“He cramped, Skipper,” came Nod’s stage-whisper from above. “He’ll work it out.”
He’d better. The fucking clock was ticking.
0001. Nod worked his way down the human pyramid, followed by Half Pint. “Gator’s on his way,” he reported.
0002. I watched, squinting into the lights, as Gator did the Spiderman bit, picking his way up the rough stones, pulling himself inch by inch. Let me tell you something: thirty feet is a long, long way to go, especially when you are working without a net, carrying a weapon, and a long coil of thick, soft climbing rope.
0013. Gator rolled over the narrow wood balcony and disappeared into the shadows. Ten seconds later, the climbing rope dropped soundlessly. Wolf attached two more, and double-yanked. Everything was pulled back up onto the balcony, and some fifty seconds later, a trio of climbing ropes descended back toward us.
Now came the fun part. Baby Huey and Nod played rear guard. Wolf, Rodent, and Half Pint were first men up. I watched as they muscled their way up the sheer scarp of the foundation, and then used the uneven castle stones to ease their journey. Fred, Boomerang, and I went next. Instinctively, I put my weight on the rope to test it. Then I took it in a climbing grip, and began the long ascent.
Out of the corner of my eye I watched as Boomerang’s boots scampered out of sight. I hate youth. It’s so . . . young. My knee throbbed painfully. I could feel the fucking thing pulsate with each pull upward. Next to me, I heard Fred’s breath, as reassuringly heavy as my own. I looked over at him. His arms were straining. His face was beet red and distorted in a grimace. His discomfort brought me a smile. “Having fun yet, Brigadegeneral?” I wheezed.
“Fuck you,” came Fred’s taut response. “I bet I get to the top before you do, Kapitän.”
0024. “Welcome aboard, Boss Dude.” Boomerang grabbed me by the belt and heaved me over the balcony rail. I collapsed onto the narrow decking, every muscle in my body way past the burnout stage. Even the fucking cuticles on my toenails hurt. Boomerang, however, paid me no attention at all. He was too busy hauling Fred’s aching Kraut butt over the rail. Fred collapsed next to me, hyperventilating. “WeiB der Himmel—I’m getting too old for this,” he wheezed.
I pulled myself to my feet and smacked him on the upper arm hard enough to make him hurt through the pain he was already feeling. “C’mon, mein Brigade-general, we have another ten feet to go.”
0026. That final step was the hairiest. I climbed onto the balcony rail, balanced, and stretched as high as I could. Balanced precariously like that, I could just reach the bottom of the thick, hand-hewn window ledge above. I steadied myself, and jumped straight up, caught the window ledge, and, just as if I were doing one of my three dozen daily chin-ups on the outside bar at Rogue Manor, pul-l-l-ed myself slowly, but inexorably, up, up, up. Once my chin cleared the bottom of the crenellated window, things got a lot easier and I was able to muscle myself over the low sill and crawl on hands and knees into the room.
I caught my breath, then went back to the edge to help Fred. I reached down, caught him by the wrists, and pulled him up, into the room. He, like me, decided that walking on hands and knees was just fine for the time being.
0029. Boomerang stayed behind to ensure that Duck Foot, who was last man up the rope, had a relatively easy time getting from the balcony to the window above. Then, he climbed out onto the balcony rail and, like a fucking dancer, leapt straight up about three feet, caught the windowsill, and pulled himself directly into the room sans any of the messy heavy breathing that had affected Fred and me. Like I said, I hate youth.
0030. We were all aboard. We’d made our entrance into a rectangular room that was perhaps eight yards by six yards. The narrow crenellated windows allowed more than enough ambient light from the security lamps to allow us to reconnoiter. The ceiling was low, with hand-hewn beams painted in a rustic design of vines and grapes. The plaster-over-stone walls continued the theme, with trellises and arbors. Along the entire window wall, a pair of heavy drapes, currently drawn back, hung from fluted poles. The ceiling beams were supported by a series of octagonal-cut, dark wood joists. The floor was plain, un-painted, worn wood, broken up by threadbare oriental rugs. There was a fireplace faced with tile on the far wall. Its small mouth was covered by a heavy iron sheet held in place by a pair of ornate andirons. The room’s single door lay just beyond the fireplace. It was not more than five feet high, arched, and hinged with black wrought iron straps.
One slight tactical problem was that we had no idea where we were, relative to the bad guys. Normally, in an op such as this, you have intel—either diagrams or blueprints, satellite or thermal imagery, to help you figure out where the tangos are. Not tonight. Tonight we’d be operating blind.
Well, not exactly blind. There were three levels of windows above where we’d made entrance, and so we had to be somewhere in the middle of the castle. Now, since folks tend to have their living quarters above ground level, it was most likely that the ADMs were stored in the nether regions, while Lothar would have a room with a view, and the Russkies would be relegated to the servants’ quarters: either up in some tower chamber, or down in the basement.
0031. We had just under an hour to find out for ourselves—less, if we were discovered. I positioned myself by the outer door. Boomerang closed the windows and pulled the drapes shut, so we wouldn’t be silhouetted, then moved into position behind me. He’d be my backup. I could sense the rest of my stack form up behind me. Baby Huey was third in the daisy chain. Then came Duck Foot, with Gator following, and Nod playing rear security. Fred led second stack: Wolf was his number two, Max followed, then came Rodent, and Half Pint. Werner played rear security.
Good thinking. Fred kept the Americans together and sandwiched ’em with Krauts. That would take care of any language problems.
0032. I waited. SOP is to let the last man in the stack signal that he’s ready by squeezing the right shoulder of the man in front of him, an act that is then repeated on up the line as each man is ready to go. I counted seconds. Sixteen of them. Then Boomerang squeezed my shoulder, I nodded my head once up/down in the darkness to let him know I acknowledged, eased the heavy wrought iron latch up, and cracked the door open.
Our chamber was at the dead end of a moderately long darkened corridor. Stop. Look around. There was diffused light emanating from my left. Go toward the light. I moved toward the light and experienced . . . déjà vu. Then I realized the whole gestalt was vaguely reminiscent of an early 1980s computer game called Zork. Well, fuck Zork. This was real, not some lines written on a green phosphor screen.
I eased through the doorway, my left shoulder to the wall, my suppressed MP5 (the fire selector in three-shot burst mode) in low ready position, its Tritium night sights bright in the murky environment. Behind me, Boomerang’s suppressed USP covered over my right shoulder. Behind him was Baby Huey, whose MP5 worked the starboard side of the corridor.
We moved with the sort of symbiotic choreography that comes with operating together for a long time. Each shooter’s motions came in synergetic counterpoint to the man in front of him. It was like we were one, big, lethal stealthy creature.
I forced myself to breathe in/breathe out; made sure that my head and eyes kept moving. Scan and breathe. That’s the way to keep alive when you’re in situations like this. And so, I scanned, and I breathed. And then, as I drew up, close to the end of the corridor, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I stopped moving and breathing altogether. I didn’t hear any footfalls. But I knew that someone was coming our way.
I’m gonna give you a SpecWar insight right now, my friends. If you wanna be a SpecWarrior, do not wear aftershave or cologne. Do not douse yourself in Old Spice, or Obsession; Canoe, or Brut. Because if you do, I will detect you coming a mile away, and I will wax your naïve but sweet-smelling ass.
Story: at one point in my long and checkered career, I was assigned to train an antidrug unit known as GOE, pronounced goy, in the make-believe State of
São Paulo, in a fictional country I’ll call Brazil. The GOE boys were good shooters, and they were fast learners. But they always insisted on wearing their aftershave on the job. I guess it’s an integral part of the Brazilian culture, or something, because it was impossible to change their thinking on the subject. But wearing cologne is what got eight GOEs killed on a drug raid in the Amazon basin. The fucking drogistas smelled ’em coming, and cut the unit to shreds.
I do not allow my men to wear scent. Or to use anything but basic, Mark-1, Mod-Zero hard soap—and in the jungle, I don’t even allow ’em to use that. Because if you don’t blend in with your environment, you will stand out. And if you stand out, you will get dead. Full stop. End of story.
Back to real time. The heady, overpowering, sickly sweet bouquet of Habit Rouge applied by the pint came my way, wafting up the wide Rogue nostrils.
As my nose twitched in involuntary protest to the pungent aroma, I silent-signaled a halt. Quickly, my right hand told the stack that I’d handle the situation. Then I raised the MP5, got myself a flawless cheek weld and perfect sight picture, dropped my trigger finger from its “index” position onto the trigger, stepped around the corner . . .
And sneezed.
Have you ever sneezed a big, wet, heart-stopping sneeze when you’re driving at sixty-five on the freeway in heavy traffic? One of those pluvial, windshield-streaking sneezes that sound like, “Ka-BLISH?”
I have. And whenever I do, my eyes squeeze shut, my heart stops, I generally stomp on the accelerator, lose momentary control of the fucking car, and I consider myself lucky that I manage not to smack the car in front of me.
Yeah, well, just consider the exact same genus of sneeze when you’ve got your fucking finger on the fucking trigger of a fucking MP5, and the safety’s off.
Here’s the good news: the subgun was suppressed—and all anyone heard was the clack-clack-clack of the hammer dropping, the clatter of jacketed hollowpoint bullets striking the ceiling, and the tinkle of nickel-plated casings as they ejected onto the stone floor. Here’s the bad news: the three-shot burst went completely wild, sending stone fragments all the fuck over the place—to be precise, slashing my face. And here’s more bad news: the Ivan who’d caused my allergic reaction was swinging the muzzle of his own suppressed subgun—it looked like a Bizon, but to be honest I wasn’t into a whole lot of brand recognition at that precise instant—up, up, up and onto the immediate threat, which of course, was moi.
As is usual in these situations, the events seemed to play out at an almost languorous pace. His suppressor (I saw it clearly now and realized in the absurd way one sees meaningless details at times of stress that it was a screw-on model) was swinging around, moving toward me. I’d lost shoulder and cheek welds on the MP5 and was holding it one-handed, its fat muzzle vaguely ceilingward.
I lowered my arm, and reactively squeezed the trigger, stitching him across the neck and shoulder.
Oh, yeah—it was pure luck, believe me. But I’m one of those people who know how to take “yes” for an answer, and when I’m in extremis like this, I don’t give a fuck about technique. I’m paid for results, not methods. All I want to do is make the cocksucker DEAD—as quickly as possible.
He went down with a gurgle, his gun clattering on the stone floor. Before I could finish him off, Boomerang stepped around the corner, shouldered me aside, put a double-tap—phwat-phwat—in the Ivan’s head, and then gave me a smug, vaguely smart-assed look.
“Gesundheit, Boss Dude,” he mouthed.
Right. Sure. “And fuck you very much, too.”
20
0049. WE FOUND A WAY TO REACH THE PARAPET WALK: A wide, circular staircase that led to the innermost battlements. Following its irregular perimeter would take us around the circumference of the castle. Keeping low so as not to cast a shadow in the sodium light, I peered out across the inner bailey, then down through a narrow balistraria to the crenellated, merloned walkway below. Now, I had some idea where we were. If the main gate was at twelve o’clock, we were currently at about two-thirty, which put us on the opposite side of the castle from where I’d seen the heaviest concentration of Ivans during my sneak & peek. I turned the radiation detector on and checked the readout. Then I split the force into working groups. First, it was better, tactically, to come at ’em from opposite sides. Second, I wanted to take down the ADMs myself. So Fred and his squad went starboard. My merry marauders and I took the port side of the castle.
The thing about castles is that each is unique. There is no standard. Thus, unless you’re familiar with the layout of the castle beforehand, you can’t anticipate a single fucking thing. We, of course, had no idea where the fuck anything was. And so, we moved with great caution, which of course meant that we made less progress than I would have liked—especially as the fucking clock was ticking, we had just over thirty minutes until the explosives went off, which is when SWH.88
Let me add that creeping on hands and knees is not a comfortable thing to do. It gets old (and painful) fast, especially when one (read moi) has a recently hyperextended knee. After about nine minutes of crabbing, creeping, waddling, and duckwalking, my right kneecap had swelled up to cantaloupe melon size, with all the appropriate accompanying pain. I looked heavenward with a beatific expression, because I knew God loves me more than he loves most of His children.
So much for the down side. The up side is that castles and Schlosses have more nooks and crannies than an English muffin, which makes the sneaking-and-peeking a lot easier. Schloss Barbarossa’s inner parapet, for example, was not one of those movie-set deals that ran in a nice, gentle sweep. Its four-and-a-half-foot-high, crenellated, merloned wall was filled with myriad ninety-degree turns, abrupt twists, and other unexpected obstructions.
0101. We worked our way along the low wall, and crept around a narrow battlement. On the far side, I saw a blind turn, and then the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up again. I turned and signaled for a complete stop so my instincts and senses could take over. I went forward, inch by inch, Boomerang so close I could sense his body heat radiating. We made painstaking progress, prowling inch by inch along the battlement. My nostrils twitched palpably at the scent of cigarette smoke even before the Russkie voices came into play. Boomerang smelled it, too, because he tapped me on the shoulder and gave me an, “If you fucking sneeze again I’ll smack you upside the haid even if you are the Boss Dude” look, which brought a quick, tension-breaking smile to my stressed-out face.
I dropped to the deck, e-a-s-e-d to the corner, and cut the pie, centimeter by centimeter, to sneak a peek. Now, in all those Hollywood action movies, nobody ever goes snaking along the ground to take a look-see. Which is why Bruce, and Brad, and Arnold, and Sly, and the rest of the comic book cannon-fodder who try to pass themselves off as big-time action-adventure heroes wouldn’t last ten fucking minutes in any of my units.
The last thing you want to do when you are operating in a covert manner is to draw attention to yourself. And sticking your head up in a way that changes the silhouette of a wall, or doorway, or fence line, or—yes—a parapet, is just about as stupid as playing Russian roulette with a loaded semiautomatic pistol.
And so, sucking the stone deck, big Slovak nose as close to the ground as I could get it, I eased my head slowly, slowly to my left, moving at an acute angle to the rough stone of the parapet wall until I was far enough out to be able to see around the oblique-angled corner.
There were one-two-three-four-five-six of ’em, perhaps eight, nine yards away, lounging and smoking, and passing a bottle of vodka back and forth. Three had slung their weapons over their shoulders. Three more subguns rested against the outer wall. They had radios—I could make out three, no four, handheld receivers on their belts. But so far as I could tell, not a single one was turned on.
Boomerang and I eased back, and I explained the situation with hand signals. The situation was fraught with nasty possibilities. There could be another group of Ivans around the next blind cor
ner—and if they heard anything untoward, they could cause us a lot of trouble. Oh, sure, we could all pop up shooting. Maybe we’d take ’em out before they made a sound. But most likely not.
I see you, looking incredulous. You what? You say I’ve always claimed that my guys could double-tap anything, anytime, anywhere. You say I brag that my units use up more ammo on the range than the entire U.S. Marine Corps on an annual basis, and therefore, they should be able to do whatever the fuck they have to do. That’s all true—and I still hold to it. But six simultaneous double-taps presents a number of tactical problems. And no, I don’t have the time to go into them now. Just take my fucking word for it.
But tonight, I didn’t have a lot of options. I wasn’t about to toss a pebble or anything similar, because I didn’t want the Ivans reaching for weapons or radios.
I silent-signaled my instructions and got five upturned thumbs. We’d go on three.
One. We hunkered, weapons out and ready, on the balls of our feet.
Two. I glanced to my right. Boomerang nodded, his USP ready to go. So did Baby Huey, who also was working with a USP now. Duck Foot’s expression told me he was ready. Nod’s chin went up/down, the USP steady in his big hands. Gator gave me a silent, “Jawohl!”
Three. Up. Get a sight picture on the portmost Russkie. Got it. Hold it. Breathe. Squeeze the trigger. Squeeze the trigger. The motherfucker went down. Next to me Boomerang fired—I heard quick thwup-thwups all down the line.
Time slowed. The Russkies are frozen, watching us shooting at them, and unable to react. It is a truth of battle: in those first milliseconds, if you shoot first, your opponent will freeze for an instant. No matter how well he’s been trained; no matter how much he practices. It is human fucking nature. You hear a gunshot, and you fucking freeze. The professional simply freezes for much less time than the amateur. These assholes were bush league.
I charged forward, my feet moving side to side, never crossing, so as not to trip myself. My MP5 was still up. No telling whether we’d waxed ’em all, and I wasn’t about to take chances.
Option Delta Page 29