Red Cell

by Richard Marcinko

  That left things pretty thin for when Mr. Murphy made his customary guest appearance, but it was going to have to do. Mike volunteered to come along with us, but I turned him down. I didn’t want to have to explain to Nancy why her dearly beloved was about to face twenty years in the slammer for breaking and entering. Instead, I assigned him as our mobile communications center and general backup.

  He had a big, forest-green Range Rover that looked right at home in the Hills of Beverly, so he’d be able to cruise all night without attracting undue attention. We’d outfit him with one of our secure cellular phones, then turn him loose on the streets while we sneaked and peeked and shooted and looted.

  Speaking of shooting, in one of those rare strokes of luck, it turned out that all the relevant offices faced west, which meant that Half Pint and his trusty HK would be able to set up shop on the roof of the tower next door and have a clear shot into both sets of offices. Thanks to Doc Tremblay, we had five hundred rounds of handloaded custom-made, armor-piercing ammunition, which flew straight, true, and deadly at distances up to five hundred yards.

  Most factory loaded 5.56 ammo is effective only out to about 150 meters, after which it loses much of its punch—at 275 meters, for example, it has less than half the energy of a 7.62 NATO round. This stuff, however, was a real hot load. It was knockdown lethal, even in a crosswind—and Half Pint would be firing about 175 meters at most.

  My original plan had been to strike on Saturday night, a move that gave us several tactical advantages. First, being a weekend, it was less likely we’d surprise people in their offices. Second, the weekend security people, who didn’t see the occupants on a daily basis, would be less likely to realize that we were interlopers. And third, if we did our jobs well, it would be Monday before anybody discovered we’d come a-calling. And by that time, I planned to be back in my own king-size bed at Rogue Manor.

  We had to alter our plans at the last minute. When Mike cruised the area at 1930 Thursday, he discovered a convoy of tractor trailers and mobile homes being parked on the far side of Century Park Towers East. He stopped, asked questions, and discovered that a movie company would be filming location scenes for some fucking action-adventure film on, around, and inside the building where Half Pint was to set up his countersniper position.

  Mike called to let me know what was happening. “That’s going to screw up your plans, Dick.”

  Not necessarily. “The revolutionary soldier,” Mao Zedong once wrote in his Little Red Book, “should move through the masses like a fish through water.” That is a doctrine I take to heart.

  In Vietnam, my men wore the same sandals as the VC. We also wore black pajamas, carried AK-47s, and ate the same cold rice balls and nuc mam fermented fish sauce as Mr. Victor Charlie. That way he could not find us because, instead of sounding and smelling like Americans, we walked like he did, smelled like he did, and used the land like he did. We could find him, but he couldn’t find us. Doom on him, because we killed him in great numbers.

  Now, too, I saw immediately many advantages to using the movie set as a background for my own real-life production of Demo Dick goes to Hollywood.

  For example, the place would be crawling with real cops assigned to security, as well as hundreds of extras in cop uniforms, SWAT battle fatigues, and tiger-stripe cammies. So, instead of sending HP and his HK into the area in mufti, at 1900 on Friday evening, I simply dressed him like a SEAL, gave him a lip-mike radio transceiver, and dropped him off carrying his HK in its Pelikan hard case—just like the other SWAT guy extras. It took him, he said when he checked in by radio, about sixteen minutes to get up to his position.

  “How come so long, Pint?”

  “I stopped by the catering wagon and picked up dinner, Skipper. I can recommend the tricolor pasta salad, the smoked turkey breast and garden peas, with cranberry-grapefruit coulis, and the tofu-pudding dessert.”

  I told him what he could do with his dinner. He said he’d prefer to ingest it from the top side.

  He had to get off the air now—ten guys in SWAT uniforms were coming onto the roof. Extras—to be filmed from a chopper, he whispered five minutes later.

  The pandemonium caused by the filming would give us wonderful camouflage. There were lots of bright lights, hundreds of strangers moving around the area, scores of vehicles, and enough confusion to allow us to do the job and get out without attracting any attention. So—we’d dress as if we worked on a movie set, mix and mingle to achieve our cover, then make our hit and disappear into the crowd again.

  *

  Mike dropped me a block from the Towers, then swung around to let Nasty and Duck Foot off closer to where the actors were congregating. We’d planned to rendezvous behind the building. I shouldered my way through the crowd of gawkers and watched as my Red Cell people climbed out of the Range Rover. It was like the Marines coming ashore at Mogadishu—lights, cameras, action. The sight-seers thought they were part of the cast because they started snapping away with their Instamatics and clamoring for autographs as soon as the pair of SEALs climbed out of the Range Rover.

  I wasn’t immune, either. On my way north on Avenue of the Stars half a dozen chattering teenage girls in $100 jeans with holes in the knees, po’ boy sweaters, and imitation boondockers asked if I was Steven Seagal. No, I said, smiling, I really do kill people for a living. They thought that was hilarious and asked me for my autograph. I signed Pinckney Prescott III with a flourish and a lewd wink. “Come visit me at the CIA.”

  I linked up with my guys and stood watching as the director, an effete-looking bearded guy in sweatpants, a marijuana-leaf sweatshirt, and a Chicago Cubs baseball cap, rode up on a bright yellow, thirty-foot hydraulic crane to survey his empire strapped into what looked like an office chair. His domain was considerable. There were two choppers on the ground—a police Huey and a blue-and-white Hughes 500 camera chopper—a phalanx of police cars and fire trucks, hundreds of lights, and at least a dozen cameras. There were huge cranes and hydraulic platforms that allowed the camera to go ten stories in the air, and hundreds of yards of what looked like miniature railroad track, so the camera could move along with the police vehicles as they cruised up to the building.

  Nasty and Duck Foot pushed ahead of me. I think they were a little uncomfortable with the crowd. I lagged behind, watching fascinated as special-effects technicians taped squibs and wires to a bunch of bulletproof vests.

  “Who’re they for?” I called over, pointing at the vests.

  “Stuntmen,” the tech yelled back. “For the gunfight close-ups.”

  So that was how it worked—the special-effects techs pushed buttons, the squibs exploded in sequence, and what the moviegoer saw was some guy being stitched by a submachine gun. Nice. Realistic.

  I had a more effective technique, of course, but it would have meant working with disposable Stuntmen.

  Another tech was setting charges inside a car door. When he set them off, it would look like the car was being fired on. A third special-effects man was loading HK magazines with 9mm blanks. I guessed they’d be given to the guys playing SWAT teamers.

  A good-looking blond-haired woman in a white Italian warm-up suit stood watching me watch the special-effects men at work. She was carrying a walkie-talkie and had legs about half a mile long. We made eye contact. I heard the trumpeting of mating elephants in my ears and headed in her direction. “Hi,” I said by way of introduction, “what’s all the ruckus?”

  She was only too happy to explain the obvious. “We’re shooting action sequences for Terror Tower Two tonight,” she told me. “It’s a movie about a bunch of terrorists who hijack a high-rise. Tonight, we’re shooting the on-site stuff—the SWAT team assault, and the terrorists beating them back. We’ll do the close-ups on a soundstage.”

  I nodded. “Sounds exciting.” I looked her over. Kreegah. Tarzan want. Better looking than the herd of water buffalo he’s been dating. I couldn’t take my eyes off her chest, which was remarkable. Extraordinary. Noteworthy.<
br />
  Her eyes wandered up and down, too. “Want to stay and watch? I could find you a place where you could see everything.”

  “I’d love to—maybe after work.”

  She scrutinized my face. “You look familiar. Work in the neighborhood?”

  “I do tonight.” I paused. “What’s your name?”

  “Melissa Gold.”

  “Like in Gold’s Gym?”

  “Yup. What’s yours?”

  “Dick.”

  She was staring at me quite intently now. “Is that a noun or a verb?”

  “It’s a proposition.” I laughed. “And you’re Gold, of the eighteen-karat variety, I presume.”

  “Twenty-four.”

  “My mistake.” The name suited her—she had one of those perpetual tans you can find in southern California and other quasi-tropical places, which left her the color of precious metal. And she had great muscle tone, too. The thought of those legs wrapped around me was intriguing. I told it to her like it was. “I’d like to work out on your bench sometime.”

  Her eyes twinkled. “And I’d like to see your, ah, squat thrusts.”

  I winked back. “Maybe we’ll get to wrestle later—if we’re both lucky.”

  “Maybe—have a nice time at work.”

  “I will.” I made my way through the crowd and continued north, to Santa Monica Boulevard. The line of semis and mobile homes stretched around the block, running alongside the back side of the Towers. I linked up with the boys and we made our way around the east side of the Towers, away from the lights and the crowds, and quietly talked things over one last time.

  Then we slipped on our surgical gloves and set off in different directions. I led the Jones-Hamilton crew. Pick had found a nonmonitored service door during his recon. He’d flagged it with UV. I flashed my UV minilight until I found it, then we picked the lock and went inside.

  We were traveling light on this one. We’d changed our appearance so we could blend in with the movie people. I wore a black turtleneck and chinos, no socks, soft shoes, and my hair tied in a short pigtail. Nasty and Duck Foot wore black SWAT BDUs and combat vests and carried suppressed MP5Ks inside ballistic nylon cases. Cherry, Pick, and the new guys wore black BDUs. Cherry and Pick had their SEAL Team Six undershirts—those are turtlenecks made of Kevlar similar to the fabric armor used to make everything from shark-proof diving suits to oyster-shucking gloves. I’d first seen the stuff in a National Geographic TV special back in the eighties and designed the high-collar shirts for my men. Nobody was going to garrote or slice them if I could help it.

  We locked and loaded our HK submachine guns before starting out. I hadn’t planned to carry automatic weapons, but since the Cell could pass as actors tonight, there was no reason not to. The only difference was that the bullets in our magazines were real.

  We climbed six flights of service stairs, to another door that had been labeled by Pick. Duck Foot jimmied the lock and led the way into a huge shaft used for running electrical conduit, air-conditioning, and communications systems. This immense passageway was one of the benefits of modern construction: between fiber-optic lines, security camera and cable-TV cables, telecom wires, five long-distance and fifty private local telephone companies, burglar alarms, intrusion devices, telexes, fax lines, and computer network interconnects, you had to build these huge, wide, high passages inside every new office building, or your tenants couldn’t run the wires to all their equipment.

  In my earpiece, I could listen to Cherry and his people as they moved toward the Centurions offices. The reception was spotty. These were NIS radios, and they were second-rate. At SEAL Team Six we’d had Motorola build us transmitters that would work inside glass and concrete high-rises. These receivers were shit—they conked out when faced with too many electrical fields from too many computers, faxes, and other gadgets, each with its own transmissions. These radios had been designed for simple field ops, not urban warfare.

  We moved down the passage, toward a second doorway that would take us to a set of fire stairs leading up. Duck Foot played with the lock and sprung it. We crossed the hall, opened the fire-stairwell door, and began the climb. No way would we use the elevators and let the rent-a-cops in the lobby know there was movement in the building.

  We hit thirty-seven in less than five minutes, caught our breath, and then slid into the hall. The walnut doors were to my left. I held the magnetic card in my hand. I approached the Jones-Hamilton offices and checked the entrance out. I slid the card into the strip. The door clicked open. I hit the radio button and whispered, “Entering Target One.”

  We moved inside. It was dark, but not unnegotiable, as the glass walls were lit from the outside by the movie lights. We made our way past the luxurious reception area, down a long, thickly carpeted hallway, into the wing containing the executive suites. Like most offices, it had been laid out with no thought of security in mind. I saw no sentry lights or visible alarms, motion detectors, or intrusion devices. People prefer convenience to security—which benefits people like me, not to mention burglars, rip-off artists, and other assorted felons.

  Nasty was on point, his HK at the ready. I followed him, and Duck Foot brought up the rear, protecting our butts. Griffith had the corner suite, facing north and west. The door to his outer office was locked, and Duck Foot went to work with his ubiquitous picklocks.

  It took him less than thirty seconds to get the door open. I moved into Griffith’s suite. “Inside,” I told Half Pint across the street.

  “Roger. All clear. No movement.” There was static interference on Half Pint’s line. Then I heard other voices in the background. One came through loud and clear. “Who’re ya talking to, pal?”

  Half Pint’s voice came back in my direction. “Just getting into character, you asshole. Leave me alone.”

  I blinked. “Huh? Half Pint?”

  “Actors,” he stage-whispered. “There are a bunch of other actors here.”

  “Oh.” He’d handle it. I had other things to think about.

  I rifled Griffith’s desk but found nothing. I started on the files. There were hundreds of account files—I snagged the one labeled MATSUKO—and lots of correspondence addressed to a lot of important people. But there had to be something—something. We pulled the pictures off the walls looking for a concealed safe. Bubkes. In frustration, I switched on the 486 Dell that sat on Griffith’s credenza and ran a directory. I’ll bet you’re surprised that he hadn’t locked the computer or set up a password access system. Well, in real life, secretaries usually follow the security procedures pretty well. But big-time executives are just too busy to keep passwords and other time-consuming stuff in their heads. So they don’t. With the result that what’s on their computers is usually there for the taking.

  The Dell had one of those removable hard drives—and the drive bay was empty. Either he had it with him, or it was somewhere here in the office, I rolled the antique Oriental rug back—sometimes there’s a floor safe. Nada. But the son of a bitch had to have something. You don’t get to be Grant Griffith and not have a safe in your office.

  I looked around the room. Desk. Credenza. Sofa. Two wingback chairs, between which sat a solid-block coffee table. I took a closer look. The “table” was actually a box made of inlaid wood. I lifted the box and discovered that it concealed a small document safe with a cipher lock.

  Bingo. I pointed in its direction. “Nasty—”

  He gave me a thumbs-up and went to work, powdering the cipher lock with graphite dust and playing with the keys.

  While he played safecracker, I flipped through the files again. Duck Foot had the computer on, searching for files that might hold something. I pulled a Minox out of my pocket. The Minox is the original spy camera. It’s about the size of a package of gum, it operates with 16mm film, and it has no bells and whistles at all.

  There are newer cameras, like the ACMEL high-performance job with its electronic shutter and autofocus, but the Minox is a KISS camera, which is why I li
ke it. You point it, focus according to a chain that stretches from the bottom of the camera to the edge of the document you’re photographing, and snap away. It will give you razor-sharp pictures.

  I laid the Matsuko files—both the Japanese and English papers—on Griffith’s desk and started shooting them, working backward chronologically. Damn—the most recent date on an outgoing letter to Hideo Ikigami, Matsuko’s CEO, was today. That meant Grant Griffith had to be in L.A. And that if we found the removable disk drive, we’d probably hit the mother lode.

  We worked like fucking beavers for what I thought was about ten minutes—it turned out to be almost half an hour when I finally looked at my watch. I’d shot about one hundred pages, including a bunch of government documents stamped SECRET that even a former SECDEF had no business keeping around his office. That alone would sink Griffith—but I was in search of bigger things.

  Nasty finally made it through the cipher lock and we opened the safe. I peered inside. There was the removable hard-drive cartridge. I picked it up. It was labeled TOMAHAWK.

  I slipped it into the computer and ran a directory. Damn—we’d found the mother lode. He had the works here—everything from an inventory from Seal Beach to an Auto Cad program that gave us the entire schematic design of the Tomahawk-IA/n missile. This was CNWDI stuff—Critical Nuclear Weapon Design Information—classified in Category Sigma. That meant it was compartmented so far above top secret, even I couldn’t imagine the code-word designations—and I’ve seen ’em all.

  A second directory was labeled NAVY. I accessed it and discovered a mini-database of embarrassing details about the private peccadilloes and professional misbehavior of more than a hundred current and retired admirals—among them, Pinky Prescott III. Damn—I had hit the fucking jackpot. It was Griffith’s blackmail file. I dropped the disk into my pocket and shut off the computer. It was time to move. “Let’s close up shop.”