Stephen Coonts - Combat

Laager (modern usage) — A temporary camp for a unit of armored fighting vehicles in the field.

SABR (Selectable Assault Battle Rifle) —The projected next-generation weapons system for the US Army’s ground fighter. An assumed given in any twenty-first century conflict situation is that the American foot soldier is going to be massively outnumbered wherever he (or she) is going to be committed to battle. The concept behind the SABR is to give the individual US infantryperson the same enhanced firepower and survival advantages that precision-guided standoff munitions give his (or her) Air Force counterpart.

The SABR is a composite weapon, combining a 5.56mm Heckler & Koch G36 assault carbine with a six-round, clip-fed grenade launcher, the launcher firing a family of 20mm antivehicle and antipersonnel rounds, many of which will be cybernetically fused “smart” munitions.

Also mated to the weapon will be a multimode sighting system incorporating thermographic, night brite, and laser targeting technologies, giving the user the ability effectively to engage the enemy at all ranges and in all combat environments.

OCSW (Objective Crew Served Weapon)— The 25mm big brother to the SABR. Replacing the “Ma Deuce” 50 caliber machine gun and Mark 19 40mm “Chunker,” this vehicle- and tripod-mounted high-velocity grenade launcher will also be capable of delivering a wide variety of “smart” and “dumb” munitions.

RPV (Remotely Piloted Vehicle) —A remotely operated, robotic surface or aircraft.

MM-15 Shinseki Multi-Mission Combat Vehicle —An end result of Army Chief of Staff Eric K. Shinseki’s “Medium-Weight Force” concept. The replacement for the U.S. Army’s current force of heavyweight tracked tanks and Armored Personnel Carriers. The concept behind this family of wheeled Armored Fighting and Support Vehicles is that they are light enough to be airlifted rapidly to any global trouble spot. Yet, at the same time, they mount enough advanced technological firepower to deal with any potential crisis.

Track —Military slang. The term “track” might be used for any caterpillartreaded armored fighting vehicle other then a true tank or a self-propelled howitzer, e.g., “scout track”, “antiair track”, “command track,” etc.

Velectronics (Vehicle electronics) —A ground-combat vehicle’s battlefield sensors and onboard electronic-warfare systems. An increasingly critical factor in future conflict situations.

Author’s Note —Following the American Civil War, the Seventh U.S. Cavalry Regiment began using the old Irish ballad Garryowen as its distinctive signature march, an acknowledgment to the many Irish immigrants who served with both the regiment and with the frontier army as a whole.

So strongly did the regiment become linked with the song that they became known as the Garryowens, a designation the unit still wears proudly today.

JAMES COBB has lived his entire life within a thirty-mile radius of a major Army post, an Air Force base, and a Navy shipyard. He comments, “Accordingly, it’s seemed a natural to become a kind of cut-rate Rudyard Kipling, trying to tell the stories of America’s service people.” Currently, he’s writing the Amanda Garrett technothriller series, with three books, Choosers of the Slain, Seastrike, and Seafighter , published. He’s also doing the Kevin Pulaski suspense thrillers for St. Martin’s Press. He lives in the Pacific Northwest and, when he’s not writing, he indulges in travel, the classic American hot rod, and collecting historic firearms.

The secluded community just outside of Valparaiso, Chile, slumbered on behind the high walls and steel-reinforced gates that surrounded it. Other than the lazy swaying of branches stirred by a gentle offshore breeze, the only sound or movement disturbing the early-morning darkness was that created by the rhythmic footfalls on the pavement of a pair of security guards patrolling the empty streets of the well-manicured community. The two armed men did not live in any of the homes they were charged with protecting. Even if either one of them had been fortunate enough to possess the small fortune that ownership of property in the tiny village required, neither had the social credentials that would permit him to purchase even the smallest plot of ground within these walls. If they harbored any resentment over this fact, they dared not show it. The pay was too good and the work too easy to jeopardize. Their parents had taught them well. Only fools take risks when times were good and circumstances didn’t require it.

Still, the guards were only human. On occasion a comment that betrayed their true feelings would slip out during the casual conversation that they engaged in during the long night. Upon turning a corner, one of the security guards took note of a flickering of light in a second-story window of one of the oversize homes. Slowing his pace, the hired guardian studied the window in an effort to determine if something was out of kilter. Belatedly, his partner took note of his concern. With a chuckle, the second guard dismissed the concerns of the first. “There is nothing going on up there that we need to bother ourselves with.”

“And how would you know that?” the first asked as he kept one eye on the window.

“My sister, the one who is a cleaning woman, chatters incessantly about what she sees in each of these houses. That room, for example, is off-limits to her.”

Rather than mollify his suspicions, these comments only piqued the first guard’s interest. “And why is that? Is it the personal office of the owner?”

Letting out a loud laugh, the second guard shook his head. “Not hardly. It is the bedroom of a teenage boy.”

Seeing the joke, the first guard let out a nervous chuckle. “What,” he asked, “makes the bedroom of a teenage boy so important?”

“The boy is a computer rat,” came the answer. “My sister says he has just about every sort of computer equipment imaginable cluttering the place.”

“What does your sister know about computers?” the first asked incredulously.

Offended, his partner glared. “We are poor, not ignorant.”

Realizing that he had unintentionally insulted his comrade, the first guard lowered his head. “I am sorry, I didn’t mean to …”

“But you did,” the offended guard snapped. “What goes on in those rooms is not our concern anyway. We are paid to guard against criminals and terrorists, not speculate about what our employers do within the confines of their own homes.” With that, he pivoted about and marched off, followed a few seconds later by his partner.

Neither man, of course, realized that the only terrorist within miles was already inside the walls of the quiet little community. In fact, they had been watching him, or more correctly, his shadow as he went about waging an undeclared war against the United States of America.

Alone in his room, Angelo Castalano sat hunched over the keyboard of his computer, staring at the screen. As he did night after night, young Angelo ignored the pile of schoolbooks that lay strewn across the floor of his small room and turned, instead, his full attention to solving a far more interesting problem. It concerned his latest assignment from the commander of the X Legion.

The “foot soldiers” in the X Legion were, for the most part, the sons of well-to-do South American parents, people who could be correctly referred to as the ruling elite. While Angelo’s father oversaw the operation of a major shipping business in Valparaiso owned by a Hong Kong firm, his mother struggled incessantly to keep her place in the polite society of Chile that was, for her husband, just as important as his business savvy. Like their North American counterparts, the information age and modern society left them little time to tend to the children that were as much a symbol of a successful union as was a large house in the proper neighborhood. That Angelo’s father had little time to enjoy either his son or house was viewed as a problem, nothing more. So, as he did with so many other problems he faced, the Chilean businessmen threw money and state-of-the-art equipment at it.