Red Cell

by Richard Marcinko

  Not kosher. Allegedly, another team—ours—would be using the site as well. And Buckshot had been specific about taking the directions. That was verboten.

  Except, in SpecWar, of course, there are no rules. Doom on us.

  Manny unlatched the flap on his rucksack and withdrew something. He hustled over to the bridge, sat on the abutment, and began to rig an IED. Obviously, he was going to booby-trap the envelope. Then I saw what was in his hand: a mini fragmentation grenade, about the size of a tangerine. This was no IED—it was the real thing.

  It was clear to me what was going on. Manny also knew that the game was between the two of us—and he was trying to make it very dangerous for me. He was playing for keeps.

  I was going to have to act. But not until Manny had finished playing with the grenade. My inventory of deadly weapons was decidedly less complete than his—so I wasn’t about to mess with him yet.

  He slid under the bridge. Wedging himself in position, he slid the envelope halfway back into its wooden retainer. Then he pulled the pin on the grenade and placed it between the envelope and the concrete, with the spoon against the envelope.

  Whenever some anxious asshole named Marcinko moved the envelope, the spoon would drop, the grenade would detonate, and it was sayonara, ciao, au revoir, Mr. Shit-for-Brains.

  It was a Keep It Simple, Stupid booby trap, as in gimme a little KISS, will ya, huh. Cheap, effective, and deadly. Precisely the sort of thing I’d do myself.

  Satisfied with his handiwork, Manny extracted himself from under the bridge. He slid the rucksack over his shoulder, picked up the CAR-15, and began to work his way out, moving toward the east, directly away from the northernmost man-trap we’d built.

  It hit me right then with the sort of absolute clarity that clobbers you like an epiphany—Manny was alone. He’d stowed the Japs. That was the foreign-language cellular stuff Wonder had heard. While Manny waged war, they were doing business as usual. Of course—just like Vietnam, Manny Tanto was doing what he did best: playing a solo act.

  Two could play that game. I came out of my hole, murder in my eyes. Manny’s shoulders shifted in my direction. A wicked smile came over his face. His hand dropped toward the huge bowie knife on his belt.

  “Die, you goddamn son of a bitch!” It was Normal. The asshole dweeb actually came out of his hole like a fucking pocket rocket and ran toward Manny, firing his Glock wildly, screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs.

  The half-breed turned, swiveled the CAR around, and fired from the hip. He stitched Normal with six shots of Simunition. Normal looked at the splotches of paint on his BDUs and kept coming. He tried to club Manny with his pistol. Manny hit Normal only once—a gut-wrenching sucker punch that lifted him about six inches off the ground and dropped the poor asshole like a brick, unconscious.

  “Hey—fuckface, let’s keep this between pros.” I charged, knocking Manny off Normal. We rolled around, each of us trying to get some kind of advantage.

  “Uhh—” He rolled away, sucking air.

  I came at him. He caught me upside the head, chopping at my ears. I went down. Now it was his turn to jump my bones. He caught me with a knee in the groin, and as I reacted, he got my ear in his mouth. I gouged his eyes and he opened his jaw before he’d chewed completely through.

  Time to go. I threw him off me, rolled away, caught his hair, and yanked his head around, smashing at his face with my forehead, drawing blood.

  That got his attention. He came at me with his knife. I threw dirt in his face and got out of range, then regrouped and went in low before he’d recovered. I knocked him down and kicked him in the head.

  That only made him mad. But, as he tried to stand up, I hit him with my elbow twice, then shouldered him backward against a stump. I bounced his head off the wood, tagged him twice with my sap, then got out of the way as he charged me.

  It was like fighting a goddamn raging bull. I stepped aside and tripped him—Ole!—and he went flying forward into a tree. He turned, dazed but deadly, and came for me.

  It was exactly what I wanted. “Hey, Manny—you foul-smelling cockbreath—over here, you worthless slant-eyed pussy.”

  I knew where I was—just a yard from the man trap’s trip wire. I took six measured steps backward. Now the wire was between us. Manny followed, the knife in his hand and murder in his eyes. And like the asshole he was, he was too busy watching me to pay attention to the ground.

  Whooomp. He hit the fucking trip wire. The log came around and caught him in the rib cage just under his armpit, knocking him into the pit.

  “Timber!” I jumped on top of him and beat him senseless with my sap. Then I rolled him over, tied his arms behind his back with surgical tape, bound his legs together in three places, and gagged him. He looked like a goddamn bloody mummy by the time I finished.

  I climbed out of the pit and ran over to Normal, who was still out of it. Crabcakes was at his side.

  I beeped Wonder on the burst transmitter. Three minutes later he returned the call on his cellular.

  “Yeah?”

  “What’s up?”

  “Fucking piece of cake. Got the card you need. Your guys are both okay.”

  “Then get your ass back here and stop loafing. I need you. I need the truck.”

  “Yo, Holmes, don’t sweat. I’m on my way.”

  It didn’t take him ten minutes to show. While I waited, I took the team cards and directions out of Manny’s pockets. When Stevie arrived, we loaded Manny on the back of the truck. Then we picked up Normal and stowed him, too. Joe and Dagwood carried him to the cab. Then I told Wonder to head back to the 1763.

  “Whaddya want to do with the oversized pile of shit?”

  “Roll him in a tarp and leave him on the truck. We’ll figure something spectacular out later.”

  Joe and I regrouped the team at 0430 and showed up at the main house at 0525. Wonder and I took the final two sites by ourselves, meeting no opposition. I had no qualms about cheating. Remember Rule Four? Well, my goal was to win. Joe needed Grant Griffith for business reasons. I had other objectives. I wanted to get inside—to see what this multimillionaire asshole did, and how he did it. From what I’d seen so far, the best way to do that was to impress the shit out of him. And if badass Manny Tanto, trussed like the turkey he was, didn’t do that, nothing would.

  The five of us rousted Buckshot from his slave quarters office and insisted that he wake up Grant Griffith.

  When the former secretary finally appeared a quarter of an hour later, he was wrapped in a long, muted red, blue, and green ancient madder silk dressing gown worn over tan slacks and an open-necked brown silk shirt. His suede Gucci loafers were worn without socks. Joe made him a formal presentation of our five site cards.

  “This means you’ve won,” he said. “Congratulations.” He slid the cards into the left-hand pocket of his robe. “We’ll make the formal award at noon tomorrow, in front of the assembled teams.”

  Griffith appeared about ready to go back upstairs when I asked him to come out front and receive another trophy we’d taken during our session in the field.

  We made him a presentation of Manny Tanto, who lay trussed and writhing in the driveway.

  Joe Andrews pointed at Manny. “I want to lodge a formal complaint. It has to do with him.”

  “Yes?” Griffith’s eyebrows rose. There was respect in his eyes when he stared at me.

  Joe continued, “We were given to understand that teams are required to operate at full strength unless members have been killed in action.”

  “That’s correct,” said Griffith.

  “Please ask him where his team is,” said Joe.

  I ripped the surgical tape off Manny’s face so he could talk. It took some skin and eyelashes with it, but I didn’t give a damn.

  Griffith looked at his bloodied behemoth. “Manny, where is the team from Matsuko I requested that you advise?”

  The half-breed turned his face away. Griffith walked around his head and n
udged his cheek with a Gucci-clad toe. “Manny, I’m asking you a question.” He tapped his toe in front of Manny’s recumbent nose.

  “They’re resting, sir,” Manny finally said. He pronounced it s-i-r but he was spelling it c-u-r. I knew because it was the way I’d addressed so many of my own superiors.

  Griffith paid no notice to the ex-Green Beret’s insubordination. “Resting? Where?”

  Manny shrugged. “At the inn in Paris—just down the road. I told ‘em it was okay—they were unprepared anyway, and I didn’t see any reason for ’em to have to spend two days in the woods. They would have lost face.”

  “Lost face?” Griffith snorted. “You have caused them to lose more than face.”

  He turned to Buckshot. “Team Matsuko is disqualified,” he said evenly. “Please make sure they are picked up from the inn and shown every courtesy. And convey to them my deepest regrets. But they are disqualified. Those are the rules.”

  The lines around Griffith’s mouth hardened. “I am not happy about the manner in which your man has performed,” he said, addressing himself to Buckshot’s general area. “He has brought dishonor on me. We’ll discuss this more later.”

  The former SECDEF turned his back on Buckshot. He put his arm around Joe’s shoulder. “Congratulations, Mr. Andrews,” he said warmly. “Your team has performed admirably—you set a new course record.”

  Then he smiled his carnivorous grin at me. “Mr. Marcinko, you are as advertised.”

  I wondered what the hell he meant by that, so I asked.

  “I have heard a lot about you from all sorts of people.”

  That didn’t tell me anything either. “The problem with that is most people are assholes.”

  “By which you mean?”

  “I mean we should talk things over, Grant.” I shot a dirty look in Buckshot’s direction. “But in a more private venue. After all, I’m in the security business, too. Let’s meet next week and see what good I could do for you.”

  “I was thinking along the same lines.” Griffith ran his tongue along his lower lip. “Please come and see me on Tuesday at my office. At noon. We’ll do lunch. I believe you like your steak rare and your Bombay gin on ice.”

  Chapter 8

  GRIFFITH MUST HAVE WANTED TO SHOW ME OFF, BECAUSE THE minute I arrived, we went back downstairs and limoed the five blocks from his offices on Farragut Square to the Palm, the steak house mecca for Washington’s top lawyers and lobbyists. It’s over on Nineteenth, just above M.

  I’d eaten there only once before—three days after I was released from jail, when Charlie Thompson, the ex-Navy brown-water sailor who produced Mike Wallace’s “60 Minutes” segment based on Rogue Warrior, took me out for an expense-account B2 lunch—it was built around Bombay and blackened tuna steak.

  That time, Charlie and I were seated at an anonymous table in the rear after fifteen minutes of pacing in the foyer. When I walked two paces behind Grant Griffith, the Palm’s owner/manager, a mustachioed, Italian New York transplant named Tommy Jacomo, greeted him like the capo del tutti capi and me like the capo’s favorite button man. We were immediately whisked to the center table in the front room, where half a dozen waiters and busboys bowed and scraped as they brought bread, butter, Perrier water, and a huge bowl of half-sour dills, pickled tomatoes, and radishes and placed them all reverently on the checkered tablecloth.

  Griffith obviously enjoyed every minute of it. To be honest, I didn’t think it was so bad, either.

  I looked around the room as a double Bombay on the rocks was put in front of me. I recognized at least half a dozen of the self-appointed “experts” who appear regularly on the nightly network news shows. Other familiar faces stared down at me from the walls, where scores of caricatures provided a visual Who ‘s Who in Washington. Griffith’s face was prominently displayed—his picture was larger, and more favorable, than the president’s.

  The former secretary watched me reconnoiter as he sipped on a huge goblet of iced tea in which a sprig of crushed mint had been dropped. Finally, he toasted me with his Lipton. “Your health.”

  I returned the favor. “And yours.” I don’t think either of us meant it.

  “Quite a win last weekend. I hadn’t expected it to come out the way it did.”

  I’ll bet he hadn’t. I underplayed it. “Joe’s a good man.”

  Griffith nodded graciously. “Yes, he is. You helped him a lot.”

  “You mean the war game?”

  “Yes, but I mean the protection angle, too. Your being around seems to have chased the threat away.”

  I was surprised he knew about the threat against Joe. Belay that. I wasn’t surprised by anything about this guy. “Yeah.”

  “Does he still need protection?”

  “Well, I gave him the name of a good friend if he does.” I have a friend I’ll call Old Blue Eyes—a retired SEAL with whom I went through training back in 1961. These days he sometimes hires out as a mercenary—most recently he did some sniping for the Croatians against the Serbian Army. He waxed three Serb generals in less than a week—and received $50,000 for his efforts. He’s well versed in personal protection, and I figured that if Joe needed a repeat performance, I’d throw a little cash in Blue Eyes’ direction.

  “That was generous of you.”

  I stared at Griffith. “I have bigger fish to fry.”

  He stared back. “I’ll bet.”

  There was about a thirty-second lapse in the conversation. My mind was racing. It was like a chess game, trying to stay three or four moves ahead of this guy. I’d spent the past forty-eight hours cramming like a student for a fucking final. I rattled my network of chiefs, spooks, intel squirrels, and shooters, poking into whatever dark corners of Griffith’s life I could. What I found worried me. This guy had reach. And the kind of juice that made him a power unto himself. He could do more than most cabinet secretaries, generals, or admirals.

  I talked to Tosho, to see if he had any new angles for me, but he came up dry. Things in Japan were status quo—which means he was still getting pressure to do nothing. I passed along word of Team Matsuko at the War Game and mentioned Manny Tanto’s presence. The Matsuko angle pricked Tosho’s ears. After all, two of the kimchis I’d shot at Narita were Matsuko employees. Tosh said he’d follow up.

  I also called Hawaii and shot the shit with Tom O’Bannion. That call was worth the money—I discovered that Griffith had received a full readout on my activities at Narita from Black Jack Morrison. According to O’Bannion, Black Jack had even sent the former SECDEF a copy of my report. That was significant.

  Why had Black Jack sent my report to Griffith? I’d asked.

  “Because Griffith ordered him to,” O’Bannion said. “Something about your fucking up a classified op.”

  Classified op? This was a fucking maze.

  Griffith coughed discreetly, bringing my mind back to the conversation at hand. I asked, “What about Joe? Are you going to represent him?”

  Griffith’s eyes brightened. “On the minisub? Yes—I think the Foca has great possibilities for the Navy’s mission in the nineties. CALOW requirements, the ability to bottom, and its two-hundred-mile range all make it very attractive and potentially extremely profitable. I’ve agreed to take him on in return for a small percentage.”

  So, Joe had been able to convince him to take the business on a 50-50 contingency basis. Small percentage indeed. I sipped my Bombay. “I agree. SEALs need a sub like the Foca. But you’re going to have a hard time getting it past the barons at Sub Force.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “How come? They’re pretty entrenched.”

  “True,” said Griffith, dipping a radish in a small pile of salt and nibbling it. “But CNO’s a ship driver, not a submariner, and he generally sees things my way. So does the secretary. We’ve traded favors since he was a freshman congressman back in the early seventies. Besides, the Navy’s looking for a little good publicity these days—and Special Warfare is the best place t
o get it. Nobody doesn’t like SEALs. I had my people research the subject yesterday. All the media stories about SEAL missions over the last five years have been one hundred percent positive. So, between the Tailhook mess, the Iowa investigation screwup, and the way frigate captains keep launching live missiles at our allies during exercises, a cheap, effective new submarine that’ll help SEALs achieve their missions is just what the doctor ordered to help the Navy upgrade its image.”

  “You’re awfully sure of yourself—doc.”

  He laughed out loud. “Coming from you, that’s a real compliment. The pot calling the kettle black.”

  I drained my Bombay. It was immediately replaced by a fresh one.

  We shot shit balls at each other for about half an hour, playing verbal Ping-Pong. He lobbed various subjects in my direction and watched to see what kind of English I put on them. I played the role I thought he wanted me to play: the profane, outrageous, deadly, and amusing ex-SEAL. (“You know what SEAL stands for, Mr. Secretary—Sleep, Eat, And Live it up. I learned that way before I retarded—excuse me, Mr. Secretary, that’s retired.”)

  Because my sleeve length is thirty-five and my inseam is thirty-two, people tend to underestimate me. All they see is another knuckle-dragger who loves to use the F-word in various ingenious combinations. They forget that I have a master’s in international relations from Auburn, and that I speak three languages conversationally and half a dozen more well enough to get me by.

  They know that I am proficient at killing. They forget that I am also a reasonably capable corporate politician. You can’t not be a corporate politician and rise to the positions I held in the Navy, which included command of SEAL Teams Two and Six, naval attaché in Phnom Penh, Navy liaison to Operation Eagle Claw—the rescue of the Tehran hostages—and SpecWar briefer to Secretary of the Navy John Lehman. It’s impossible.

  But that’s okay with me. I’d rather be underestimated. It gives me an edge. It allows me the advantage of surprise.