The Green Dragon
Hereford, England
The Green Dragon was the pub of choice for SAS operators, and Team Rainbow as a result. It was 2130, after the day's training was over. The pub was fairly crowded, with SAS troopers and Rainbow personnel mingling and chatting over many a pint of warm English beer, though the Americans in Rainbow preferred theirs chilled beforehand.
The day was over, Wong having witnessed Team Rainbow's training for a day. Now, it was his turn to comment on it.
Ding Chavez, John Clark, and Christopher Wong were having a quiet pint in a corner, the last having his back against the wall to prevent eavesdroppers from listening in unobserved. This time, the soldiers were dressed in standard British Army fatigues, the better to mix in with the others, while the suit was dressed in precisely that; a suit, much to his discomfort. The Singaporean was doing his level best to pretend that he was used to the cold, and failed at that.
"So, Chris, any comments?" Ding asked.
"I'm bloody freezing," Wong answered, shivering as he did so.
"Why's that?"
"Local air temperature's roughly 10 degrees Celsius…about 50 or so degrees Fahrenheit. I'm more used to Singapore's climate, roughly twenty-nine degrees Celsius."
Chavez thought about it. If he felt that Singapore was hot, then Wong had to be cold over here. After all, Singapore was his home; he was more used to the warmer conditions there than in foggy England.
"I don't blame you. There isn't a noonday sun," Clark said.
"There's a sun here?"
That earned a brief chuckle from the men. Wong took a brief swig from his beer mug. He decided that a man can get used to such alcohol…but Wong didn't drink unless absolutely necessary. It probably was the weather, he decided, taking another sip.
"Anything to say about our SOP?" Chavez probed.
"Well…" Wong replied, "first of all, I have to say that your guys are superb. They're on par with the Delta Force and DEVGRU guys we trained with in our unit's initial days."
Clark saw the head of his diminutive son-in-law swell up. Ego is a Latino thing, John, he thought to himself for the hundredth time, and no amount of training can correct that.
"As for command and control…well, they're very well coordinated. You operate in teams of eight, with two snipers, right? They're highly professional at their job."
"Don't mean to interrupt, but you guys work in teams of five, right? I thought you operate in squads of eight men?" Ding interjected.
"Y'see, our CO read this study published by the US Marine Corps (he pronounced it as 'core', the proper way, unlike his compatriots). It was about command and control in urban environments. In summary, it stated that five men were optimal for close quarters battle."
"Okay, but don't you have snipers?"
"We do. The third man is. All of our snipers are trained in both sniping and CQB. They participate in actual assaults when they're not needed. We learnt this from the HRT (Hostage Rescue Team), but we don't charge in with twelve or eleven men."
"So, you train in five- and four-man room clearing?"
"Just four- and two-man clearing. The rearguard covers our back if there're five in one team."
"Right. What if you need more men?" Chavez asked, remembering Worldpark.
"We analyse the situation in HQ. If we need more men, then we deploy more teams. We can send up to a total of twenty men anywhere in Asia."
"Okay…hell, it's just like us, but we operate globally."
A grimace. "I would prefer more men, but twenty men suddenly disappearing from the SOF and the commandos is kind of weird, much less forty or so."
"SOF?"
"Special Operations Force. Our equivalent of the American Delta Force and British Counterrevolutionary Warfare (CRW) wing of the SAS. Mind you, the SOF consists of the best and brightest soldiers in the commandos, who are themselves the best men in the SAF."
"Were you transferred to your unit?"
"No. There were forty men who applied for the selection course. Four months later, half remained. I was in that twenty."
"Okay…now, back to the topic at hand. What can you tell us about our tactics?"
"I don't see why you attach suppressors to your SMGs (submachine guns) before entry, if you're going to blow the door down. I mean, in Singapore, if we use EMOE, we don't bother with such things. The blast is enough to nullify what advantage the suppressors provide."
"Yeah, but all the bad guys know is that we're in the place. They won't be able to place our positions by our gunfire."
"Still, the way you guys do dynamic takedowns, there's no need for suppressors at all if you're using EMOE. Furthermore, if you use EMOE too early or in the wrong place in hostage rescue, the terrorists would kill the hostage.
"I mean, in Singapore, if we use EMOE, we don't bother with suppressed weaponry, since we use the latter when we don't want the bad guys to know that we're in place until it's too late. When we do use our MP5SDs, we pick locks on doors instead of blowing them down."
"You train guys to pick locks?"
"No, we have electronic lock picks that do that for us."
"Really? How much do they cost?" Clark asked; playing the accountant he had to be.
"Not very much. We'll take them along next week."
"Hmm…" Ding mused. The lock picks might provide a tangible advantage, especially if Rainbow had to perform a stealthy hostage rescue. Hell, the incident in that childcare centre in the Netherlands needed stealth had Doctor Bellow failed to talk the terrorists into surrendering. The Tangos had barricaded themselves into a single room. If Paddy had destroyed the (locked) door leading to the centre, the terrorists would have shot the hostages, and things would have gone ratshit.
"Also, the radios you guys use… Where did you buy them from?" Wong asked.
"E-Systems. Why?" Clark replied.
"Well…right now, we're using Motorola Sabers and Peltor Sound Traps, the former for radio comms and the latter as ear protection. Your radios help improve C & C and have built-in ear protection to boot. We'll probably need them."
"Those radios are fairly new themselves. They're replacements for our previous ones. E-Systems might be willing to let you purchase some."
"Y'know, Wong, your men received new radios yesterday, after your flight left. These radios have digital ear protection, 256-bit encryption with rotating keys, and they can automatically amplify soft noises and shut off loud sound, like your Peltor Sound Traps," a voice remarked from behind the Americans.
The men spun around, amazed that the speaker had evaded detection.
On first glance, the owner of the voice appeared to be a short soldier with Asian roots, about roughly 5'5½". He was dressed in standard British fatigues, temperate forest camouflage pattern, with the chevrons and rockers of a second sergeant. His eyes were black, but as he approached the men, they turned a very deep, dark brown as the light struck them. And he was wearing contact lenses.
The men looked at his nametag, then the notepad in his left hand, and finally the pen in his right. Then, they noticed that all the colours on he were more vivid than anything around them.
"Hello, Sergeant Cheah," Wong greeted. "Why are you allowed here?"
"I own this place. And I'm no sergeant." Not exactly true, but true enough.
"Where're your glasses?" Ding asked.
"This is an avatar, dammit. I am allowed to wear contacts, right?"
"Self-induced short-sightedness is bad," Wong answered, hailing from the myopia capital of the world, but with perfect vision.
"I didn't give myself myopia; my genes did. Hell, it's pretty mild considering: less than negative two hundred degrees. But enough about that."
Clark raised an eyebrow. The writer's nametag had 'CHEAH' on it, and just that. The other SAS and Rainbow troopers didn't see him, as though he were…invisible.
"Can't the others see you, Cheah?" Clark asked.
The writer clucked his tongue, raised his notepad, and scribbled something into it.
"Eddie!" Chavez greeted, seeing his second-in-command appear behind the writer.
Wait…wasn't he in the office doing admin…? Chavez wondered. What the hell…!
"Hello Ding, good evening sir," Sergeant-Major Edward Price greeted.
"Who's he?" Price continued, indicating the writer.
"I'm Cheah, the writer of this story," Cheah replied.
"Oh…sorry, didn't recognise you. Your accent…where's it from? Are you British, or a New Zealander?" the Brit asked, looking down at the shorter and younger…well, not quite a soldier.
"I don't know, and I don't care about my accent. And why the hell does everybody think I'm from Britain, America, New Zealand…shit, it's not as if it's that unnatural or anything!" Cheah replied angrily, almost but not quite screaming. Nobody around him heard what he said.
"Sorry. Hey…your hair…it's…."
Price examined Cheah's hair from all angles; much to the latter's exasperation.
"Enough already," Cheah ordered.
"Okay. But seriously…your hair's four-toned."
"Don't I know it?"
On first inspection, the writer's hair was black. However, when viewed under certain lighting conditions and angles, some of it transformed into a deep brown, parts of it turned chestnut brown, and others became mahogany. There was even a pair of golden-copper strands. The parts that were black also reflected light so well at certain angles that they turned white or silvery.
"I don't like it too; makes me stand out too much. Blame my genes," Cheah grumbled. "But enough about me."
"Right… Want a drink?" Price asked in jest.
"I'm too young, thank you. Anyways, Captain Wong, the rest of your men received those radios yesterday. There're prototypes from E-Systems, as I recall. Apparently, someone decided to let you guys field test them instead."
"The hell? I thought we were black?" Wong muttered under his breath. Chavez gulped down some more beer, his ears open. Clark briefly reverted to his spook training, pretending not to listen. Price walked off to order a beer.
"Yep. The builders thought that the SAF commandos would receive them, not you guys."
"Oh. How did we…?"
"Captain, there are many, many things in life people can't explain."
That earned a raised eyebrow from the commando.
"I'm serious, Wong," Cheah replied, a wry smile playing across his lips.
"Right… You know, it's a shame that ST Kinetics can't produce a decent gun, and DSTA (Defence Science and Technology Agency, the main developers of Singaporean military technology) can't produce something like this radio."
Clark drank some more alcohol. It was pretty good…but the conversation was even better, he decided.
"Yeah. So much for kiasu-ism. For you Westerners, it's defined as being afraid to lose out on anything in Hokkien…a Chinese dialect."
"What do you mean?" Clark asked, finally.
Cheah explained the SAR-21 and its shortcomings to the men as Price returned. When he was done, the writer elected to stand.
"So, Chris, apart from entry tactics, what do you think of us?" Chavez asked.
"Hmm…the HK MP5/10s you use have more recoil than what I've come to expect, but the suppressors you guys mount on them reduce muzzle climb. I'm not really comfortable with the 10mm Auto the weapon fires though; I'll stick to 9mm, thank you," Wong answered.
"The 10mm creates a bigger hole, and has more punch," Cheah said.
"And has a hell of a lot more recoil. We use the MP5 because it's damn near recoilless in single-shot or burst mode, in addition to its reliability and accuracy," Wong retorted.
"You're the shooter."
"The same goes for the Berettas Rainbow uses. I'm not comfortable with the .45 ACP round."
That explained why he missed thrice at the range when invited to test the guns. His first two shots went into the lower jaw and upper head of his target respectively instead of between the eyes. The last was off target by maybe a fraction of an inch. After getting used to the sights and recoil, Wong placed every shot perfectly, though…almost like Ettore Falcone, in fact, Chavez mused.
Wonder who'll win…Big Bird or Wong…? he thought.
"Really…? Well, I'm not surprised. The Vektors you use reduce recoil considerably, what with their compensators."
"Yeah. In case you're wondering, the SP1s we use are the military variant; the sporting ones have built-in compensators of a different design. The compensators were fitted on our pistols simply because they reduce recoil, which in turn leads to faster follow-up shots."
"They're pretty heavy for pistols though," Cheah commented.
"How heavy?" Price wondered out loud.
"The standard Browning High Power the SAS issues weighs about 930 grams, right? The 8045s weigh about 950 grams. The Vektor, on the other hand, weighs a little over a kilogram, when loaded and fitted with a compensator," the writer replied.
"You know this sort of stuff?" Price asked, bemused. Then, he took a sip of his drink.
"Hey, I do research, you know. I can't say the same for the other Singaporean writers I know…and some Western ones as well."
"Like?"
"I'll be sued if I tell you. By the way, Wong…I think you should compete against Falcone one of these days."
"Falcone…Ettore Falcone? Not a chance of winning, Cheah."
Yeah, right, a little part of Wong's brain commented. Price took a long pull on his mug, reading Wong's mind. Chavez smirked a little.
"With the 8045s, or with your SP1s? Go ahead; give it a shot."
"What? Is Chris here supposed to be the best pistol shot in his unit?" Chavez asked.
"Yep," Cheah replied, deadpan.
Another Rainbow trooper wandered upon the conversation before Wong could comment. Whether at Cheah's behest or not was something only he knew. In this case, it was Homer Johnston, a mug of beer in hand.
"Hey Ding," Johnston said in greeting, before moving on to the rest, and finally…
"Who're you?" the sniper asked of the cadet.
"…"
Cheah didn't bother with a reply this time. He just stared at the American.
"Hey, you're Cheah, aren't you? What's your full name?" Johnston enquired.
"…Leounheort (le-own-he-ort) Cheah, King of the World."
"Bullshit."
"Quite," the cadet sergeant replied.
All of the men shared a brief chuckle.
"Really, though, what is it?"
"Does it matter?"
"Yes."
Cheah thought for a second, then recited, "No man may sleep! No man may sleep! Not even you, O princess, in your chaste room, watching the stars above which tremble with love and hope! My secret lies within me; no one shall discover my name!"
"…Where did you get that poem from?" Wong asked.
"Hell if I know. Read it somewhere, but the title wasn't given."
"Where's that 'somewhere'?"
"'Counterstrike' by Sean Flannery, also known as David Hagberg. By the way, Johnston, you use a Remington 700 or something like that, chambered for the 7mm Remington Magnum round, right?"
"Close enough."
"Hmm…" Wong uttered, having another mouthful of English beer.
"What is it?" Clark asked.
"My guys use four different types of sniper rifles, in 7.62x51mm NATO, also called .308 Winchester. Not as powerful as the 7mm, but more common and cheaper…and less of a headache for Logistics."
"Why can't you use different weapons?" the American sniper asked.
"For the simple reason that we do not have the right to bear arms, so we don't know much about guns…if we know something in the first place. Hell, it's difficult enough to get reference material in Singapore in the first place. Finally, the sniper rifles we can use were restricted to just four, courtesy of MINDEF. Anyway, in case you're wondering, our firearms laws are draconian: possession of a gun equals a life sentence, and discharging one with criminal intent means an immediate death sentence."
"Why the harsh penalties?"
"Once upon a time, during the 1950s-1960s, we had many gangs in Singapore. They all had pistols, shotguns, SMGs and what-have-you. These were all smuggled in from China, Thailand, and Malaya. Gunfights were very common then. Eventually, some people got fed up and introduced these laws to deter people from carrying guns."
"Oh. It's worse in America. I hear that people can purchase antitank weaponry if you know who ask."
"'Whom'."
"Whatever."
"Anyways, Wong, what do you think we can learn from us?" Chavez asked.
"Shooting and CQB, of course. Maybe long-range sniping, but I doubt we need that. Also, standard abseiling and all that."
"Abseiling?"
"Rappelling in Singapore and Britain. I suspect you'll also call it fast-rope deployment."
"Hmm…what can you teach us?"
"Unarmed combat, that shooting while abseiling trick, alternative ways of making entry, and that's for starters. We'll bring our own kit along, namely MP5A5s, Vektor SP1s, Franchi PA3/215 shotguns, maybe even Mossberg 500 shotguns, fitted with Cruiser pistol grips. If needs be, maybe our M4A1s as well. All this plus standard CQB gear, radios…the whole nine yards." Just by mentioning that, Wong's head started to throb as he thought of all the gear they had to carry. And it wasn't nearly enough.
"Why the hell do you need to bring so many guns?" Chavez wondered.
"They get the job done," Cheah replied for his countryman.
Author's Note: The radios mentioned probably don't exist, except maybe in conceptual form somewhere far, far away from Singapore. The part about why the SAF chose the MP5 (to replace the Uzi) is true, according to a commando at the 2004 Army Open House, except reliability. The last was not even mentioned…sigh. I've fired live simunition through an MP5A5 before, again at the open house, and the felt recoil is very, very mild, hence 'Wong's' remark about it being recoilless, which was also taken from that commando. Then again, simunition is not the same as real bullets. The part on Singapore gun laws is true, and so is the history behind it. The remark about purchasing antitank weaponry is based on fact: a Los Angeles gang member almost purchased a LAW (Light Antitank Weapon) in the early 1990s. Nobody (maybe not even the commandos themselves) knows what kind of weapons the commandos use apart from the brand name, so I had to ID the guns myself based on photographs and personal inspection. I don't know if the shotguns mentioned are correctly identified, though. Finally, my 'O' level examinations are near the end of this year, and the Preliminary papers are in August. Which means I have to study like all hell for them. I won't have the time to update this story regularly, unfortunately. As always, please be patient.