Devon Ford - The Fall

He filled his pouches with spare ammunition, enough to dangerously weigh down lesser men, before clipping the heavy rifle to the sling threaded under his vest. He selected two M9 Berettas, one going into a holster on his vest and the other into the drop-leg holster on his right thigh, and filled the similar rig on his left thigh with six spare magazines for the weapons. When he was finished, he looked less like a man and more like a one-man-band who played a multitude of different instruments. He cast his eye over the ranks of other weapons, the personal weapons of his team which they knew more intimately than they ever would their own families. He smiled a small smile, albeit one laced with sadness, that they were finally going to work.

Inside of a minute he was swiping himself into the accommodation block of the 160 thSpecial Operations Aviation Regiment, or SOAR for short, and found them similarly climbing into their black flight suits.

His team had dedicated access to two MH-60L Black Hawk helicopters and their crew, as well as a support bird modified as a gunship with no troop-carrying capability. All three helicopters had extended fuel range, night vision enhanced sensors, and all were configured for stealth infiltration missions.

“Fully fueled and loaded, personal gear to a minimum, wheels up in twenty-five,” he told them, nodding once before turning to leave again.

“Captain?” asked a female voice from down the corridor. Troy turned back to look at the speaker, Lieutenant Gina Pilloni, Sardinian by way of Birmingham, Alabama and the newest member of his extended team. She was young, too young in Troy’s opinion to be worthy of a gig in SOAR, but she was confident, fit, and courageous. Being the lowest ranking, at least in experience, she was by far the baby of the group and was set apart as the only one not to have gone to war with them.

“Lieutenant?” Troy replied, not wanting a debate but unable to be openly hostile without provocation.

“Where are we going, sir?” she asked him, naivety and excitement showing evident on her face.

“To the helipad with minimal personal gear, fully fueled and loaded, in twenty-five,” he answered patiently, then turned on his heel and left, leaving the six pilots and four crew to get it done.

Twenty-two minutes later, Troy stood on the tarmac in the dark as his team filed out and filtered into the two Black Hawks in their respective fire teams. They carried an array of personal weaponry as well as a large crate each between two of them. The odd man at the rear, and Troy’s second-in-command, as well as fire team leader and long-time friend was Master Sergeant David White, better known as Chalky by the team. The military fashion for witty nicknames had long ceased to amaze either of them.

“I’m guessing this isn’t my sudden call-up to OCS?” Chalky asked Troy as he approached, pushing another ammo crate on a trolley. Since completing his bachelor’s degree by correspondence, Master Sergeant David White had formally been accepted to Officer Candidate School on an accelerated program for experienced NCOs.

“No,” Troy told him, “this is for real.”

Chalky shrugged, hefted the ammo crate onto the loading area of the helicopter, and turned to watch the trolley be blown across the tarmac by the rotor wash to fall on its side at the grass edge. Both Troy and Chalky watched in silence as the combined helicopter engines picked up their intensity to a screaming whine, then turned to their respective rides.

Two minutes later, a minute inside Troy’s expected time of departure, each member of the combined twenty-person team designated Endeavor was aboard one of the three helicopters now hurtling low and fast over the camp. Each of them was wearing a headset which allowed comms with their team, and thanks to the encryption protocols, their team alone.

“Listen up,” Troy told them though the boom mic attached to the headset he wore, “as of thirty minutes ago our beloved United States is at war.” He paused to let that hang, knowing that his team were too professional to ask stupid questions in the middle of his brief. “We don’t know who with as yet, but we do know that both eastern and western seaboards have been devastated by nuclear attacks. D.C. is gone and so is Fort Bragg, along with a half-dozen other cities. It’s believed we were a target of an ICBM but it was intercepted by our ABMs.” He paused, imagining the looks of horror and anger his team were exchanging, and even felt his own bird drop a little as though the pilot had been taken by the sudden shock of the news.

“Our orders are to get the fuck out of dodge and fall back on an enclosed position to await further orders from the remaining elements of command. Question time will be later, for now we wait for a deployment.”

With that, he recited the coordinates of their target location from memory to the co-pilot and sat back.

Colonel Glenn Butler had cleared all personnel from the command hut and sat at his desk in silence. The screens had been turned off as he couldn’t bear to watch the unthinkable destruction being wrought on his country.

At first, he couldn’t believe the coincidental timing of the attack happening just as the opening phase of his plan was drawing to a close. After the fourth mushroom cloud he saw on screen, the awareness slowly dawned on him that this was no mere coincidence, but a terrible country-wide campaign of annihilation and he had been responsible for effectively shutting down the command structure for whoever had used him like a pawn. All was lost, and worse than that; he was partially to blame. He had opened the door for them.

The phone chirped, making him jolt up in his seat in fright. There were noises outside as vehicles started and his so-called loyal followers fled, but the sudden sharpness and closeness of the ringer frightened him out of his stasis-like depression. He turned his attention to the CIA man on the other end of the line, preparing to launch into a savage and vitriolic rant about the irony of the word intelligence in their title.

“Butler,” he snarled into the phone after raising the stubby aerial. He didn’t wait for an answer but launched straight into is attack.

“Now you listen to me, you sorry piece of shit—” he started, but was cut off by laughing coming from the other end of the line.

“Colonel,” said the voice in between chuckles, “I simply wanted to thank you for your kind assistance. You have been invaluable to the People’s Republic.”

With that the line went silent, and Colonel Glenn Butler slowly placed the phone on the table before him.

Sat back in a comfortable office chair on the other end of the line, the sound of a single sob escaping Butler’s lips was quickly stifled. The ensuing silence, which hung heavy with an air of resolve, was punctuated only by the metallic sound of Butler’s pistol protesting the action as he pulled back the top slide to chamber a round. A few seconds of heavy breathing followed before a single sharp report echoed down the line, then a noise that the man listening assumed to be a body slumping over. Waiting in silence with a partially amused look on his face, he heard the sounds of footsteps and a door opening. Shuffling noises merged into the sound of breathing as someone picked the phone up to their ear.

“It’s done,” said a female voice in a simple statement.

“Good,” came the reply, “proceed as planned.”

Suzanne clicked off the call and clipped the phone to her belt before looking down at the man sitting dead in his chair. The bear in the winter of life, the ageing lion superseded by a generation younger and fitter, the outcast silverback discarded and destined to die alone. She didn’t even have pity for him any longer; she simply activated a fist-sized device which whirred quietly as it spun up and began to blink small LED lights. She tossed it onto Butler’s dead lap and walked outside to climb into a truck and abandon the movement just as everyone else had.