Dale Brown: Act of War

…This is not the first time suspicious foreign nationals have been caught around the Maine National Guard site. In June, according to the Border Patrol, a Humvee was stolen from the Limestone facility. While searching for the missing vehicle, agents apprehended a Russian illegal alien nearby. He had a valid New York State commercial driver’s license allowing him to haul hazardous materials and a pass that granted him access to seaports along the East Coast—including high-level security bonded customs areas. Also this summer, two other Russian nationals, dressed in military battle dress uniforms, were stopped by Canadian authorities as they attempted to enter the U.S. at an unguarded crossing approximately 20 miles south of Limestone…

PROLOGUE

Kingman City, Texas

Present time

Just twenty precious minutes more—and the global war for freedom from death and tyranny would enter the next level. The closer the driver came to his target, the more his blood boiled and his adrenaline level kicked up to even higher levels.

I am a man of peace, the driver told himself for the umpteenth time as he made his journey, but if any man on Earth deserved to die, it was Harold Chester Kingman, president and CEO of TransGlobal Energy Corporation. The man’s destructiveness and greed were exceeded only by his immense ego. The highways and roads leading to his target were so audaciously named, the driver noted with disgust, that one could practically make the trip without once referring to a map of any sort: from Interstate 45, take the Harold Chester Kingman Parkway off-ramp, head west on Kingman Parkway to TransGlobal Avenue, then south on Dominion Street to the front gate. Kingman had even changed the name of the town itself: known as Texas City since 1893, the oil, gas, and nuclear energy mogul changed the name when he purchased the entire area just a few years ago. Why, thought the driver, didn’t Kingman just put his name on every street sign in the city, perhaps with the title “King,” “Lord,” or “Slave Master” added for good measure?

The driver followed the signs to the truck entrance a bit farther south, noting the security cameras arrayed along every portion of the road. As he got closer, he noticed more and more roving patrols in sport-utility vehicles, with supervisors in sedans, enforcing the enforcers. Yes, paranoid: Kingman trusted no one. From many previous trips here, the driver knew that those SUVs were heavily armored and could probably withstand a rocket-propelled grenade round, then return fire with their own heavy weapons, including assault rifles, machine guns, and grenade launchers. But as tight as security was, the driver remarked to himself that it got tighter and more sophisticated every time he came here. Was it merely the nature of post–9/11 American industrial society, or was it Harold Chester Kingman’s supreme ego and paranoia at work? Whatever it was, TransGlobal Energy was surely expending an even greater percentage of their enormous profits on security these days.

Not that Kingman was paying for it, of course—it simply meant that his workers worked harder for even less pay, and he jacked up prices across the board for his products and services, perhaps double the cost of the added expenses. Kingman obviously wasn’t suffering because of all these outlays for an elaborate and even outlandish show of security—in fact, he was profiting handsomely from it, telling the world that it was these security measures responsible for the steep price increases, layoffs, and pay cuts.

The front gate to the immense TransGlobal Energy Transshipment and Refinery Complex, about twenty miles south of Houston, resembled some kind of futuristic sci-fi fortress—or prison, depending on how you looked at it. The incoming gate was an entrapment area, with two gates enclosing an arriving vehicle so that there was no direct opening to the outside at any time. In addition, the moving gates were massive barriers made with twenty-centimeter-square steel posts, topped with coils of razor wire. Those gates looked strong enough to stop a main battle tank.

The driver approached the outside guard shack and parked just outside the steel gates, despite a large sign that read “DO NOT APPROACH GATE UNTIL CLEARED.” The guard shack was no longer a “shack”—this was now a brand-new concrete bunker, with gun ports and thick one-way mirrored bulletproof glass instead of the old simple wooden building, screen door, and smiling, mildly bored guards. He had been here only a couple weeks and this bunker wasn’t here the first time he’d arrived. He stepped over to the large glass window, idly flipping through a metal form holder.

“Move your vehicle away from the gate, Officer,” an electronic voice ordered through a hidden speaker.

The man on the outside looked up, squinting through the spotlights shining on him from around the window. “Is that you, Tom?” the man asked. “What’s with the lights?” He knew what the lights were for, of course—they darkened and obscured his view of the inside of the guard bunker, and also allowed them to take more detailed digital photos of him.

“You need to move your car away from the gate until you’re cleared in, Patrolman Kelly,” the voice said again. “Back behind the yellow line.”

Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Sergeant Frank Kelly squinted in mild irritation and looked back down at his forms. “Well, clear me in then, and I’ll be on my way, Tom,” he said. He looked at his watch impatiently, hoping they’d get the hint. Usually the sight of someone in a DPS uniform made folks nervous, from young motorists right up to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, even if they were totally innocent. The DPS enforced not only highway traffic laws but safety and security laws for important public transportation facilities such as ports, harbors, and truck terminals. They had the authority to shut down any facility that didn’t strictly comply with Texas law, so every trooper was usually treated with a high degree of respect.

“Procedures have changed, Frank,” a different voice said. “You obviously didn’t get the memo.”

“You’re going to make me back the damned car up twenty lousy feet before you’ll let me in, Tom?” the officer asked, the exasperation more evident in his voice. “All I want are the tanker inspection logs and I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Frank, the entry procedures have changed,” the invisible guard inside the bunker said apologetically. “We notified DPS headquarters and all the area substations last week. I’m sorry, but you know, procedures are…”

The officer held up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay, I know: procedures are procedures,” he said. “I’ll back up behind your big bad yellow line.” He slapped the metal form holder shut with a loud bang! and walked back to his marked Crown Victoria cruiser.

So much for the rock-solid intelligence they had so far been receiving, Kelly thought, fighting to act inconvenienced and put off. All this added security was unexpected. And the new guardhouse—where in hell have the lookouts been all this time? It should have been plain enough to even untrained observers to notice that these damned blockhouses were being built at the entrances! He glanced in his rearview mirror, noting that the street behind him was still clear—no trucks or other security vehicles were boxing him in.

A moment later, the guard he knew as Tom stepped out of a revolving steel security turnstile and approached the cruiser, an M-16 rifle slung on one shoulder. Kelly noted that he also wore an automatic pistol instead of the cheap standard-issue revolvers most security guards here wore. Another serious breakdown in intelligence. At that moment, one of TransGlobal’s royal blue armored Suburban security vehicles appeared on the street behind him and stopped about fifty yards away, a gun port on the right rear door open. Now Kelly was starting to sweat.