiers killed more than anyone else, but he will if it is necessary. Unlike the last President who would ask a judge for a subpoena when an attack was carried out”.


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El Paso, TX

It looked like a normal neighborhood from almost any perspective with its rows of wood frame houses on both sides of a two-lane road. Children played in the front yards, tossing a ball, chasing a puppy or buying ice cream from a truck or a man peddling a bike with an ice cream cooler attached.

Most of the homes had flaking paint, a few had cracked or broken windows and many of the children looked dirty and poor. Most of them played barefoot in the mostly dirt lawns, avoiding cactus patches.

These families knew each other and outsiders, especially blacks and whites were viewed as suspect. This particular neighborhood was close knit enough to have birthday parties and holiday dinners where all were invited. The residents noticed any outsiders in a short amount of time, and word spread.

They had heard about the crackdown on illegal immigrants and noticed increased police patrols in recent weeks. They knew something was going on and got confirmation when the refinery attack was attributed to a Mexican national.

Chris Grant and his SWAT team were being tasked to move in on a home in the neighborhood in cooperation with ICE and FBI agents. They were told that there was a possibility that the occupants were members of the Ruidoso terrorist group. If so, it was likely there would be shooting.

“Man, we spend decades fighting Muslim terrorists all around the world, they weren’t that hard to find. Now we have a Mexican Muslim terrorist group inside our country” complained JC Joyner as he checked and rechecked his weapons and body armor, “and we all know how easy it is for Mexicans to hide”.

The FBI had a model-plane sized aerial vehicle spying on the target location, just in case its occupants smell something wrong and run. They were in a van two roads over monitoring the situation. There were cars waiting in several different directions in case suspects got away from the coming raid.

With the ICE and FBI agents they took up two large vans, one of them would break down the fence and stop in the backyard. They would have the house covered from front and back. Chris Grant would leave his .45 in the holster and carry an M-4 on this one.

He wore one of the newer pieces of body armor that had ceramic plates sandwiched between layers of gel that acted as a cushion. This new model had plates on the wearers’ side and there was a curved bowl-like plate over the shoulder.

The word to go came over the radio and the vans moved at the same time down different ends of the road. Chris saw kids stop playing so they could stare at the intruders, mothers came to the doors to call them inside. Men sitting on porches and tailgates sharing beers and swapping stories also turned to stare.

As planned Chris saw the other van reach the house first and ram through to the backyard just as theirs was tearing into the front yard. The doors opened and Chris was out of the passenger side door and to the back doors as his men were pouring out.

Randy Morgan was preparing to launch a teargas grenade through the front window when they all heard breaking glass and loud popping noises. Chris saw a silver dollar sized hole appear in the backdoor of the van. They were being fired upon.

He could hear shooting on the other side of the house too, as he went to one knee and took aim with his M-4. He saw Morgan jump and spin around, falling to the ground. He heard yelling as Joyner passed him dragging Morgan by the foot to safety on the other side of the van.

Chris shot at shadows he saw moving inside the house before following Joyner to the other side of the van. Then he peered around the corner trying to get a better idea of where the enemy shooters were. Someone had finally gotten around to shooting teargas grenades into the house.

More teargas was fired into the other side of the house because the shooting from inside continued and no one had come out yet. Chris called in to find out what was happening on the other side. An FBI agent answered that two of his people were wounded but their teargas hadn’t gotten anyone out of the house either.

The agents monitoring the scene with the aerial vehicle reported that the heat signatures from in the house showed there were six people, three near the front and three near the back. The agent said they were being very still but were not lying down. It was possible they had gas masks on, the agent told them.

“Great” Chris said. He looked around and used hand signs to tell two of his men to try to get to the side of the house. A police helicopter arrived, although it might not be able to do much more than the unmanned aircraft.

Chris heard a man scream just before he heard something hit the other side of the van with a clank, and then there was an explosion. Chris was thrown toward the street several feet, his other men were also knocked down.

He heard Joyner cussing up a blue streak before he heard “grenades”, although his ears were still ringing. He helmet had come off and he put it back on while sitting up. “Alright, that does it” he said into his radio, wondering if it was working “Now we play tough”.

He reorganized his men and passed out the flash-bang grenades while telling them to be prepared to storm the house. The federal agents on the other side said they were going to do the same thing at the same time on their side.

Four of them were fired into the front of the house followed by six SWAT team members running up to the house. Chris looked inside through the largest front window opening and saw a man picking up a rifle. He shot the man in the chest, and the man went down. They had indeed been wearing gas masks.

Joyner kicked open the front door and the men poured into the house, they immediately began securing a man lying on the floor of the living room not far from the man Chris Grant had killed. Joyner kicked open the door to the side room and saw another man laying on the floor on his belly. His mask hadn’t stopped him from being stunned by two flash-bangs in the same small room.

Joyner and another team member went up to the man to place restraints on him. The man rolled over and dropped a hand grenade without the pin, he had a smile on his face. They turned but the room exploded. Another federal agent was killed when he was hit in the face by a shotgun blast. The six suspects in the house had resisted to the point where four of them died.

Four good guys had been killed with two more wounded in the shootout, ambulances were pulling up within a minute of the end of the shooting. They kept the paramedics out of the house by bringing the wounded and dead outside. There was always a chance of a booby trap and they didn’t want evidence to be further disturbed.

Crowds were starting to form as local police arrived to control them, they were also there to keep the media out. They were always getting to the scene before some of the bodies could be moved. Some of the neighbors were waving Mexican flags and denouncing “murdering fascist police” among other things.

The federal agents were saying that while these guys could be drug dealers, immigrant smugglers and ordinary criminals the chances of them belonging to Ruidoso’s gang was very good. Chris Grant wasn’t really listening, he was watching the ambulances that were carrying his dead partners away.


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Houston TX,
Radio Studio

The jazz beat faded out as the host of the talk radio program began a new hour of programming.

“Welcome back to the Chuck Mason Show on 880 Mainline Radio, our second hour of the day will be a debate between two candidates running for Congress. They are the incumbent Paul Orson, Republican, and his opponent for this important seat Wayne Kestrel, a Democrat.”

“During this long war against terrorism, which began long before we were fighting back, most opponents have been Democrats while Republicans have been for it. In this district that dynamic has been reversed” Mason told his audience what they already knew.

“So my first and most obvious question is to Congressman Orson. Why do you oppose the war against terrorism?”

Paul Orson knew what he wanted to say but it never seemed to come out right and people never wanted to know the nuances of his opinions. He took in a deep breath and answered, “War is bad for the economy for one thing, but I also think we in this country have perpetuated this war by becoming the aggressors. What I mean by that is, how many countries are we going to invade and how many people have to die before we admit that we are the ones with the problem?”

“We have no choice in this” Wayne Kestrel said just as Orson ended his own statement “The entirety of western civilization is under attack. Islamo-fascists have a stated goal to destroy our culture and us. We are the enemy not because we are defending ourselves but because we exist”.

Chuck Mason looked at a scrap of paper “Are you a member or a supporter of the Student Palestinian Freedom Association?”

Paul Orson shook his head “I have nothing in common with them except our opposition to waging war against most of the planet”.

“They seem to think you should win this election, you don’t welcome their endorsement?” the host asked. Again Orson smirked “I welcome the votes and contributions of anyone that thinks I should win. That does not necessarily mean that I agree with them”.

Chuck Mason nodded before turning to Kestrel “before we go to our first commercial, what is your reaction to the shootout in El Paso?”

Wayne Kestrel answered “I think that it is just another of the many examples of what we are facing in this war. The enemy will not stop, they will not rest in seeking our destruction until we have found them and killed them first”.

Mason noticed that Orson looked as if he wanted to say something nasty in retort to Kestrel so he said, “We have a few seconds left Mr. Orson”.

“I feel as bad as anyone about the deaths of police and federal agents, but as a human I also feel regret that we continue this war where others are also having to die” the Congressman said. Then it was time for a commercial before they would switch topics to economics


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Over Sudan

The Global Hawk unmanned recon aircraft flying a high-altitude mission was all but stealthy to most radar systems on the ground and since they flew at night they were especially hard to spot. Unfortunately a Sudanese MiG-23 spotted the craft on its radar during a patrol and called it in.

The pilot received orders to watch the aircraft but to close within distance of its short-range R-60 (NATO codename: AA-8 Aphid) missiles. It carried two of the Russian-built missiles that were supposed to have a ten kilometer range but was much better within four km's. The fighters speed was more than Mach 2 with fully swept back wings.

The controllers of the Global Hawk were back in the United States and they noticed when the tracking radar found their plane. They also knew that it was radar carried by a jet fighter. The Global Hawk was turned east and its speed increased as it headed for the ocean, international territory.

The decision to over fly Sudan came from the President as the investigation into the bombing of the USS Cortez continued. The risk of the plane being shot down was considered but the investigation was deemed more important than a UAV, even one as expensive as the Global Hawk.

The Global Hawk was big, it carried a turbofan engine on its back and its wingspan was about the same as a Boeing-727. Unfortunately the aircraft depended upon not being found and its altitude to do its mission. It was not fast enough to outrun a jet fighter or an air-to-air missile.

The US Air Force got lucky when the Sudanese pilot of the MiG-23 had to land for lack of fuel to catch the intruder. By the time other aircraft got to the area, the spy plane was gone. The US Air Force was not so lucky for the reason they didn’t find what they were looking for.


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El Paso, TX

The evidence found inside of the house was interesting and some of it might even be useful. The Homeland Security Department was running the investigation through the FBI in coordination with ICE. The use of the local SWAT team was necessary because the local muscle had been needed on short notice and because the local guys always wanted to know what was going on.

James Wortham of ICE and William Von Shaider of the FBI were the guys on scene running things, they liased with Sgt. Chris Grant on a need-to-know basis. They thought the SWAT team might be needed again so they gave any necessary information to the local guy.

They met at a Bar-B-Q place and sat in the most secluded booth available, they shared their information over ribs and beer. The baked potatoes were huge and the corn-on-the-cob was smothered with real butter. The ribs themselves were good enough to slow the conversation to a crawl until they were nearly gone.

“One of the men in the house was a cousin of Jorge Ruidoso” Wortham threw out there as a start for serious discussion “They were close, one of the first conversions to Islam that Jorge took credit for”.

“His death might just cause Jorge to do something stupid, which would give us an opening to nail him” Von Shaider added with a wry smile “Then again, it could send him underground and make him avoid new attacks for a long time. Then we might not find him until whenever he starts his next wave”.

“Do you think he’s still in the El Paso area? I would think he would have hauled his precious jalapenos out of here” Chris told them “Speaking of which, you should try their stuffed jalapenos”.

“He might not be in El Paso, but he probably has another safe house with some of his followers holed up” Wortham answered, “Ruidoso himself could be anywhere in the country by now”.

The cop in Chris felt a siren go off and he knew these two agents weren’t telling him something. He knew they wanted to but were trying to find just the right way of saying it. They were on the same side, so he decided to just ask them to spit it out.

“One of the other people in the house, who was not killed has a brother who owns an apartment building” Wortham answered the query “and we have zero evidence that it’s being used by members of the cell. We were wondering how well you knew the local judges”.

“Why? You have enough evidence for a search warrant don’t you?” Chris asked. “The mans brother is in federal custody as a terrorist, that’s not enough?”

“His brother is not a Muslim. He has also been estranged from his brother for several years, they almost never talk” Von Shaider explained “There is no reason for any judge, not just the liberal ones, to give us a warrant”.

“But you want to search it? How many units are there?” Chris asked finishing off the meal.

“Its not a large building, just forty units or so” Von Shaider said.

“How long has this guy been under surveillance and what makes you suspicious? Sounds like he wouldn’t do anything to aid the terrorists” Chris told them “Or you think he is but the information is classified.”

The two federal agents stood up, their meals finished, Wortham sounded official saying “We cannot divulge what may or not be classified. Although, I will say that I don’t think you would be embarrassed”.

[Attero Dominatus]

Interesting story. I liked the El Paso shootout, you write good battle scenes. The part with the space plane was cool as well.

[Floyd Looney]

Thanks, I wrote this way back around 2003 or something and never finished. I never seem to finish anything.

[Attero Dominatus]

Are you working from an outline or are you letting your characters take the lead? In my experience, if you force yourself to conform to a pre-defined outline, then it can be difficult because you have to force your characters to do certain actions, and it gets even more difficult if you have a lot of characters or a lot of viewpoints.

I have a set of plot points and problems in my head and allow my characters to come up with the solution to them (and bond with one another and get to know each other in the process), which works especially well in stories involving conflict (military or law enforcement) because things rarely go 100% according to plan. Different methods work for different people though.

Also, as I said before, you might try focusing on one story at a time. Writing a story is very hard work for the mind, and in my experience at least, it is better to focus all of your creative power on one project. Again, different methods work for different people, but it is the best I could suggest.

[Floyd Looney]

Thanks for the advice. I usually just let the story flow as it comes to me, sometimes its all narrative and sometimes not. I usually don't even need a second draft, just spell check and stuff.

[Attero Dominatus]

In addition to being easier than working from a hard outline, letting the story or most of its events flow as it comes can be fun: you often end up having your characters do things you never planned or expected.

[Floyd Looney]

They do surprise me sometimes

[Floyd Looney]

bump

[Attero Dominatus]

You write very good battle scenes as I have mentioned a number of times. Do you intend to continue on this one?

[Floyd Looney]

Some parts of this seem a little dated but since it happens in 2013 or 14 I guess its really not. The idea of Mexican Islamic terrorists is still a possibility, and its far too easy to enter the country from the southern border. I had a little more than this on an old computer, I might try to recreate it from memory.