Read Operation Wild Tarpan for Free Online

we are.” Harris had switched over to toying with a loose pen. “Other than Bravos, every piece of heavy equipment available to him runs on hydrocarbon fuels. It’s all bogged down with fungus.”
    “Until he develops a solution for the fungus problem,” Barrett said, “and we don’t think he can, his forces are spread out.” She slid a file, a hard-copy paper in a cardboard cover, across the table to Miller. “That vulnerability is ameliorated by their communications network. Operation Wild Tarpan will deploy covertly into the city, dressed as refugees. The goal is to eliminate the electronic warfare and communications unit at the forward operating base the 11th Division’s established in Harlem. You will complete the attack before ten a.m. today.”
    Miller checked his watch. It was barely two in the morning. He picked up the file and folded down the cover while he listened. The orders were handwritten—printers must have been in short supply.
    “Without their local communications structure,” Barrett continued, “not only will their dispersed forces be at a disadvantage, they will be cut off from local air defence radar stations. In conjunction with a projected drop in fungal particulate counts at altitude, the meteorological team’s predicting a two-hour window for us to hit Stockman’s artillery with our air assets.”
    Miller blinked at her. “What are we attacking them with? You might have StratDevCo’s attack choppers, but Cobalt doesn’t have any heavy gear, or explosives. The heaviest guns we have are fifty-cal machine guns.”
    Lewis folded one fist over the other. “I’ve been talking with StratDevCo’s research and test service, they have the hardware we’ll need.”
    “When did the Rats get to New York?” Miller frowned. StratDevCo’s research and test service were nominally a field evaluations group. They assisted militaries around the world developing military gear. In reality, that meant a couple of platoons’ worth of ex-soldiers and engineers with access to prototype weapons.
    To Miller’s thinking, this was good news.
    “They’re not here, yet. They’re in Boston, fixing up an abandoned car ferry for their heavy cargo. But a few of them are coming in on pilot boats shortly before daybreak.” Lewis gnawed on his lip. “They’ll be bringing in an EMP device. That should take out the FOB’s electronics, no problem.”
    “EMP weapons and running around dressed like civilians?” Miller muttered under his breath, paging through the file. “We’re acting like terrorists.”
    “One man’s terrorist is another man’s guerrilla, Mr. Miller.” Barrett’s lips flattened to a thin line. “Asymmetric warfare is never entirely above-board.”
    Miller and Lewis shared a glance. ‘Asymmetric warfare’? Black ops shit.
     
     
    S O FAR AS private conversations went, Hsiung’s ‘just one word, please?’ with Lewis wasn’t private at all.
    “But why aren’t you in command? You run Cobalt!”
    Lewis replied, voice too low to make out from the opposite end of the breakroom, causing Hsiung to explode with, “But I could run it for you!”
    Miller very deliberately kept his eyes on his work, sticking trays of 5.56 ammunition into the loader, then using the loader, a box of plastic and springs and gears, to force them into his drum magazines, ten rounds with each pull of the loader’s lever.
    “So we’re insurgents, now?” Morland asked, quietly.
    Du Trieux, following Miller’s lead, finished topping up one of her pistol magazines. “Not exactly.”
    Morland stared at Doyle. Doyle didn’t rise to take the bait, even when du Trieux looked up at him, then Miller. They all knew who’d be on the trigger, if it came down to assassinating Stockman.
    Doyle seemed entirely unconcerned. Part of his rifle’s innards lay disassembled on the table, and he calmly applied a silicone lubricant that didn’t provide a fungal growth medium.
    He must still have a drug supply, Miller