Sometime after that, she got a surprise. Roughly nine months later, the surprise opened her eyes, didn’t like what she saw, and wailed. Her name was Melanie.
“How’d she track you down?”
“Through the police department where they live in Washington State. Her stepfather is an assistant DA.”
He practically winced as he said the word “stepfather.”
“Sounds a little suspicious to me, to be honest,” I told him, even though I knew he wouldn’t want to hear it.
“She’s the right age. Why else would she try to get hold of me? She doesn’t want money, and I don’t have any. She’s been sending me emails. The other day she sent me a picture. I’ll send you a copy.”
“Great.”
“Wants to meet me,” he said.
“Where does she live?”
“In Richmond.”
“Grew up in Washington State and now lives back East?”
“Is that a crime?”
It might be, or at least some sort of moral transgression. “Not trying to get out of a traffic ticket or something like that, is she?” I asked.
Danny laughed. But it was a forced kind of laugh.
“I’d hold off until I felt real comfortable about it,” I told him.
“She’s my daughter, Dick.”
“I don’t argue about family matters,” I told him. “I’m just saying, if you want my advice, I’d hold off.”
“Yeah,” he said, hanging up.
Well, at least the gin was good.
Chapter
5
My sit-down with a new Homeland Security deputy honcho went every bit as well as you’d think it did. He started spitting the second I walked into his office, and things went steadily to shit after that.
I didn’t mind being growled at. Hell, if I’m not yapped at by some asshole or another every few weeks, I head down to the local DMV and stand in the wrong line just to soak up some abuse. But Junior—his name was Relaford Cartwheel Horsesass Jr., or something similar—hadn’t called me in to abuse me. He was pulling the plug on Red Cell II.
“What the fuck do you mean?” I said.
Actually, I doubt I was so polite, but I can’t recall the exact words I used.
“You are no longer under the employ of the Homeland Security Agency,” squawked Junior.
“I’m not an employee. I have a contract.”
“Don’t pull that legal shit with me,” he said.
“I’m not pulling any legal shit,” I said. “I’m pointing out that I can’t be fired. If you want to end our agreement, there’s a provision in the contract.”
Said provision provided for full payment, anyway. The woman who negotiates my contracts is one tough hombre. But rather than going to the file and pulling my contract, Junior told me to get the hell out of his office.
“Rich Armstead approved this?”
“Mr. Armstead is not going to be with this agency for very much longer,” said Junior. “He’s moving on.”
“Well, I’d like to hear about this from him.”
“You will when he comes back two weeks from now,” said Junior. “In any event, I’m in charge.”
Karen was waiting for me in her office.
“How did it go?”
“Asshole fired me.”
“He fired you? He can’t do that.”
“No shit. Where’s Armstead?”
“He’s at a conference on terrorism in Buenos Aires. I told you that yesterday. Then he goes to Brazil and Costa Rica and Mexico. He won’t be back until the end of next week.”
“So the mice play while the cat’s away, huh?”
“Did you read the Post this morning?”
“No. Why?” I try not to admit I do anything with a newspaper but use it to wrap coffee grounds in, but in this case, I didn’t have to lie; I hadn’t had a chance.
“A3. Top of the page.”
The story there said that an ongoing exercise testing Homeland Security’s internal command and coordination infrastructure—basically, Tell-Me-Dick and the people above him, including the newly appointed Junior—was proving to be a fiasco, because the department didn’t know its elbow from the standard male equipment somewhat farther south. The reporter also accurately blasted the local agencies, but most of her venom was aimed squarely at Homeland Security. The gist of the piece was that deadwood like Tell-Me-Dick ought to do their logging somewhere else.
I will say one thing: for the daughter of a SEAL, that girl can sure write.
“You wouldn’t be the source in that story, would you Dick?” asked Karen.
“Source?”
“The unnamed source close to the agency.”
“Clearly can’t be me, because I’m not close to the agency.”
“Three congressmen have already called to complain, and those are only the ones I know about. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear you wanted the contract to be canceled.”
“Hell no.” I didn’t, but I could tell Karen didn’t believe me. Sometimes your reputation for going against the grain precedes you. The reporter had called. I returned her call, and because I knew her father, I trusted her when she said she wouldn’t use my name. The fact that my answers to her questions hurt Tell-Me-Dick was purely coincidental. That I thought the story might help flush out anyone with a homicidal grudge against Homeland Insecurity was not.
“They will can you. Rich can only do so much,” said Karen.
“They still have to pay me,” I told her. “Besides, I was getting bored. And the way it looks to me, they weren’t all that interested in me doing a good job for them, anyway.”
“You have to play by the rules.”
“I play by the rules.”
She gave me a face. “Your rules.”
“They’re the same rules the bastards who killed all those people in the Towers and at the Pentagon play by. They’re the only rules that count.”
“No, they’re not, Dick. And we’re not talking about war here.”
“Sure we are, Karen. People are dying. Innocent people. My job is to help prevent that. Training has to be as realistic as possible. Even peewee soccer teams know that.”
“The training can be realistic without embarrassing people.”
I love Karen; no use denying it. She was wrong on this—way, way wrong—but I love her, anyway.
“Well, you’re not getting paid. They’ll freeze your check.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Karen. Money was wired into the account yesterday.” Old service rule: it pays to befriend the paymaster’s clerk.
“Don’t make me go to the bank and get it debited.”
I shrugged. I had foreseen that possibility and had the cash transferred to a different account in a different bank in a different country. Not even my accountant could have found it.
Easy come, easy go. Typical sailor.
“You’re supposed to be straight with me,” she said.
As a rule, I love double entendres, but I let that one be. She was genuinely pissed. I like that in a woman.
“I need you to do me a favor before you throw me out of your office,” I told her. “There’s a guy over at the NSA I need some information from. It’s a long shot, but if anyone knows anything, it’ll be him, and he won’t talk to me.”
“No, Dick, no.”
“George Boreland. He’s the head of the analytic team on one of the terrorism task force intercepts. You could talk to the FBI, too, but I don’t think they’ll be very helpful.”
“It’s not my department, Dick.” She hesitated. “You should talk to Cox at Tadpole.”
“Great. Dinner tonight?”
“No.”
“Hot tub afterward?”
“No.”
“I’ll see you around eleven, then.”
Karen looked at me, then frowned. “If I come for dinner, what would you make?”
Tadpole Captain Cox’s secretary told me that he wasn’t in, but before I had a chance to ba
rge through the door and prove her wrong, he appeared behind me from the hallway.
“Dick Marcinko, what the hell are you doing here?” he said, thrusting a hand out at me. “Come on inside and rest your bones. How the hell are you?”
Now I’d met Cox maybe three times before, and even by the crazy timers cell phone companies use, our previous conversations wouldn’t have totaled more than five minutes. But in the Coast Guard as in the Navy, ship drivers are bred to be part-politician, part-human resources managers, and Cox had clearly gone back for a second helping of those genes. His inner office revealed his ambitions clearly. There was a “look-at-me” wall behind his desk featuring photos of Cox and just about every member of Congress and the Administration above the G-9 level. The wall to the right was covered with certificates praising his ability as a Coast Guarder. He seemed to have gotten a piece of paper for every day he spent in the service. This inadvertently hinted at a shortcoming Homeland Insecurity was designed to help him address: a narrow band of experience. The only non–Coast Guard certificates were a proclamation lauding his contributions to the Americans Against Casino Gambling and a thank-you note for giving to Jerry’s Kids. (An odd couple, it occurs to me, but never mind.) He didn’t even have so much as a Rotary pin to broaden his resumé.
The bookcase on the left was stacked high with management books, ranging from The Dummies Guide to Management (there’s an apropos title) to yours truly’s Leadership Secrets of the Rogue Warrior.
I was flattered. The spine of the book was even creased, so maybe he’d read a page or two. Then again, he could have bought it used.
Cox asked me what was going on, and I let him have it with both barrels, putting his hail-fellow-well-met routine to my advantage.
“That’s disappointing,” he said when I finished detailing what Junior had told me.
Let’s translate. To a career bureaucrat, “disappointing” means: “sucks shit through a vacuum cleaner.” It also usually means: “better you than me” and “sayonara, sucker!” But Cox followed it up not only with the expected, “I’ll back you if you go to the mat on this”—a generally hollow promise, in English as well as bureaucratese—but also, “What can I do in a tangible way to help you?”
“Tangible” is a code word for career government employees. It means: I think there’s a pony here I can ride to get ahead in this rat race. I have nothing against mixed metaphors, or helping someone else succeed in some obscure way if they help me accomplish my mission. So I charged straight ahead. Cox didn’t blink when I told him about Boreland at the NSA. He admitted that he didn’t know many people at the agency that doesn’t exist—who does?—but he would use all the powers of Tadpole to get “meaningful data” for me. I somehow managed to thank him without making a crack about his becoming a toad someday.
Fair warning: if you don’t have a strong stomach, you may want to skip ahead.
Just because I’d parked in a supposedly secure parking lot didn’t mean my car hadn’t been screwed with. Before boarding, I took out yet another handy doodad from the buckaroos at Law Enforcement Technologies and scanned for wireless transmitters and receivers. It looks like a very slim flip cell phone, except that it doesn’t flip and you’ll always get a wrong number if you try to call out on it. The really advanced models can be used to track wireless signals, but they’re a little bulky to carry conveniently in your pocket if you have keys and any amount of change. The thing to remember is to stand back if you’re using it to detect detonators. The device does this by pulsing a signal across the radio spectrum. If it finds one, the detonator goes boom.
No boom, no problem, which was the case now. And there weren’t any bugs, either, at least none that were using radio waves.
High-tech gadgets can make you lazy and dead if you rely on them too much, so I followed up with a visual inspection of the vehicle, dropping to my knees and holding a little foldout mirror to check for wires and bombs. The underside of my GMC Yukon was just as dirty as ever. That’s by design—I want the top of the car spotless and the bottom caked with fresh grease, in both cases making it easy to see if someone’s been messing with my vehicle.
Assured that no one had, I fired up the Roguemobile and headed home. I had made the highway and started in the direction of Rogue Manor when the phone vibrated. I reached to my belt and hit the talk button.
“Yo, Dirtbag, you got a Honda bike tracking you about a quarter mile back.”
It was Dan Capel. Capel is a plank owner from SEAL Six and had been on the original Red Cell. You dedicated readers also know him as Nicky Grundle. (Check out The Real Team for a full rundown of his resumé.) He tells stories about how he saved my ass more than once, and it would be impolitic of me to contradict him. He went out of the Navy on a medical retirement, but retirement is a relative term, especially in Dan’s case. He heads a VIP protection firm, bought an advertising firm as a lark to exercise his artistic side, and owns a commercial database company that does work for one of the credit-check companies, as well as the government.
But forget all that. His left fist could stop a charging elephant. I don’t want to talk about his right. If I had to pick one guy to be on my back—and I did—it was Dan Capel.
He’d flown into town the day before with six of his best ops from the protection service to set up a net around yours truly. The idea was that if, as seemed likely from my adventures in the wild Midwest, I was being trailed, Capel and crew would find the trailers and put a few twelve-penny nails into their skulls. Assuming there was anything left for them when I was through. He’d been on my back at the airport when I met Karen, staying in the shadows the whole way home. As a nod toward paranoia, he had recommended that I not introduce him to anyone else on the team and not bring him and his people into Rogue Manor until he was ready.
Capel was riding with one of his ops in a Toyota behind the motorcycle. Two of the other ops were directly behind me in a van equipped with enough firepower to subdue two M1A1 tanks and take down a squadron of A-10A attack planes at the same time.
A good shadowing operation will use several cars, moving up and falling back at intervals, shuffling around so that the subject can’t see that he’s being followed. It’ll also vary the types of vehicles as much as is practical, making them more difficult to spot. Our job now was to ID all of the vehicles in the operation.
Actually, my job was just to drive. I took out the P7 and put it on the seat next to me, ready for use. I also checked my Glock 26s, which I carried as concealed or “hideaway” weapons. The Glock is a small but powerful gun, and like everything the manufacturer puts out, it’s a very well-conceived, well-made shooter’s tool. Mine are almost stock, the main improvements being titanium drive rods and enhanced recoil springs. The 26 is a small gun, easily hidden but very accurate; it fires a 9mm round. I was carrying one in a special shoulder holster below my jacket. I nudged the holster slightly to make sure I could grab it without blowing my tit off.
I stayed on the highway for another five miles, then took one of the exits Capel and I had lined up earlier. I wanted to be followed, so I slowed down at the light, then pulled into a McDonald’s. My trail van pulled in as well. The motorcyclist passed by while I was inside grabbing a coffee. As I walked back to the Yukon, I pulled out my phone and studied the keypad, as if selecting a number out of the phonebook.
“Hey, Dirtbag,” I said to Capel.
“Just the motorcycle so far.”
“You’re not looking hard enough.”
“You’re not making yourself enough of a patsy.”
“Hard to fight biology.”
“Leave the phone on.”
I got in the SUV and made my way back to the highway, driving lackadaisically. I figured there had to be somebody else trailing me, but even Capel and his polished pros couldn’t find him or them as I approached the intersection for the interstate. I took it, and so did the motorcyclist.
“Could be just the one keeping tabs on you, Dick,” said Capel. “Low-
budget operation. More than you’re worth.”
“What do you think about picking him off?” I suggested.
“All right. Train station or ball field?”
“Train station.”
We had already worked out two different spots nearby where we could launch an ambush. Both locations featured isolated roads without through roads or outlets. Someone unfamiliar with the area would quickly find themselves cut off. I took the next exit, swung through a town filled with antique stores and art galleries, then headed down a nearly trafficless county road.
“Still looks like it’s just him,” said Capel.
“Let’s take him,” I said, spotting the turn.
I felt the adrenaline starting to pump. We’d named the spot the train station, but it was really a large sewer treatment plant in front of an abandoned train siding and some dilapidated factory buildings. Amtrak ran through every hour or so, but otherwise the stench kept everyone but the seagulls away.
“Here we go,” said Capel.
I slowed as I passed the sewer building. As soon as I heard Capel say “he’s in,” I jammed the brakes, throwing the Yukon into a skid. The motorcyclist, belatedly realizing what was up, sped by, pursued by Capel, the van, and one of the other cars, which had run ahead and stationed itself in the sewage plant lot. At roughly the same time, another of Capel’s men put a 7.62mm slug into the back wheel of the motorcycle from his Remington. The bike skidded right and the motorcyclist tumbled off.
And then tumbled up. He bolted right, with all of us in hot pursuit. Just as he came close to the foundation of an old railroad building, the last of Capel’s men sprang up. He might have made his move a breath too soon. In any event, the motorcyclist saw him and cut right.
I run every day; I do eight-minute miles and throw in some sprints. That fucker was fast. Capel and the van turned onto the access road along the track, and I swear the SOB pulled away from them.
RW12 - Vengeance Page 10