Who Are Those Guys?¹

Source

Those of you who have been following along in my latest story, Uprising, have occasionally noted that there is a lot going on in the story and it is rather convoluted and not that easy to follow. Okay, guilty, I did that and it was intentional.

Life is complicated, there is a cast of thousands (billions to be more technically accurate, but no one interacts with billions in the course of their lives), and while Uprising isn't that big in scope, there is a lot going on. Wheels within wheels if you will.

One thing to keep in mind while reading the story is that you don't have to remember all of the characters. Many of them make only a brief appearance and that's it. But I like to name all of the characters in my stories, no matter how brief their part. If a character has a name, you might care about him/her. No name and they might easily be ignored. It's just the way I like to write.

Now the story itself, what is it all about?

Now if you remember, back in late April the story started in a dark alleyway. A group of men had been ambushed. Murdock, who we started the story with, was badly wounded. Most of his team were apparently dead out in the alley. Two more men from his team were nearby, one of them, Jefferson, was only lightly wounded, a man who Jefferson had dragged to cover, fellow by the name of Wilson, was dead.

Next we meet two of the main characters in the story: Jack Morgan and Ephraim Johansen. More on them in a bit.

We also meet Captain Harry DuPont, in the story Murdock and his SWAT team ostensibly work for him, as part of the National Park Service. But I threw some doubt in there as to who DuPont really belongs to. He has a meeting with someone I refer to as "the Director" where we learn that with a phone call and a simple coded phrase, DuPont can obtain a warrant to examine CCTV  network recordings in Washington DC and the surrounding area.

He has another team which he accompanies to an abandoned farmhouse where it seems they find evidence of the people who ambushed Murdock's team. Many of whom, bad guys, die in an explosion, a booby trap set by Johansen.

We know that those men, the fall guys, had lost their way after separating from the military. Johansen used them. We also learn that DuPont saw service in Afghanistan at some point. But with who? We don't know that yet.

We're with DuPont when the character of Beth Chapman is introduced. We know that she works for Homeland Security and was medically retired from the Navy due to injuries sustained in a helicopter crash in the Persian Gulf. She knows Morgan from that time, they had had an affair when they were deployed. Morgan seemingly lost interest in her after her crash.

Now Morgan is something of a sociopath, he acts impulsively. It's something that prevented him from rising in the Navy. He got out as a lieutenant, an O-3. He has a professional relationship with Albert Rossi with whom he served in the Navy, though the relationship was rather rocky. Rossi didn't fully trust Morgan and there had been an incident aboard ship where they nearly came to blows.

Along the way we meet three more civilians, veterans, Wilt Thompson and his two associates, Willy Batchelor, a retired Army Ranger, and Leroy Beardsley, a retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant. They are part of a militia unit operating in the Eastern Shores area of Virginia. Johansen and Rossi meet with them concerning a shipment of arms/explosives, Rossi thinks that the objective of the group is to spark an armed rebellion against the United States government as a reaction to an overreaction by the government regarding the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

Now the Secretary of the Interior, John Nakagawa, is in the story, why? Remains to be seen but I envision him as a major force in the tale. But on whose side? Don't know yet. He represents elements close to civilian power in the United States.

There's also a Navy vice admiral, a peripheral character so far, and a Captain Choe who has been selected for promotion to Rear Admiral (lower half) who is involved in the story. Choe works in the E Ring at the Pentagon, he is very near the heart of military power in the United States.

Nakagawa and Choe both will play important parts in the events to come.

Now the heart of the story is a plot to cause devastation and chaos which will force the government to react. But who is trying to force this? Is it an armed militia group? Is it shadowy elements within the government itself, a "false flag" operation if you will?

We don't know yet, it could even be a combination of "all of the above."

My goal in telling this story is primarily to entertain, but it's also a cautionary tale. Actions trigger reactions, which might trigger more reactions, a chain of events which might spark things which could take on a life of their own. Beyond anyone's control. Something we all need to be wary of.

Sarajevo in 1914 went from the assassination of an Austrian Archduke and his wife to a war which killed millions, which led to a second war which killed millions more. A small spark can cause a holocaust.

It's happened before, it could happen again.

Now this post is an offshoot of a conversation I had with Tuna (yes, that Tuna) on Friday. He was having trouble getting his head around everything that was going on in Uprising. I get that, it's easy for me, I'm at the heart of things. While I can't say that I know where this story is going, the way I write is rather frenetic and an idea I have one day might twist and lead to something entirely different by the next day. It makes writing fun for me, but sometimes it's hard to keep up.

I liken my writing style to painting a floor, where I intentionally (or sometimes unintentionally) paint myself into a corner just to figure out a plot twist to get me (and the characters) out of that corner.

As long as you all stay entertained (and not too confused), then I'm doing my job. Feel free to ask questions (like Tuna did) and I might answer them. If you see disconnects in the story, feel free to point them out, sometimes I don't realize that I've painted myself into a corner and I've gone ahead and walked over the freshly painted surface without realizing it!

Bottom line, it's a work of fiction (I hope) and meant to entertain.

I just hope it's working.

¹ From the 1969 film, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. "Those guys" are a posse relentlessly tracking Butch and Sundance in response to the many bank robberies Butch and Sundance, and their Hole in the Wall gang, have committed. There is a long sequence in the film following the pursuit of the duo, during which Butch and Sundance will occasionally stop and look back at their pursuers, who are still in the distance but gradually gaining ground, Butch will then pose that question. The opening photo is a screen shot of one of those moments.