The secure phone on the broad wooden desk of the commander, Joint Special Operations Command, buzzed and he tossed the file he was annotating onto the pile of similar documents.
"JSOC—" pronounced Jay-Sock "—General Taylor." The room was tastefully decorated with an impressive "I love me" wall of battle decorations, paintings of notable battles and commission photographs. The carpeting was deep, rich blue and the wallpaper was matching but the view was pure walls. The room resided deep within a featureless concrete building, one of several, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Joint Special Operations Command was founded out of disaster. During the Tehran Hostage Crisis, the inability of the services to coordinate was critical in the debacle at Desert One. Special operations require depths of coordination and training that the regular services could not supply. As just one example, the forecasters for Desert One were not told precisely where the flights would go and, therefore, could not warn the planners about the dust storms the helicopters encountered. The Marine pilots, while capable and valiant to a normal level, were under-trained for a mission of that intensity, leading to the "pilot error" crashes at the site and other failures.
These critical failures of communication, intelligence and training, the cornerstones of any military, crystallized a movement to centralize the various services' special operations groups under one umbrella organization. Joint Special Operations was the child of that movement. It was from JSOC that such high-quality actions as the Special Forces and Ranger raids in Panama, the Force Recon insertion into Baghdad and the SEAL diversion during the assault in Desert Storm drew their planning and implementation.
Now, the Joint Special Operations Command was a mature unit, ready to provide the right forces at the right time for special operations anywhere on the globe. But they were about to be tasked for a mission outside those parameters.
"General Taylor, it's Trayner," said the cold voice on the phone.
"And what can JSOC do for the Vice Chief of Staff, today?" asked General Taylor, leaning back and staring unseeing at the picture on the far wall: a line of blue-clad soldiers charging out of a mist against a similar line of soldiers clad in gray.
"It's an awkward tasking," said the VCA. "I need one of your people. I'm going to give you the specifications and you tell me who I need. Also, this should be obvious since I'm stepping all over procedure, this is as 'black' as it gets. Are we clear on that?" "Black" operations are so secret sometimes they never happened. There are no records and no reports, only results. Politicians, even presidents, hate black operations.
"Capice, sir," the commander replied, wondering what the fuss was. This was SOCOM's meat and drink. "What are the specifications for this oh-so-special individual?" he asked. He picked up a letter opener off his desk and started to balance it on the tip of his index finger.
"NCO or officer," continued the VCA, "to put together a team, mono-service or joint, for unspecified reconnaissance in hostile territory and environment outside the continental United States."
Taylor scratched the back of his neck and changed his stare to the picture of a tropical beach on his desk. A much younger, bronzed Taylor had his arm around the waist of a skinny laughing blonde. He appeared to be trying to cop a feel. "That's pretty damn vague General, except the 'hostile' part." He flipped the letter opener in the air. It landed point down in a cork target just to the left of his monitor, obviously placed there for that very reason. He paid it no attention, assuming the letter opener knew where it was going.
"Don't fish, Jim," snapped the VCA. "This is as black as midnight; that's straight from National Command Authority, the President. It wasn't even from the SECDEF or SECARMY, they're out of the loop. I was given this tasking personally by the NCA."
"Jesus, this is deep shit," snorted Taylor. He thought for a moment then laughed, "Okay. Mosovich."
"Shit, I knew you'd say that," the other general growled. "The sergeant major'll shit a brick."
"He's your sergeant major, not mine," Taylor laughed again. "You want black reconnaissance in hostile territory, Mosovich is the Man. I notice you don't suggest Bobby-boy," General Taylor continued smugly.
"He hates to be called that," said the VCA, resignedly. It was an old and worn argument. "Okay, okay, put him TDY to my office. Tell 'im to sneak by the sergeant major if he's so damn stealthy." The phone clicked in Taylor's ear.
"You wanted to see me, General?"
At the quietly spoken words the report the Vice Chief of Staff had been reading flew upward in a blizzard of paper. In the three days since his call to the JSOC commander, Trayner had hardly left his office. When Command Sergeant Major Jacob "Jake the Snake" Mosovich had entered his office or how long he had been sitting quietly on the Vice Chief of Staff's couch was a mystery. The startle factor and long hours caused the VCA's temper to snap.
"God damn you, you, you, fucking juvenile delinquent! How long have you been sitting there?" he shouted, slapping his desk. All it did was hurt his hand; the implied reprimand slid off Mosovich like rain off a roof. "And have you ever heard of reporting properly?" the officer snarled. He started to reassemble the file as if it were the shredded remains of his temper.
"I've been here since 0500, sir, about twenty minutes before you got here." Jake's scar-seamed face split in an uncharacteristic grin, "General Taylor told me to avoid Bobby-Boy."
Sergeant Major Mosovich was a thirty-year veteran of covert special operations. Five feet seven inches tall and a hundred fifty pounds soaking wet, his head was almost totally bald, one side of it scar tissue, but his dress green uniform was virtually unadorned. He sported few decorations for valor and his open military record, his 201 file, listed him with limited time in combat: a few actions in Grenada, Panama, Desert Storm and Somalia. For all that, and the total lack of any official Purple Hearts, his face was pockmarked with black pits, indicative of unextracted shrapnel, and his body was covered in the ropy scars made by metal when it violates the human body. His medical file, as opposed to his 201, had so much data on trauma repair and recovery it could be used as a textbook. He had spent his whole career, except a first tour with the 82nd Airborne, in special operations, moving from Special Forces to Delta Force and eventually back. No matter where he was, officially, he always seemed to be somewhere else and he had a permanent tan from tropical suns. Over the years he had amassed quite a retirement fund from temporary duty pay and he never went anywhere, anymore, unless it was at max per diem.
The necessity to avoid the Sergeant Major of the Army stemmed from an unfortunate incident the year before at the Association of the United States Army annual convention at the Washington Sheraton.
Once a senior NCO reaches a certain rank, all the positions are technically equal. Obviously, however, there is a certain prestige to the Command Sergeant Major position of, say, Third Army as opposed to Third Brigade, Fourth Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colorado. But the higher prestige positions do not necessarily go to the sergeant majors with the most time in grade or combat experience, but rather to the sergeant majors who are willing to expend the political energy or have the patronage and desire.
The current Sergeant Major of the Army was Command Sergeant Major Robert McCarmen. Sergeant Major McCarmen was a contemporary of Sergeant Major Mosovich and they had both come up through Special Forces. But, whereas Sergeant Major Mosovich was always somewhere overseas doing something odd or unmentionable, with few exceptions Sergeant Major McCarmen had been at Fort Bragg, North Carolina (5th and 7th Groups), Fort Lewis, Washington (1st Group) or Fort Carson, Colorado (10th Group) except for training missions. He had, however, deployed for Grenada, Panama and Desert Storm. Somehow, despite the fact that these operations had involved minimal real combat for special operations personnel, with a few glaring exceptions, Sergeant Major McCarmen had amassed an impressive set of medals. Silver Star, Bronze Star with V device for valor in combat, and even the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest award for courage in the military pantheon. Each medal was fully authorized and if the citations were a little vague, well, what could be expected for a "Black Warrior." The fact that the citations were all written by commanders with whom the sergeant major had a close and warm relationship was beside the point: it had to be your commander who made the commendation and McCarmen always interacted well with his officers.
His many citations and his ability to interact smoothly with senior officers and politicians had garnered him the most coveted position of any Army NCO: Sergeant Major of the Army, Top Dog of the whole Big Green Machine.
At the previous year's convention, Sergeant Major Mosovich, Command Sergeant Major of Fifth Special Forces Group in a virtually unadorned Dress Green Uniform and Sergeant Major McCarmen, Command Sergeant Major of the Army, in a medal-bedecked army-blue Dress Uniform, had happened to enter an empty elevator together, both somewhat in their cups. When it reached the ground floor, the Sergeant Major of the Army, some eighty pounds heavier than Jake Mosovich, was unconscious and bleeding on the floor and Sergeant Major Mosovich was seen to exit the elevator shaking his right hand as if it hurt.
"Yeah, I guess I told him that, Jake," said General Trayner, mollified, "but I told building security to inform me when you arrived."
"Well, General, General Taylor indicated that it was pretty important and the way he said it made it sound like maybe this conversation never happened. So, since building security logs entry and exit . . ." The scarred NCO shrugged.
"You slipped the Pentagon security net?" asked the Vice Chief of Staff, storm clouds building in his eyes.
"Well, you did say it was black," said Mosovich, stretching out the kinks. He had been sitting totally motionless for the last three hours. If he had been a spy, it would have been tedious but fruitful. It was amazing what generals would discuss, assuming their words were not being overheard. Jake was not sure what the bottom line was, the general had not talked about that directly, but the conversations clearly indicated that something large was afoot.
"Not that fucking black," the general growled. "God dammit Jake, this is too fucking much. I covered for you last year, but watch your fucking step."
"Roger, General, sir." The NCO continued to smile slightly, obviously unrepentant.
The general dropped his anger as ill-spent and laughed. "You always were impossible to discipline, you little fuck." He rubbed the tip of his nose and shook his head.
"Yeah, and you were impossible to train, even as a snot-nosed LT." The NCO smiled again and got up to make himself a cup of coffee. The general invariably had the best coffee in the Army, a result of having spent a year doing cross duty with the Navy. Jake poured himself a cup of the excellent concoction and took a deep and satisfying whiff of the aroma. A sip confirmed that it was the general's usual excellent brew.
"So, what's up?" he asked cocking an eyebrow and recapturing his seat on the couch.
"Well, the shit has well and truly hit the fan, Jake. Have you ever gotten wind of the ULF projects? They ever rope you in?" asked the general, taking a sip of his own java.
"Unidentified Life Forms? Yeah, they were nosing around for a special unit back in, what? '93 or '94? Some dumb fuck gave 'em my name and I went through the stupidest series of psychological evals in history. I get paid a hundred fifty bucks a month extra to jump out of airplanes so naturally one of the questions is 'would you jump from a high place.' Jesus." He sighed in exasperation. "Shrinks."
"Where do you stand? Do you think they're out there or not?" The general might have thought he had a poker face in place, but Jake had played too many poker games with him not to see the signs.
"You must know something, or we wouldn't be having this conversation," said the NCO, not rising to the bait.
"Yeah, well, we need a special team. You won't necessarily lead it; that will be decided later." Trayner pulled out a purple file folder, elaborately enwrapped in Top Secret tape. "About seven to ten, various specialties, to perform a covert insertion in a hostile environment with hostile indigenous forces to do order of battle and terrain assessments."
"You can't get that with overhead, boss? And where in the hell are we going to send a team against 'hostile forces'? We're currently at peace, miracle of miracles." He wiggled his finger, indicating that the general, sir, should stop being coy and hand over the file. He could smell the mission and it smelled dangerous and interesting, two attributes that always caught him. For all his bitching about running open-eyed towards danger, if he could have walked away from an adrenaline rush he would have gotten out of this business a long time ago.
"We . . . can't get overhead. There's coverage. And the where is in this folder," Trayner said, waving it back and forth as if to waft it under Jake's nose. Trayner knew Jake's weakness of old.
"Okay, drop the other shoe, General. What's it got to do with ULFs?" Jake sometimes felt that he was the proverbial terminated cat; curiosity was definitely going to kill him someday.
"Ahem, let's just say you're not the sneakiest son of a bitch in town anymore." The normally somber general smiled. "Himmit Rigas, now might be a good time." With those words, the wall to the right of the general's desk unfolded into a four-limbed being, its skin color rippling from the thin green stripes of the wallpaper to a uniform purple gray. The arms that had been stretched upward to the ceiling slowly slipped to the floor until it was in a quadrupedal stance. It now appeared to be an equi-limbed frog with four eyes, one set on either end, and two mouths, one on either end. There was a complex honeycomb formation above the mouths and between wide-set eyes; it could have been an ear or a nose. The skin continued to ripple as the being flowed forward and raised one of its paw/hands in an obvious invitation to shake. A box strapped to the wrist/ankle began to speak in a high tenor.
"You are remarkably still for a human. Do you know any good stories?" it said.
This moment would come to many people over the next few years. Each would deal with it in a defining way. For the first time in the history of mankind, people would know without doubt that man was not alone in the universe, that there was other intelligent life in the galaxy, and would look on the face of an alien being. Some would react with fear, some with friendship, some with love, each response as diverse as mankind. Sergeant Major Mosovich simply stretched out his hand in return. At the touch of the alien paw, his adrenaline gland shot a leemer, defined by the military as a cold shot of urine to the heart, into his system. The proffered appendage was cool and smooth, covered with a fine coating of silken feathers. Jake carefully controlled his breathing and voice. "Thanks. You're not half bad yourself. How long have you been there?"
"Since yesterday in the day. After the second meal you take, but before the general's afternoon briefing. I entered from the ceiling through the door while the guard directed a visitor. The lock was insignificant. It was, as you discovered, readily manipulated through a magnetic pick. The general has had fifteen visitors and seventy-eight phone calls in the last eighteen hours. He has been present for fifteen of those eighteen hours. His visitors were, in order, his aide, Lieutenant Colonel William Jackson, on the subject of his canceling a previously scheduled social engagement. The second visitor—"
"Excuse me, Himmit Rigas, but I need to hold an initial briefing for Sergeant Major Mosovich." The general smiled politely, having already become used to the Himmit's characteristic volubility. His smile carefully did not reveal teeth.
"Certainly, General. My tale can wait to fully unfold."
Jake slowly turned back to the general and collapsed onto the couch. He refused to watch as the Himmit flowed back into camouflage against the wall.
"The background brief is in here." Trayner finally tossed Jake the purple file. "Read it here; it doesn't leave this room. Then start thinking about a team to take off-planet for a reconnaissance mission. The world will be Earth-like, swampy and cool. You'll be preparing here and there extensively with the Himmit. When we get done with the initial operations order I'll send you back to Bragg. Set up a team, but you don't brief them until you've decided on the final group. After that they go on lock down, that's from NCA too."
"How did the Pres. become involved?" asked Mosovich, not yet opening the file.
"They called him on the phone," answered the VCA.
"Really?"
"Really." The officer shook his head. "They just called him from orbit on his direct line, along with the heads of the G-7, China and Russia. That was three days ago."
"Fast work for Washington." Jake took another sip of his coffee, opening the file as he did so. As he did he noticed that the whole file was constructed of slick flash paper. This was being held awfully close to the vest if the VCA was handling a flash file. The file felt greasy and cold in his hands and he had a premonition that the mission was going to feel the same way. "Okay, but I'll need one other person to help recruit the team."
"Who?" asked the general, suspiciously.
"A sergeant first class named Ersin."
The general thought about it briefly then nodded. "Okay, you can brief him in on my authority. Understand, right now this is as closely held as anything I've ever heard; it's all on the old boy network. Do not reveal anything to anybody else."
"I don't even tell myself half the things I do." Jake said with a smile and, with one last glance at the Himmit retracting into camouflage, he began to read the file.