Chapter 14 - The Assembly Of The Unit
At 8:00 AM the following morning, four military-grade pickup trucks pulled into the gravel driveway of the Kerrville ranch.
Stepping out of the vehicles were six men in their fifties and sixties, all former senior non-commissioned officers from Richard’s old unit.
They wore denim jackets, boots, and baseball caps bearing the insignia of the 1st Cavalry Division out of Fort Hood.
They walked onto the porch where Richard was waiting with a fresh pot of black coffee and a stack of tactical topographical maps.
"What's the situation, Top?" asked Sergeant Major Thomas, a burly man with a thick grey mustache who had served as Richard's first sergeant.
Richard laid the letter from Washington flat on the wooden table, alongside the geological maps of the Kerr County aquifer.
"A private defense contractor in D.C. is using an old federal executive order to force us off the land, boys," Richard explained calmly.
"They claim there's a lithium deposit beneath the limestone ridge, but my father’s survey maps show it's nothing more than pure fresh water."
"They want the water rights for a commercial data center complex in San Antonio," Marcus added, pointing at the property boundaries.
Sergeant Major Thomas looked at the map, then at his fellow veterans, a cold, dangerous smile touching his lips.
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"We held the line in Fallujah with eighty men against six hundred, Richard," Thomas said softly, adjusting his cap.
"If some bureaucrats in Washington think they're taking this ranch with a piece of paper, they're in for a very long autumn."
