Red Cell

by Richard Marcinko

  Now I got the goddamn knife out of his hands by the blade. He cut my fingers but I didn’t give a shit. I was in a frenzy. I twisted the knife away, doubled it over, and sunk the point into his groin. He screamed.

  I pulled away, reversed the blade, and swung it up between his legs like a sucker punch. It caught him squarely in the crotch. He doubled over.

  Then I grabbed him by the long single braid and the seat of his pants and ran him through the glass door of the wheelhouse. There wasn’t much of his face left when he hit the bridge wing rail. Not my problem. I picked Manny up and rolled him over the rail and watched as he fell sixty feet into the black water. I hoped the cockbreath liked to swim.

  I staggered, my hand leaving bloody prints on the deck and bulkheads as I lurched back to the wheelhouse to get some help for Duck Foot and me. I made it as far as the intercom, then everything went black.

  Chapter 21

  TOSHO CHOPPERED ABOARD ABOUT EIGHTEEN HOURS FROM LANDFALL. He brought six of his best shooters with him, including Kunika’s own punk-rock kid, Yoshioka, who dropped out of the SH-3 ASW helicopter complete with leather jeans, James Dean T-shirt, and motorcycle boots.

  I gave Tosho a big abrazo. “Nice to see you, asshole.”

  He returned the hug and gave me a high five. “Welcome back to the Land of the Rising Sun, Dickhead.”

  While his troops unloaded their gear so the chopper could take off, I took Tosho and two of his men below so they could visit the Japanese we’d taken prisoner. Five of them were Matsukos; the rest were the tanker’s skeleton crew.

  Tosho wasn’t bound by the same rules of evidence and interrogation American policemen are, and it didn’t take him more than half an hour to sweat the story out of our prisoners. The crew had no idea what the ship was carrying. But the owners had been well paid by Hideo Ikigami to transport his precious cargo. According to the Matsukos, the tanker would dock at Yokohama, where it would be met by a Matsuko truck, which would take the Tomahawks to a Matsuko Machine warehouse in Yokota, an industrial city northwest of Tokyo. From there, the Japs told Tosho they had no idea what would happen.

  From reading Buckshot’s papers, I knew that his assignment was to remain with the shipment until it was safely inside Matsuko’s gates.

  “So what do you think?” Tosho asked.

  “I think we have a golden opportunity here,” I said. “I have Buckshot’s codebooks. Let’s send your pal Ikigami a fax. Tell him there’s a bonus package in the shipment.”

  That brought a grin to Tosho’s face. “Sounds righteous to me, dude. What’re you gonna promise him?”

  “I’ll keep it vague but tantalizing.”

  He watched as I drafted a short message, encoded it, and rolled it through the fax. “Perfect. Now let’s go upstairs and see my favorite Amerikajins.”

  “That’s topside, asshole, you’re aboard a ship now.”

  “Topside, shmopside—whatever.”

  We climbed two decks and walked into the mess, where Red Cell was waiting. Tosho greeted them all effusively, especially Duck Foot, who really looked the worse for wear. He’d lost a lot of blood by the time Nasty and Nod got him down to the ship’s infirmary, punched him full of morphine, and sewed him up. He was pale and frail, but full of fight. He’d insisted on being with the rest of the men when Tosho arrived. “I’m not gonna lose face on this one, Skipper.”

  And he hadn’t. Tosho ruffled the hair on Duck Foot’s head. “You do nice work as a bayonet dummy,” he said, examining the wounds. “But the next time you want to try seppuku, you talk to me first, okay?”

  The SEAL nodded. “Okay by me, Tosh.”

  “Good.” Tosho looked my crew over critically. “You’re all much grungier than I remember,” he said.

  “Lack of pussy,” Cherry said.

  “Lack of beer,” growled Nasty Nick Grundle.

  “Amen to that,” said Half Pint. “We could use some good times.”

  “If you say so.” Tosho barked an order in Japanese, and two Kunika shooters bowed, said, “Hai!” in unison, and bounded out the hatchway toward the deck. In a few minutes they returned carrying a huge chest. “For you, my honored guests,” the policeman said, bowing toward Nasty.

  Grundle opened the double clasps. Inside thick, thermal-plastic foam packing were three dozen two-liter jugs of iced draft Asahi Dry beer. The smile on Nasty’s face spread from ear to ear. “Domo arigato—thank you, Tosho-san,” he said gleefully, bowing respectfully and deeply in the Japanese policeman’s direction.

  Then Nasty turned around to address the rest of us: “So—what are you guys gonna drink?”

  We made landfall more or less on schedule. I watched Tosho and his boys with admiration. The son of a bitch knew how to run an op. His men were lean and mean. They worked out—and it showed. They could start and finish each other’s sentences, one sure sign that he’d built them into a real team, not a collection of disparate souls. And he’d given them all the latest and best gear. From weapons to clothes, they had everything they needed to get the job done. He’d packed all the right stuff, too—from scrambler telephones and secure portable radios to directional monitors, miniature eavesdropping devices, and tiny, fiber-optic cameras. The fact that he could get all his equipment so easily made me somewhat jealous. But I realized that in Japan, unlike the United States, they had to deal with terrorism on a daily basis. Thus, the government realized that a normal bureaucracy wasn’t going to be able to handle situations of crisis proportion. So they allowed shooters like Tosho free rein. He planned and ran all his own ops.

  In the United States, things are exactly the opposite. We have been largely immune from terrorism—although that will not be the case in the nineties, as we have already seen. Still, in the United States, it’s the “suits”—the office-bound apparatchiki—who most often get to decide what, when, where, and how the operators will do their jobs. And when that occurs, you get situations like Waco, Texas, where four ATF agents lost their lives because the senior officials who planned and approved the raid against a heavily armed cult had no idea how such operations should be run.

  In Waco, despite faulty intelligence, bad tactics, abysmal communications, poor leadership, no coordination, and advice from the raiding team that the op should be scrubbed, the “suits” in the choppers ordered their subordinates to go ahead.

  If I were a cynic, I’d say the reason behind their decision was so that they’d get their faces on “Top Cops” or some other TV show, get still another Peter Principle promotion, another civil service bonus, and then retire to a cushy security job in a Fortune 500 corporation. You do not run special operations by thinking about yourself. You run them by thinking about your men. Like Tosho did. Endeth the sermon.

  Three Matsuko tugboats met us as we came up on Uraga Point, about forty miles south of Yokohama. We let the crew wave at them and make chatter on the radio, with one of Tosho’s Kunika boys listening in to ensure everything went according to plan. Docking was to be at 2200—the better to keep a low profile. Unlike a freighter, the tanker couldn’t just tie up to a dock. It was too big and too ungainly. Besides, tankers don’t usually tie up and unload their cargo the same way other ships do. Instead, we’d moor out in the bay, just below the main harbor, close to the crude-oil pipeline that sat atop a quarter-mile breakwater. Then one of the tugs would ferry the booty to shore and make the transfer.

  We were ready to go. Duck Foot would stay out of sight, working communications from the tanker until we’d left. Then he’d link up with a Kunika squad and come with them. Tosho and four of his shooters, as well as Nasty, Half Pint, Pick, Cherry, Nod, and I, would go with the shipment. I mentioned to Tosho that one thing working in our favor was the fact that the people from Matsuko had never met Buckshot and his Centurions International crew—Buckshot had once told me he’d never deployed overseas.

  “It wouldn’t matter if they had,” Tosho said. “Face it, Dick, you gaijins all look alike to us.”

  We weren’t p
retty, but we were ready to go by the time the Matsuko tug nudged up to our amidships port side, tied alongside, and the captain radioed that he was coming aboard. Tosho and I had had plenty of time to plan our moves, so when the tugster called, I answered his signal with the response I’d gotten from Buckshot’s cipher book, and he in turn responded to me in the approved manner. Now we knew that we were both kosher.

  Yoki, carrying an HK-93 with retracted stock slung over his shoulder, met the Matsuko officer and ushered him topside. I was standing just inside the wheelhouse, a Glock in the waistband of my black BDUs. My Notre Dame T-shirt was courtesy of Tosho. I waited until the tug captain had bowed at me. I didn’t bow back. “We’re ready,” I said.

  Tosho was standing at my side. He started to translate but the tugboat man held up his hand. “I understand English,” he said.

  “Good. Then understand this: I don’t have any time to waste. Let’s get this thing underway.”

  He bowed again. “Hai!” Then he turned away, plucked a cellular phone from his jacket, and made a call, jabbering away in Jap for a minute or two. “We are ready for you, Major Brannigan.”

  “You know who I am?”

  “Your directness precedes you. I am told you are a very straightforward personage. Now we will begin the operation.”

  I gestured toward his tugboat. “Please.”

  We watched from the wheelhouse wing as they maneuvered the crates from the hatchway and lowered them carefully onto the tug’s aft deck, piling them between the stern cleat and the starboard capstan and securing each crate with a separate line. There were five Tomahawks, and three larger boxes that Tosho and I had built—props for Mr. Ikigami’s benefit. When everything had been loaded, Tosho and I made our way down from the bridge, and joined by four of his shooters and my quintet of Red Cell marauders, we lowered ourselves down onto the tug deck.

  The trip to dockside took less than ten minutes. As we came alongside, I saw a flatbed truck, four Jeep Cherokees with smoked-glass windows, and the longest fucking Cadillac limousine I’ve ever seen, all parked in a row. I nudged Tosho with my elbow. He nudged back.

  The Jeep doors opened, and two men carrying shotguns got out of each one. They stood guard as half a dozen gorillas in blue jumpsuits swarmed the tug. The cargo handlers moved the crates onto the flatbed, tied them down securely.

  When it was all done, a tall, liveried Anglo chauffeur climbed out of the limo. He moved to the rear door and opened it reverently, then reached inside and presented his arm so that the car’s occupant could lean on it as he emerged.

  Hideo Ikigami was so short that he almost didn’t have to duck his head as he climbed out of his car. He was a wizened little man wearing an impeccably tailored sharkskin suit in the sort of iridescent gray that oriental businessmen often favor, white shirt, dark tie, and buffed black shoes that reflected the moonlight. His hair—what there was of it—was slicked back along the sides of his head, trailing off in greasy wisps.

  He stood quietly, taking the scene in, his eyes locked onto the three big shipping crates that Tosho and I had built. Then a big smile came over his face, and he began to walk in my direction, trailed by another suited man who’d appeared at his side like a shadow. He bowed when he reached me.

  I bowed back. “Mr. Ikigami, I presume.”

  “Hai!” He bowed again and spoke in Japanese. The Shadow bowed as well, then said, “Mr. Ikigami says you must be Major Brannigan.”

  I bowed a second time. “Hai!” This was getting boring. I elbowed Tosho forward. “This is my associate, Mr. Tanto.”

  Tosho translated his own introduction and bowed.

  Once the formalities were over, Ikigami bowed again and spoke in my direction. The Shadow translated. “Thank you, Major Brannigan, for your care and your concern in overseeing the transport of these precious materials to us. They will be well used. You may tell Mr. Griffith that I am very appreciative.”

  Would I ever. The son of a bitch had just hung himself—and there were witnesses, too. I glanced at Tosho, whose face was as inscrutable as ever.

  As he spoke, Ikigami’s eyes had never wandered from the crates. Now, the Shadow inclined his head in my direction. “My employer wishes to know the nature of the extra cargo you communicated to him about.”

  “Ah,” I said, bowing in Ikigami’s direction, “I managed to locate a mobile missile launcher, and on my own I brought it as a special gift.”

  Shadow translated. Ikigami’s eyes went wide. He bowed deeply in my direction, then he swiveled away and muttered a few words to his factotum before climbing back into the huge Caddie.

  The Shadow closed the limousine door. “Mr. Ikigami says that you may accompany him.”

  “Thank you.” I started for the flatbed truck. Four Matsuko nasty boys were covering the crates with a huge, blue tarp on which was the red, green, gold, and black Matsuko Machine logo—a stylized dragon bearing two swords.

  Shadow blocked my way. “He means that you may ride with him. Your associates can ride with our security people.”

  Why didn’t he just give us the keys to the fucking city while he was at it? I bowed. “He is very gracious.” And he is a first-class shit-for-brains on top of it all, too, I thought.

  We loaded up. Tosho came with me. We paired up the rest so each Jeep had one of Tosho’s shooters and one American. Nasty elected to ride in the cab of the semi. I liked that—he knew how to drive one better than most professionals.

  Tosho and I climbed into the limo. Ikigami had settled into the right rear side, nestled under a reading lamp, a folded Asian Wall Street Journal on his lap.

  Sitting across from him was his Shadow—the translator—who, I now realized, carried a Walther PPK in a chamois shoulder holster. I started to sit next to Ikigami, but the Shadow gestured for me to take the other jump seat. Tosho settled in front next to the driver, beyond a thick black-glass partition. I couldn’t see or hear him.

  After about a minute we pulled out. I looked out the smoked windows and saw that we were leaving the dock area and easing onto an access road. From there, the convoy moved through a maze of industrial parks and warehouse complexes until it reached the on-ramp of a huge, elevated, six-lane highway.

  We headed south for a few kilometers, then took an off-ramp onto a smaller but still-divided highway that swung west, then north. We rode in silence, Ikigami perusing his Wall Street Journal as we passed through Sagamihara, Hachioji, and Akishima. Just after dawn we reached Yokota and turned east, turning onto a two-lane road that led to a one-lane slab of asphalt that in turn followed alongside an eight-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire. I scrunched my nose against the side window as the convoy slowed to a crawl. Up ahead was an unmanned gate. Beyond it, a huge warehouse loomed in the early-morning light.

  I stuck my thumb in the direction of the warehouse. “So—this is where you’re going to stow them,” I said.

  The slight businessman folded his paper back on its original seams, almost as if he were preparing it for an origami exercise.

  “Yes, at last—we are here,” Ikigami said in accented English. “The missiles are finally safe. I control everything inside this fence.” He smiled at my reaction to his English. “And you, Major—you have done well.”

  The Shadow sitting across from Ikigami started to shift in his seat, as if he were about to stretch.

  “Thank you,” I said to Ikigami. “But please—never shit a shitter.”

  The Shadow paused and turned slightly toward me. I came around with my left elbow and slammed him up against the partition, smashing his neck and shattering his windpipe.

  I leaned across his body and removed the Walther from its holster, dropped the magazine, and ratcheted the slide, extracting the shell in the chamber. I popped the rest of the rounds from the magazine so I could examine them, too. The PPK had been loaded with six Eley subsonic .22-caliber hollowpoint bullets—the choice of professional assassins all over the world. They’re quiet, and they’re deadly. They’re
perfect for enclosed spaces like Ikigami’s limo, where there’s concern about secondary penetration.

  Ikigami was looking at me with a mixture of fascination and horror as I checked the weapon. “Don’t worry, Hideosan, I’m not gonna shoot you—yet.”

  I loaded the loose bullets back into the magazine, slapped the mag up into the pistol, chambered a round, then dropped the hammer safety to lower the hammer, flicked the safety off, then slid the weapon into my pocket. It fit very nicely there. Just as I finished, the convoy came to a complete stop just beyond the gate.

  “I am not worried, gaijin,” Ikigami said. “You are a dead man. You are all dead men. It is what Griffith-san wanted. You will simply disappear here.”

  “Don’t count on it, asshole.” I opened the limo door and rolled Shadow’s corpse out. The driver’s door opened and the big American chauffeur lurched out, too. Ikigami’s eyes brightened until he saw that the man collapsed on the asphalt facedown.

  I stepped into the cool morning air and stretched. “Everybody okay?”

  Tosho came out of the limo’s front door. “Fine here,” he said. “Great day for the Fighting Irish.”

  I watched proudly as my shooters and Tosho’s emerged from the Jeeps alone. We’d rehearsed various combinations of moves for ten hours. God, how I love teamwork.

  “Oh, Mr. Ikigami,” I said, “I think you better come on out and take a look at this. Seems some of your people just got terminally carsick.”

  Chapter 22

  STEALING ANOTHER PLANE WAS OUT OF THE QUESTION. THE LOGICAL place to go would have been Atsugi, the joint Japanese-American air base near Yokosuka. But we had too much loot to be able to slip onto the base unnoticed. There was the pallet-load of Tomahawk missiles. There was also a cross-section of missile parts, nuclear components, and other miscellaneous technogoodies we’d taken from Ikigami’s warehouse. Some of the materials had come from North Korea. I found that fact fascinating—and wondered, with some foreboding, what the kimchis had gotten in return for their help to Hideo Ikigami.