Fault Lines Read online

  “Let’s go!” a voice shouted from the truck.

  With a screech, the pickup peeled out in reverse. Bradshaw’s eyes locked on the driver. Something was off. As he continued forward, the face grew clearer. Bradshaw nearly stopped in his tracks.

  He had seen that face before.

  He had seen a year earlier it through an Elcan SpecterDR on his Army-issued FN SCAR-H, defending an unknown patrol base nearly 8,000 miles away.

  He had been sure he would never see that face again, as he had placed his reticle on the man’s chest, squeezed the trigger, watched the bullet make impact, and saw him fall.

  Other works by Steven Hildreth, Jr.

  The Ben Williams Series

  The First Bayonet

  The Sovereigns

  The Ronin Genesis

  FORSAKEN

  PATRIOTS

  FAULT LINES

  STEVEN HILDRETH, JR.

  First edition January 2019

  ISBN 978-1-72393-981-5

  FAULT LINES

  Copyright ©2019 by Steven Hildreth, Jr.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopy, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the author: Steven Hildreth, Jr., PO Box #19131, Tucson, AZ, 85731, email [email protected].

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Printed by Kindle Direct Publishing, an Amazon subsidiary.

  “We assess lone actors and small cells within the white supremacist extremist (WSE) movement likely will continue to pose a threat of lethal violence over the next year. This assessment is based on a review of lethal and potentially lethal incidents of WSE violence from 2000 to 2016 and the often spontaneous and opportunistic nature of these acts that limits prevention by law enforcement.”

  -FBI/DHS Joint Intelligence Bulletin, 10 May 2017

  “I sat in a closed session briefing about two months ago about Charlottesville with the Director of the FBI. [I] asked if Russian intermeddling had to do with fomenting the flames of what happened in Charlottesville. I was told, ‘Yes, it did.’ I asked, ‘Is this information classified?’ They said, ‘No, it’s not.’ This is what happens. Russian intermeddling is seeking to pit Americans against Americans to undermine confidence in Western-style democracies. It’s done so in the Baltic states. It’s done so in Western Europe. It will continue to do so.”

  -Rep. Tom Garrett, Jr., (R) Virginia, 11 August 2018

  Dedicated to memory of victims who passed in the time of this novel’s conception:

  Maurice Stallard

  Vickie Jones

  Joyce Fienberg

  Richard Gottfried

  Rose Mallinger

  Jerry Rabinowitz

  Cecil Rosenthal

  David Rosenthal

  Bernice Simon

  Sylvan Simon

  Daniel Stein

  Melvin Wax

  Irving Younger

  One who died for her convictions in the present day:

  Heather Heyer

  And a maverick who sought to mend the aforementioned fault lines:

  Senator John S. McCain III

  CHAPTER ONE

  27.5 kilometers northwest by west-northwest from Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

  11 June 2017

  03:13 hours Echo (10 June 22:13 hours Zulu)

  Spīn Ghar translated into “white mountain” in Pashto, and it was apparent why the mountain range had earned the name. Even though the only snow visible on the summer night were at the peaks, it was not difficult to envision the entire area capped white when the year drew to a close. Bob Ross would have had troubles painting a scene more picturesque than the Spīn Ghar range. It was demonstrative of the region: majestic to the sight, and unforgiving for those unaccustomed to living and working in its rugged, austere conditions.

  That was one of the reasons why Mukhtar Abu-Zar Noorzai had selected the region for his base of operations. Vehicular and heliborne insertions were the methods preferred by the American-led coalition, and the uncharted village within the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa sector of Spīn Ghar rendered both impossible without compromise. Not a single ground vehicle entered the section without Noorzai’s knowledge, and any attempt by a helicopter to insert soldiers via fast-rope would quickly be repelled by rocket-propelled grenades.

  Jack Bradshaw sat against the dirt wall of his fighting position overlooking the village, splitting his attention between the Long Range Patrol ration’s beef stroganoff entrée in his lap and the quarterback-style wristband that held the Noorzai data sheet compiled by Other Government Agencies, which was the war zone euphemism for the CIA. He read over the relevant details: Noorzai stood just shy of six feet tall and was a solid 180 pounds of muscle. The surveillance photo taken in Karachi depicted a man with a thick beard and a salt-and-pepper mane.

  Bradshaw looked at the photo and continued to eat as he recalled the briefing he and the other five men of the 75th Ranger Regimental Reconnaissance Company’s Team 2-4 had received at the start of the deployment. Noorzai had fought with the mujahideen as a boy against the Soviets during the latter’s decade-long occupation of Afghanistan, and had been one of those who received material support from OGA during Operation: Cyclone. It was rumored that he had over 100 sniper kills by the time he turned 18, though those reports were unsubstantiated.

  From there, Noorzai had risen through the ranks to become a respected member of the Haqqani Network. That was not enough for him, and in 2016, Noorzai defected to the newly founded Khorasan Province franchise of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. It made sense that Noorzai found ISIS to be more his speed: a nickname he had obtained was “the Butcher of Nangarhar” for his brutal methods of disposing his enemies. Noorzai’s atrocities were numerous: the torture and dismemberment of two Afghan Commandos, the bombing of a business whose proprietor was rumored to collude with the Coalition, and the torture, rape, and hanging of a teenaged girl who had dared to publicly promote the education of women.

  The task force had been hunting Noorzai for the past couple of years, and he had finally slipped up, being observed in a meeting in Jalalabad. A Predator drone was tasked to station and found him shortly before he departed, and followed his vehicle back to his compound. The target packet had been assembled in record time, which was the advantage of working an OGA task force. They weren’t burdened with the red tape that the previous administration had placed on Coalition forces.

  Once the target packet came down the pipeline, Team 2-4 had conducted a high-altitude, low-opening insertion into the area three nights earlier. The HALO jump had become something of a lost art in the War on Terror’s primary theaters, but given the terrain considerations, the Recce Rangers had determined it to be the best insertion method.

  From there, they had trekked 20 kilometers through the mountains until they were set up on a hillside above the village. When they arrived at the objective, they had split into two elements, each with a leader, a scout observer, and a radio telephone operator.

  Under the cover of darkness, two men at each hide site had hacked away at the hardened soil with their entrenching tools while one pulled security. They rotated on two-on, one-off shifts until just before first light. They hadn’t quite reached nametape defilade—where they could stand in the fighting position and only their head and shoulders would be exposed—but they had dug de
ep enough that they were covered by ponchos and natural vegetation. The second night had been more of the same, though they finally achieved nametape defilade. That made for a far more comfortable day than the first, or as comfortable as a long-range surveillance patrol could get.

  The shifts had taken their toll on the team. Each Ranger spent 90 minutes on glass behind the M110A1 sniper rifle, surveilling the target through the rifle’s Schmidt & Bender 3-20x50 PMII Ultra Short Scope and taking observational notes. After that, 90 minutes were spent on the M151 spotting scope, confirming the sniper’s observations and simultaneously manning the SINCGARS ASIP radio for traffic from the Joint Operations Center.

  Once those two rotations were done, the man coming off the spotting scope was free for 90 minutes of downtime. That usually consisted of sleeping, eating, or using the bathroom. Everything the team brought in with them was taken when they left. That included bodily waste, which was deposited into plastic bags and sealed. An absolute sacrosanct rule of reconnaissance was to leave no trace of one’s presence behind.

  Bradshaw had just finished his shift on the spotter scope when he began his meal and information review. As he finished the latter, a slight shiver crawled down his spine. Even in the summer, the night temperature was cool enough to necessitate the full MultiCam blouse rather than the combat shirt. Fortunately for him, his 90-day rotation would end well before fall arrived with considerably colder weather. He hoped that he’d be going home with the knowledge that Noorzai’s file would be placed in the killed/captured pile. Taking monsters like Noorzai out of play was a large part of what kept Bradshaw in the fight.

  “Boy Scout, this is Grease.” The transmission broke his reverie. His team leader’s voice filled his ears via the Peltor ComTac III headset, which was attached to the Multiband Inter/Intra Team Radio—abbreviated MBITR and pronounced “em-bitter”—located on his war belt.

  Officially, Bradshaw’s call sign was Romeo 2-4 Alpha, but much like their brothers at the Special Mission Unit at Fort Bragg, the Recce Rangers had taken to using more creative call signs on platoon internal comms. He set his food down and reached for his Push-to-Talk transmitter.

  “Go for Boy Scout.”

  “I’m walking up to your position. ETA three mikes. How copy?”

  Bradshaw checked the Timex on his left wrist, its face oriented towards his body. “Roger, Grease. See you then.”

  “Roger that. Grease, out.”

  Bradshaw resumed his meal. He found himself cursing his higher metabolism. Back home at Benning, he had been known to put down an entire stuffed-crust pizza by himself and still be hungry enough for a side of wings. The LRP ration contained just shy of 1,600 calories and was intended to be an entire day’s food. The temptation to dig into his extras was present, but he resisted. He always packed double the amount of food and water prescribed for the mission duration, just in case something went wrong and he and his men were forced to stay out longer. That would hopefully not be the case that night, as the assault element had radioed earlier that they had passed the second phase line and reached their insertion zone.

  Just as he had finished his food and slipped the spoon in the empty packet, the radio crackled again. “Boy Scout, Grease. Outside your position.”

  Damn, Bradshaw thought. He considered himself fairly “good in the woods,” as his late father would have said. Most of his team couldn’t sneak up on him, and they were some of the stealthiest soldiers in the Army. The team boss, on the other hand, was on a whole other level. Bradshaw had been listening for him, had advanced notice that he would be approaching the position, and he still hadn’t heard him coming. Then again, the boss, his best friend, had always been just a hair better, from the moment they linked up at Sand Hill, through Airborne and RIP, and all the way through Recce Selection.

  Bradshaw grabbed his OpsCore FAST helmet, slipped it over his mussed brown hair, and flipped down the AN/PVS-15 night observation device, or NODs in military parlance. He found the power switch, turned the NODs on, then grabbed his rifle, a Fabrique Nationale SCAR-H with a mounted Elcan SpecterDR optic. Bradshaw rolled over on his stomach and tucked the rifle into his shoulder, but kept his head above the optic. Instead, he relied on the AN/PEQ-15 infrared illuminator mounted on the rifle’s top rail for aiming as he scanned the area behind the hide site.

  It took him a moment, but Bradshaw finally found his team leader. He was prone on the ground, his head barely visible. What gave him away was that he was using his own PEQ-15 to send flashes in pairs towards the listening post/observation post, or LP/OP. Once Bradshaw saw it, he trained his rifle just off to the newcomer’s right and thumbed the PEQ-15’s button three times. Once the boss saw the trio of flashes, he stood, knowing he had arrived at the correct location. Bradshaw scooted off to his right and covered the terrain while the boss jogged to the hide site. When he arrived, he pulled back and sat up.

  Sergeant First Class Logan Fox doffed his FAST helmet, ran a hand through his thick hair, and gave Bradshaw his signature one-sided grin. Bradshaw always thought Fox should have been nicknamed “Highway” for his uncanny resemblance to Clint Eastwood, but he wasn’t the one who handed out the call signs.

  “How you guys doing over here?”

  “It’s sleepy down there,” whispered the man behind long gun, his voice dripping with New Jersey origins. Sergeant Eric Devlin was the shortest man on the team and the youngest looking, which had earned him the unfortunate call sign “McLovin.” He’d done his Radio Telephone Operator time, humping the bulky SINCGARS radio in an assault pack along with one of the team’s two MK48s, the 7.62x51mm version of the SAW Para machine gun. Devlin was now the team’s scout observer, and as such carried the M110A1 sniper rifle.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary?” Fox asked.

  “Nada,” he said.

  “Saw one of the muhj playing with himself while jacking off a goat,” said Sergeant Lawrence Johnson.

  Fox snorted. “You’re shitting me.”

  “Nuh-uh,” Johnson said, his eyes never leaving the spotting scope. “If we were here to take photos, I’d have gotten one for you, Boss.”

  “Blech,” Fox said. “No, thanks. Goddamn, dude.”

  As the team’s—and platoon’s—only black man, and one of two in RRC, Johnson had caught the call sign “Token.” It was nothing that he hadn’t heard before: combat arms was a predominantly white Military Occupational Specialty, and the Special Operations Forces side of the house was even more so. Still, like every other man on the team, Johnson had earned his slot in RRC, and was putting in his dues as the assistant RTO.

  Fox scooted across the hide site until he was seated next to Bradshaw. He thumped Bradshaw’s knee with the bottom of his closed fist. “How you holding up, dude?”

  “I want in on the next LOGPAC to Phoenix,” Bradshaw said, referring to the LOGistical PACkage convoys that ferried supplies from main bases to smaller combat outposts. “I’m going to Pizza Hut, ordering two pizzas, and locking myself in my CHU for a day.”

  “No way,” Fox said. “You’re not bailing on leg day.”

  Bradshaw scoffed quietly. “Walking up and down these fucking mountains was leg day, bro.”

  Fox went to open his mouth, but the Peltor headsets crackled again. This time, the voice belonged to someone outside of Team 2-4.

  “Grease, this is Pretty Boy.”

  Fox sat up a little straighter and keyed his mic. “Go for Grease.”

  “We’re at the ORP. Send me two of your shooters.”

  Bradshaw glanced at Fox through his NODs. “That was fast,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Fox said.

  The assault element reaching the Objective Rally Point was the trigger for the operation’s execution phase. Normally, Fox would have taken one of the more junior Rangers with him and left Bradshaw in charge of the LP/OPs. If their men were inexperienced Recce Rangers, that was exactly what he would have done. Team 2-4 had been together through three deployments in their current configurat
ion, and Fox had no doubt any of them could easily take over in his and Bradshaw’s absence.

  “Yo, Bradshaw,” Fox whispered. “Game time.”

  Bradshaw grabbed his SCAR. “Let’s do it.”

  Fox keyed up as they moved to the hide site’s entrance. “Roger that, Pretty Boy. I’m en route with Boy Scout, approaching from the east. ETA, one-five mikes.”

  “Copy,” Pretty Boy said. “See you when we see you. Pretty Boy, out.”

  It was a klick and a half to the link-up point. Fox led the way, Bradshaw a few meters behind him. Once they slipped out of view of the target village, they picked up their pace. They were careful to watch their footing, as the slope was steep and the last thing either one needed was to roll to the bottom. There was also the issue of roving patrols. They had seen some in the village, but had not spotted any in the hills surrounding their hide site. Still, it would be careless to assume that none had taken up real estate in the area since the LP/OPs’ establishment.

  By the time they were within 300 meters of the ORP, Fox and Bradshaw had built up a respectable sweat. The cool, west-to-east breeze felt good on their exposed skin. For a moment, Bradshaw was grateful that the hit was taking place in the Spīn Ghar’s higher elevations and not on flatter land, where the summer heat was more present. The nearly full moon hung in the sky, providing solid natural illumination to be amplified by the NODs.

  When they were 200 meters away, Fox held up his left arm at a 90-degree angle, palm open. Both he and Bradshaw took a knee. Bradshaw could make out a group of men just off the road, partially obscured by vegetation, spaced out in a small cigar shape with weapons trained in all directions. He raised his SCAR to his shoulder and kept his finger off the trigger as Fox keyed up.