PRIMAL Inception (14 page)

PRIMAL COMPENDIUM

JACK SILKSTONE

FROM THE AUTHOR

This is not an action thriller. It’s a short collection of information and concepts I put together for another project (I cannot divulge the details at this stage). I’ve tailored it based on feedback from hardcore fans so I hope you find it interesting.

In the sections for weapons, equipment, and transport, note that they are technologically advanced for 2014. However as this document ages, what was once cutting-edge or experimental will no doubt become mainstream or obsolete.

I recommend reading this on a tablet or computer as there are photos, diagrams, and illustrations. You should also read the PRIMAL stories first as the Compendium may contain spoilers.

JS

All that it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

___________________

THE ORIGINS OF PRIMAL

COVER STORY AND BASING

ORGANIZATION AND CHARACTERS

TARGET DEVELOPMENT

TARGET NEUTRALIZATION

LOGISTICS AND PROCUREMENT

TRAINING

WEAPONS

TRANSPORT

EQUIPMENT

FUTURE

THE ORIGINS OF PRIMAL

Afghanistan to Barracks Life

As an Intelligence Officer my job is to find answers to questions. For example: What is the enemy doing? Where is he hiding? What’s the most dangerous scenario? What are the enemy’s vulnerabilities? How do we destroy them? Where can I get a decent coffee in this shit hole?

It was during a deployment to Afghanistan I posed a question to myself. How would I attack a Coalition Force patrol if I had access to cutting-edge weapons and training? While my buddies watched the sixth season of Entourage, I penned my first action scene visualizing this hypothetical. The scene imagined the destruction of a Coalition Force patrol by well-equipped Chechen Mercenaries and was my first foray into writing fiction. Those of you who have read PRIMAL Unleashed will recognize it as one of the key introduction scenes.

After that deployment I was posted out of special operations and work became a revolving merry go round of risk management, OH&S, equity&diversity, dress and bearing, and producing briefs for senior officers with their heads in their arses. Between answering emails, sitting through soul destroying courses, and finding solace in the gym, I started to imagine a new creative concept. An independent special operations unit that fought for justice free from the constraints of bureaucracy or politics. One thing was clear; it couldn’t belong to any government. Governments are the antichrist of special ops. They’re bloated, inflexible, motivated by self-interest and generally run by simple-minded dimwits who crave power, influence, and a blowjob from an intern.

Limitations and Failures of Government Operations

Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of my service and there are plenty of examples of military units and intelligence organizations doing great things. But then there are instances where outcomes could be significantly improved. Situations where politics, corruption, or money gets in the way and screws things right up.

Allow me to outline three epic failures on the topic of ‘counter-proliferation’. Stopping ‘weapons of mass effect’ from getting into the hands of terrorists and criminals has long been a key mission for top-tier special ops units and strategic intelligence agencies. You don’t have to be Tom Clancy to understand the fear and damage a terrorist organization could do with a latest-generation man-portable air defense system (MANPADS), a compact nuclear weapon, or a canister of sarin gas.

First, the failure of intelligence agencies to stop the A.Q. Khan nuclear proliferation network. A.Q. Khan and his minions enabled Pakistan to acquire nuclear weapons and subsequently aided Libya, North Korea, and Iran in developing their programs. Although this failure has not yet resulted in an act of terrorism involving a weapon of mass destruction (WMD), it certainly gave Pakistan political leverage despite it being one of the most significant sponsors of Islamic terrorism. A.Q. Khan’s activities were known to western intelligence agencies but the political will did not exist to effectively target his network. Limp-dicked bureaucrats once again thwarted the military imperative to strike.

Second, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, arguably one of the most significant blunders of that decade. Using the justification of trying to capture Saddam’s ‘WMDs’, the war not only wasted resources and manpower and caused immense suffering of innocents, it was also a geopolitical disaster for the United States. The war effectively handed over influence in Iraq to Iran, and set the conditions for the resurgence of Sunni Islamic extremism in the form of ISIS.

Third, the military intervention in Libya in 2011 created a weapons proliferation nightmare. Although Gaddafi ruled with an iron fist, he forced a semblance of order in a country dominated by power hungry douche-bags. What remains after Gaddafi is a chaotic wasteland of criminal militias and a hotbed of Islamic extremism. The optimism of the ‘Arab Spring’ turned into an ‘Islamic Winter’. Extremist militias ran rampant, tooled up with looted military-grade weapons. Key terrorist leaders were freed from Gaddafi’s prisons. Emboldened, Islamic fighters killed the US Ambassador and spilled over into neighboring countries. It sparked the crisis in Mali and fuelled the conflict in Syria. For the first time in history extremists aligned with Al-Qaeda’s ideals were able to acquire state of the art MANPADS and use them to shoot down Syrian aircraft. Unlike the missile used to shoot down Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over war-torn Ukraine, the FN-6 and SA-24 missiles that have proliferated into the hands of terrorists are compact and man-portable. The risk of a civilian airliner being shot down in a peaceful country just became a realistic possibility.

These three situations are just some examples of where military or intelligence organizations have been misused as a result of political decisions or miscalculations. These sorts of scenarios helped inspire the counter-WMD story behind my first novel, PRIMAL Unleashed, and the creation of my unit of global vigilantes, PRIMAL.

Sussurro
, the Spanish Inquisition, and Air-freight Logistics

I originally envisaged PRIMAL as a secret society with a lineage reaching back to the Spanish Inquisition. Called
Sussurro
, it was to be an underground team of vigilantes that originally hit back at the medieval inquisitors. Evil men that were dragging people away to deal out unjust torture and punishment, all in the name of religion. The tagline
Justicia Ex Umbra,
or Justice from the Shadows, seemed appropriate.
Sussurro
and the tagline made it into the books but they didn’t define what became PRIMAL.

Fleshing out my concept, I settled on an acronym standing for Priority Movements Airlift. In the next section, PRIMAL’S COVER STORY AND BASES, I’ll delve into this name and how it fits within Lascar Logistics, a global air-freight company.

Telling the Story of PRIMAL’s Origins

The first novel, PRIMAL Unleashed, covers much of PRIMAL’s origins and key characters. However the complete origin story is told over four books. I wrote PRIMAL Origin as a short novella to introduce new readers to the series. It includes PRIMAL’s founding characters and their first mission. Later, I wrote two prequels, PRIMAL Mirza, and PRIMAL Inception, giving some insight into key characters and the development of their bent for justice. Figure 1, below, gives a timeline for these stories, the order they should be read in, and key events in the world of PRIMAL.

Fig. 1 – Timeline of PRIMAL books and key events

Synopsis of PRIMAL’s Origins

PRIMAL was born in the United Arab Emirates. Tariq Ahmed, the son of a billionaire sheik, had a vision for a secret altruistic organization capable of righting the world’s wrongs when governments were not willing or able. Educated in America, Tariq did not subscribe to extremist ideologies and was at odds with his father’s support of Wahabi terrorist groups. A confluence of events resulted in Tariq, who was a counter-terrorism police officer, becoming opposed to his father.

Tariq resolved the situation by manipulating two CIA paramilitary officers into assassinating his father and destroying the terrorist cell he sponsored. In exchange Tariq used his inherited wealth to finance an impartial, altruistic, special ops organization, and gave the opportunity to the CIA officers to develop and lead it.

What followed was a period of almost ten years during which PRIMAL recruited operatives, established bases, developed intelligence capabilities and networks, and finally, commenced operations. By 2011, following the missions described in PRIMAL Unleashed, our vigilante unit achieved Full Operational Capability (FOC) and subsequently plunged headfirst into the series of missions detailed in the following PRIMAL stories.

PRIMAL’S COVER STORY AND BASES

Fig. 2 – Priority Movements Airlift poster featuring PRIMAL’s Il-67 ‘Pain Train’

Cover Story

Branding a covert organization like PRIMAL is tricky. Take US ‘tier-1’ special operations units as an example. Chances are you don’t know their current designations, and if you do you’ve probably been ‘read-on’ and signed a non-disclosure agreement. The high-speed units don’t wear patches identifying themselves and they take measures to ensure their vehicles and aircraft are difficult to identify.

So what’s the go with PRIMAL? The skull-shield-sword logo doesn’t feature on any vehicles or aircraft. Operatives don’t wear uniforms and certainly do not put logo patches on their combat fatigues. They may, however, use the skull-shield-sword in certain circumstances on a calling card, for intimidation purposes.

The name PRIMAL is also not commonly used and is derived from the organization’s cover story. It receives funding and owns bases and aircraft as Priority Movements Airlift. A discreet arm of Lascar Logistics, officially Priority Movements Airlift conducts high-risk resupply, recovery, and evacuation operations in conflict zones.

To support the cover story, ‘white-side’ Priority Movements Airlift personnel do conduct legitimate logistics and transport operations for government or private customers. Think evacuating humanitarian aid workers from a war-torn African country or discreet movement of personnel for the CIA. Often these missions are sensitive with ‘no questions asked’. They also unknowingly provide aircrew and maintenance support for true PRIMAL missions; ‘black-side’ operations in which PRIMAL operatives wage their war against injustice.

Bases and Safe Houses

Established by the CEO of Lascar Logistics, Tariq Ahmed, PRIMAL has extensive financial resources to equip and fund its operatives. Under the umbrella of Lascar Logistics it has two main bases. Its original base is located at Abu Dhabi International Airport. A discreet hangar within the freight handling precinct, it’s a secure building with accommodation, armory, and storage for specialist aircraft.

As PRIMAL expanded it was given a dedicated facility on an island in the South West Pacific. Nicknamed ‘Lascar Island’, the former World War Two underground base was originally constructed by Japanese engineers using prisoners of war. Over a five year period PRIMAL expanded and retrofitted the old facility. It features ‘Warmart’, an extensive quartermaster store, armory, and technical workshop, the ‘Bunker’ which is PRIMAL’s command, control, and intelligence node, accommodation, and comprehensive training facilities.

From the outside the island looks like a dilapidated airfreight refueling facility. Obsolete due to the superior range of modern aircraft, the Lascar Logistics base appears to be rarely used and in a poor state of repair. The state-of-the-art facilities are hidden behind a false sliding door to the rear of a mountainside hangar.

The island also houses PRIMAL’s only dedicated rest and recreation facility. Located on the north side of the island it comprises a number of well-appointed beach huts. The PRIMAL team uses it regularly to relax from the stress of running covert operations. It’s a favorite location for Bishop and Saneh to spend time together. The island also provides natural conditions perfect for diving, hiking, and mountain biking. A few of the team members also use the airstrip for motorbike racing.

PRIMAL has a number of safe houses in key locations. With hi-tech security systems, and fitted out with armories, ammunition, and equipment, these are secure locations PRIMAL can base operations out of when far from Abu Dhabi or the South Pacific. In later books, however, PRIMAL maintains a lighter footprint. The threat of discovery by intelligence agencies increases and operatives transition to using temporary safe houses.

Due to the inherent danger of compromise, and subsequent targeting, PRIMAL maintains a standing plan to abandon Lascar Island and move to a dispersed operating model. As the organization conducts more complex and frequent operations the risk of compromise by the media or government agencies increases. This is a theme that is explored in the PRIMAL Reckoning/Nemesis/Redemption trilogy.