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The consolidation of power at the federal level in the guise of public safety is a national trend and should be guarded against at all costs. This erosion of rights, however incremental, is the slow death of freedom.
camo hunting clothing from Sitka, and the Salomon hiking
The country was steep and high. It didn’t matter how well you were conditioned at sea level, eight thousand feet was still eight thousand feet.
Barnes Triple Shock,
Even in the darkness it was clear to Reece that he was staring into the face of his longtime friend and Teammate, the big man with the huge beard and confident smile, and that his head was no longer attached to his body. Reece couldn’t stop the tears from welling in his eyes but quickly brushed them aside. Focus. No time to mourn. Exploit all technical and tactical advantages. Check.
MBITR radio
Gridded Reference Graphic
AC-130
Afghan grime
olive green button-up safari-style shirt
Reece nodded, resigned to take the blame he knew was his. He had always believed that as a leader you shared in the successes but owned the failure, and when successful you always pushed the credit down to the guys. They deserved it most. This was an unmitigated failure. His failure.
camo Crye Pro
“We are not video-recording this interview, Commander.” First lie, thought Reece as he nodded in acknowledgment. Reece knew that the inoperable video camera in the corner was a prop, as was the microcassette recorder on the table. The entire interview was being audio- and video-recorded by a microphone and camera hidden somewhere in the room. The prop camera was to put the subject psychologically at ease while the microcassette recorder would be used at certain times to go “off the record,” a provision that, of course, did not exist.
Reece had had many discussions with subject matter experts in the field of warfare. He felt it was his duty as an officer to constantly study his profession, resist groupthink, question assumptions, and seek out the most knowledgeable people he could across the industry to ensure he was going into combat as prepared and well equipped as possible. That was what he owed the men under his command. It is what he owed their families, the mission, and the country.
As he stood, Reece’s hand instinctively went to the back right section of his hip, where he always carried his issued SIG P226 9mm pistol. He couldn’t help but think that had it been about 150 years earlier, the government would be looking for two new federal agents.
Despite being identical in age, the two men walked through the small terminal building looking like complete opposites. The tall, clean-cut figure of James Reece and the stocky, ink-covered Edwards dressed in shorts and battered flip-flops: they were almost a caricature of the stereotypical differences between officers and enlisted SEALs. As they headed into the parking lot, Edwards fished into the pocket of his black hooded sweatshirt and the rear hatch of a black Chevrolet Tahoe began to arc toward the sky.
Hotel Del Coronado
Miguel’s Cocina,
Rick’s Palm Bar and Grill,
There was one last thing, the detectives told him, almost hesitatingly: Lauren had been pregnant. The little boy had been conceived just before Reece’s deployment, according to how far along she was. Lauren had kept it a secret, a surprise to make his final homecoming especially memorable. He thought the pain couldn’t have been any greater, but the news drove him deeper into despair.
“MACV-SOG”
Phung Hoàng
The Accidental Guerrilla, War of the Flea, Counterinsurgency, The Sling and the Stone, Counter-Guerrilla Operations, and A Savage War of Peace
Rhodesian Selous Scouts,
The Book of Five Rings, by Miyamoto Musashi,
Could he have defended his family from a gang of heavily armed home invaders? Would his skill with a handgun have been enough? Could he have fought his way to his rifle or shotgun?
You’ve never taken the easy route, Reece. This was too easy. Fuck easy.
The joke in the Teams was that smartphones were “surveillance devices that also made phone calls,”
Find yourself a used iPhone, maybe from Craigslist, where you have no relationship with the seller. Pay cash for it, toss the SIM card, and restore it to factory settings. You’ll need to set up a burner email to get an anonymous iTunes account. Do that from a library computer or one not associated with you.
“Use cash to buy an iTunes gift card so you can download Signal. It’s a private messaging service from the app store. Make this your username.”
Signal is a funneling into a kill zone
Policies created by bureaucrats in uniform essentially disarmed some of the most highly trained and competent warriors on earth. It was only a matter of time until the enemy took advantage.
Ka-Bar knife
Reece’s eyes didn’t leave the admiral’s, but they changed from merely serious to ice in less than a second. Reece thought he could see the admiral visibly shrink back in his seat.
This is what the enemy must feel like when these guys come hunting them, Howard thought.
Reece gazed around the large cage, mentally taking inventory. Though it was called a cage it was really a room-size partition filled with instruments of death. Before Reece were rows and rows of rifles, pistols, shotguns, sniper weapon systems, extra NODs, AT-4s, LAW rockets, Mk 48 and Mk 46 machine guns, claymores, boxes of C-4 blocks, and data sheet for breaching; it was a gun nut’s wet dream. Reece finished taking stock and began loading the dolly with the tools of his trade.
Mike also had a plan. He had a dollar amount in mind, and when he hit that number he would retire. He could spend time with his family and travel on their schedule, not someone else’s. Strangely, he did not feel the need to continue to accumulate wealth and prestige like so many others in his circle of “friends.” Once he hit his number, he would fade away.
Each combat deployment as a SEAL was prefaced by a training period where team members physically and mentally prepared for the dangerous tasks that lay ahead. Small errors in combat can lead to men coming home in body bags, and skills such as shooting, demolitions, using communications equipment, and employing first aid are perishable. Reece knew he had a fight of a different kind ahead of him, and ensuring that his body and mind were ready for it was the first step in his own personal work-up.
Being a sweaty guy in workout clothes made you virtually invisible in most parts of the United States, especially hotels. He made his way to the nineteenth-century lobby and accessed the free Wi-Fi.
Hyatt on Huntington Beach.
He didn’t feel that the American public owed him anything in return for his service. He felt lucky to have had a job that he loved for so many years, working among some of the finest soldiers in the world.
Resco UDT
Hill People Gear runner’s chest pouch
He looked like a man preparing for war, which is exactly what he was. Whoever these people were, they had taken everything from him. Everything but his will to fight. For that, they would pay dearly.
He ran for an hour, pushing himself hard during two-minute interval sprints and slowing to a measured jogging pace for a minute in-between.
Mk11 7.62
He used his left hand to pull the slide back just enough to confirm that there was still a round in the chamber, a technique called a “press-check.” It was loaded with sixteen rounds of 77-grain ammo from DoubleTap. The solid copper hollow-points were designed to work at near rifle velocities and would do extensive damage while minimizing the risk of overpenetration.
The unwillingness to get involved that had plagued Reece and his Teammates’ efforts to fight terrorism and insurgencies among populations across the globe would now be to his advantage as he worked to avoid whoever it was that wanted him dead.
With no signs that he was being followed, Reece parked several blocks from their meeting spot and walked a circuitous route to the restaurant, stopping several times to pretend to talk on the phone or to look into store windows, using the reflection to study passersby.
He retrieved the handgun from under the seat and examined it. He had found a YouTube video describing its operation but still wished he had taken the time to test-fire it. Allah would guide his hand.
Something about the way he walked told Kamir that he was the target; he looked like a predator.
