Part 4 – Declaration of War
Classified War Room, Undisclosed Location…
Many of the Military's top brass were sitting around, discussing the situation when the doors opened, and General Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs entered.
"Mr. Chairman," Mei Terumī, the elvish head of the C.I.A. said as he entered.
"Mei, I want the rundown, and I want it now," General Sarutobi said.
"Sir, right about now, the Agency is running down every lead it can," Mei said, "Right now, no one is claiming responsibility," she then pointed at the screen where an image of six male goblins walking through the Louis Armstrong International Airport parking garage carrying six suitcases that could have been for rifles, "These six were caught acting suspiciously by the TSA, but were cleared. A quick look into their passports shows that they're using cover identities."
"What is their origin point," General Sarutobi asked.
"Their tickets show that they got on the plane to New Orleans from Cairo," Mei said, "However, my agents in the area found out that they arrived over-land from somewhere in mid-continental Africa. We should have an origin point shortly."
"Do we have any idea where they are now," General Sarutobi asked.
"Yes," Mei said, "About five minutes prior to the attacks, they left on a plane heading back to Cairo. We've contacted authorities in Cairo, and we expect to have them in custody by the time they land."
"That is assuming they do land," Major General Rasa Sands said, "They're over international waters now. If they act, my guess is that they're going to either detonate a bomb and vaporize the plane, or they're going to hijack the plane and divert it somewhere else. After all, they managed to destroy every path in and out of New Orleans."
"That would be the case," Mei said, "If they had explosives."
"Sorry," General Sarutobi asked.
"I was handed a report by the head of the New Orleans FBI office," Mei said as she held up the report, "They didn't use any kind of explosive."
"Then what destroyed the bridge," General Sarutobi asked, Mei's face hung heavy with dread when he asked that, "Good hell. You don't mean."
"Confirmed," Mei said, "We have a Black Cross."
The entire room went silent: a Black Cross is code for an unholy artifact. Black magic placed into an artifact touched by a demon that was created with the intent to cause maximum destruction.
"I want the Black Cross kept top-secret," General Sarutobi said, "I'll brief the President, and we'll need to begin preparing our operatives."
White House…
President Tsunade San, former American Ambassador to Tokyo, later Congress Minority Whip, and the first Dual-Citizen male or female to be elected to the office of President. She could be described in one word: cougar, long flowing blond hair, voluptuous figure, enormous melons that were bigger than her own head.
General Sarutobi walked into the room with the briefing in hand and placed it on her desk as she and the Vice President sat down to look over it.
"As of right now, the estimated toll is around seventy-six thousand dead, about forty-five thousand wounded or missing," General Sarutobi said, "Forty thousand people use just the Pontchartrain causeway every day. Most of the ways in and out of the city are the bridges and the causeway. There is another way into the city along the canals and the river. All air traffic in and out of the city has been halted until the suspects are caught."
Tsunade sat back in her chair, "Seventy-six thousand dead. A major U.S. city crippled. The country in chaos, and demanding answers," she said, "This is going to be a great day."
"Madame President," General Sarutobi said, "The country is in a state of shock. We need to act now."
"And we will," Tsunade said as she stood up, smoothed out her dress-suit, and turned to her Vice President, "Shizune, contact Genma, and get the Washington Press Corps over here. I'll address the nation," she then turned back to General Sarutobi, "In the meantime, take us to DEFCON 3, and prepare our forces."
"Yes, Madame President," the two of them said as they walked out of the room.
Tsunade walked around to her desk, and the first thing she did was call the Pentagon.
Chicago…
"Alright, thanks," Sasuke said as he hung up the phone at the team and their families gathered at Shino's house.
"What's the word," Shino asked as he looked up from his wife who was leaning against his shoulder.
"The President just took us to DEFCON 3, and all Special Forces Units in the military have been put on stand-by," Sasuke said as he turned around to look at everyone gathered there, "Right about now, most of our forward-deployed are on high-alert. Right now, no one has been called in yet."
"Let's keep our ears open then," Sai said, "Right now it appears we're at war."
"We're already at war," Sasuke said as he walked over to where Sakura was sitting, "Whoever did this just opened another front."
Pentagon…
"Right now most of our soldiers are engaged in battles across the Middle East," Secretary of Defense Gerald Morehouse said, "Right now, we don't know where these goblins are going. Before we can send our troops in, we need to gather intelligence."
"The C.I.A. is on it," President Tsunade said, "Right now we don't have a clear picture of who's behind it, but we do have a lead that we are hoping to chase down."
"That lead is," Secretary Morehouse asked.
"Six suspicious individuals," President Tsunade said, "Goblins, carrying Black Crosses."
"Dear shit," Secretary Morehouse said, "Black crosses? How'd it come to that?"
"We don't know," President Tsunade said, "Right now, I want you to put our forces on high alert. We need to be prepared."
"At once, Madame President," Secretary Morehouse said.
C.I.A Headquarters…
Processing thousands of gigabytes of data might be pretty hard if you're doing it at home, for the C.I.A., it's a few clicks, and thousands of gigabytes of data can be rifled through in a matter of minutes.
Mei had issued a general order to find where those goblins came from, and where the unholy artifacts came from.
"On this day, a day that will live in infamy, a horrendous act of terrorism was committed against one of our nation's great cities," President Tsunade said in her address to the nation, "They tried to intimidate us, and spread fear amongst our population: they failed. Because New Orleans is almost completely cut off from the outside world, I have federalized the Louisiana National Guard to assist in creating temporary ways in and out of New Orleans until the causeway and bridges can be repaired. Right now, we cannot afford to be divided: we will be tested, but our resolve is strong, and we will never feign from our goal. Justice will be served, and we will bring the ones that did this to justice."
"I hope you're right, Tsunade," Mei said as she leaned back in her desk chair, and exhaled strongly. Right about now, most of her agents had been focused on the Middle East with the Lizardfolk and Kobolds. Now she had to divert her resources to find where those goblins came from.
It was then one of her agents ran in, "Mrs. Terumī," he said as he walked in, "We think we have something," Mei looked up as the agent walked up to her desk, and held out a picture that was taken by customs of one of the goblin's passports, "The passport, registered to Mugu Tarlind. Passport has an Egyptian seal on it because that's where he departed to the U.S. from," he then held out a file, "However, when we ran his picture we found something else."
Mei took the file from the agent's hand, and opened it to reveal the image of a green-skinned Goblin Kandra Confederacy Soldier, "Slugwill Chatterwall," Mei asked.
"Former Sargent in the KMR," the Agent said, "After the Congolese Confederacy's economy took a sharp drop back in '14, the entire KMR was disbanded to save the economy money."
The KMR: Kitengo cha Msaada wa Raia, or as Google translate says from Swahili to English, the Civil Relief Unit, at one point, the greatest unit in the Kandra Confederacy's Armed Forces. After the country's economic collapse in 2014 after the country's exportation services' workers took up a two-year strike against the country's Department of Labor, the Armed Forces were the first thing they overhauled on the Government's Economic Rebuilding Policy. The KMR was the best, but also the most expensive, and when it came to cutting cost, it was either that or sell off ten percent of their air force.
When they let the KMR go, they had no discretionary fund to help their soldiers along while they looked for another job, they didn't offer them positions in the regular army, and they didn't even say sorry. It left a whole lot of them resentful and some of them penny-less. In 2015, a bunch of them created the Kandara Worker's Brigade and overthrew the country's government in a matter of months. Luckily the country's Prime Minister fled before they overtook the capitol city of Koras, and had been granted political asylum in the U.S.
The new head of the Kandra Republic kept pressuring the U.S. into sending the Prime Minister back to the country so they could try him. But every President denied them that, and ever since they had been engaging in small anti-U.S. attacks, destroying the American Embassy, denying U.S. citizens entry, and even attacking U.S. convoys that passed over the border every time they needed to get from the Congolese Confederacy to the Democratic State of Zambia.
They had never taken it to this extreme, and right now, the entire country was going to be completely pissed off at them. Just like 9/11, there was going to be a massive surge in men and women signing up for service.
"So a disgruntled soldier-turned-resistance-fighter-turned-terrorist," Mei asked, "Where does that leave us though?"
"With this," the Agent said as he turned the page to the next document which showed a picture of Slugwill with his old KMR unit, he then pointed at the goblin sitting next to Slugwill in the picture, "Maggot Tolar," he pointed at the goblin behind Slugwill in the New Orleans picture, he then pointed to the one standing behind Slugwill, "Tik Mudhorse," the goblin walking in front of Slugwill, "Stubeye Greytar," the goblin walking next to Slugwill, "Dullbrain Ingot," the goblin walking next to Stubeye, finally the goblin walking next to Maggot, "Wartface Jok. They all served together in the same KMR unit: the Ferals. Their primary job was deep-territory strikes, specializing in attacks on infrastructure."
"So we have our man," Mei said, "Or should I say, men," she looked up at the Agent, "Still, what about Kandra?"
"We found this," the agent said as he handed Mei a picture of Slugwill with Kandra's newest President, "He's been the President's bodyguard ever since the revolution."
"So he sends the only man he can trust to get this done," Mei said, "Well done, I'll brief the President."
"Thank you, ma'am," the agent said before bowing and leaving the room.
The next thing that Mei did was pick up her phone, and make a call to the White House.
Tsunade had dropped two aspirin tablets into a glass of water that she had asked her assistant, Charles Young, a half-orc law student at Georgetown University.
The U.S. would be crying out for blood in the next several hours, and unless she said where they were going, they'd be after anyone who looked like an Orc or a Troll, and they might even go after middle-eastern-skinned humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, or half-elves. Some of them might even go after Tieflings, and no President wants to see that, especially after a terrorist attack like that.
As she sat down, Charles walked in to see her with her hands clutching fistfuls of her own hair, stressed out of her mind, "Madame President," he said.
"Yes, Charlie," Tsunade asked as she looked up, "Mrs. Terumī is on the phone."
"Put her through Charlie," Tsunade said, as she picked up the phone, the first thing she said was, "Please tell me you have good news."
"I have good news for a lot of people," Mei said, "We know where the goblins came from, and where they're going."
"You just made my day," Tsunade said, "Where?"
"You might want to ask the Prime Minister of Kandra if he wants his old job back," Mei said.
"Goblins," Tsunade asked.
"KMR," Mei said, "We've positively identified former members of the unit. One of them is the personal bodyguard to Kandra's President."
"I'll contact Congress," Tsunade said.
This means war…