Monday, September 6, 2010

CHAPTER 1: EREBUS

Fort Bragg, North Carolina: Home of United States Joint Special Operations Command...





Inside the Office of Undersecretary of State Reginald MacMillan...






Undersecretary MacMillan
: Colonel St. Singon-Smythe, I came at the direction of the Secretary of State. General Hawk should be joining us soon.






Col. St. Singon Smythe
:That's good
, MacMillan. I just hope your boy's up to the task at hand.





Undersecretary MacMillan
: If Hawk and his team aren't, Colonel...





Undersecretary MacMillan
: ...then God help us all.






Hawk
: Well, I'm here, MacMillan. Now maybe you can tell me what this is all about. Who's the wanker?






Undersecretary MacMillan
: He's not any old wanker, Hawk. His name is Col. Nigel St. Singon Smythe of British Special Forces.






Col. St. Singon Smythe
: Special Reconnaissance Regiment,
to be exact. I'm here on a matter of urgent international importance. Our local agents have been picking up a lot of terrorist chatter about James Clark Ross, and surveillance around Blackheath has noted some highly suspicious activity...you've heard of "Cobra," I assume?





Hawk
: Cobra? James Clark
who? MacMillan, what's this guy talking about? If the Brits have got a problem in Blackheath or wherever, let the Brits take care of it!





Undersecretary MacMillan
: Not so fast, Hawk. Cobra is everybody's problem. And it started right here in the U.S. of A. ...







Col. St. Singon Smythe
: MacMillan's right, Hawk. This is a problem started by a Yankee like yourself. Not too long ago, the leader of Cobra was nothing more than an enthusiastic member of the far right tea bagging movement.






Col. St. Singon Smythe
: He considered himself a small businessman, but in reality, he was nothing more than a peddler of pawned handguns and a buyer of old ladies' gold jewelry.





Col. St. Singon Smythe
: As he immersed himself deeper and deeper into the fringes of the American political right, he began to take on extreme views on a variety of social and political issues.






Col. St. Singon Smythe
: He embraced revisionist history, and adopted radical views of American Constitutionalism. He parlayed those views into a highly profitable--and illegal--weapons dealership.






Undersecretary MacMillan
: He justified his unauthorized weapons dealership under the Second Amendment, of course. He began trafficking in all sorts of modified illegal equipment. His customers, he believed, were "free" to do what they wanted with the weaponry he sold.






Undersecretary MacMillan
: It wasn't long until his weapons dealership got him connections within the criminal underground...






Undersecretary MacMillan
: Eventually, those connections expanded to global terrorists as well. ATF agents were building the case against him when he disappeared. Col. St. Singon Smythe's information leads us to believe he's resurfaced as the head of a clandestine terrorist organization known as "Cobra."






Col. St. Singon Smythe
: After he fell off your Yankee radar, "The Commander" as he began calling himself, began appearing in all kinds of hotspots...Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan...he's been photographed all over, but he's slipped through our fingers at every turn.


Hawk: So where is he now?





Undersecretary MacMillan
: We've got our best lead on him in months. He's reported to have had dealings with the billionaire twins at the head of Extensive Enterprises, a Mediterranean finance firm.






Hawk
: You don't need Special Ops--especially not my team--to go after a couple of Corsican businessmen. Where do we find this Cobra Commander?







Col. St. Singon Smythe
: We don't know. And that's where you and your team come in, Hawk. Our last clue is this blue plaque. It was discovered to have been transmitting coded signals from Blackheath to God knows where. Sir James Clark Ross...he is our only clue...
.


TO BE CONTINUED
in Chapter Two: TERROR!