[b]Vancouver[/b] “Someone is fucking with this city.” Samuel McKinzey, Superintendent of the Cascadia Territorial Police Force scowled, his thick eyebrows threatening to consume his eyeballs. McKinzey chewed on a large, unlit cigar while he stood at the lectern in the CTPF’s conference room. Crowded in the room were the thirty detectives who made up the agency’s Criminal Investigations Division. Sitting near the back was Mark Echols, who doodled on a notepad with a pen while the chief spoke. “We’ve had three bank robberies in the last two weeks, and two bombings. All of them were claimed by these fucking people, these Friends of Northwest Sovereignty. Bunch of fucking terrorists! We’re goddamn lucky nobody has been hurt. I spent the better part of the morning with the FCB, they’re concerned about the crime wave here in this city and they personally blame us. You know why.” McKinzey took the cigar out of his mouth and let the implication hang. Unlike them, he was an American. He had been police commissioner in Baltimore and New York City before the government tapped him to run the restructured territorial police. “They think you’re all a bunch of sympathizers and humps. The FCB is sending a team up here to liaise with us, I assume that means they’ll be telling us how to do our jobs. Every department in CID is getting two Feebs to assist with cases. Here’s how it’s gonna work…” Echols tuned McKinzey out and instead kept focusing on his notepad. He wrote Sergeant Brian Shea in bold letters a half dozen times. “The Stiff in Surrey” as Braun had called him, was turning out to be a dead end. The US Army sergeant who went AWOL before ending up naked and dead in a field was Echols’ case and he was being stonewalled by the Army. He’d personally driven down to Fort Dixon to try to talk to the base commander and was told by a Major that the case was under Army CID jurisdiction, that Shea’s army records were unavailable to Echols without a warrant. He tried getting a warrant, but a judge had denied it after someone from the Army’s JAG division, even the Army needed lawyers, intervened. So now here he was with a case he couldn’t solve and no clear way to solve it. While he should have written it off, something was eating at him. Shea’s official rank was Technical Sergeant. Echols spent the day at the Vancouver library looking up information about Army ranks and came away with further suspicions. In the US Army, a Technical Sergeant did a variety of things from radio operations to mechanical work, to ordinance handling and disposal. It was the last part that gnawed at Echols. He had no way to know what kind of work Shea did for the Army unless he looked at his records, but it didn’t sit well with him that Shea’s disappearance and death came just before all these bombs and bank robberies started in Vancouver. He had been a murder police for fifteen years; he had learned a long time ago that he could rely on his gut instincts when it came to cases. And now, his gut was screaming that this murder was related to these Friends of Northwest Sovereignty. But he was getting help. The Feebs were coming. Maybe with some Federal muscle behind him, he could get the Army’s head out of their ass. He doubted it, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. ------- [b]Fort Bragg, NC[/b] The two dozen soldiers stomped in formation down the dirt road. While they ran, Master Sergeant Silas Crystal ran beside them. At thirty-nine he was the oldest man here by almost a decade. Even with his age Silas knew he could keep up with all of the others, and plenty of them he could outrun. He was pushing forty but still felt twenty-five in the wilting southern heat. They took a bend on the dirt road that led uphill. The hill marked the third mile of their five mile run. Silas took in a lungful of air and began to lead the running cadence, the men chanting along with him. “One, two, three and a quarter. I've got a date with the CO's Daughter. One, two, three and a dime. I told him I'd have her home by nine. Even though she looks so mild, Man, oh man that girl is wild. But CO, CO, he's a sucker. He don't know that I love to ... kiss her. Three months later and all was well, Four months later she began to swell. Nine months later and out he came, a baby Green Beret bearin' my name. CO said with a big ol' grin, Be a good dad or be a private again.” The younger men broke out into laughter as they finished the song. Even though he had heard it countless times, Silas laughed along with them before he turned serious. “Okay, girls, let’s pick up the pace. Double time to the end of the run!” Silas sped up and pushed these men, already at the peak of physically conditioning, to dig deeper and go faster until it hurt. After all it was their job to do what others couldn’t. These men and their sergeant weren’t the usual group of grunts. They were Special Forces created during the last war to do things other units couldn’t or wouldn’t do. Silas and his squad ran several missions across the country and into Canada during the war. He was a career soldier, but the things they’d done in the war took what he knew about soldering to the next level. Later, Silas had showered and changed into his fatigues and in his office at division HQ when someone knocked on the door. “Sergeant Crystal,” Colonel Robertson said once he saw Silas snapping at attention. “At ease, no need to be formal.” Robertson was just a few years older than Silas but looked at least ten years older thanks to his full head of white hair and the thick white mustache he wore. The SOCOM structure was set up so that the people at the top were the only ones who really knew the order of battle, but Silas knew the colonel was high up in that order. “I brought a guest with me,” Robertson said as he came in. In his wake was a skinny man in a black suit with a white shirt and black tie. Silas saw the sweat stains on the collar, pale complexion, the Ivy League class ring on his finger, and the impassive way he looked at Silas, almost through him. He had him pegged even before Colonel Robertson said the words that confirmed his analysis. “Silas, this is Mr. Smith from Washington. He’s with the Agency.” The Clandestine Intelligence Agency, the US’s foreign intelligence apparatus, had a complicated relationship with Special Forces. They worked hand in hand in many ways. They supplied the intelligence and the Green Berets provided the muscle. Brains and brawn. But several people inside the CIA thought they were their bosses. That led to plenty of bureaucratic sniping that Silas was thankful he had avoided. At least until now. “Sergeant,” Mr. Smith said as he and Robertson sat down in the chairs opposite Silas’ office. “The colonel was telling me about your team. I like what I’ve heard. Are your four guys still the same ones you served with in the war?” “Yep,” said Silas. “We went through some hell up north of the border, but we all made it through unscathed.” “Sergeant Crystal and his men are real familiar with that whole area in the northwest,” Robertson said before he leaned forward. “Silas, have you been keeping up with all that’s been happening up there in Cascadia.” “It’s turning into a goddamn war zone,” Silas said with frown. “Again. I read about bombings in the paper, some group claiming to be responsible.” “We have other information,” said Smith. He played with his class ring as he spoke. “Some intelligence has come to light. It concerns something worse than a few car bombs or bank jobs. Our people ran it up the ladder to your people, who are passing it back down the ladder to Special Forces.” “SOCOM has approved an operation, and I recommended your squad,” said Robertson. “You’re wheels up and headed north at 1900 hours. “I’m hitching a ride with you,” Smith said. “We’ll brief your team en route. Be sure to pack your mountain gear, sergeant. You’ll need it.” ------- [b]Prince George Cascadia Territory[/b] Arthur pulled the car up slowly to the curb. Alex craned his neck around, looking for any signs of another car of person in the early morning darkness. They had driven all afternoon and night across the territory in the car Chris had stolen on the outskirts of Vancouver. None of their cars had the trunk space required for what they had to pick up. “Wait here,” Alex said softly. “Keep the car running.” He got out and walked down the sidewalk to a two-story brick building with broken windows and graffit tagged along its side. Arthur nervously tapped his fingers on the wheel while Alex disappeared into the building. Ten minutes passed before he emerged and waved Arthur further up the street and to a loading bay he backed into. Arthur got out the car and nearly jumped back when he saw the man standing at the edge of the dock. He wore a black trench coat and smoked a cigarette. His blonde hair was slicked back, and he had on large sunglasses even in the dark. Arthur put his height at six-two, a good five inches taller than himself. “Hello, Arthur,” the man said in a slow and even tone. “Alex has told me a lot about you. It’s nice to finally meet you.” “Umm… you too…” “Jones,” he said, expelling cigarette smoke. “Just call me Jones. I’m a friend, Arthur, a friend of the Friends, if you want to call me that.” “Mr. Jones has helped us out a lot,” Alex said from behind Arthur. “He’s where we get our guns and the stuff for our bombs.” “You’re quite adept at making bombs, Arthur. That’s what Alex tells me, anyway. Says you’re going to school for engineering. Is that where you learned to do this stuff?” “Not really,” Arthur said nervously. “I just… as a kid… I was always taking things apart and putting them back together. I just learned how things work. A bomb, at least the way I do it, is just like a clock radio or a television. Wire it just the same.” “So you’re a natural? Good. Come with me, Arthur.” Jones wrapped a large arm around Arthur’s soldiers and guided him into the building through the open bay door. Jones stopped short of a small crate sitting on the concrete floor and motioned towards it. “Open it up.” Arthur bent down and stopped when he saw the biohazard warning on the crate. Jones goaded him on and Arthur, his pulse racing, opened the crate. Inside was a metal container the size of a milk jug. “VX nerve gas,” Jones said with a hint of pride in his voice. “It’s not much, but it’ll be more than enough. If you can work wonders with plastique and wires, let’s see what you can do with this.”