Gordon Ryan - State of Rebellion

“His personnel file, Ms. Bentley,” Dan explained. “His record of service in the Army.”

“General, that’s about all I can share without stepping over my limits. I hope you understand,” Samuels said.

“Are any of these regular brigade members you’ve identified also members of the guard?”

Samuels nodded toward Bentley.

“General Del Valle, Agent Samuels has assigned me to run background checks on the core members of the Shasta Brigade. None of the central leadership is involved with your guard unit, but over half have extensive military backgrounds. Shaw and his cadre of followers have dropped completely out of sight. Nearly a dozen of the new recruits are also members of the 324 th, and over fifty more are either active duty military or belong to various military reserve units. The brigade is on an extensive recruiting campaign, General. They’re growing larger and getting bolder all the time. We’ve suspected them of killing some dissident members or new recruits who wanted out, and as we’ve said, the patriot movement has claimed responsibility for killing the federal judges. But to our knowledge, this is the first time they’ve executed a federal military officer.”

“Why now?” Del Valle asked. “And how does the Shasta Brigade fit into this patriot movement?”

“We believe that all the California militia units have banded together, calling themselves the California Patriot Movement and hiding their individual actions behind the larger facade,” Bentley said. “Whether there is a central command structure yet, we don’t know. And as to why now, we believe they’ve embraced Senator Turner’s appeal for secession. It’s the clarion call they’ve needed.”

“And who killed McFarland?” Del Valle asked.

“That’s what we’re looking to find out, General,” she responded. “But we can assume that they’re sufficiently aware of military intelligence procedure to realize that our side needs to infiltrate their operations. They’ve probably established an internal security unit.”

“You mean an assassination squad,” Del Valle said.

“Exactly, General.”

Del Valle looked at the female agent. “We’ll have to go about it a bit more carefully, Agent Bentley, but we need to know what’s going on inside the brigade and the other militia units. We’ve developed a small internal group for just that purpose. Captain Rawlings is a JAG officer-a lawyer-as he’s most likely explained. But several months ago, I selected him to run an internal investigation with one of our Criminal Investigation Division agents. Only three other people know of his assignment: Colonel Harman, who serves as the battalion commander, myself, and the CID agent with whom he works.”

“General,” Bentley said, leaning forward in her chair and looking nearly straight up into Del Valle’s face, “we are sincerely sorry for the death of your officer. I want you to know that if there was any way, anything , we could have done to prevent it, we would have acted.”

“Thank you, Agent Bentley. Captain Rawlings,” Del Valle said, “Take the agents to your office and share what information you’ve gleaned through ‘Deadbolt.’ No holds barred, Captain-give them everything you’ve got, and don’t be surprised,” he smiled, looking back at Samuels, “if they already know most, or even all, of it.”

“Yes, sir,” Dan said, standing up. “And, sir, Lieutenant McFarland was married only about eight months ago, and-”

Del Valle held up his hand, nodded slightly, then stood and headed for the door. As they reached the exit, Del Valle turned and faced Dan. “Son, this part of our job never gets easier. When you finish with these folks, we have a visit to make-to Mrs. McFarland.”

“Sir, I should be in dress uniform, instead of BDUs?”

“It’s not necessary, Captain,” he said, shaking his head. “Mrs. McFarland won’t notice.”

Just before noon, First Sergeant Otto Krueger was back at a long-abandoned Shasta Brigade headquarters after dropping off the two recruits. The warning he gave them-that they would think Lieutenant McFarland had enjoyed a peaceful death compared to theirs if they opened their mouths-would keep them silent for a few days. He then drove north and turned off the highway onto a side road, heading up into the mountains.

Discharged from the Army’s Special Operations Group after fourteen years of service, Krueger had been accused of beating up the Fort Ord base chaplain. The fact that Krueger had also been suspected of selling military hardware to Bay Area gang members, and the resultant investigation would likely uncover security breaches, aided in the post commander’s decision not to prosecute. Krueger had agreed to a general discharge to avoid Leavenworth Prison, and the commander agreed to the discharge to avoid publicity and discredit to his career.

Leaving the Army, the former Green Beret settled in the northern California mountains near Yreka. He floundered around for several years, moving from job to job until he finally worked his way up to assistant manager at K-Mart.

One Saturday afternoon, Krueger intervened in a parking lot dispute between a yuppie, who acted as if his black belt inured him to injury, and a couple of teenagers who happened to scratch the yuppie’s highly polished BMW as they walked by. Krueger asked the parties to let the matter go and move on peacefully. The yuppie took umbrage at the middle-aged man’s interference and ended up throwing a punch. Parrying the younger man’s jab, Otto responded with a reflexive kick, bending the man’s knee backward, dropping him to the pavement, and rendering him partially crippled.

After talking with several witnesses who were in the parking lot, including the teenagers, the police determined that the younger man had initiated the fight. Nevertheless, the K-Mart regional director felt that the image of a “don’t-mess-with-me” black-belt assistant manager was not in the best interest of good public relations, and Krueger was dismissed with four weeks’ severance pay.

A week later, one of the parking lot witnesses approached Krueger, who was still out of work and disgruntled, and introduced himself as Jackson Shaw. After some preliminary discussion, Shaw said he was the commander of a local militia unit that could use a man with Krueger’s skills and indicated there was a full-time, paid slot on the command staff. Within two weeks, Krueger was offered the position of first sergeant of the Shasta Brigade, and he had never looked back. He quickly came to know that for the core leadership, there was no turning back, and loyalty was non-negotiable.

Reaching Camp Liberty, the ramshackle cluster of old, wooden huts called home by the top echelon of the Shasta Brigade, he parked the pickup behind one of the shacks, then got out and grabbed a hose connected to a spigot attached to the building. As he began to hose out the back of the truck and inside the toolbox, a man in fatigues exited the shack and approached.

“Any trouble?”

Krueger shook his head and kept spraying the truck.

“Nah. Only the skinny one, Kenny. He barfed all over the place. He’s got no stomach for it, Commander. He was scared stupid.”

“They’ll learn, Sergeant Krueger. We, too, were young and afraid once. Keep after ’em.”

“My pleasure. Think the guard will try to replace the kid?”

Commander Jackson Shaw nodded. “They have to if they want to learn anything, and we have to keep recruiting. It’s a weed-out game that we can’t afford to lose.”

“We won’t lose, Commander, and they won’t get another spy in here-not for long, anyway. But my problem is making soldiers out of the gutter-dwellers who want to join the brigade. We’ll never function as a unit until we get some trained and disciplined NCOs.”