“Intel teach you all this?
“No, playing hide-n-seek with my brothers.” I tossed the stick away.
“Wow, Cap, you had one strange childhood.” He laughed as he examined my handiwork.
You wouldn’t believe it. I headed back for my 4W. “Let’s see how far this goes.”
He followed me. “I assume the swishes told you they went up the wash, not down it?”
“Angles and depths.” I eased my vehicle along the wash’s edge, keeping my eyes on the sand marks. The further we went, the more consistency I saw in the marks. My back started to itch and a shiver crept over me. “Okay, sergeant. Something definitely does stink.”
I rolled to a stop and got off my 4W, sticking close to the wash edge where Terote trees provided some cover. “Hold, while I get a scan of this.” I got at an angle where the light showed the grooves in the sand. I followed a track long enough to show the predictable repeats in the patterns. “This is artificial.”
“I thought we already established that.” Lutz’s voice sputtered in my headphones.
“You’re cracking up. Check your frequency.”
“I’m getting static from you too.”
Tapping at the controls on my helmet I could see our channel wasn’t running at peak. I tried retuning it, but only got more noise, until I started walking back in his direction. “Hmmm, something’s interfering on this frequency.”
“Clearer now. What about base?”
“HQ, this is Team Bravo. Do you read me? HQ… this is Bravo…” I waited for even a burst of static indicating they heard me, but the airwaves were dead. Shit! This isn’t right at all. “There’s no reason to be unable to reach the base, let alone each other when we were only a few meters apart.”
Lutz was up on his foot rests, looking through binoculars. “There’s a tower right there. We should be hearing something.”
Being out of com range was bad enough. Being out of range when something was wonky... “We need to get out of here.”
The words barely left my mouth before there was the scrunching of gravel up the wash. From around the bend came a Hummer SUV painted in desert camo. They threw up gravel and dust as they skid to a stop. Seeing them gave me a moment of relief. Someone was running an exercise out here and HQ didn’t think to tell us.
Just then two more Hummers rolled up behind us, blocking us in. As they got out of their vehicles, relief was sucked out of me. Lutz was almost as fast as I was at drawing our weapons, covering my back as I faced the first group of men. Also armed and guns pointed at us.
“This is the Yuma Proving Grounds. Unless you can provide proper documentation, you are trespassing on government property, a federal offense.” Judging from positions and posture, I picked out the leader of this group and planted the bead of my weapon’s targeting system in the middle of his forehead. “You’ve got ten seconds to drop your weapons and identify yourselves. Eight, seven, six…”
Shoot, shoot now! That thought and the counting were competing with each other. Eight men in non-military camo fatigues outgunned us, but we couldn’t show any weakness. We were Marines and this was our turf. “Five...” I had a bead on the man and the marksmen pins proved I could put him down in one shot, and his driver, before his people started shooting.
The man didn’t take his eyes off me, but put his hand on his driver’s gun, pulling it down as he took a step closer to me. “Capt. Castle. No need for threats.”
What the fuck? I almost said it out loud, but held steady. “Knowing my name doesn’t impress me. Three seconds.”
He held one hand out, reaching to the shirt pocket. “I’ve got my credentials right here.”
I held my fire as he approached. “Stop right there. Put them on that rock and back off.” I kept my bead on him. He complied, dropping folded pages on a large boulder.
He backed away as I made my way to the rock. “We’re here legally, running security for a research program.”
“And that makes you think you can draw weapons on us?” I shook out the papers. I’d worked with enough civilian contractors to know they looked real. Military. A company’s name at the top, a general’s signature, located at the pentagon, DOD certification, nature of business… Top Secret. As if the red letters boldly slashed across the pages didn’t already tell me that.
“As you can see, my papers are in order, so you can lower your weapons.”
“You first.” I tossed the papers back, not carrying that they hit the ground. “You’re the guests and you pulled guns in our house.”
He cocked his head at me, giving me a slight smile that wasn’t friendly in the least. “For the last mile you’ve left base territory and are on the federal reservation.”
“Don’t try to pull that crap on me. The entire mountain range falls under our jurisdiction. Our fucking house, so holster your weapons or I call for backup.”
“Go ahead.” He continued that smile.
He knew I had no com.
After a few more seconds he let the smile shift, not faking the friendly anymore. “Get back on your RVs and roll out of here. No harm, no foul.”
This wasn’t a situation where I could stand my ground. “Sgt. Lutz. Mount up.”
He hesitated, but did as I ordered. I kept my gun on this gang’s leader. That smirk was back on his face as he nodded. “Good choice. And I suggest you keep this encounter to yourselves. I’m sure, Capt. Castle, you know the penalty for blowing a Top Secret operation.”
“You file your reports and I’ll file mine.” I backed towards my 4W.
He followed after me. “No reports. I’m trying to be nice just letting you go. You file a report and by dinnertime you’ll be in handcuffs. My bosses will bury you and anyone you tell in a hole until our mission is over, and likely forget you’re there.”
“Threats? Really?” I
