Cyber/Drone War Unleashed Between the United States and the People's Republic of China
Righteous Wrath Unit 000
Ames had been recruited into the Righteous Wrath Unit 000 right out of the academy for many different reasons, one of which was the many championships he won in competitive online game tournaments.
Of course, his ability to concentrate – a rare commodity in a world filled with attention deficit disorder babies – and his unusually fast reflexes made him a prime candidate for the unit. But it was his total amoral and apolitical view of the world around him and his ability to never question orders that made him a man who could be counted on to deliver the goods every time.
Ames never gave any thought to patriotism; he just embraced it like some men embrace the religion of their fathers – with no questions and no doubts. His family had a long tradition of serving their country faithfully and unquestionably. The only time they went awry was when Ames great, great, great grandfather joined the Confederacy. And that was a matter of opinion. Some family members believed his open rebellion against the Union was natural while others saw it as an aberration. Ames didn’t have an opinion on the subject.
Such a mindset made him perfect for the Righteous Wrath Unit 000. Its name meant that the good old USA was bringing the justice of Uncle Sam right to the enemies of freedom and democracy using the latest in its ever increasing drone arsenal complements of the military industrial complex. The 000 simply signified that it was a stealth operation that could and would never be acknowledged or revealed – at all costs, with “all costs” underscored by its triple skulls insignia.
When Ames wasn’t carrying out the top secret missions for Righteous Wrath, he was busy engaging in extreme sports and lady hunting, both of which had put him in some dangerous situations, which Maj. Tripe Wilson, Ames’s superior officer, didn’t like and let his concerns be known.
“Why don’t you settle down with one woman instead of trying to poke the holes of the entire female population,” he would chide Ames after the unit had to bail him out of a woman-related problem, such as a jealous husband that came gunning for Ames.
It was the same fatherly tone the Major used when he lectured Ames on how he put the unit’s mission at risk by getting trapped in an underwater cave for three days while on leave. “Why don’t you take up golf – or some less dangerous sport, Ames?”
Ames would always answer with a perfunctory, “Yes Sir,” but in his mind he was thinking about his next score or dangerous adventure. The fact was that Ames didn’t consider himself subject to the laws that governed other men. He saw himself as a pure warrior; he expected to die young and he didn’t really care. All he cared about was the next thrill he could experience in the here and now.
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About the Authorl
I wrote this fiction Novella based in part on my experiences as a reporter in Washington, D.C, although the story is totally fictional. When covering the defense industry in DC, I remember going to a talk given by Lt. General Michael V. Hayden, who at the time was the Director of the secretive National Security Agency. He later went on to become the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
During the talk that took place in the late 1990s, Hayden expressed his deep concern about the United States’ potential vulnerability to cyber-attacks by enemy states and terrorists. He feared a "sneak cyber-attack similar to Pearl Harbor," in that we would be totally unprepared. He drew a grim picture of these attacks as potentially crippling events that could create chaos in a country that depended on technology for its everyday functions.
Chet Dembeck
Publisher of One
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