First Strike: Loudoun County

1. Luke

CHAPTER 1

LUKE

Present Day

“Blam! Blam! Blam!”

The report of the seriously tricked-out Daniel Defense DDM4 V11 5.56mm semi-automatic carbine briefly echoed through the surrounding woods before the verdant green and brown trees deadened the noise completely. The slightly acrid, though not unpleasant, odor of bullet propellant from the ejected cartridges wafted momentarily through the pleasantly warm and clean air before the late-summer breeze carried it away. It greatly pleased the man holding the carbine and brought forth memories of gunfights in faraway places over in “the Sandbox,” as he and his fellow service members called Iraq, or over in Afghanistan, which went by various slang names, including “the ‘Stan.” There were also a few far more profane utterances used to describe the two countries, but they rarely escaped from the shooter’s lips these days.

Luke Ellis – a now-retired Special Forces Green Beret and Delta Force operator who’d also served a brief post-military stint as a private military contractor, or “PMC” -- was mostly just a civilian these days. Right now, he was enjoying the fruits of two decades of hard and often lonely service to his country by concentrating on picking off the collection of targets he’d erected about 100 meters from the rear of his nondescript single-story ranch house. His homestead, all 50 acres of it, was located just north and west of Lucketts, Virginia, a largely rural and semi-rural – as well as tiny, though increasingly trendy – hamlet in Loudoun County, Virginia, which was just a stone’s throw from Washington, D.C.

Nourished by a vast array of D.C.-based government agencies, private contractors, and law as well as lobbying firms, “Loudon” – as the locals called it – was officially the richest county in the entire country. The region surrounding Ellis’ property, however, was known as the Catoctin District. It probably housed the last remaining large collection of politically conservative people in the four-county Northern Virginia D.C. Beltway region.

“Noh-Vah,” as the area was called by supposedly astute political pundits and other assorted know-it-alls, could be counted on as a motherlode of votes for Democrats, or the “Blue team,” in other words.

For his part, Luke himself had little interest in such political or ideological goings-on, and he rarely voted anyway. He’d fought for and defended his country, sure enough – and oftentimes with devastating effectiveness -- but that was also through an alternating succession of Republican, or “Red Team,” and then Democrat, or “Blue Team,” administrations and Congresses. At the levels at which he and his fellow special operations professionals had worked, partisan politics hardly ever reared its ugly head. He and his comrades were given mission sets or developed them among themselves through Army Special Forces Command or Joint Special Operations Command – known as JSOC and pronounced “Jay Sock” -- and then executed them and that was all that mattered. Just which political party would get to claim credit for their work mattered little to men like Luke.

Ellis was proud of the fact he and his peers in SF and over at Delta almost never “did politics.” Such doings were for stiff-necked brass-hat generals and high muckety muck civilian leaders, he believed. He and his kind had lived at the pointy tip of a very lethal spear, where mundane concerns involving national strategy weren’t of much import or consideration.

When he’d been a leader at Delta, tactics and the best ways to take out bad guys most efficiently and quickly were what he’d focused on. Even so, Luke had always received glowing write-ups from his superiors about his own high-level strategic thinking abilities, though he’d more often been given the chance to show those skillsets back during his SF days, whenever he’d helped in training native insurgent forces in various hotspots around the world.

The groups he’d once trained had usually been interested in overthrowing the tyrannical regimes oppressing them. To succeed, they’d sometimes ask for and then receive help from Uncle Sam, which would detail one or even several 12-Soldier Green Beret Operational Detachment-Alpha, or “ODA,” packages to help out. Those ‘A’ teams had orders to turn often ragtag rebel forces into at least semi-professional fighting units. Aiding insurgents – or, conversely, training host nation military forces to get rid of them – were the specific roles played by ODAs, which worked in units known as Groups. Those were the classic mission sets for standard-issue Special Forces Green Berets. Ellis had spent plenty of time in ODAs doing just that before he’d been invited to try out for Operational Detachment-Delta, where he was selected on the first try and where his tactical abilities and strategic thinking stood out.

Tactical know-how and strategic thinking had been inculcated in Luke through his years of service in the SF community and only improved by his service with Operational Detachment-Delta and its various squadrons and troops. Collectively, though, they were more commonly known as either “Delta Force” or “The Unit.”

Within JSOC and among its planners they’d been called “Task Force Green,” a call sign he’d never personally used to describe his organization, whenever he admitted even being associated with it, that is. Generally, Ellis and his fellow operators almost never said anything to anyone about just who and what they were and the Army usually tried not to acknowledge the unit’s existence. Besides, he secretly considered the formal JSOC designation for Delta to be just a bit too long and too much of a secret squirrel-type nickname to suit his tastes, so there was that to consider as well.

All in all, though, Luke was satisfied with his life. Sure, maybe one day he’d leverage his skills to again land himself a lucrative gig with any number of State Department-approved “security consulting firms” or PMC companies, but not right now.

Today, he was just happy to be banging away with his favorite weapon system – which consisted of both him and his AR-15 carbine, melded together into one lethal unit. Shooting like this felt really good, to be honest. As good as the intense CrossFit session and five-mile run he also planned to do immediately after wrapping up this shooting session would feel, in fact

Pausing for a moment as he rapidly swapped out magazines, dropping the empty and quickly inserting a fully loaded one into the mag well of his carbine, Luke looked at the dwelling he’d had built to his specifications a few years ago. It sat like a stony silent Roman Praetorian guardsman, utterly intent on protecting his emperor. Ellis could even imagine himself with one hand firmly fixed on the hilt of his Gladius, the short stabbing sword of the Praetorian.

The fifty acres of land surrounding his home made for an ideal training area when it came to his shooting “hobby,” he had to admit. Why, it was even close to being a compound though not up to combat outpost or COP standards. Still, the nearest neighbor was a small Baptist community church more than a mile away through the surrounding forest, and they’d never complained about his makeshift outdoor firing range or anything else he did on the land. Knowing those congregants, they’d probably approved of it all, in fact. He’d inherited the land from his father some years ago and had gradually improved it whenever he could carve out some time between deployments as well as during his mandatory instructor tour at SWCS, meaning “the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center,” which was based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

There, he’d taught a wide variety of courses not only to Army special operations personnel but also to operators from every other branch of the armed forces and allied or friendly nations. This included members of the Navy’s SEAL teams. Looking back at that second-to-last tour, he audibly chuckled to himself.

During his time at SWCS, he’d sometimes jokingly referred to those SEAL teams as “Squeal Teams,” which is what he told their operators they did whenever they ran out of suntan lotion. It was always good for a laugh between them all, Army and Navy alike, and it helped promote a healthy level of competition, he believed. They were all also experienced enough to know both sides had been given unique mission sets and capabilities, and the back-and-forth never got more serious than easygoing ribbing and banter. At JSOC they’d all been playing for the varsity level pipe hitter units and they knew it, so at the end of the day it was a matter of professionalism and pride in one’s craft.

Fun and games over, he turned once again to look at his homestead, his critical eye quickly sizing up the tactical layout, including avenues of approach to his dwelling. For a fact, they were cleverly laid out to funnel anyone hostile to Luke into subtle fields of fire that wouldn’t be noticeable even if the attackers had a high level of skill in the special operations arts.

Also, the former Delta operator and Green Beret was never complacent, and he always lived his life in what was called “Condition Yellow.” Not fully on edge and ready to rock and roll, as “Condition Red” would have called for, “Yellow” was a happy state of being for Ellis. It featured mid-level intensity and good situational awareness, but not the wild-eyed berserker demeanor often needed to succeed whenever a Condition Red situation arose. Besides, “going Red” would have scared all the civilians living around him, and he liked those fine folks.

Okay, okay. He liked most -- or at least some -- of them.

Fine, then. Maybe he only really liked just a few. But he didn’t hate any of them -- for the most part -- and that was what counted, right?

Somewhat to Luke’s surprise, since punching out of the military special operations world he’d greatly managed to dial down the extreme intensity called for to succeed in his old line of work. He’d put his retirement papers in last year, after the Afghanistan screw-up had ended just as messily as everything else there had when it came to policy, rules of engagement, the way latrines in the field were dug… you name it, it had become screwed up over time.

That’s what happens when Big Army always gets its way, he’d thought to himself on more than a few occasions. Bureaucracies are bureaucracies wherever they’re found, including even in the US military.

Life was better now, though, and Luke felt much more relaxed about most things these days. He sighed contentedly at the way things were turning out.

As a result of his newfound mellowness – relatively speaking, of course -- he’d even declined to sign on to the long-term supervisor contract he’d been offered by the PMC company he’d joined up with not long after hanging up his uniform. Not that that gig had left a sour taste in his mouth – because it hadn’t – but during it he’d found himself becoming increasingly attracted to his place in Loudoun County than he’d ever been while he was serving in Special Forces or in Delta. He’d left the PMC world feeling at ease, at peace and eager for whatever came next in his newfound liberation.

So here he was now, out in the fine August summertime of Northern Virginia, happily firing away with his semiautomatic carbine and not having a real care in the world.

Life is good, isn’t it? He asked himself.

Yes, indeed. It sure was.

“Enough with the philosophical stuff,” Luke said aloud without knowing he’d done so.

He looked down to ensure his weapon was fully locked and loaded, with safety on, before he laid it down on the wooden bench he used whenever he shot his rifle in what he thought of as his “backyard.”

Turning to his target array off in the distance, he picked up a set of field binoculars and looked it over with a critical eye, admiring for just a moment the patterns he’d laid out on individual targets as he’d fired his weapon. All were center mass hits and -- whenever the mood had struck him – a little bit higher than that.

His trigger press was as smooth as ever. Absolutely no jerking or pulling, and he landed his round squarely in the middle of the chest or the head, even if that’s where he wanted to put it. Just like every other competent special operator, he’d also silently repeated the well-known mantra “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast” to himself as he prepared to fire. That habit had been so long ingrained within him he was almost never even aware he repeated it constantly when he was target shooting.

Luke’s resolve and focus whenever he shot -- or did anything else involving use of his hard-won military skills – was formidable. That single-minded determination sometimes elicited chuckles and knowing shakes of the head from more than a few of the newer denizens in the area was, of course, known by him, but he simply didn’t care.

Usually, they thought he was some kind of survival nut or prepper, from what he could tell.

Generally, those people had moved into the area from nearby Washington, D.C. or similarly wealthy parts of the country to open up antique stores and other businesses designed to attract the well-moneyed and well-connected elite class of the region. Ellis had about as much in common with them as they had with a beggar on the streets of Mexico City.

Luke smiled again. He always looked forward to going out on his five-mile runs -- complete with weighted rucksack, long pants and his old assault boots -- just for the entertainment he knew he was supplying those folks. Almost none of them had any sort of uniformed military service, including Junior ROTC back in high school, he’d learned over time. At best, in their adult years some may have spent a very infrequent day or two running around with a paintball gun or with an Airsoft M4 or AK-47 imitation rifle at some simulated combat ranch, if that counted for something.

In Ellis’ eyes, it most definitely did not.

Personally, he believed such games did more harm than good in cultivating what he called a “warrior mindset” because that’s what those activities were: Games.

Get hit with a paintball or Airsoft pellet and your most serious injury would most likely be to your self-esteem. That was no way to train a Soldier or a Marine, he thought. Because if you took a live round in the field, meaning in the real world, there was a good chance that would be all she wrote and your new status would be nothing to write home to your folks about.

That is, it would be nothing for the ones assigned to write home to your folks on your behalf because you would be dead and unable to write. Combat was no game, and you didn’t train for it as if it were.

Even so, Luke’s personal equanimity about such matters was strong enough to allow him to let slide trivialities like Airsoft or paintball “weekend warrior” events. Those folks were civilians, after all. He and many others like him, in all the various service branches of the US military, had been paid and expected to do the hard things needed to ensure that the most serious thing the government drones flitting around D.C. had to worry about in the way of tough times was whether or not the next incoming presidential administration was going to increase government spending by ten percent or only by five. If the latter, said administration would proudly proclaim that it was actually a budget cut and gee, wasn’t it great they were so fiscally responsible?

This thought always caused Ellis to chuckle a bit.

Luke paused to look at his watch.

We’re burning daylight. Time to get serious again.

Picking his weapon up, he began firing off the fresh magazine he’d just inserted. After that, he’d give himself precisely five minutes – Ellis still referred to the time interval as “Five Mikes” – to gear up with his ruck and a concealed pistol from his extensive collection. He preferred a forty-five caliber 1911-style pistol because of its knockdown power, and it was what he normally had on his person when not out on a ruck run. Tooled up thusly, he intended to hit the rolling hills and roads and run, not jog, at a brisk pace, all just to give pleasure to those around him and to keep his fitness level up, of course.

Life was indeed good, wasn’t it? Ellis smiled broadly with satisfaction at the role he was currently playing within it.