July 4, 2008

Excited Delirium Book: Chapter 42 (Greyrock: Afghan Mission)

By liam

Author’s Note: The following is Chapter 42 of the my online book "Excited Delirium". Please post comments. Please tell your friends about this story. If you’ve missed a chapter, please click here for Chapter 1 (Prelude) or here for the full index .

“I’ll remind you of your oath of confidence before we have this discussion,” Velasquez stated factually.

Instantly and without pause, Daniels responded “My soul is yours,” the standard statement that all Greyrock employees rehearsed and promised to their peers and commanders when reminded of their commitments. It was a blanket statement that was meant to remind all employees of their excruciating indoctrination process and what would happen if they disobeyed orders.

“We’re taking our model to the States,” Max Velasquez said, as Len Daniels entered his office. The office was a make-shift centre that Velasquez, an ex-Major from the Marines, used when he was in Kandahar. He hated it because it was nothing like his posh office complex in Virginia, but sometimes a few sacrifices had to made in the interest of making money.

Velasquez had been promoted to Commander, the highest serving rank in Greyrock, mainly because of his support for activities in Afghanistan, his knowledge of the locals and his linguistic skills. Spanish by heritage, but third-generation American, he also possessed considerably more physical attributes that would make locals comfortable with him than some wheat-sheaf white-boy that came out of Missouri.

Daniels had just completed a very different mission for Velasquez the week before. Greyrock had very limited military operations in Afghanistan, as they left the majority of that activity to the NATO patrols. Instead, Greyrock personnel were responsible for three things: helping NATO protect oil pipelines that went through the Afghani hills, as they snaked their way from the Caspian Sea to Pakistan; sending small bands of provocateurs , or undercover activists, into Iran with instructions to destabilize the country; and to protect the heroin trade.

The most recent action for Daniels was to supervise the shipment of nearly $1 billion in heroin, about 10 tonnes, from the Afghani province of Helmand, which is the Afghani province where a significant portion of opium and heroin is now produced, following the retreat of the Taliban in 2001. His destination was the coast of the Arabian Sea, where he would monitor the transfer of his load to oil containers destined for Iraq. From there, he knew that the shipments would work their way up to the Caspian Sea through Turkey, but he was never told how they finally found their way into the hands of junkies in France or England. He didn’t really care.

It was a fairly routine operation. All he had to do was make sure that the skimming was minimized, but still allowed, so that everyone would participate in the trade without selling him out. Even he was known to take a kilo here and there, but he held off with this shipment because the intended client was linked to some folks in Eastern Europe. Folks that had very dark histories and didn’t forgive ‘variations’ in shipping weight.

The transfer to another Greyrock supervisor went off without a hitch, and he was back to report to Velasquez a week later and with another $2 million in the bank.

“We can’t take our model to the States,” he stated abruptly without thinking.

Velasquez gave him a cold stare. “It’s unfortunate, but true. Insurrections and protests are growing and not just with the junk classes of people in places like New Orleans and New York,” he said sternly, and paused for a moment.

“New orders are coming in that we have to do less protection work and more pro-active infiltration of networks of people that might be opposed to things that we’re doing here any in other places,” he continued. “I think the higher-ups are suspecting that things are going to start getting a little more tense as the tax laws are passed.”

“What tax laws?”

“Rumour has it that a sweeping set of changes are going to be brought in at the federal level state-side to finance the next major incursion, which will already know will be Iran. The laws will be brought in and will cover everything from transportation to education, from small businesses to a number of large industries that we don’t want in the US anymore. If they don’t bring them in, the Chinks’ll stop buying our debt. And we won’t be able to get back at Iran when it releases a nuke on the homeland,” he said with a wink.

It was common knowledge amongst the most senior Greyrock personnel that some form of WMD would be unleashed on US soil, although very few people knew the specifics.

“I understand. Sorry for being so nosy,” Daniels offered obediently.

“No problem, but try not to ask others so many questions. You know just as well as I do that it raises alarms within the inner circle,” Velasquez coached.

“Yes sir,” was all Daniels said. For someone who’s so determined to run things on his own, this was always a tough pill to swallow, but a necessary step in the climb to the top.

“Anyways, you’re going to be responsible for the development of some re-education centres. The goal of these operations will be to remind Americans that we’re doing our job for them, protecting them from ‘the terrorists’,” Velasquez said as he flew into his brief.

“Once you’re back in the US, you’ll connect with a number of Greyrock personnel, some folks from the Univist Church and some people from the education system. We’re going to start turning some of the public schools into private centres of excellence. A media pitch has already been started state-side, along with some propaganda about the levels of gun violence in public institutions. Everyone’ll be more than happy to sign over their kids to nice stable environments. And if they don’t, we shoot ‘em,” he said matter-of-factly.

“No problem there sir,” Daniels said, taking in this barrage of information.

“I didn’t think so,” Velasquez concluded.

(Note: "Excited Delirium" is a work of fiction. Any person, place or thing depicted in this work of fiction is also a work of fiction. Any relation of these subjects or characters to real locations, people or things are an unintentional coincidence.)

Read more with Chapter 43

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Excited Delirium by Liam Young is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License .
Based on a work at www.exciteddelirium.ca .