Chapter I- Second To None

Site Hotel Bravo, the primary base of Shadow Company in the mountains of Afghanistan, was easily the most avoided place for miles around. Taliban fighters preferred to act like the base wasn't there; for some reason, the men in the black uniforms tended to ignore them- and fought with a ferocity Hell's demons could not have even hoped to equal when they were bothered. Other American soldiers, lesser men with a lower security clearance, didn't know the system of caves was even there. And those few locals foolish enough to intrude on the territory of the men in black armour had a tendency to never be heard from again.

Shadow Company were, hands down, the finest band of warriors ever assembled in American military history. Picked from the best of the best, they were the definition of the term "elite of the elite". Delta Force, the Green Berets, the Rangers, the 82nd and 101st Airborne; even men from artillery and armour units were welcomed from time to time. Officially, Shadow Company functioned as the only active unit within the otherwise-disbanded 12th Special Forces group.

They were similar to the much more famous Navy SEALs and Green Berets in that their job was to fight war the hard way, any time of day or night, anywhere at all on the planet, and at whatever cost it took. The difference was that Shadow Company weren't just good, or even great- they were better than elite, second to no one. On special assignment under the command of famed American officer Lieutenant General Herschel von Shepherd III, Shadow Company answered to the General and him alone.

The same could be said of the international unit of special forces operators, Task Force 141; in fact, the two units worked together often and enjoyed a healthy and often fierce rivalry. The Americans, Australians, British and others of 141 bragged that they could out-fight, out-shoot, out-gun and out-drink Shadow Company any day of the week; the men of Shadow said just the same of 141. Busy hunting enemies of the free world in the mountains of Afghanistan and anywhere else duty called them, the two elite units rarely had enough leisure time to put their boasts to the test- but what off-duty contests they did engage in would have put many of the Corp's Devil Dogs to shame.

If one had to state a difference between Task Force 141 and Shadow Company, it was that Shadow Company really did avoid the limelight at all times, for a variety of reasons. Both units were highly classified, and while their membership restrictions were similar- one already in had to notice you in action, on base, or otherwise in a situation where you showed you had what it took without even knowing who was watching, then recommend you to Shepherd- Shadow Company's existence was about all anyone was allowed to know. Their members, when recognized, were constantly being bought drinks in American airports- they were the SEAL Team Six of the Army, the men who would bring down that mad-dog son of a bitch Vladimir Makarov just the same way that the Navy had bagged Bin Laden. But Shadow Company did not like publicity; they operated in great secrecy for a reason. For one thing, they were a force gifted with the unique ability to play their enemies' games better than the foe himself did.

Their forerunners in Vietnam had been tougher than the VC; in the modern age, Shadow Company had earned the respect and fear of every enemy they faced. Iraq's Republican Guard had lived in fear of those men with the Wreathed Spade patch, with encircled with the words "VIGILANS ET FIDELIS" and "DEATH WAITS IN THE SHADOWS". The Taliban's leadership had been baffled by early reports of the Black Devils, American infidels who lived in caves and fought like all of Hell's demons empowered every one of them. Now the Taliban's top leaders, in quiet, secure conversations, spoke of Shadow Company as the only enemy the Taliban had ever learned to fear.

They were not like the other Americans; these men fought like superhumans, like fighters of an American Taliban with a holy war of their own. You could see it in their every movement, every time one of them spoke and the others leapt to follow; these men believed completely in the righteousness of what they were doing. Most Americans, one Taliban cell leader had remarked in 2015, fought with their hearts. They could be bullied into retreating, forced into surrender. These other men weren't like that. The Black Devils fought with every fiber of their being; the Black Devils fought with their souls.

But the first and foremost reason that Shadow Company was a completely close-mouthed organization, one to whom security and secrecy meant everything, was that they were in many ways a perfect mirror of the Taliban. John Kreese, one of the earliest advocates of such a unit as Shadow Company being created, had modeled one unit of the 12th Special Forces Group almost exactly off the methods and spirit of the Vietcong. No rules, no boundaries, no mercy, Kreese had urged to his men- and his superiors, as he fought to have the outfit officially recognized and created. No rules, no boundaries, no mercy. Victory at all costs.

And this meant that the men of Shadow Company operated in a world where the Geneva Convention had been nullified. The so-called rules and laws of war didn't exist. The only law that Shadow Company respected was Shepherd, their own chain of command, and their unwavering, powerful belief in the superiority of the United States of America over not only any other nation in the present world, but every other nation ever to exist in human history. Shadow Company were some of America's finest warriors, and they were steadily teaching Vladimir Makarov's band of terrorists lessons of respect through superior fighting skill and firepower. But they did not play by the rules, something few American civilians could have tolerated or understood. The day for their actions to be made known would not come in any of the current members' lifetimes- and given what they had sometimes done, that day might never come at all.

It was hard to say sometimes just why the men of Shadow Company followed Lieutenant General Shepherd with such conviction. Or rather, it was hard for an outsider, a civilian with little knowledge of modern war and the men needed to win it, to understand. The elite warriors of Shadow understood just fine.

The matter was really rather simple. Lieutenant General Herschel von Shepherd III, West Point Class of 1981, was one of the best and most daring flag officers of any nation in the modern age. TIME Magazine's Person of the Year for 2015, Shepherd had been called a leader of men, a hero, and most appropriately "a modern-day Ulysses S. Grant". Like Grant, Shepherd had detractors- and grudging admirers- who pointed out that much of his success as a combat officer had to do with what was apparently his favourite approach to any given problem: to take the biggest hammer he could find, and smash whatever was in the way. A man not at all afraid of public criticism, Shepherd took the comparisons with Grant as a compliment; it meant people recognized that he was willing to do what was necessary to win, just as Grant had been.

But Shepherd was only just starting to come to real public notice; though he played an active role in the military actions of the United States in Wadiya and in Russia during the Second Russian Civil War, his warnings that the Loyalists hadn't really won went unheard. Shepherd's attempts to alert the United States, his warnings to Congress that the Ultranationalists were still a growing threat, went ignored. After losing 30,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines when Al-Assad had detonated a nuclear weapon and destroyed the Wadiyan capital, the American people had been tired. They'd had enough of worrying about the Russians for one decade, and the Joint Chiefs had to fight like hell just to keep forces placed in the still-ongoing war in Afghanistan.

Shepherd had been unwilling to give up, or to shy away from the real threats facing the American people. He was a man of a rare combination of skill; he possessed both uncommon military and political ability, able to navigate both worlds with relative ease. Shepherd took a great interest in seeking out men of like intelligence and ability, men who had joined the US Armed Forces for the most righteous of reasons, and bringing them together. Pigeonholed and almost forgotten, Shadow Company had suddenly seen their budget and strength explode overnight. Their leadership got everything they'd been asking for; a dedicated air support group, field artillery units attached, and enough resources and new personnel to make them some of the finest and most capable warriors on the planet.

It was unsurprising, then, that Zack Camden had taken the offer of joining when it was made to him. At 22 years old, he was leader of Shadow Company's Disciple Two, a team that had 11 men including himself. He'd gotten the offer while a member of the 5th Special Forces group; it had been almost two years ago now, during his second tour in Afghanistan. The UH-60 Zack had been riding in had been shot down over the mountains, hit by a stolen HAWK missile system and forced to crash-land.

Zack had not only fought off the Taliban search party that arrived to search the wreckage, but killed enough of them as he counterattacked uphill with a SAW and hand grenades that those fighters who survived fled the area. Zack, wounded several times during the crash and subsequent firefight, had guarded the crash site for several hours, administering aid to both the helicopter's crew and his team-mates, even providing them with weapons and giving them some ability to fight. When other members of Captain Susan Gray's D Company had arrived to rescue their comrades and seen the work Zack had done, he was immediately written up for and soon after presented with his fifth Bronze Star for Valour and his third Purple Heart.

It had been while he was in the field hospital at Fire Base Phoenix that Zack truly gained the attention of Shadow Company. He had stayed there for one week, grudgingly conceding that he did, in fact, need to take time off to recuperate from his injuries. Halfway through the second week, though, Zack began to grow restless, and finally asked the Major in charge point-blank what he'd have to do to prove he was well enough to leave. Somewhat sarcastically- and forgetting he was talking to a Green Beret- the Major replied he'd have to see Zack do 200 pushups without stopping. Zack had dropped to the floor of the field hospital and begun counting them out; he was at 225 when the doctor said he'd seen enough. Zack was set to be released the next day.

As he was getting ready to leave, though, Zack was ordered by a lieutenant whom he'd never seen before- and whose spade emblem at the center of the circular insignia on his arm was unfamiliar at the time- to report to one of the debriefing rooms on base. There was a high-ranking officer, the LT said, who wanted to ask Zack about the after-action report he'd helped fill out following his action in the mountains outside Kabul two weeks ago.

Getting back into his ACU's, Zack had made his way across the base and located the room he was to be questioned in. An MP unlocked the door and let him in, but Zack wasn't placed under guard. That was nice; these debriefing rooms looked a little too much like they doubled as interrogation rooms- something that, to be fair, was entirely possible. Semper Gumby, Zack thought as he sat down in one of the two wooden chairs facing each other on opposite sides of the plain table at the center of the room. Always Flexible.

Zack was there for perhaps thirty minutes without hearing or seeing anybody; he waited patiently, though, and did not leave the room to ask anyone where this officer was, or to complain. Zack knew better; if he was told someone of senior rank wanted to speak with him about a recent action he'd been a part of, the young Green Beret had no problem answering their questions. You had to respect officers on these things; how you handled yourself at a time like this could well have an impact on your career, whether you knew it or not.

Then a pair of boots strode swiftly up to the door, with a note of confidence Zack often recognized in his own walk. Officer or enlisted man, the owner of those boots knew exactly what he was doing.

The boot-steps halted, and the door-handle turned; Zack caught a glimpse of the ACU's, then the face of the man wearing them- and the patch on his chest bearing three black stars. Instantly Zack was on his feet, snapping stiffly to attention.

"Room, atten-shun!"

Lieutenant General Shepherd entered the room without speaking, closing the door behind him. He looked at Zack for just a moment, then nodded. "As you were," he said simply, his voice somehow always carrying a note of grave seriousness. Shepherd never joked- not about anything.

Zack sat back down in the seat, and Shepherd stood across the table from him but didn't sit himself. He seemed to like the height difference it provided; he, the General, continued to loom over others, a larger-than-life man, even when in the same room with them. He seemed to be thinking for a few moments, regarding Zack in silence. It made him feel a little uncomfortable; he was fighting the urge to ask what the General wanted, and why he was here. But discipline held Zack's tongue; odds were he'd know soon enough.

In fact, it didn't take very long at all. "Do you know why you're here, son?" General Shepherd asked.

"Yes, sir," Zack answered confidently. "You wanted to hear about the details of my action in the hills near Kabul."

"The one you got your fifth Bronze Star for. Were every one of them Valour awards?"

"Yes, sir," Zack answered, though he had a feeling Shepherd already knew this.

Shepherd frowned a little, as if concentrating on something. "I've been told you don't take anything above a Bronze Star. Why is that?"

"I don't need medals, sir," Zack said simply, but as ever choosing his words carefully. "Out here, fighting battles with the 5th, medals don't make much difference. If they wanna give me a medal, fine. But I don't need anything fancy, sir."

"Good," Shepherd said suddenly. "I don't like glory chasers. Real heroes don't brag, son."

"Hooah, sir."

General Shepherd smiled a little- but only for a moment. He had little time to waste on levity. After a moment more of standing there with his arms crossed, regarding Zack with scrutiny, Shepherd said, "Soldier, I already know the details of the incident near Kabul. There's no need to tell me about that."

"Yes, sir," Zack said, his face going neutral and blank as he hid his confusion.

After looking at him a moment more- Zack was getting a feeling Shepherd was scrutinizing him, gauging his reaction to certain questions, even to periods of silence- the General went on. "I'm in command of a number of special forces units, Sergeant Camden. They're special units- willing to do whatever it takes to win this war, and any more that should come our way. They're the best, most hand-picked warriors on the planet. I think they could use somebody like you."

"Yes, sir," Zack said again. He was yes-sir-ing the General a lot, but what else was he supposed to say? This was a one-and-a-half way conversation. You talked to the General, but only after he talked to you. You kept your questions and statements brief and to the point, stood unless asked to be seated, the works. This was the flag officer's conversation; Zack Camden was just visiting in it.

"Sergeant, the 12th Special Forces Group is officially disbanded, correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"It isn't. There's one company still active. They're Shadow Company; best and most experienced warriors in the United States Army. They're a special unit, with special privileges. Namely, the chance to do whatever it takes to win." Shepherd looked at Camden as he spoke, his eyes hard and relentless. "No bureaucrats get in Shadow Company's way, and I only send them in when it'll count the most. They've got only one rule: Victory at all costs."

The room was silent; you could have heard a pin drop. Zack was fascinated, intrigued; he had never heard of so fascinating a unit in his life.

Shepherd looked at Zack intently. "I don't have time for bullshit, and I only pick men for Shadow who don't fuck around. Men who get the job done, whatever it takes. Now, tell me, son- how would you like a chance… to really serve your country?"