All posts by Machine Trooper

Race-Baiting is “Divide and Conquer”

August 14, 2015 Machine Trooper Leave a comment

D MINUS 53

JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA

This was BS duty. Jake McCallum trained his team for direct action. That’s what their purpose was. And yet here they were in a rented storefront doing flunky work that the local cops were more than capable of.

Local cops were there. And state troopers. So were the U.S. Marshalls and reps from competing federal agencies. Mac’s boss had played up this assignment as a “joint task force” operation that faced a significant threat. The threat level was exposed for what it really was when they were told they wouldn’t need helmets, armor or rifles.

In this little store front meeting room, local police and federal agents were busy collecting information from outraged members of a group that had been circulating a petition for secession. The perps were forced to surrender their wallets and let the agents go through their I.D., insurance cards, credit cards, cash and other personal items. Cellphones were confiscated and checked. They were grilled regarding places of employment, aliases, alternate addresses, friends and relatives. While local and federal agents recorded information on them, the group members protested, but were obviously not going to offer any violent resistance.

When Mac remarked about this bogus operation, his boss told him it was a sort of quid-pro-quo job. They relied on the NSA’s intelligence database for some of their raids. It was a good idea to pay the NSA back once in a while with this kind of hands-on data mining that couldn’t be accomplished online when the DomTers didn’t advertise their personal and group information on social media.

On first glance none of these group members looked like domestic terrorists. They were all middle class; most were middle aged; they were dressed conservatively and practiced good personal hygiene. And they weren’t all white. Mac couldn’t imagine them carrying bombs or rifles. But they sure were carrying dangerous ideas around.

Still, Mac’s men would be better employed against somebody who did look, smell, and act more like a terrorist.

While his men helped interrogate the people in the store front, Mac’s mind wandered back over the few operations he’d led since taking over this team. He cringed upon remembering he’d have to write the report for the last operation.

Mac had been putting this off, because he didn’t want to deal with it and wasn’t sure how to spin it: The raid on the Tasper house in Texas had been carried out with clockwork precision–his experience as an operator had finely honed his ability to organize and lead such missions. Trouble was, the intelligence was faulty. After busting in the door at 0300, rounding up the family for questioning, and cracking the gun safe, they found nothing illegal. At least nothing currently illegal.

Mac’s boss had offered to “season” the site. Plant evidence, in other words, so Mac would be credited with a good bust for his efforts, at least. This was something else that bothered him, but he’d give it more thought later when he’d dealt with other matters.

Other matters like one of his shooters: Samuels.

It was bad enough the operation was all for nothing, but Samuels had to stomp a baby kitten to death in the little girl’s bedroom. The Tasper family was complaining about that to their representative more than about the damage to their house. How was he going to explain that incident in the report?

Mac’s tablet beeped to warn him of an incoming file. He stepped outside through the back door to look it over.

Another Contingency Profile from Domestic Intel. He opened it and began reading about Gary Fram, whose profile raised just about every red flag there was to raise. Mac studied the satellite and street-level images of Fram’s house. Within a few moments he had decided which SOP, with what modifications, would work best for a home raid. He’d drafted enough of these contingencies that he could get the basic plan spelled out succinctly, to be adjusted further in the future, according to situation, policy, or team assigned, if a raid was greenlighted. But before he finished drafting a contingency for the profile, his phone rang.

He recognized the incoming number as one of Jeffries’. “Yo, what’s up DeAngelo?”

“What’s goin’ on, my brotha. Hey, I’m in the neighborhood, man. You wanna get some chicken wings?”

Mac checked the time. He hadn’t eaten for quite a while and realized he was famished. “That sounds like a plan,” he said. His team really didn’t need his supervision to finish this data mining flunky work.

The local Hooters was packed every night, but at that time of day they had it mostly to themselves. Their redhead waitress was about a seven, but would probably only rank a five without the makeup, push-up bra and short shorts. They ordered beer and the hottest wings available.

“So how you settling in?” DeAngelo asked, dipping his first wing in dressing.

Mac nodded, tearing a hunk of meat off a wing with his teeth. After swallowing, he said, “I’m getting the hang of it.”

“From what I hear, you’ve got the planning thing down,” DeAngelo said.

It was good to know somebody appreciated Mac’s ability. He wondered who DeAngelo knew in his chain of command to get this information, though.

“That’s good,” DeAngelo went on. “You gotta represent, Mac. You’re the only brotha up in there. Make us look good and they may hire some more of us.”

“How is it where you work?” Mac asked.

“A lot like major league baseball–it’s mostly a white show, with a few of us token niggas so they can say they’re not prejudiced.”

“The few, the proud, the nappy,” Mac remarked, and they both grinned around their spicy chicken meat.

The waitress came by to check on them and replenish their beer. Both men watched her little white booty as she walked away. Mac couldn’t help wondering what she’d be like. He’d heard a lot of comments about how crazy redheads could be. Crazier than white chicks in general.

Mac sobered up quickly, though, when he remembered Samuels. “You ever had to deal with a shooter who pushed things just a bit too far?”

“What’s up, man?” DeAngelo asked.

Mac told him about the kitten-stomping incident. DeAngelo listened, then shrugged.

“He’s just being a white boy,” DeAngelo said. “Half of them are psychopaths, man. If they weren’t working for the government, they’d be serial killers or something. Did you hear what happened in Texas?”

Mac shook his head. He’d been too busy to check the news.

DeAngelo frowned, his eyes flashing something dangerous for an instant. “More white cops, man. Pulled this brotha over for nothin’. Drag this brotha out his car and beat him to death right there, man.”

“What set them off?” Mac asked.

“Drivin’ While Black,” DeAngelo said, shrugging. “They’re tryin’ to say he didn’t have insurance, and that he attacked them first. Six different cops, man. There’s video going viral, though. He didn’t try to defend himself until they started beatin’ on him.”

Mac immediately thought of Eric Garner and grew infuriated. “This is too much, man. How far are they gonna try to push us?”

DeAngelo shook his head slowly, with a hard scowl. “I’m tellin’ you: local police are nearly as bad as the Constitutionalists. And state police ain’t much better. All those good ol’ boy networks, man. You’d think they’d be extinct by now, but they’re gettin’ even stronger. It’s all gonna come to a bum rush one of these days.”

Every time they talked, DeAngelo sounded a little more militant in his worldview, but that matched Mac’s own evolving mindset. White people’s media and entertainment might be getting ostensibly more sensitive and diversified all the time; but at the same time there were more and more bloggers, blog followers and social media participants sounding less sensitive and more separatist. Their boldness grew daily as they railed about the decline of western civilization. They called African-Americans “feral,” referred to mixed relationships as “mudsharking,” talked about Caucasian heritage like it was something to be proud of, and even used the phrase “white supremacy.”

“You think it’s any better at the federal level?” Mac asked.

DeAngelo swigged some beer down and made a face. “It’s a white man’s world over here. America is racist–no way around that.”

Mac nodded. “I’m the Jackie Robinson where I am, seems like.”

“Not even that, my brotha,” DeAngelo said. “You’re a Buck. I’m a Tom. At least that’s how The Man sees us. They talk a lot of shit about equality and all that, but when it comes down to drawing lines, they’ll side with their own. You and me are useful to them for now, but we’ll just be another couple niggas to them eventually.”

Mac licked buffalo sauce off his huge fingers, then stared at the texture of the skin on a drumstick while forming his words. “You hint around a lot that something big is coming down, racially. You know something I don’t?”

DeAngelo sighed. “Off the record?”

Mac held his hands out and raised his eyebrows. “Just you and me talking, man.”

“These cats like Sharpton and Jackson are a joke,” DeAngelo said. “Nearly everybody knows it. They ain’t done a damn thing for black folks, except make Whitey hate us even more. It’s like two gangs getting ready to rumble out there, man. Actually more than that—the Spics already outnumber us, and it’s gettin’ worse every day. But imagine something like Baltimore or Ferguson, only nationwide, and our people actually throw down this time. Meanwhile, Whitey is thinkin’ if he can’t have us for slaves anymore, he should either kill us off or send us back to Africa.”

“Race war,” Mac said. “You think it’s gonna come to that?”

“Oh, I know it is,” DeAngelo replied, solemnly. “And like I said, we may not just be fightin’ the whites. Might be a three-way fight with them and the Spics…or they may gang up on us. And that ain’t even puttin’ the Asians in the equation. You know there’s never been any love lost between us and the Slopes, man. They’ll most likely side with Whitey, too.”

Mac let this sink in. It was a lot to process. He knew there would always be rednecks, and some degree of white privilege, but had always assumed life would continue on pretty much as it was. Or, if anything, get better. They had finally gotten one of their own people in the White House, after all. For two terms. But DeAngelo talked about a coming attempted genocide like it was a done deal.

“That’s one thing makes working with the feds an advantage,” DeAngelo said. “We’ll be able to see it coming a lot farther off than those poor brothas in the hood.”

“And then what?” Mac asked, the pitch of his voice raising.

“Again, off the record,” DeAngelo said, locking eyes with Mac.

Mac nodded.

“Me and some other brothas been gettin’ together. Nothin’ official, and still we’re careful about what we say and how we say it. But we all know there’s a day comin’ when we’ll have to look out for each other, y’know? Mutual protection.”

Yes, Mac decided, that was smart thinking. It wasn’t just a good idea—if what DeAngelo said was true, it would prove to be a necessity.

“Hey, you know the circumstances we met under,” DeAngelo said, shrugging. “Like it or not, I know all about your background. And because I know it, I know we could use a brotha like you, when it all goes down.”

DeAngelo was inviting Mac into some kind of clandestine brotherhood within clandestine agencies. One that might make all the difference in the survival of their race in North America.

Mac had made friends in SF, in Delta and as a contractor. Some of those friends were black; some were other minorities; some were white. But he lost touch with most of them and gave up on the rest as politics became a more and more powerful influence in everyone’s life. You just couldn’t agree to disagree anymore.

In Iraq the man he trusted most was Leon Campbell. But Leon got out of the contracting biz, went back to the States and started a business with friends. Mac had other guys in SSI he got along with–some who he’d even dodged bullets and eaten dirt with. But none of them knew what it was like to be black. They never would–and probably didn’t want to.

DeAngelo knew. And he was in touch with others who knew. There was power in that.

“Give me a holla next time y’all get together,” Mac said.

###

###

The image link to False Flag (the entire book) is on the upper right sidebar. You can watch the accompanying Youtube video here.

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Politics/Current Events

The “Cuckservative” Meme

July 30, 2015 Machine Trooper 6 Comments

As George Orwell illustrated in 1984, Marxists love to pervert language. In a police state, it makes it more difficult for the subjects to commit Thought Crime. In a transitional state (like the USA in 2015) it serves to frame debate to the advantage of the Marxists.

I try to avoid using Newspeak as much as possible. For many years I’ve avoided using the terms “liberal” and “conservative,” because the meanings have been so confused. There is nothing “liberal,” for instance, about the dirtbags who enjoy that title, what they are doing to our rights, or intend to do in the future. And “conservative” means something different to just about everyone. The only consensus feasible is that a conservative is somebody to the right of Chris Matthews.

Lately it’s been something of a bittersweet pleasure to witness some on the right and/or in the manosphere giving the Marxists (cultural and otherwise) a dose of their own medicine. (Bittersweet because it’s about 30-40 years too late to make a difference in our fate as a nation). And now “cuckservative” has been added to our lexicon. Is this a matter of using something out of the Cultural Marxist Playbook, or is there more Marxism at work here than just the play itself?

The term “cuck,” so far as I can tell, comes from the word “cuckold.” This means basically that a “cuckservative” is a naive, gullible chump. I would agree that pretty much everyone identified as a conservative, by themselves or others, fits this description politically. Certainly the neocons and RINOs who control the Republican establishment, the supplicating libertarians and every other enabler of the Democrats would fall in this category.

BUT…

For those with a Biblical worldview, we recognize that:

the devil is real,
his M.O. is to infiltrate and corrupt EVERYTHING, and
he makes his lies believable by mixing obvious truth in with them.

So, after calling out the Marxist enablers on many valid points, sometimes in hilarious fashion, the propagators of this meme also will call you “cuckservative” if you’re not racist, or if the criminal actions of people in government piss you off..

For instance, in Heartiste’s page “Shit Cuckservatives Say” (which is similar to our “Neocon/RINO Campaign Slogans” posted some time ago) has some nuggets like this in the mix:

(They) “Whine about how bad Hillary messed up in BenGhazi.”

Here’s a standout patch of stupidity. We are supposed to accept domestic enemies in government destroying evidence to perpetuate a(nother) coverup? Whoever came up with that idea is nothing but a tool. (“Useful idiots” is what Lenin called them.)

“Democrats are the real racists.”

Well, yes, they are–historically and right now, though their deceptive techniques to cast evil as good and good as evil are quite effective against the ovine.

“George Wallace was a Democrat.”

Also a fact. But I guess we should embrace revisionist history and refuse to bring up relevant facts when the topic of race is weaponized against us. Because Western Civilization.

“Abortion is racist because 50% of black babies are aborted!”

Obviously this idea has been phrased to make it sound fatuous, but the fact is that Planned Parenthood was founded by a Nazi who is on record as naming blacks as one of the demographics that should be destroyed via eugenics. And by sheer coincidence, most of their abortion clinics are in the inner cities where the black population is concentrated.

I am not an apologist for blacks. I’m not trying to make black friends and I reject “white guilt” on its face. Blacks in the USA have proven repeatedly with every election cycle that 90-95% of them are my unrepentant enemy, willing to steal my property and jeopardize my freedom as long as their entitlement checks keep growing and “one of their own” gets rewarded with position. (So have a whole lot of whites, for that matter.) They have proven with words and actions that they, in fact, are racists, and hate me because of my genetics.

However, I’m not going to conform to any ideology based on how people with my skin color are “supposed to” think. These tools behind the “cuckservative” meme do, which means they are exactly like the lemmings composing 90-95% of the black population in the USA. Way to show your “white supremacy,” bozo.

“I don’t have white interests, I have the Constitution.”

There-you go–the pigmentation you were born with is so much more important than having a government with the purpose of protecting individual rights. In other words, unless you think the way the left-wing elite want you to think, you must be a “cuckservative.”

I haven’t seen another comment so far that more clearly illustrates how the tools behind this meme are playing the part of controlled opposition for the social engineers of the left-wing elite, and exacerbating the “divide and conquer” policy that ensures no real challenge to their power will ever be mounted.

Here’s to you, manosphere: just keep peddling your kratom, game tips and penis pills while the world burns.

Here’s to you, white tribalists: When all our lives become a waking nightmare as a partial result of your ignorance, take comfort in the fact that your skin is more pale than some other victims.

SHTF, Sneak Peek/Sample Chapters

The Catalyst

July 28, 2015 Machine Trooper Leave a comment

As Mike said previously, we’re at a point in history where selling works of fiction is almost a silly agenda to be concerned about. Fixating on the American Dream at this late hour is tantamount to opening a Kosher bakery in 1936 Berlin. Nonetheless, my ability to sound the warning is limited. My only platform, such as it is, is built on my fiction (and my blogging too, I guess). So here’s another chapter of my warning, in fictional form:

D MINUS 56

AMARILLO, TEXAS

“Oh man, I don’t believe this shit,” Delton Williams muttered as he swung his car around the curve and saw the po-po lined up across the road, lights flashing on their cruisers. Another random roadside spot check. Another part of the “zero tolerance policy” garbage the politicians on the local news were talking about lately.

Delton had lost his job months ago when the company he worked for downsized and outsourced their remaining labor overseas. His Unemployment Compensation was about to run out and he’d had no luck finding a job. He’d just sacrificed some gas to go to an interview which turned out to be a scam. He should have known the “no experience necessary” was too good to be true in this economy. Their job posting said he’d get paid training to be a financial consultant, when in actuality it was a door-to-door sales job and they expected him to pony up some cash to pay for the training. He’d spent the last of his cash on gas and now he wouldn’t be able to buy baby formula. He and his girl already switched to cloth diapers, hang-drying them on the apartment balcony because disposables were too expensive. The easy way out would be to either start selling weed in his neighborhood, or go on welfare. He didn’t want to do either, but was running out of options.

He needed to get back to the apartment soon so his girlfriend could take the car to her late shift job at the convenience store. Delton’s sister had borrowed the car Sunday and he hadn’t had a chance to clean it out since then. Who knew what she might have left in there somewhere? He was only a mile or so from his apartment. This checkpoint was the last thing he needed right now.

Six cruisers were parked here, in all. Most of the cops stood over by a cluster of trees shading them the late afternoon sun. They were all either white or Hispanic.

He rolled down his window as he came to a stop abreast of the two cops standing in the road. Maybe they would wave him on and harass the next guy.

“Good afternoon, sir,” greeted a short, beady-eyed cop, leaning down to face Delton through the open window. “We’re conducting roadside spot checks today.” He pointed beyond the paved shoulder to an area in front of the trees. “Would you mind pulling off up there so we can check you out real quick?”

“Yes sir, I would mind,” Delton said. “My girl got to get to work and she got no ride without this car.”

The cop blinked in puzzlement. Evidently he wasn’t used to people treating a question like a question. “That’s alright sir,” he finally said. “It’ll only take a second.”

Just in case the cop was being honest, Delton asked, “What exactly you gonna check?”

“We just need to look at your driver’s license, registration and proof of insurance, and to look the car over to make sure everything’s all right.”

Delton was behind on all his bills, because Unemployment was not covering his expenses. He had foregone paying the electric bill so he could send a token payment to the insurance company. He was pretty sure it appeased them for at least another month. But the premiums kept going higher and higher every year…

“You wanna search my car without a warrant?” Delton asked.

The beady-eyed cop’s demeanor changed. Hard lines formed around his mouth. “Excuse me?”

“I said you need a search warrant to do that.”

Beady Eyes looked over the car’s interior. “Is there something you don’t want us to find in here?”

Now the other cop, taller and uglier, stooped over to join Beady Eyes outside Delton’s window. “Is there a problem here?”

Beady Eyes gave the big ugly cop a meaningful glance. “He’s refusing to comply. Says he wants to see a search warrant.”

“Have you got something to hide?” asked the second po-po.

“I ain’t hidin’ nothin’,” Delton said. “Why I gotta be hidin’ somethin’? I told this officer here I need to get home so my girl can take the car to her job.”

“You could be in and out of here if you didn’t give us a hard time,” the second cop said. “This is just a random stop, as part of the zero-tolerance policy…”

“I ain’t givin’ you a hard time,” Delton said. “I’m mindin’ my own business, just tryin’ to get home so my girl can get to work. You’re givin’ me a hard time.”

The second cop stood to his full height and hitched up his gun belt. “Tell you what: do me a favor and pull up over there.”

“No thanks,” Delton said. “How ’bout you do me a favor and let me get home?”

“You need to think hard about this, sir,” the second cop said. “If you insist on making this difficult, you won’t like what happens.”

“You guys can’t search me unless you got a reason,” Delton said.

“Where’d you hear that?” Beady Eyes asked, voice dripping with disgust.

“Man, it’s my rights!” Delton replied, unable to keep the irritation out of his tone.

The two cops exchanged a look. The other cops, over in the shade, were now taking notice that something was amiss. Beady Eyes turned to them and called out, “We’ve got a belligerent one, here.”

The other cops hurried over, stationing themselves on both sides of the car.

Why can’t they just leave me be, Delton wondered, wracked with the sinking feeling of hopelessness. But he countered all their demands by insisting they produce a search warrant.

Finally one of the other cops approached to lean down in his window. “Unless you show us your license and registration, we’re gonna arrest you.”

“I’ll show you that stuff,” Delton said. “No problem. He reached across the front seat to open the glove box, where his registration was.

“He’s going for a weapon!” Beady Eyes cried.

Cops flung open both doors and grabbed Delton.

“Chill the hell out! I was just gettin’ the papers, like you axed!”

His words were drowned out in the shouting of the cops. More and more hands grabbed hold of him and they hauled him out. He tried repeating his protest but they didn’t hear him, or paid no attention. All of them were shouting at once and he couldn’t sort it out. They shoved him against the side of his car and somebody wrenched his arm behind his back.

They were going to cuff him.

Delton tore his arm away and twisted around to face them. “Back off, man! I was just gettin’ the…”

Something hard hit him in the ribs. Through blinding flashes of pain he saw the one holding the night stick. His body reacted before his brain thought it over, and he planted his fist in the guy’s face.

Now sticks crashed all over his shoulders and the top of his head. The only female cop in the group aimed a tazer at him. He batted it out of her hands and pushed her. She went tumbling backwards.

Blows rained down so fast and heavy it was like fireworks went off inside his head. Through the blinding pain of the beating he felt the ground come up to strike him yet another blow on the back of the head.

The perp’s resistance was an unexpected highlight to the checkpoint duty. Not only did they get to see Officer Katy Hobbes go tumbling ass-over teakettle after losing her tazer, but they were getting quality stick time like most of them had never enjoyed before. Then Archuletta began yelling, holding his arms out to stop the beating.

Panting but pumped on the adrenalin, they gradually stopped swinging. Their human pinata was unconscious.

They all glanced at each other and smirks were exchanged. Hobbes picked herself up and came over to take in the scene, and a couple jokes were cracked at her expense. Then Archuletta squatted to examine the perp.

“Hey guys, this doesn’t look good.”

“Cuff him and get him in my car,” Fender said, chuckling. “Somebody can bring aspirin to his cell.”

“No,” Archuletta said. “I mean this looks bad. Maybe we should get an ambulance over here.”

Archuletta stood again, then noticed all the civilians from the backed-up traffic standing outside their vehicles with smartphones out, taking pictures and video.

“Oh, shit.”

###

###

The image link to False Flag (the entire book) is on the upper right sidebar. You can watch the accompanying Youtube video here.

Adventure, Reviews

A Knight Without Armor in a Savage Land

July 21, 2015 Machine Trooper Leave a comment

Grant Cogar is a reporter.

An old-school reporter–the kind you see characterized on movies and TV but hasn’t dominated actual journalism probably since WWII: he reports the facts regardless of how they relate to whatever political worldview he subscribes to (which he also keeps to himself). And yet he is decent and passionate about humanity.

That passion collides with Cogar’s objectivity and, in this novel, we find him waist-deep in the chaos that is present-day Syria.

…A knight without armor in a savage land…

That line from the theme to Have Gun, Will Travel fits Cogar’s Crusade pretty well. But it’s worse than that–Sir Cogar has no weapons, either. Oh, they’re available; he just won’t use them in anything but the most desperate of circumstances. Of course desperation is a relative concept when you’re already wading through a civil war. Hint: risk of his own life and limb is not sufficient desperation.

I was here, they were here, and since we weren’t shooting at each other, we must be on the same side. Today.

Cogar is a strange character to find in any generation of men’s adventure. He’d be more at home in a drama that takes place down the street from your urban or suburban reality. Looking at my own characters, pretty much all of them are comfortable with both feeding and cheating death. Cogar may have a remarkable reserve of courage, but his squeamishness at the prospect of dealing out deadly force is more commensurate with yours, your neighbor’s…pretty much any civilian you would classify as “decent folk.”

Granzow’s prose is savvy, ascending to the poetic in places.

…There is no limit to the depth of human depravity, and wars in this part of the world don’t come with expiration dates. The Middle East is an island buoyed by corpses, rocking unsteadily atop a bottomless lake of blood–a lake that Sherman only briefly canoed over during his stint as general. Here, every drop of red spilled in the sand fuels the strife like gasoline on flame…

I prefer the devil-may-care adventurer in most genre fiction of the civilian persuasion, but what Cogar has seen forces him to care. It might force readers to care as well, by proxy.

Action, Adventure, Crime, Reviews

A Post-Modern Pulp

July 20, 2015 Machine Trooper Leave a comment

As far as I know, Jack Badelaire coined the term “post-modern pulp.” It describes the “men’s fiction” paperbacks that replaced the old classic pulp magazines in the publishing world. Jack’s blog was recommended to me back around when my literary career was just getting started. I found his tastes and interests to overlap mine in several areas.

He still reviews books and movies on the PMP blog, but in Killer Instincts, Badelaire has pumped the heart and soul of the genre he loves into a post-modern pulp of his own.

Killer Instincts is like The Punisher/The Executioner, Deathwish and The Professional all crammed together.

New England millenial William Lynch loses his family to an old-school crime syndicate back East, and vows revenge. He is trained by professionals for his war on the gangsters, and transforms into a killer himself. One might worry, based on the title and the original synopsis, that this is an intense psychological thriller delving deep into the id (or superego?) of a privileged frat boy transforming into a homicidal vigilante. While that transformation certainly does take place, and even though the story is told in first-person, the author’s camera follows the bloody, bullet-ridden action rather than lock on a close-up of the hero’s tortured psyche.

Driven by revenge and punctuated by white-hot violence, Killer Instincts reads like a film Sam Peckinpah could make with current special effects.

It’s a warm, fuzzy way to spend a day or two, escaping from a reality where murderers rarely get what they deserve and the very worst criminals rise to positions of authority in civilized society, as a matter of course.

Politics/Current Events, SHTF, Sneak Peek/Sample Chapters

Working Directly For the Shadow Government

July 18, 2015 Machine Trooper 2 Comments

Y MINUS TWO

UPPER EAST SIDE, MANHATTAN, NEW YORK

Jason Macmillan found the park bench in question. A moderately attractive 40-something woman sat on it, wrapped in a fur-lined parka, smoking a cigarette.

“Ms. Simmons?” he asked, when he was still a polite distance away.

She glanced up and flashed him a business-casual smile. “You must be Jason.”

He shook the thin hand she offered and was surprised at the electricity that passed between them. His eyes and mind told him she was nothing fantastic on the desirability scale (especially around the Washington-New York axis, which was crawling with hot, horny women) but his body didn’t agree.

He sat on the bench, with less than a yard of space between them.

“It’s not that cold yet, is it?” he asked, with a meaningful look at her expensive coat.

“It’s partly psychological,” she said, taking another puff of her cigarette. “I keep hearing what a bad winter we’re in for one of these years, so I’m bundling up in preparation. Plus I just spent a month in Hawaii, so my blood has thinned out.”

He nodded toward the huge building where the Council met. “They should be out by now, shouldn’t they?”

“Oh, their meeting’s been adjourned,” she said, with assurance. “But there’s the usual hob-nobbing to do afterward. And then Lawrence goes through his dog walking ritual. Are you familiar with that, yet?”

Macmillan shook his head.

“Well, you are new, after all,” she said. “His show champion dog has its own dedicated driver and vehicle. Can’t be getting shedded fur all over the limousine, now can we? Then his dog handler escorts the dog to Lawrence and hands it off. Lawrence walks with it for exactly half an hour, then hands it off back to the dog handler, who hands it off to the doggie driver, who takes it out of sight, out of mind for the rest of the day.”

She didn’t seem scornful or bitter. Rather, amused. But not quite mocking.

“Has he given you the speech about Border Collies?” she asked.

“Not yet,” he replied.

“Oh, then you’re due for at least one. He’s got dates and places, names of breeders and dogs. He’ll tell you all about how Collies were bred to help herd livestock. They’re born with the herding instinct and even his spoiled, urbanized pet unconsciously tries to herd him away from traffic and other perceived threats. Lawrence is fascinated with the whole concept of herding, in fact.”

“He hasn’t opened up to that extent with me, Ms. Simmons. He probably doesn’t know yet if I’ll work out.”

“Call me Jade,” she said, patting the bench surface right next to her. “Come here. I don’t bite.”

Macmillan scooted over until they were right next to each other.

“I hear you started out in the Louisiana Highway Patrol.”

He acknowledged the question with a slight hunching of the shoulders. “Yeah. But that was a long time ago.”

“Impressive that you’ve climbed so far.”

Her voice was sensuous–almost hypnotic. He was turned-on despite himself. Forget Viagra—this broad was an effective cure for erectile dysfunction all by herself.

“I think I like you, Jason. So I’m going to share a little privileged information up front—otherwise it might take you some time to figure out: Lawrence wants to meet with both of us at once in order to foster competition between us. So don’t be surprised if he seems to be pitting us against each other sooner or later. He believes we’ll both work faster and harder for him that way. Ironic, isn’t it? So Free Market of him.”

“So you’re my competition, then,” Macmillan said, trying to reciprocate her subdued, playful manner.

“But I don’t think it should be totally competitive,” Jade Simmons told him, with direct eye contact. “I prefer cooperative arrangements.” She glanced pointedly at his left hand. “So you’re married.”

“Is that a problem?” he asked, smoothly.

“That’s up to you,” she replied, patting his thigh this time.

He wasn’t sure how to respond. He was used to being the sexually aggressive one.

“I’ll save you some more time,” she continued, chuckling. “The only reason you’re in this is because your assets are expendable, whereas mine are valuable enough, Lawrence wants to save them for future operations if possible.”

This sounded like an insult, which rankled Macmillan. His agents were sharp and well-trained. So elite even the CIA wasn’t privy to their ops. How could her guys be less expendable than his? Maybe she meant only his civilian informants.

“I agree with him,” she said, “which means I want you to succeed. So the game is rigged in your favor: if you can get your dominoes lined up, you get the operation.”

Lawrence Bertrand appeared around the corner on the sidewalk, flanked by two imposing bodyguards, with his Collie leashed at his side. He was a tall, thickly built aristocrat with a nose like a vulture’s beak, probably in his mid-to-late 60s.

As Bertrand’s small entourage drew closer, someone else arrived at the park bench and stood beside it, waiting—obviously the dog handler.

Bertrand made it to the bench, handed the leash to the handler, exchanged a few words about the Collie’s diet, then dismissed him. The two bodyguards wandered far enough away from their boss to provide some privacy, but close enough that they could go into action in case Alex Jones popped up out of a trash can with a video camera or something.

Jade Simmons made as if to stand. Moving quicker, Macmillan shot to his feet and made room for Bertrand to sit on the bench. Bertrand took the offered space. Macmillan stood facing the seated Bertrand and only then noticed that Jade was still seated. She smirked. She had only feinted at rising. This was some sort of power play, to establish that Macmillan was lower on the totem pole than her.

Macmillan would like to get her alone, where he’d show her exactly where to stick the totem pole.

“I trust you’ve introduced yourselves,” Bertrand said.

“Yes sir,” Macmillan said.

Jade nodded. “How was the meeting?”

Bertrand frowned. “All this oil fracking on private and state land is a nuisance. But still, we’re at the point where, with or without more quantitative easing…” his words trailed off and he looked annoyed. “That’s hardly any of your concern, Jade.”

The reprimand didn’t seem to bother her that much, but it kept her mouth closed for a moment.

“How is the initiative coming along?” Bertrand asked her.

“I’ve got penetration across the board,” she replied. “Per your instructions I’ve concentrated on the DomTer cells, and we’ve got assets in or close to leadership in 38 states. We’re pushing for full permeation, of course, but in the mean time we’ve got fully trained, invested assets who are ready to go right now.”

Travis turned from her to address Macmillan “I’ve got Jade going at this from a different angle, but her priority is identical to yours. We need assets tuned and fueled up PDQ, waiting on the ‘go’.”

Pretty Damn Quick was a lofty goal when you had to accomplish all that was cut out for Macmillan and the people under him.

“Your predecessor not only failed,” Bertrand told Macmillan, scowling, “but he managed to lose valuable assets in the process. I think part of the problem was, he promoted operators to leadership who were too hands-on. Brice Mallin was a hell of an operator; but the wrong man to run the show. Chiefs plan; Indians execute. Show your fangs a little, but I need you and your command structure where you can observe and administer. That means delegate and supervise. Unfortunately, it also means recruiting, to replace the operators we lost.”

Brice Mallin had a big reputation as a bad dude. But not only did he lose three teams of shooters overseas, he wound up greased himself.

“Yes sir,” Macmillan said.

“The teams we spoke of,” Bertrand went on, “with the civilian assets prepped for high-profile…that is your priority until further notice.”

Civilian assets. So that was it, after all. That was why McMillan’s teams were considered more expendable than whoever Jade Simmons had working for her.

“I want to see significant progress very soon.” Bertrand now glanced at Jade to include her in what he was about to say. “With any kind of operation like this, discretion is of the utmost concern. We can’t expect the press to be able to continue damage control for us with the same success they’ve had in the past.” His scowl deepened. “There are too many rogue elements out there now.” He gestured toward the headquarters building. “We’re working on that problem, but frankly, we might not be able to accomplish much until after you’ve done your job. Anyway, we’ve got to police the situation tightly, and there are these rogue elements trying to start trouble…most are crackpots, but there’s this one B.I.A. agent that doesn’t know his place.”

“Are you saying we’ve been compromised?” Jade Simmons asked.

“They’re all poking their noses into our business,” Bertrand replied. “This one was snooping around one of our prior operations. He’s not a blogger or reporter or anything like that, but he’s kicked up some dust in his little backwater. The risk is, having some training in investigation, he could stumble onto current operations. Perhaps even our priority initiative.”

“So you need him out of your hair?” Macmillan asked.

Bertrand coughed and made a face. “It’s trickier, now. He’s running for sheriff in his home county.”

“Too high profile,” Jade said, nodding.

“Not if he starts making waves again,” Bertrand said. “For now he’s backed off. So let’s get what we can on him. He’s got family. And if he does become sheriff, he’s got that to lose. In any case, I’m putting him at the top of our database.”

“Yes sir,” Macmillan said.

“Understood,” Jade said.

Bertrand directed his focus back on Macmillan “You should have the mission parameters already.”

“Yes sir,” Macmillan said.

“I want you to be prepared to operate anywhere on that list of venues. And I want every item from the criteria addressed.”

That was a tall order, but not impossible. Macmillan welcomed the challenge.

“Above all,” Bertrand said, “we can’t have loose ends. The press can’t smooth over sloppy work as well as it could in the past. They can’t until we sort out this whole Internet boondoggle. Eric Varney will help us with background checks on recruits, as always. But beyond that, you need to do some careful screening of your own. And keep on top of it, even when candidates pass. Attitudes can change. Someone might decide to stop being a team player.”

Bertrand was paranoid, Macmillan decided. Nothing on Earth could turn a made man once he’d graduated up through all the layers of concentric circles to get here. C.I.A. and NSA employees didn’t even have the clearance needed to be a part of this organization, now operating within a subcompartment of the DHS. Most of Congress didn’t even know the organization existed.

“If there’s any security breach whatsoever,” Bertrand said, “well, let’s just say you don’t want to be the person responsible.”

###

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The link to False Flag is also on the upper right sidebar. You can watch the accompanying Youtube video here.

Reviews, TEOTWAWKI

Post-Apocalyptic 1960s

July 16, 2015 Machine Trooper Leave a comment

Somebody visiting the blog recommended this classic, and I’m glad they did.

The hero has a brother in the Air Force’s Strategic Air Command (SAC), and gets early warning of an impending nuclear war.

This novel was first published in 1959, so it’s very interesting that the atomic holocaust is triggered in the Middle East.

The hero and other characters live in a place called Fort Repose, Florida. (Either the place changed its name since then, or the author made it up; ’cause I can’t find it.) MacDill Air Force Base gets nuked and some other places, close enough to see the mushroom clouds. From then on it’s a struggle to keep the little community functioning and safe in the new world. Simple things like salt that we take for granted become a precious resource upon which your survival rests.

The author plays around a little bit with how the class/social hierarchy is shuffled around in a world ravaged by atomic war, but could have done a lot more.

It’s a nice little story, but mired in the myopia of perspective and the times in which it was written. The most tragic ASSumption made (which is perfectly understandable considering the time period) is that:

the most serious threat to our nation is an external one, and…
the cabal holding the reins of our government is truly interested in protecting the American people from such threats, or…
looking out for the interests of the American people more than the interests of their fellow travelers in Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

Good entertainment, with a few pointers about rebuilding a society that hasn’t fallen nearly as far as ours will.

Adventure, Military

Some News About the Retreads Books

July 15, 2015 Machine Trooper Leave a comment

Hell & Gone is already reduced in price to 99 cents on Amazon; soon to follow suit in all other E-Book stores.

Also, I have decided not to renew the KDP Select status of False Flag. It will be available in other stores on August 3. However, it is available for pre-order right now…also at 99 cents.

Politics/Current Events, Sneak Peek/Sample Chapters, TEOTWAWKI

Federal Standoff was Recon By Fire

July 14, 2015 Machine Trooper Leave a comment

Bang, bang, bang! “Freeze, or I’ll shoot!”

A government sniper killed Vickie Weaver with her baby in her arms. This was during an attempt to murder the entire Weaver family because Randy Weaver refused to be an informant. Whatever Randy’s personal beliefs, this should have inspired a march on Washington with torches and pitchforks.

Not long after, an army of ATF goons, backed by FBI shooters, tanks and choppers, laid siege to a home and church with no probable cause for even a search warrant. The somewhat kooky religious people near Waco, Texas were burned to death for the crime of exercising their rights protected by the First and Second Amendment. The big crime committed there–according to the government/media complex–is that a few of the victims had the audacity to shoot back when masked men in combat gear began destroying their property and killing their friends and family.

The EPA, BLM, IRS and other out-of-control Gestapo agencies have been bulldozing through the inalienable rights of American citizens for a few decades, using some ridiculous excuses to do so. In recent memory, the BLM and other jackbooted federal thugs attempted to intimidate the last surviving ranching family in the Moapa Valley into giving up the grazing rights they’ve had for a century and a half. The feds rustled Bundy’s cattle, destroyed his irrigation during calving season, and prepared to attack the men, women and children who owned the cattle.

But Bundy didn’t back down, and Americans from all over the region showed up to face off with the Nuremburg Rangers. You could call it a line in the sand.

Amazingly, the feds backed down. There are a number of possible reasons. One is that if shots were fired in anger, it might very well have turned our Cold Civil War hot, and The Man wasn’t perfectly pre-positioned for it at that moment of time.

But the All-Seeing Eye was tracking every single individual who showed up to stand with the besieged rancher. You can bet every single one of them is now high up on the threat list for “domestic terrorism” at the Utah Data Center and elsewhere. Such individuals will be the very first targets in extraction operations like the ones being practiced as a part of Jade Helm ’15.

So, in 4GW terms, you could consider the Bundy Ranch standoff as a probe. Specifically, a recon-by-fire.

D MINUS 65

NSA DATA CENTER

CAMP WILLIAMS, UTAH

Justin yawned, checked the time, and turned back to his monitor. He’d been at it for 12 hours so far today. He’d put in a couple more before calling it quits for the night.

The room he sat in was crowded with computers, separated by small cubicles. There were ten tired, uncomfortable people in there, all trying to maintain enthusiasm for this project despite the long hours.

Justin closed the file he had just completed and went back to Surveillance Photo 18F-5 from the Garber Ranch. Several more zones of the photo had been grayed out since he last looked at it. He moved his cursor over an active zone and clicked on it. The zone grew to fill his screen, and he zoomed in on the little Ford Ranger parked on the side of the road. He kept zooming closer until he could make out the license plate, then split his screen to open the Motor Vehicle database.

“We got any more coffee?” asked Barnes, from the adjacent cubicle.

“Had about half a pot left an hour ago,” Justin replied, checking the blackened bottom of his styrofoam cup to ensure his last dose hadn’t magically reappeared.

“Which means it’s empty again, and I’ll be the one who has to fill it,” Barnes complained. “You’d think they could get us one of those fancy machines where you just slide a packet in, push a button and it gives you espresso, coffee, cappuccino or whatever.”

“They spent all the money on these work stations,” Justin said.

Frawley, the green-eyed blonde in the cubicle to his right, rolled back in her chair and asked, “Did you hear the latest about that defensive back at Miami?”

Justin shook his head. “I don’t follow football that much anymore.”

Frawley looked almost hurt. “But…”

Tench, the short brassy-haired black woman in the cubicle to his left, rolled back and said, “I thought you were a wide receiver for UCLA.”

“Tight end,” he corrected. “But I’m done with football.”

Justin’s love for the game had been cooling for a while even before his back injury during senior year. It had cooled even more in recent years.

“You shoulda’ stuck with that,” Tench said. “You coulda’ been makin’ big money.”

“You’re still in terrific shape, too,” Frawley said. “Most guys put on a lot of weight after they stop playing.”

“That’s Ex-Jock Syndrome,” Justin said. “Guys who try to bulk up or trim down for their position ruin their metabolism. I never did that.”

“So I guess you wouldn’t be interested in joining a fantasy league,” Frawley said.

“No. But thanks anyway,” Justin said. His co-workers rolled their chairs back into their cubicles.

He ran the license plates through the database, pulling up the name and address of the person who registered the Ford Ranger. The owner had driven across two states to join the DomTers at Chapanee. Justin initiated a new file and began filling in the details.

First he checked for a criminal record. There was none. Some speeding tickets when the DomTer was a teenager, and an accident report filed 15 years ago made up the only entries on the rap sheet.

He looked up the DomTer’s cellphone number and flagged it for monitoring and tracking.

Next he checked for prior military service. The DomTer, Gary Fram, served in the Army, in the combat arms. That moved him up the danger scale quite a few notches.

Justin looked over his medical records and filled in the requests for peripheral checks of his wife and children. He shifted to Fram’s financial history and status, and confirmed his political affiliation by voter registration. The man’s voting history started out typically sporadic, then he became a hell-or-high-water voter for several years. But he quit voting altogether after 2012. This would flag his profile as an extreme risk.

For variety’s sake, Justin investigated his public library habits next. (Normally he put this off for later in the process, but switching around the routine helped relieve some of the monotony.) Several books checked out on the American Revolution, the Constitution, the Federal Reserve, and various survival topics all fit the profile and confirmed the risk level.

He ran the man’s identifiers through the firearm sales database. Though this database was far from complete, it still showed a rifle and shotgun purchase, along with several ammunition purchases. The caliber of the ammo purchased indicated at least two additional weapons owned.

Only then did Justin begin poring through Fram’s email, search engine and social networking history. This was the most tedious, time consuming portion of any profile. It generated anywhere from dozens to hundreds of peripheral requests for profiles of potential accomplices, but the intelligence rewards were too juicy to pass up.

Fram hadn’t said anything that could yet be construed to suggest criminal intent, but his wife posted pictures on Facebook of him posing with a couple different weapons which did not show up on the firearm sales search.

Justin still had a long way to go on the social networking history when time came to go home. He would have to continue that tomorrow. He estimated that it would take another day and a half before he could wrap up with an analysis of the DomTer’s home, based on satellite and street-level images from Google. Only after all that was complete could the DomTer’s residence be more thoroughly investigated via thermal imaging, ground-penetrating radar and other methods available by satellite or U.A.V…assuming he or his wife hadn’t bought into DropCam or some other service that installed cameras inside their home, which would make everything easier.

Justin began shutting down and gathering his stuff.

“You calling it a day?” Barnes asked.

“Yeah,” Justin said, logging out of succeeding security layers. “My eyes are burning. Guess I’ll be back in about 10, 12 hours.”

“You know what we’re doing here, right?” Barnes asked, rising to his feet and hurrying around the cubicle row to where Justin stood.

Justin shrugged, not sure what his co-worker was driving at. But no doubt Barnes would do his best to enlighten him, whether the enlightenment was welcome or not.

“It’s like ‘reconnaissance by fire’,” Barnes said, grinning at the opportunity to share his theory. He was retired Air Force, and looked for the military angle in everything. “You know those old fashioned wars…infantry attacking defensive positions and all that. Well, what you do is send a heavy patrol out at night and make contact, but just to harass—not to try overrunning the position or anything. The defenders open fire, and you take note of how their defenses are laid out–where their machineguns are; mortars, artillery; whatever. And which parts of the perimeter are only defended by riflemen. Then when you’re ready to attack, you knock out their heavy weapons first, then hit them where they’re weakest. Of course today you don’t have to do that because we got satellite intelligence and so forth, but you get the idea: we’re probing the DomTers to find their strong and weak links.”

“You think we intended to back down from the standoff all along?” Justin asked, incredulous.

“Well, the whole operation may have been part test balloon,” Barnes said. “If that old cowboy prick had been reasonable, we’d have just moved on and taken care of business. But these DomTers are feeling their oats. They think they won’t get a spanking–or that it won’t hurt that much. So we’ll let them go on thinking that, while we just pin down where all their assets are.”

“I wonder why we don’t spend this level of effort on the folks swarming across the southern border,” Justin wondered aloud. “I mean, Domestic Terrorists aren’t the only threat we have to worry about.”

Barnes frowned, shrugged, and headed back to the coffee maker.

Justin left the “data mine” and exited through a series of security checkpoints until he finally made it outside the building. On the way to his car, he considered his short conversation with Barnes. He hoped he hadn’t come off as critical, or the Department might decide he had tendencies that were sympathetic to the enemy.

The enemy.

It should be bizarre thinking of American citizens that way, but Justin was getting used to it. It kind of bothered him at first when reading department memorandums gave him the impression that a civil war was expected by his bosses, and their bosses. Mainstream culture was clueless that anyone even considered it possible. Yet in the minds of many intelligence professionals, it was a done deal.

Justin remembered enough world history to know that evolution of a state and its culture was inevitable. The great empires all lasted approximately 200 years before corruption ate them away from the inside, or weakened them enough to be toppled by external forces. That meant the United States of America was on borrowed time anyway.

At least his job was secure. In the emerging global order his kind of work would always be in demand.

###

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The link to False Flag is also on the upper right sidebar. You can watch the accompanying Youtube video here.

SHTF, Sneak Peek/Sample Chapters

The Lone Prepper

July 12, 2015 Machine Trooper Leave a comment

D MINUS 74

LAS ANIMAS COUNTY, COLORADO

Joshua Rennenkampf let the Palomino set its own pace up the mountain slope. The sun, where it shone between the trees, was hot; but the air had a cold bite to it in the shade. A nasty winter was due, and even this far out Josh could tell it was on the way.

Josh was tall and lanky, with classic Nordic features. His blond hair was grown out almost down to his collar, and he used the beard trimmer just often enough to keep perpetual five o’clock shadow. When he entered civilian life his divorce from the Army manifested in his appearance and his sleep schedule, if not his tactical mindset.

A rifle scabbard hung hunter-style from his saddle rig, and a pistol was holstered on his hip. From the opposite hip hung a scabbard full of oversize survival knife–the ESEE Junglas. In his breast pocket was a lensatic compass.

He didn’t anticipate using any of this today. Most people didn’t expect to get in automobile accidents, either, but they still paid for car insurance.

Beside the horse trotted two pit bulls–a 90 pound male and a 60 pound female. The female,Valkyrie, was buckskin, with amber eyes. The male, Ragnarok, was brindle all over except for black socks and tail, and a white patch on his belly. He looked like a burglar’s worst nightmare, and probably was, though he had been just a growing puppy only a month ago. Neither had ears or tails cropped, as was the fashion for the breed.

So far only one of his traps had paid off for Josh. The raccoon dangled below his saddlebags.

He rode up to a spot overlooking his third and final trap, and saw that it, too, was empty.

Josh patted his mount, Denver, on the neck. “Looks like I still got some learning to do, huh?” He turned Denver around and let the mustang pick it’s own way down the slope. Both he and the horse were startled when his phone rang. The dogs both cocked their heads to the side and stared curiously. He pulled the phone out of his breast pocket and checked the caller I.D.

It was Jennifer.

“Hey,” he said. “How’s it going?”

“I’m here,” Jennifer’s youthful, feminine voice answered. “I think this is the south entrance I’m at.”

“That’ll work,” he said. “Just hang the cable back across when your car is inside. “Keep it in low gear. First fork, make a right. After that, always go left. I’ll meet you at the house.”

“I remember,” she said. “Okay.”

He continued down the slope, thinking about Jennifer’s tone of voice during their brief exchange. Was she still upset with him? It didn’t sound like it, but then who could tell?

They’d had their first fight on her last visit when he insisted she leave her cellphone outside in her car. She’d thrown a few words at him, including “unreasonable” and “paranoid,” the latter most likely applicable, but he told her that her choices were to keep it out in the car, or with her, turned off, after he had removed the secondary battery. She told him tampering would void the warranty.

He had wanted to give in, but didn’t. More and more judges were ruling that, by voluntarily carrying around a device with a microphone in it, a citizen waived his Fourth Amendment protections.

When she left after that argument, he assumed it would be the last time he ever saw her. It was too bad, because she meant a lot to him.

Then, after a few weeks, she called. They began talking again, and she soon asked if he would still take her riding up in the mountain. Who could figure women? But when Jennifer sprang surprises on him, they were usually of the pleasant variety.

He heard the engine of her Jeep straining to make it up the steep driveway. His emotions were haywire. On the one hand, he missed her; but on the other, he dreaded this visit if they were just going to pick up where they left off last time.

Denver felt his own way down the trail and made it to the flat shelf a couple minutes after the Jeep. Josh dismounted and tied Denver to the hitching post in front of his dome house.

Ragnarok and Valkyrie had gone ahead and beat him to the shelf. They now stood facing the Jeep’s driver door, tails wagging in sync like windshield wipers.

The Jeep door opened and Jennifer got out. “Hello, babies!” she said, stooping to pet the dogs. Valkyrie especially loved the attention and jumped up, her paws landing on Jennifer’s jacket.

“Get down, Val!” Josh snapped. “You know better than that.”

Val dropped to all fours, ears swinging back and head smoothing into an abashed expression. But her tail kept wagging.

Jennifer was short but shaped nicely. Her red-bronze face was pretty, but had a kind of toughness to it that Josh assumed was normal for the Shawnee nation. What he liked best were her radiant brown eyes.

They walked toward each other and she smiled, then hugged him, pulling back quickly.

Platonic. Well, so be it.

“They’ve both gotten so big,” she said, reaching down to pet the dogs as they escorted her on either side. She then held up both hands as if ready to be searched. “Don’t worry—no cellphone. I left it in the car.”

“Nice trip?” Josh asked.

“It was,” she said. “I’ve really got to pee, though.”

He waved toward the front door of his dome home and she headed toward it. He fell into step behind her and couldn’t help admiring the scenery, glad she was wearing tight jeans, but half-wishing she wasn’t at the same time.

“When you’re done,” he said, “we can eat if you’re hungry.”

“I’m fine,” she said over her shoulder. “I’d like to start out right away. That gives us more riding time.”

His house’s exterior was painted subdued earth tones that blended in so well with the surrounding environment that it wasn’t easy to see unless you knew what you were looking for.

They entered, both dogs taking a seat outside the door.

Inside were several shelves sagging with books; Josh’s commo nook full of shortwave and HAM radio gear; and his server and four desktops.

Josh had removed the portrait of his ex-wife from the wall prior to Jennifer’s very first visit here. If nothing else, Jennifer’s friendship had helped him exorcise that particular ghost.

While Jennifer was in the bathroom, Josh fetched the pair of chaps he had bought for her. She came out and he handed them over.

“What are these?”

“There’s cactus and thorny bushes out here,” he said. “You may get brushed up against something with sharp edges now and then. These will protect your legs.”

“Oh, these are chaps,” she said. “Like the cowboys wear.”

They went out to the stable and saddled Indy, the mare, and went off on their ride.

He took a trail that led farther away from his traps, with a gentler grade. Both he and Jennifer were novice riders, so he figured excessive caution was the best way to avoid doing something stupid. He hadn’t owned the horses long and was learning their strengths and weaknesses even as he learned about horsemanship in general.

Only a couple miles up the trail some snow had stuck, but it was shallow enough the horses had no trouble with it. The dogs couldn’t have been happier, either, licking up the snow on the run and snooping around in general.

Joshua and Jennifer didn’t speak much, but every time he glanced her way, she seemed to be enjoying herself.

“It’s so picturesque up here, ” she said. “It’s crazy to see snow this time of year.”

“High elevation,” he said. “If it’s high enough, you get snow year-round.”

“But it’s worse in the winter, right?”

Josh nodded. “And there’s supposed to be a bad one coming up.”

Before long, the dogs’ ears swung forward and tails extended down. Ragnarok growled.

“Stay on me,” Josh said, but the dogs’ instincts were too powerful and they bolted forward to investigate. Josh sighed and Jennifer giggled.

“Needless to say, we’ve still got some training to do,” Josh said.

“I’m impressed that they’re not barking, though,” Jennifer said, always seeing the glass as half-full.

Josh noticed movement between the trees far ahead, perpendicular to the path of his dogs.

“Did you see that?” Jennifer asked.

He nodded.

“Is it a bear?”

He waited to reply until he got a better look. When he did, he saw it was another party of horses and riders moving across their path. No more growling or other noise from the dogs, nor sign of a struggle, either. “Looks like my neighbors.”

The two parties drew close and Josh recognized Paul Tareen, a tough-looking hombre with a black mustache, his sons Dan and Reuben, both dark-haired and whipcord thin like their father, and his daughter Terry. They greeted each other and Josh introduced Jennifer, noticing the looks of appraisal she got from the two young men. Ragnarok and Valkyrie came back to sit at either side of Denver, panting, tongues hanging out from the run.

“This is the family that sold me the horses,” Josh said, smiling at his neighbors.

“They’re beautiful,” Jennifer said.

“How do you know each other?” Terry asked, gaze bouncing between Josh and Jennifer.

As little as Josh understood women, he was fairly sure Terry had a crush on him. At 19, Josh considered her far too young for him, but she didn’t seem to agree. Josh had always looked younger than his years, inspiring unflattering nicknames like “Baby Face” in some circles. In the past he’d tried growing his beard out to look more his age, but he didn’t like how it felt when it got long. It itched and felt greasy.

“I’m friends with her uncle,” Josh said, assuming he had been downgraded from boyfriend since the cellphone incident.

Terry, a pretty blonde with dimples in both cheeks, appeared to like this answer. But not Jennifer. In fact, maybe he was reading too much into it, but he had the impression Jennifer took a dislike to Terry from that moment.

“You been keepin’ an eye on the Chapanee situation?” Paul asked.

“The Bar G Ranch?”Josh asked. “Yeah. Just read the latest before I went up to check the traps this morning.”

“You think it’s gonna get ugly?” Paul asked.

“I think it’s already ugly,” Josh said.

“Yeah. Man can’t dig a retention pond on his own property…” Paul said, shaking his head. “The Feds will use any excuse to steal from us.”

“The land owner got sent to the hospital for a heart attack,” Josh said. “You know they’re gonna work on his son—see if they can get him to cave in.”

“What do you think about this Jade Helm business?” Reuben asked. “Is it just a cover for beginning martial law?”

“They’re supposedly just carryin’ blanks,” Dan said. “I think they just might have live ammo.”

Josh shrugged. “Hey, I’m a civilian like you. I’m out of the loop. Best I could do is speculate.”

“Please do,” Paul said, with a worried frown.

“I really do think it’s an exercise,” Josh said. “Will they springboard from it into martial law? I don’t think so. For one thing, they’re using SOCOM personnel—not who you’d want to earmark for occupation troops. Two things SpecOps have always done is special operations, hence the name, and military advising. So first off it’s probably another psychological prep for the population—get civilians used to seeing soldiers patrolling Elm Street and Oak Street like it’s no big deal. The Pentagon has been pushing more and more of these exercises over the last several years. Another thing it does is familiarize the participants with the terrain that a real operation might play out on in the future—a special operation, to take out the most dangerous leaders of a potential resistance movement, for instance.”

“Night of the Long Knives,” Paul mused aloud.

“Or it could be so they can advise foreign troops how to effectively pacify this region,” Josh added.

“You think American soldiers would really go along with all this?” Reuben asked.

Josh nodded, feeling a pang of the old heartbreak again. “I do. Soldiers are mostly folks who were taught what to think by government schools and the idiot box, just like everyone else. They haven’t read the Constitution and, these days, probably lack the reading comprehension even if they tried. So all they know about it is what they’ve heard.”

“From government schools and the idiot box,” Paul said, frowning.

Josh sighed and nodded. “Almost nobody joins for patriotic motives. I was an oddball because I did. It’s all college money, signing bonuses, and job training. The different branches recruit by appealing to mercenary instincts, so they get mercenaries. G.I. Joe is gonna do whatever he’s told to do. Likely they’ll have him overseas in some U.N. Or State Department manufactured hellhole violating somebody else’s rights, anyway, while foreign troops are dealing with us. Bottom line is, don’t put your trust in our military. It’s not ours, anymore.”

“The weapons and equipment ain’t even made here now,” Dan remarked. “We could never go to war with China—all they’d have to do is stop sellin’ us what we need to fight.”

“They have to do away with posse comitatus, too,” Rueben opined. “They know police will be a joke if they come up against organized resistance. They need combat troops if they get serious about coming for our guns.”

“They pretty much have done away with it,” Josh said. “But posse comitatus was never as restrictive as we wish it was. Not that politicians will abide by even the most simple laws, anyway. And nobody appreciates the danger of standing armies anymore.”

Paul turned solemn. “Josh, you reckon you could start teachin’ me and the boys…um, Morse Code one of these weekends?”

Paul wasn’t talking about Morse code. He obviously didn’t know if he could speak freely in the presence of Jennifer. As the neighbors had gotten to know each other over the years, they found out Josh was a Special Forces vet. One primary mission for Special Forces was to train indigenous armies for war. “Advising.” Paul was asking Josh to train him, his sons and some like-minded friends for a war they believed was coming right to their back yard.

“I’ll drop by your place one of these days,” Josh said, “and we’ll talk about it.”

Terry flashed a charming smile at Josh.”Maybe you could show me some orienteering, Joshua?”

“What’s the matter?” Josh asked. “Your brothers don’t savvy land navigation?”

“I bought compasses for all of them,” Paul said. “But we haven’t tried to use them much.”

“You can do it without a compass, right Joshua?” Terry asked. “At night, by using the stars?”

Before Josh could answer, Jennifer said. “He can. He taught me how. I can teach you.” The offer was made in a sweet tone of voice, and Jennifer’s expression was innocent enough, but this struck Josh as the proverbial hissing and scratching of a cat announcing her ownership of the turf in question. Terry seemed to take it that way, judging by the fading smile and furrowing eyebrows.

“Matter of fact,” Paul said, oblivious to all the covert saber rattling between the females, “if you’re not doing anything for Independence Day, we’d be obliged if you’d come over and spend the day with us.”

“You can try some of my potato pie,” Terry suggested, undaunted.

“I appreciate it,” Josh said. “Sounds good.”

They exchanged a few more pleasantries and bid goodbyes.

Josh continued along the trail with Jennifer following. He expected either an angry outburst, or the silent treatment. Not that he had been anything more than polite with his neighbor’s daughter. But since when did facts ever matter to a woman?

Jennifer surprised him again, though. She asked a few reasonable questions about his neighbors, but never escalated the exchange to an argument.

He turned back just after the waterfall so they would make it home before dark. The ride was a pleasant one, with horses and riders getting familiar with each other along the way. When they reached the house, Jennifer asked to take a shower. While she did that, he stabled the horses, rubbed them down and fed them.

Jennifer was still in the bathroom when he came indoors, but the water was no longer running. He called through the bathroom door, “You wanna eat something before you go?”

Her answer didn’t come right away. “I’m staying here tonight, aren’t I?”

That was the agreement originally, but judging by her lukewarm greeting and attitude, he assumed she had changed her plans. “You’re welcome to stay if you want,” he replied.

“I thought that was the whole idea,” she said, rustling something around on the other side of the door.

“Well, yeah. But I figured you only wanted to go riding, after…” He shrugged, deciding to drop it and just play this visit by ear.

“After what?” she asked.

“Nevermind,” he said, and went to the kitchen.

As he dug through the freezer, she entered the kitchen wearing a bathrobe she must have brought along, and a towel wrapped around her head. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Trying to figure out what we’re going to eat,” he said.

She grabbed the freezer door out of his hand and waved toward the doorway. “Why don’t you clear out. I’ll take care of this.”

“Cool. I’ll go make sure the guest room is ready, then.”

“And call Uncle Tommy,” she said. “He wants to talk to you about something.”

Josh rounded up sheets, blankets and pillows, and made the guest bed for her. Jennifer was the only guest he’d ever had sleep over at this house; and he’d been convinced they were finished as a couple, so he hadn’t anticipated using the guest room again.

Josh wondered what Tommy Scarred Wolf wanted to talk about. For the several months after returning from Indonesia Tommy had continued the investigation which probably got he and his brother Vince marked for ruin in the first place. But then Tommy got too busy with the whole county sheriff thing and slacked off.

Josh opened up his video conferencing program and dialed his old friend. It worked much like Skype, only it was strongly encrypted—a custom program he’d installed on his and Tommy’s desktops.

Tommy was an old buddy from Josh’s A-Team in 5th Group. Tommy was a living legend getting short when Josh was an FNG fresh from the Q-Course. Still, they were like-minded in those days and got tight. They remained friends even after Tommy got out, but after Josh’s time in Iraq years later…things changed. Joshua’s attitude soured regarding the people running the U.S. government. Over time, the more he learned, the sour attitude became seething animosity, which trickled down to nearly every bureaucrat and person with any kind of authority. Tommy had become a cop like his brother, and that strained their friendship. Then he left the Tribal Police and went over to the Feds for a while, which was when Josh completely turned his back on him.

Then Tommy showed up one day right here on the mountain, in desperate need of Josh’s help. Joshua still didn’t completely understand why, but he couldn’t turn Tommy down.

Josh got wounded helping Tommy on Sumatra. Then everything was further complicated when Jennifer came into the picture (her father was murdered, so Tommy was even more protective of her than normal). But somehow when all was said and done, Josh and Tommy were good friends again, as if they’d never had a falling out.

“Hey Tommy,” Josh greeted. “Jenny says you wanted to talk.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Tommy replied. “I have something new for you to keep track of. Maybe dig at a little, when you have time.”

“Is it related to the secret teams?” Josh asked.

Between what Tommy and Vince dug up, plus some information their friend Rocco Cavarra had once been privy to, they had pieced together evidence pointing to an ongoing black ops division hidden inside the intelligence community. The division employed an unknown number of clandestine “tier zero” teams, a couple of which Rocco and the crew ran into overseas. They strongly suspected at least one of the secret teams specialized in false flag ops.

After a hesitant pause, Tommy said, “I have no evidence of that. But it’s something that looks pretty big. I can’t really do much more digging from here without getting The Man back on my tail.”

Josh fancied himself a pro at hacking into secure resources without being detected. “Whatcha got?”

Tommy told him about an epidemic of occult rituals involving both animal and infant sacrifice. Tommy himself had traced connections from some of the practitioners to classified government programs. He wanted Josh to glean more information, on the down-low.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Josh said. They exchanged a little more information and hung up.

After the meal of buffalo burgers and diced potatoes Jennifer cooked, Josh thanked her and bid her good night. His plans for the evening involved some reading on the living room couch before turning in.

He wasn’t ready for her to sit in his lap, wrap her arms around him and stick her tongue down his throat. It stunned him, but was certainly another pleasant surprise.

The towel-turban was gone now and she looked earthy and glorious with her long black hair hanging down.

They had been affectionate with each other before, but something was different about this time. Jennifer was really revved up, and soon had his motor running at redline. He let his hands roam over her, and she didn’t protest. Her breathing became heavy, but she didn’t push his hands away until he began to slip one inside her bathrobe.

She pulled away, but he tugged her back into his lap. “Don’t sleep in the guest room tonight,” he whispered. “Stay with me.”

Her only answer was a quavering moan and he was sure she’d finally surrendered. Careful not to make any sudden moves, he climbed to his feet, cradling her in his arms, and carried her to his bedroom.

All went well until he got her out of the bathrobe, then she shook her head and began crying. “I want to, Joshua. I really want to, but I can’t.”

He sighed and pulled away from her. He didn’t want to argue. Besides, her crying killed the mood for him, anyway. He patted her on the arm, draped the robe back over her, and stood to leave. But she grabbed at his arm and pulled him back.

“Don’t go,” she pleaded, wiping her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Is this about religion, still?” he asked.

She didn’t answer. Which meant yes.

She sniffled and tried to smile, sitting up to wrap her arms around him.

“Since when,” she asked, “am I just the niece of a friend of yours?”

“Since your last visit,” he replied. “Our knock-down drag-out about the stupid phone. And reinforced just now. Did I miss something?”

She licked her lips. There was concern, if not fear, in her deep brown eyes. “We may not agree on everything; but I don’t want to lose you, Joshua.”

“That’s good and all,” he said. “But there are some things about me that will never change.”

She tossed her hair. “The one thing about me that will never change is my faith. And I believe I should only give up my virginity when I’m married.”

“Then why are you wasting time with me?” he asked, with an irritated tone. “There must be millions of church boys out there who would do everything you want.”

“I’m not in love with them,” she said. “I want you.”

“But only on your terms.”

She chewed on her lower lip. He sighed.

“I don’t want to fight,” he said, half-turning. “I’ll see you in the morning.” He pulled away again, but she tugged him back, locking her fingers between his.

He was doing just fine by himself. Why did she have to bring all this drama into his life?

She placed her palm against his face. She looked like she was ready to cry again. “I’m not willing to give up on you.”

He hugged her, patting her back. Sexually frustrated as he was, he tried to give her what comfort he could.

After a while, she composed herself and asked if she could borrow a computer to check her email. He set her up, then checked his news updates on a different computer.

The item of most interest to him at the moment was the standoff in the Chapanee Valley. According to the video feed from one of his most used alternative news sites, the Feds had backed off. His fellow wingnuts were celebrating all over the country, like they’d just destroyed the Death Star and saved the galaxy from the Empire.

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