RW15 - Seize the Day

by Richard Marcinko

  “You’re not coming, Matt,” I told him. “We need you here to make sure the access to the CIA system and the intel network is smooth. You have to stay with Danny.”

  “A technical expert? Screw that.”

  He may have added a few other choice words, and possibly hinted that I should go somewhere else besides Cuba. But he had zero choice.

  “You’re our technical expert. That’s why you’re here,” I reminded him.

  “This is bullshit.” Junior slammed his cup on the table and stormed out.

  Trace and I exchanged a glance.

  “You didn’t expect him to be happy that you were leaving him behind,” she said, picking up her coffee.

  M.W.’s plane was damaged so severely there was no hope of using it to get back to the island; the next order of business was finding alternate transportation. Rather than relying on Ken, I did what all SEALs do when they run into problems: I called another SEAL.

  If you were going to describe the stereotypical SEAL, Jamie Richie would fill that description. As I’ve said many times, the image most people have of SEALs is completely wrong. They’re not all big bodybuilder types. SEALs come in all shapes and sizes, and most of the truly dangerous ones are skinny, short, and look just like the guy who does your taxes. Until they slit your throat, that is.

  But Jamie Richie looks like you probably imagine a SEAL looks. Big—six-six and still growing—he has a blond buzz cut, biceps as thick as eighty-year-old oak trees, and a scar across his cheek that he got in a place he’s still not allowed to talk about. A few notches past forty, he lives in Miami, primarily so he can indulge in his two favorite pastimes: working on his tan, and picking up women. Not necessarily in that order.

  He also happens to be a supervisory pilot for a major European airline, whose name starts with L, though you didn’t hear that from me.

  “Demo Dick!” he said as soon as he heard my voice. “How are you, cockbreath?”

  “Better than you, angstrom brain.”

  We exchanged some more terms of endearment, questioning each other’s intelligence, morals, and parentage. Once that was out of the way, I told Jamie what I needed.

  “And you’re where now?” he asked.

  “North side of Jamaica.”

  “Hey, you know there’s some really interesting voodoo doctors out that way,” said Jamie. “I’ve heard they have a potion that makes women strip naked as soon as they drink it.”

  “I can do that with a whisper.”

  “Still the same old Dick.”

  “Can you help me?”

  “Stripping women? Or with the plane?”

  “Let’s start with the plane.”

  “Be at the airport at 2100,” he said. “Bring your own stewardess. And drinks for the crew.”

  Junior was still in a stew when it came time to leave. He gave Trace a big kiss and a shoulder chuck.

  I got a frown and dagger eyes.

  “I’ll talk to you soon,” I told him, holding out my hand.

  “Yup.”

  He kept his hands in his pocket.

  “You gonna wish me luck?” I asked.

  “I still want to come.”

  “You know why you can’t.”

  “ ’Cause I’m your kid and you don’t want me getting hurt.”

  “Come with me,” I told him sharply, and marched him out the back of the hut.

  His face was red. I think he honestly thought I was going to take him over my knee and spank him. Believe me, the thought did cross my mind.

  “When I give you an assignment, you do it,” I told him. “That goes for everyone on this team. It has nothing to do with DNA. You’re here because you can do a job. Who your father is or isn’t has zero to do with it. Capisce?”

  “I get it.”

  “I’m not even sure you are my son.”

  Junior opened his mouth to say something else, but I didn’t let him.

  “End of discussion. This is not a democracy. You have no freedom of speech.”

  “It still fucking sucks,” he said.

  He may have been holding back tears; it was hard to tell in the dark. I let him have the last word.

  While we’d spent the day getting our proverbial shit together, Doc and the others had been moving around, trying to stay away from the Cuban troops and policemen sent into the area to look for them. The fact that the boat had been blown into so many tiny pieces took a little of the heat off; the Cubans were more than happy to believe no one had made it, and spent most of their effort looking for bodies along the shore. Still, the whole area was on alert, and every so often as Doc and the others moved through the jungle they heard sirens blaring in the distance.

  They moved deeper inland and farther east as they went. The biggest problem wasn’t the Cuban patrols, or the crocodiles, which Mongoose kept mentioning every time they came near a puddle. It was hunger. None of them complained, not even Shotgun, who ordinarily can’t be seen without some sort of candy or cookie or something in his mouth. But their stomachs rumbled.

  At three in the afternoon, Doc checked in. Danny gave him the outlines of the plan, letting him know that he would be staying in Cuba for a few days longer. Doc began scouting for trucks we could use, and found a pair parked near an open pole barn about two miles from where they’d landed the night before. Worst case, they’d get us up to Victoria de las Tunas, where we’d be able to find better transportation.

  Red didn’t like the idea of stealing the trucks, and told Doc that after they found a hiding spot to wait for us about a half mile from the pole barn. Their theft would cause hardship for the people at the farm, whether they owned the trucks or not.

  “It won’t be like they’re totally lost,” Doc said. “Victoria de las Tunas is only twenty-five miles away or so.”

  “I doubt it will work out for them. If the trucks are government-owned, it will be even worse.”

  Doc couldn’t make much of a counterargument, so he didn’t bother.

  In the long run, the owner or owners of the trucks and the people on the farm would be better off, and if given the choice, were likely to freely volunteer the vehicles to the cause of freedom. But Red knew they neither had the choice nor would ever know why the trucks were taken.

  It was also possible they wouldn’t volunteer the trucks, or even want freedom. While Fidel was loathed by many, many Cubans, there were others who feared democracy. But you don’t start debating political or philosophical issues in the middle of an operation. Once you’re in, you’re in. Shades of gray are fine back at the bar; once you’re in the field, things are black or white. Otherwise the only color you’re going to see is the bright red of fresh blood. For all her compassion for her parents’ former countrymen, like the others, Red knew she had to do whatever it took to get the job done.

  You’ve undoubtedly heard many stories about people sneaking weapons and bombs past airport security. Most of the time they’re testing the security.

  Those are the cases you hear about. I wouldn’t worry about them. They’re anomalies, few and far between.

  It’s the ones you don’t hear about that should scare the shit out of you.

  But no matter how lax the security in the Jamaican airport terminal was, Trace and I wouldn’t have been able to beat it by going straight through the gate. Even the most ganja-happy guard would have realized something was up if we walked up with parachutes and enough weapons and ammo for a small army.

  So we didn’t go through the terminal, or walk up to the gate.

  We drove there instead, in a truck belonging to the airline. No one even asked for ID; they just smiled and waved us on as we slowed near the hangar.

  Now you can worry. Granted, this was Jamaica. But we could have done it at JFK or LAX or Dulles, you name it, with only a few slight alterations in the game plan.

  When Jamie said he’d help us, I expected that he’d find us a little island jumper that could scoot in and out of Cuban airspace without too much trouble, a charte
r that would fly over where we wanted to jump, then land in Havana like nothing happened.

  But that would have been too easy for Jamie, who has always been a bit of a showboat. He turned up with a large two-engined airliner16 about as inconspicuous as a battleship in a bathtub.

  “Couldn’t get anything bigger, huh?” I asked when he met me on the tarmac.

  “I would have brought a 747, but the runway here was a few feet short. As it is, I have to watch our takeoff weight.”

  The aircraft had been involved in some sort of test run in Mexico and had to be flown back to the States. Jamie’s position as a supervisor allowed him to pull rank and take over the test, choosing as his helpers two other pilots with military backgrounds who could be counted on to keep quiet. I believe he has a don’t-ask, don’t-tell agreement with his boss; I know I would if he worked for me.

  We were taxiing to the runway no more than ten minutes after settling into the cabin. The plan was simple. In an unusual show of good sense, Cuba follows international treaties and allows airliners to fly over the island without undue hassle. Jamie and his crew would take us up to about twenty thousand feet, then pass close to but not directly over our target area. When we were inside the drop zone, he’d flash the lights. Trace and I would then open the door and jump. Fifteen minutes later—a few minutes more or less, depending on the wind and other vagaries—we’d shake Doc’s hand at the edge of the cane field where he was waiting.

  High-altitude jumps are old news; you suck oxygen or hold your breath for a few thousand feet, bitch about the cold, and basically fall in the general direction of your target. When the altimeter on your wrist beeps, you pull the handle and groan from the tug on your gonads.

  Better you should groan, though. The alternative happens a little too quickly for my taste.

  With chute deployed, you steer around to the spot where you’re landing. This is extremely easy in the movies, where the breeze never kicks above two knots and every light in the county is showing you where to go. Pitch-black, wind whipping past your ears so hard you figure it must be a hurricane—that’s a different story.

  But that’s easy compared to getting gear to fall in the right spot. The U.S. Air Farce has a sophisticated set of computers and satellite communications equipment in their heavy movers that can get an M1A1 between two parked cars on a Chicago alleyway if the need arises. But that gear costs big bucks, and the taxpayers weren’t about to front me the money.

  Jamie couldn’t steal it, either.

  So Trace and I rigged the four ammo pouches—think duffel bags with extra stitching and inflatable cushions to soften the impact—with remote parachute-glide wings fashioned by a friend of mine who works as an engineer at Law Enforcement Technologies out in Colorado. His wings, which have attracted some interest from the Pentagon, are connected to a computer that calculates when to deploy the parachute and then steers it toward a pre-entered GPS spot. Very impressive—but extremely difficult to do with any kind of a conventional parachute.

  But this rig didn’t use a conventional chute. The wings literally were wings, made primarily of a carbon resin material that is stronger than steel and a good deal lighter. As they fell, the wings used flaps on the leading and trailing edges to adjust their steering, just like an airplane would.

  Getting out of a commercial airliner at twenty or thirty thousand feet is not quite as easy as opening the door and yelling Geronimo. There’s a slipstream around some airplanes that can make things a little unpredictable. As the plane moves through the air, its wings and fuselage generate different wind currents and eddies. Depending on the design of the plane, along with its speed, etc., these currents may not effect you at all. But they can also try to smack you against the fuselage or wing harder than a pro bowl linebacker.

  The easiest way to deal with this is to choose the right airliner. Back in the day, that meant picking one with a rear staircase. Piece of cake. We used to do it in SEAL Team Six (ST6). So did D. B. Cooper, who left a 727 with $200,000 back in 1971. The FBI thinks he didn’t survive the jump, since some of the money was found on the ground years later, but there are plenty of people who think otherwise.

  Now, with changes in airline design, it can be a little trickier. You generally want to jump from the rear door, and in some cases you use a special baffle to help you get out smoothly. We did one of those.17

  Assuming you can open the door, you have to be careful to make sure there’s no change in pressure that will suck you out of the aircraft. That means that the cabin has to start out depressurized.

  Yes, Grasshopper, that means no oxygen. Um, noooo, we did not hold our breath.

  Once in flight, Trace and I sucked air from a portable rack, waiting for the signal from the cabin. When we were about thirty seconds from the jump point, Jamie pulled his flaps. This caused the plane to brake in midair, dropping like a brick with wings for a few thousand feet. While he was declaring a Mayday—he had to assume he was being tracked over Cuba—we went to work. I slid open the door (pushed and grunted was more like it), then set out a little laundry chute to make it easier to slide the gear and ourselves together.

  The chute is similar to a contraption ST6 used to get large teams out together on similar jumps. It looks a little like an oversized shoehorn, and is held in place by a set of bolts and clamps once the door is open. It can be easily jettisoned or pulled inside before landing.

  Ordinarily it’s a peach to put down, but in this case Mr. Murphy must have made some adjustments, because when I went to get it in place, the right side wouldn’t snap in correctly. The wind was so severe I was almost pulled right out of the aircraft as I worked to adjust it.

  Sweat started to pour through my gloved fingers as I jerked my thumb against the oversized handle. I cursed, I snarled, I popped it with my fist, but it still wouldn’t slap into place.

  “Five seconds, Dick,” Jamie told us over the shortwave radio.

  Trace gave me the evil eye through her goggles. We had a limited window to jump out; if it took me too long to get the baffle into place, we’d end up in the Florida Keys. Or maybe Washington, D.C.

  Two more hard pops with my hand and the clamps still hadn’t closed right.

  “Fuck it,” I said. I kept one hand on the baffle as I leaned over to grab one of the supply bags. “Get out, Trace. Come on.”

  Trace tossed the supply bags and tumbled into the darkness. I went out after her, pushing off from the plane and letting go of the slide at the last possible second.

  Not good enough for Murphy. The slide flew completely off, bashing me on the back of the head and giving my tush a good shove toward Mother Earth.

  Fortunately, I have a thick skull and an even tougher rump. The only permanent injury was to my pride.

  By the time I got my bearings I’d already fallen a few thousand feet. My GPS (the units transmitted each other’s position, remember) showed Trace nearly a mile to the east. I pulled my arms up, got my legs out, and slowly turned to the proper bearing. The wind whipped against the side of my body so hard it felt as if it was going to blow off my helmet; the strap tugged, and for a few seconds I thought my head would come off if the helmet didn’t. Then things settled down. I tucked my head back, took a few deep breaths, and started steering myself toward the spot marked out in the GPS dial.

  In ST6, we worked it so that a release at thirty thousand would get us a stable group under canopy between twenty-three thousand to twenty thousand feet. Trace and I hooked up at 21,500—well within spec, thank you very much. Meanwhile, Jamie had taken his plane back on course and declared his emergency over. Anyone who had the slightest interest was tracking him, not us—even if we hadn’t looked like false returns or specs of dust on the radar, he was where the emergency was.

  “You still with me?” Trace asked.

  I grumbled something back.

  The bags, meanwhile, were sailing downward, guided by their high-tech parasail gear. Two were exactly on course, and a third was just slightly to th
e north of where it should be.

  The location of the fourth was a mystery. The sending unit wasn’t working, though whether that was because of a problem with the electronics or the wing had screwed up was a mystery. There was nothing Trace or I could do about it anyway.

  Our landing zone was the sugarcane field Doc had spotted during the day. Doc had given us the GPS readings, and we’d looked at a video image courtesy of Ken’s connection before taking off. (Imagine Google Earth, but with the resolution you could get with a good camera from the roof of your house.)

  I kept waiting for Mr. Murphy to show his ugly face, maybe by spinning the numbers in the GPS display like a Las Vegas slot machine, or throwing a massive funnel cloud in my face. But apparently Murph had had his fill of fun when he shoved me out of the plane. Trace and I hit the ground within two meters of our targeted X.

  Two of the bags were waiting for us ten meters away.

  So was Doc.

  “About time you got to Cuba,” he said, grabbing my hand.

  “Fuck you very much. Where are the others?”

  “One of the bags fell across the road,” Doc said. “Red went to fetch it. Shotgun and Mongoose are arranging transport.”

  “A limo, I hope,” said Trace.

  “For you, a horse-drawn carriage, m’lady.” Doc gave her a mock bow, then dug into the equipment bag for food.

  Not every vehicle in Cuba is ancient, just the best ones. The truck Shotgun and Mongoose were appropriating was a 1952 Ford pickup. The rear bed had been removed years and years ago, and replaced with what looked like an oversized Easter egg basket made of a hodgepodge of salvaged wood. Sugarcane, dirt, ground-up beets, and other assorted vegetable remains littered the planks at the back, giving it a picturesque lived-in look.

  The cab, on the other hand, looked as if it had been vacuumed clean; there wasn’t a crumb of dirt on the floor nor a smudge on the windshield. The original seat cover had been replaced by quilted fabric, the sort you’d find on a comforter at a fancy hotel.

  The truck’s door locks had been removed eons ago. In place of the ignition switch, a pair of thick wires hung down below the dashboard.