Kind of surprised this is even happening.
Perfidy
Chapter Two
Damned Lies
Jacob Carter stretched as he leaned back in his padded Pentagon-issue chair. He had spent the last weeks in various meetings negotiating with different agencies on the specifications for the next series of reconnaissance satellites. Each agency wanted it to do different things but there was only so much budget and launch mass available for each satellite. The Navy were particularly difficult about the issue. Still, this wasn't his first rodeo, even if it felt more difficult than the last.
Truthfully, he didn't know a whole lot about the physics of synthetic aperture radar or the principles of optics, but he had experts he could rely on. Good leaders knew when they didn't know enough and sought to correct that deficiency with expert advice.
Like most officers of his stature he yearned for the old days, the days of being a pilot, but that was a young man's game and the Air Force needed leaders who could manage massive multi-billion-dollar projects spanning different agencies. Even managing air bases had been easier; almost everyone was under one service and almost no one disagreed with you or argued back. At least the officer from the Navy was polite about his distain playing second fiddle to the Air Force, the folks in the NSA, CIA and other alphabet soup agencies were a lot more willing to disagree.
His reminiscing was brought to a close with a knock on the door.
"General, sir?" the voice of his aide de camp said as he opened the door a notch.
Captain Peters was an organised young man. Driven, very capable at tasks set, but not as flexible as perhaps an outstanding Air Force officer should be, too much in the box thinking. Major General Carter though he would go a long way in the Air Force if recognised his own limitations and went into a more organisational career path instead of the more glamourous careers most young officers dreamed of.
"Yes, captain?"
The captain stepped into the room and closed the door behind himself. He had several sheets of paper in his hands, print outs of some sort given they lacked the usual covers found in inter-department Pentagon reports, one was a red "top secret" folder though.
General Carter could see the man looked slightly nervous, like he had been pushed out of that neat box.
"I apologise about my presumptuousness, sir, but some things have come across my desk I thought you should see."
Carter sat up a little straighter. This was definitely out of the ordinary for his aide.
"What is it captain?"
"I received an imaging request at about 1400 hours today." Carter's eyes glanced towards the clock for split second to see the time was just after four. "Photographic, radar and signals, as many as we could get for the next 48 hours. I assumed it was a mistake and set the request on to the right departments, then I noticed it was for the Black Mesa area."
Black Mesa, and that was an off request to say the least… The various reconnaissance satellites were expensive. Expensive to build and expensive to put them into the correct orbit. If you weren't pressed for time, the satellite would eventually orbit over the target and be able to record the necessary data, but if an agency requested reconnaissance data as soon possible almost every time the satellite would have to use valuable fuel to mauver and adjust its orbit, giving you images in less than thirty minutes.
A satellite with a lifespan of years could be reduced to months or weeks if you maneuvered it enough. It was the sort of thing only authorised continuously for military campaigns like the Gulf War, and here it was being used for… a training exercise?
"Who made the request?"
Captain Peters looked uncomfortable again.
"A Marine Brigadier General, sir," he replied. "General Taylor."
Captain Peters stepped forward and placed the top-secret folder on the desk. At the top it was stamped "SECRET NOFORN", though as he read through its contents it probably didn't warrant such a classification as it was just location, type of imaging, how often and how long. It was a simple request in terms of content, but what it was asking to do was ridiculous, and coming from a lowly Marine Corps general.
"You passed this on?"
"Yes sir."
Carter drummed his fingers on the table in contemplation for a moment before stopping himself; it wasn't good to lose such composure in front of a subordinate like that.
"What else?" he asked.
"I tried looking up General Taylor, his name is not in the directory but he definitely has an office in B ring, near corridor ten. The number is legitimate too; I spoke to his aide earlier to tell him they had sent the request to the wrong place."
Being unlisted in the Pentagon directory wasn't odd for a classified project or unit. Perhaps he could ask about to find out what the Taylor is up to.
"I asked about and found out he is CO of the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit, they're based at Santego in Arizona, sir."
Now he had heard of that, they were supposed to test out new equipment and technologies, much of it from Black Mesa. He was under the impression they were small though, their commander – a division level rank – shouldn't control a small experimental unit. Even as a special forces capable unit they would be at a minimum a few thousand strong with a leader that high ranking.
"Commanding officer you said? Not in director of a program of some sorts?"
The captain shook his head.
"No sir, commanding officer. He headed a MEU before this, never been a program or project director before."
Maybe a commander thinking too much of himself in an exercise?
"Have you heard anything about the imaging request?"
"A friend of mine I passed in the corridor was complaining he got pulled of his usual analysis for something on short notice. He's in imaging sir."
An overzealous officer should have gotten smacked down requesting something like this for an exercise. He was another grade up and wouldn't dare much such a request for an exercise. He considered it for a moment; everything here just felt wrong, like something odd was going on at Black Mesa.
He stared at his Rolodex. Samantha's business card was in there. He hadn't asked for it himself; his daughter would probably have refused to give him one if he had asked, but someone he knew at Black Mesa had passed it on. He would have to call her; she wouldn't appreciate it but he had to regardless.
"I apologise again, sir, if this wasn't my place."
He had never discussed his personal life with the captain, it wasn't an appropriate thing to do, but he had certainly talked about it with friends within earshot. He certainly couldn't order the captain to stop listening and stop remembering.
He waved the captain off; this had certainly perked his interest.
"What else do you have?" he asked looking towards the remaining pieces of paper.
The captain placed them on the desk.
"Orders for a Sea King to Andrews and to prep a C-21 for a flight from Andrews to Santego. It departed shortly before 1400, sir."
The C-21 was a learjet. Air Mobility Command kept them on a tight leash because senior officers have a habit of misusing the luxurious aircraft, and were even less happy to hand them to non-Air Force officers. If you wanted one you had to justify it over something more mundane, like a C-130. Having to get somewhere fast was a good argument as they beat the C-130 by a fair margin there.
Rushing. It could be a test of reaction times, a surprise exercise. It could also be more.
"And General Taylor was on that plane?"
"I can't say for sure, sir, but his aide did say he had already left and wouldn't be back. The aide mentioned he was wrapping up something – handing over the office by the sounds of it."
Again, an exercise or more?
Everything felt wrong.
"Thank you, captain," he said. "I need to make a call."
"Sir."
As the captain left he picked up the phone and found Samantha's card:
Captain Doctor Samantha Carter, USAF
Office 143, Lambda Complex Section F
Black Mesa Research Facility, New Mexico.
It was a little out of date, Samantha was a major now, but the number should be the same. He typed it in.
"We're sorry; you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have –"
He dropped the phone into the cradle and picked it up again, retyping the number more carefully.
"We're sorry; you have –"
He stared at the number on the card for a few moments before reaching for the rolodex again and spinning it until he found another card, pulling Doctor James Munroe out. Munroe was his contact point at Black Mesa for the new maneuvering system. He had called the number only yesterday, punching the semi-familiar string in.
"We're sorry; you have reached a number –"
He pushed the phone into the cradle harder than he intended, hand clasped firmly around it as he thought it through.
It was marine something, but he didn't know many marines, certainly not many he could call. Maybe he could get a hold of the images? That was a possible first step.
He got up and opened the door. Sticking his head out he could Captain Peters was at his desk processing more paperwork.
"Captain, write up a request for a copy of the Black Mesa images for me to sign."
The captain blinked a few times, perhaps surprised he wasn't being chewed out for sticking his nose in something.
"Yes sir," he replied after a few moments.
General Carter closed the door and went back to his desk; another idea had occurred to him.
While Santego was a purely Marine installation, there were other bases in Arizona and New Mexico. Kirtland and Holloman were the closest to Black Mesa, and Davis-Monthan was the closest to Santego. Someone there might know something.
Picking up the phone he dialled another number and waited for it to pick up.
"… It's General Carter … Yes, I can hold …"
He waited for a few moments before the young enlisted woman picked up again.
"… Yes, I'm sure it's very important, but when you tell him I need to speak with him urgently, it's going to have to be a very very important meeting for him to refuse … Thankyou, sergeant."
He waited a few moments for the extension to pick up.
"General. What can I do for you, sir?"
The voice of Colonel Sunderland sounded weary, despite the general's previous work with the man.
"I was hoping to find out what is going on at Black Mesa, colonel."
"Black Mesa?" The commander of 49th Fighter Wing and Holoman Air Force Base sounded genuinely surprised. "I haven't been told anything, sir."
The but I have been given orders was left unsaid.
"Just a second, sir." Jacob could hear the shuffling of papers over the phone. "We only got the radar repaired about an hour ago… Yeah, Black Mesa would be where those odd returns are coming from."
What?
"You're going to have to explain yourself better, colonel."
"Uh – right sir. Shortly after nine-thirty hours the high and low bypass filter and the first stage amplifier in Holoman's main radar blew out; electromagnetic pulse, strong enough to make the lights flicker all over the base. There was a tremor too. I reported it to General Ferguson and ordered the radar repaired."
General Carter took a second to remember Major General Ferguson was in command of Twelfth Air Force and was Colonel Sunderland's direct superior.
"I got orders at 1230 hours to move to DEFCON 2. Except the orders weren't from the General, but from General Hill –" the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, an Air Force officer "– I spoke with General Ferguson, but he had no idea what I was talking about as he hadn't received orders to go to DEFCON 2."
This was getting more concerning by the letter. The members of the Joint Chiefs aren't even supposed to be in the chain of command anymore, and to be giving orders to a colonel, bypassing the chain of command? If it weren't for the fact this was happening in New Mexico, thousands of miles from DC, he'd think someone was about to attempt a coup.
"I've got my F-117s on the tarmac loaded and ready to go, but I've barely heard anything. General Ferguson is trying to chase up what the Hell is going on, but I spoke to him half an hour ago and he's gotten nothing so far.
"The only thing I have heard is from Colonel Cole who's in command of Kirtland. He got the same DEFCON order I got and was then ordered to prepare his war stocks for transport. A marine colonel rocked up with a lot bunch of flat beds and troops loaded for bear, and carted off a lot of it. Everything from small arms ammo to two-thousand pounders. He left a bunch more marines behind to get the rest ready to move."
The colonel sounded almost manic. It kept sounding even more like a coup in the making and he could understand the colonel's possible fear and confusion. He might have followed his orders to the letter so far, but he couldn't see him ordering those planes anywhere without a very good explanation.
"Materiel Command isn't it?" he asked.
"Yes sir, Colonel Cole told Materiel Command the same thing I told the General, they have no idea what is going on. General Morris ordered Colonel Cole to try and stop them but not to use force unless they tried to enter the special weapons storage area, and failing that find out what they were up to. I haven't had the chance to follow it up yet though sir."
A heavily armed force of Marines with orders to take almost any weapons they like under suspect orders… it was insanity, but he could certainly understand why General Morris was keen to avoid such a bloodbath. Marines and Airmen shooting at each other was almost the last thing they needed.
"What unit were they from?" he asked.
"He wasn't sure sir; their commander wouldn't answer. Best answer he got was from their unit patch: HECU. I don't know what it stands for."
"It stands for Hazardous Environment Combat Unit," he answered. "They're supposed to be a small special forces capable unit built for testing new tech, most of it from Black Mesa."
The line was quiet for a moment.
"Thank you for that information sir." He paused for a moment. "How small sir?"
He had never seen all of them, but the impression he had gotten was small; large enough to test out new tactics for the new technologies, but small enough to not be a drain on either personnel or equipment budgets.
"A few hundred max; a company of infantry, some pilots, some Osprey, light armoured vehicles, support personnel."
The colonel again didn't reply immediately, digesting his estimate.
"Sir, Colonel Cole said he saw at least several hundred rear echelon types, a company of infantry in trucks, a company of Abrams, a company of LAVs and a dozen 155mm guns."
That wasn't right…
"They were all from the HECU?" he asked.
"Yes sir."
Jacob's head turned towards the door at the knock of his aide. The captain stuck his head through and Jacob gestured towards the desk in front of him. The request was pretty simple, but the captain had clearly showed some initiative by crouching the request in terms making it sound like his office had a significantly more legitimate reason to ask for the imaging. It helped the office was peripherally related to it.
"Just a moment colonel."
Finished reading, he quickly signed it and handed it back to his aide.
"What about the returns?"
The colonel took a second to consider and when he spoke he sounded considerably more level.
"We got the radar up about an hour ago. Given what happened I ordered them to get it done as fast as they could. Got some strange returns, they looked a bit like helicopters in how they moved but the return is wrong for them. One of the techs thought they might be birds and we'd gotten the range wrong, but the calibration checked out"
"And they were over Black Mesa?"
"Yes sir."
The line was silent for a moment.
"If you don't mind sir, I'd like to get my radar crews on it now and fill in General Ferguson."
Jacob couldn't think of anything else to ask.
"Get on to it colonel, and tell General Ferguson to call me if he needs some help here in DC."
"Thank you sir."
At the disconnect tone Jacob put the phone back down and sat in silence, contemplating everything he had learnt in the last half-hour. Someone terrible was going on and his daughter was trapped in the middle.
The numbers and equipment Colonel Sunderland described went against all of his preconceived notions about the HECU, and that was just to pick up extra munitions. Did they have more headed towards Black Mesa? Was it possible that General Taylor actually commanded a full-sized unit that suited his rank? Was the HECU a brigade or regiment sized formation?
Another realisation came to him; they had taken two-thousand pounders, bombs for use with fixed wing aircraft. Hyperbole perhaps? Maybe they hadn't taken two-thousand pounders, but had taken smaller bombs? That still meant they had fixed wing air assets like Harriers or F/A-18s, suggesting they were a much larger force than he initially estimated.
If he remembered correctly a Marine Expeditionary Unit had a few Harriers, probably no more than a dozen. They were what? Two-thousand, three thousand men all up? And General Taylor used to command one.
None of this made any sense to General Carter. It looked like the serious steps one might take before a coup, but it was in the wrong place, it lacked force at some sort of critical political juncture that would force leaders to capitulate.
And why Black Mesa?
He got up and began pacing. Pacing made his frustration evident; it was poor form for a senior officer.
He halted mid step.
Could this be a legitimate military threat the HECU were responding to?
The secrecy though… if there was a threat that required deploying thousands of personnel, if not the public, it would make sense at the very least to come clean to military leaders.
Could it be something politically sensitive? The only thing he could think of that required this sort of force would be an attack on Black Mesa, probably hundreds strong at the very least. Nuclear weapons were also rebuilt and refurbished in some of the labs there, the numbers made sense if they were working to prevent their theft, and it was something that would cause a political crisis even if averted.
But, it couldn't be hidden for long, and when it was made public the military didn't use every asset available to contain the threat, it would be far worse than the knowledge leaking after a few hours or days because of the many people were brought in to help.
He needed the photos and wasn't going to wait.
Standing up he quickly checked himself over and smoothed out any ruffles.
"With me, captain," he said as he stepped out the door.
o0o0o
If anyone asked, the images were for satellite performance analysis. He had every reason to analyse older satellite images for the purpose. After all, how will he know how to improve the next generation without it?
It was enough of a lie to get the Duty Officer – a major – to hand them over, and now he and Captain Peters were back in his office. Peters removed some items from his desk as he broke the secret seal on the carboard tube and pulled out the sheets of A0 paper.
He didn't look too hard as he used the captain's stapler to hold on corner down but almost gasped himself when Captain Peter's gasp lead his eyes to the imagery: black smoke from what clearly where fires scattered across the facility, damaged and shattered buildings, cars clearly abandoned by their owners along the edges of roads.
He followed a trail of smoke back to its origin; the clear remains of an Osprey tilt-rotor helicopter. A quick second confirmed three more fires were caused by helicopters. Osprey's had only been in service for a very short time, and the question now was how they were destroyed; on the ground or in the air?
They seemed scattered like they had been shot down, but it could also have been that the aircraft had spread to deploy troops to critical areas. Either way the enemy must have had a lot of firepower.
Lifting up the image revealed a false-colour infrared photo of the facility. The smoke didn't show up on the image, but the IR photo revealed the presences of many more fires. He checked the time, about half-an-hour after the imaging request. The next image was synthetic aperture radar, showing the damaged and shattered buildings in horrifying sharpness.
The dense mass of research facilities probably covered a dozen square kilometres with a few more satellite facilities a few kilometres out. The scale of the damage meant an incredible military force, thousands at least if this had started today. Any attempt to keep this a secret was insane, they needed anything and everything they could throw at this immediately.
He had to wonder what the local media was saying. Even though the facility was in the middle of nowhere, they must have noticed the aircraft and the troops, they must have heard stories from the thousands that must commute to and from Black Mesa every day and had been turned around. People must have slipped out, and some early arrivals may have seen the fighting and turned around.
Leaving the captain, he went back into his private office and found the remote for the small TV that was stuck behind the door, turning the TV to a 24 hours news service. He tuned out the scientist being interviewed and focussed on the ticker across the bottom of the screen. He couldn't put the stream of word in context until the name Black Mesa was mentioned. That made sense he thought as he focused on the scientist being interviewed.
"What kind of reactors are at the facility, doctor?" asked the reporter.
The scientist looked comfortable, surrounded by piles of notes and books, his personal office perhaps.
"Ah, well, the facility is our finest research facility, the best in the world in fact. They have everything from little research reactors for performing small experiments to even a full-scale power reactor. I hear it's now used for very powerful experiments. If anything has melted down, it would be that."
The reporter nodded.
"How bad do you think the disaster is?"
The scientist looked slightly uncomfortable at the question.
"Well, we don't know it has been a meltdown. There are a lot of good reasons to issue an evacuation order."
The reporter seemed slightly taken aback that he wasn't following the same line of thought.
"What do you mean, doctor? What else could it be?"
The scientist was about to speak when the feed cut of and returned to the newsroom where a man and a woman sat in neat business attire.
"Sorry Alice, we have to cut that there as we just got a copy of Emergency Broadcast System message that was sent out to Black Mesa County residents a few minutes ago." The male newsreader looked off screen for a second before asking a crew member "It's ready?".
The vaguely familiar bands of colour of an EBS message appeared, superimposed by the news stations ticker and logo. They had already cut the opening tones out as the disjointed digital voice of the message began.
"The following message has been transmitted at the request of the… Department of Energy. At 9:47 am… mountain time, a disaster of… unknown type… occurred at the… Black Mesa Research Facility in … Black Mesa County, New Mexico. An emergency evacuation order has been issued for… Black Mesa County and the surrounding area. A shelter in place order has been issued for… Alamogordo County… White Rock County… Silver County… Cerro County… Arroyo County.
"If you are in the evacuation area, leave immediately by the fastest route. Do not stop to take personal belongings, except for immediate emergency supplies. Follow the directions of county, state and federal officials. If you are unable to evacuate, immediately contact the police for assistance.
"If you are in the shelter in place area, seek immediate shelter at your home. Begin preparations to evacuate. Prepare food… water… medical supplies. Tune a battery powered radio to your local emergency frequency.
"This message will repeat. Stay tuned for further updates."
The image returned to the newsroom and the female newsreader began to speak.
"For those of you just joining us, that was the Emergency Broadcast System message that only a few moments ago ordered residents in Black Mesa County to immediately evacuate and the residents of half-a-dozen more to prepare to. We still do not know the cause of the disaster forcing this evacuation, but there is speculation that there was been a nuclear accident of some type at the Black Mesa Research Facility in New Mexico."
Jacob was surprised that they were actually going for the blackout, letting the media run wild with tales of (comparatively) small disasters while Marines put down whatever was attacking the Facility. This was politically going to bite them in the ass as everything unravelled. He had to wonder who was playing what game here. The Marines would do fine as the initial force, but a fight like this would take days or weeks to put down.
The Army needed to be ready to move, and the Air Force should have been in the air hours ago. The Pentagon should have been a hive of frantic activity as the Services coordinated their forces, vying to get their unit to the fight, pulling favours to get moved up the transport order list. The Services running back and forth because this was unfathomable, because this was something no plan likely existed for.
But instead it was the usual organised rush, for the most part another day of the week, and he needed to find out why.
This was intended as a chapter a few chapters from now, but while the planed chapter 2 was literally one line, I finished this.
I'm hoping to build a backstory for why the government reacted as they did in Half-Life.