RW12 - Vengeance

by Richard Marcinko

  “It is a lot like what we saw in France,” said Doc. “Except for the maps and such.” He knelt down on the floor examining them. “You were in Las Vegas?”

  “Not in two years,” I said. I went over to Doc and bent down to look at them. The parade route was marked in red.

  “You planning on going there?” he asked.

  “Maybe.”

  Besides the boarding parties and cutter escorts for each ship going into Cove Point, a Navy antisubmarine patrol had been set up outside the harbor. Helicopters patrolled overhead. The normal exclusion zone had been extended, and it would have been hard for an unauthorized boat to get within three miles of the shipping lanes. Three companies of Marines—bad haircuts and all—were in the port itself, giving cross-eyed stares at the odd scraps of paper that crossed along their path. A pair of LAV-25s—light armored vehicles that look like miniature tanks with wheels—provided muscle near the entrance, though they were more for show than of practical value. If you want to talk about shows of strength, the Marine Corps “Whiskey” versions of the Cobra gunships were downright nasty-looking buggers, beating the air with the heavy whomp-whomp of their blades. Between the Coast Guard, Navy, Marines, local police agencies, native security teams, and your various and sundry official hangers on, there had to be upward of fifteen-hundred people casting a net over the harbor. And that’s not even counting the hundred and forty or so in the SSN.

  Secure, right?

  Well, no.

  There are a thousand different ways to skin a cat, and a million ways to eat it. One way: join the party. And if you can’t BYOB, then steal one. That is, if you can’t bring your own boat, take one that’s already invited to the party. Or looks like it is: for example, the WPB 82’ Coast Guard Point Class patrol boat Point Ricardo, tied up as a working museum piece across the harbor only a month or so before. Beginning in the 1960s, the WPB 82’s were built as all-around offshore search and rescue, etc., craft. Most of the boats were completely overhauled at least once during their lifetimes, and, with only a couple of exceptions, have been retired now for the slightly larger eighty-seven-foot Coastal Patrol Boats.

  The Point Class is nowhere near as sexy as, say, the Mark V Special Operations Craft, which is your basic speedboat on steroids adapted to a SpecOps mission; the Mark V is one slick raft and definitely my chariot of choice for waterskiing.

  But the Mark V would have stood out in that harbor. A bright-orange old sailor flying the American Flag and proudly wearing the Coast Guard insignia did not. The baby cutter required only a small crew—its normal complement is ten—which meant not only that I could handle it with a dozen guys or less but that it would have been relatively easy to take over even had it had been manned.

  The Point Ricardo’s security detail consisted of three eighteen-year-olds considerably more interested in playing craps on the bridge than watching for pirates. Not that I blame them; the bridge is definitely the place to be throwing dice. We advised them that their game had been moved to a nearby storeroom in an abandoned warehouse. They were happy to relocate, as that appeared to be a better option than being shot and fed to the sharks.

  Point Ricardo’s two Caterpillar D3412s groaned a bit as we turned up the steam, but after a minute or so they warmed to the task, and we managed close to twenty knots before swinging around into the channel. Speed wasn’t what we were about, though; looking like we belonged was. I guess we must have, since we weren’t challenged once, not when we came up near one of the eighty-seven-foot cutters, not when we sailed within ten feet of the command ship, not when we did a drive-by on the Navy destroyer, not even when we wallowed in the middle of the channel next to an outgoing (and empty) LNG tanker.

  Next, we moved into the docking area, again unchallenged. Here, we disgorged a couple of petty officers and one nodding civilian—Doc, whose mustache is about as civilian as you can get. The party proceeded with clipboards, recording fire hazards near the unloading area. There is something about talking about fire hazards that gets people’s attention—and opens doors. Doc had his unsupervised hands on one of the control units for the gas-pumping and pipe mechanism inside five minutes. He left a couple of smiley faces as calling cards and backed out.

  The baby cutter displaced something like sixty-six tons over its nearly eighty-three feet; it wasn’t particularly wide, and anything you put on the deck near the bow would stand out. Still, I figure we could have packed several tons worth of explosives onto the ship without slowing it down appreciably or putting us so low in the water that someone nearby would toss a line. The American guided-missile destroyer USS Cole was nearly sunk by a speedboat packed with only a few hundred pounds* of explosive, probably C-4. Then again, maybe it was the fact that the suicide bombers stood at attention at the very end that made the strike so devastating.

  The vice admiral took the news of our misdeeds rather calmly when I told him what we’d done. He had to be calm, though—we had him aboard Point Ricardo, sailing out to sea.

  “We’ll fix this, definitely we’ll fix this,” he said, shaking his head next to me on the bridge. Doc had spotted him when he was just finishing his review and figured, “What the hey?” I offered him a shot at driving for a while, but he declined. Nor did he want a drink of anything stronger than Pepsi. Which was probably just as well; he had a long afternoon and night ahead of him. He did share the barbecued chicken from the Marines’ temporary “mess.” Those ol’ gunny sergeants sure know how to take care of their troops.

  After dropping the admiral off and returning the cutter to its rightful berth, the team dispersed. We were still on the watch for Shadow, and I decided on a random shuffle of routes to our rendezvous point, which wasn’t our real rendezvous point but a dummy destination staked out to see what turned up. But Shadow had obviously had his fill of fun for a while and remained his elusive self, appearing only in the periphery of my mind. Trace met us at our newest home away from home—a watering hole known poetically as “Watering Hole” and located in a stand-alone building off a county highway in Calvert County. It had been chosen for its location as well as the two large pool tables in the backroom.

  I could practically smell the ozone frying in the air as Trace eyed Tiffany. Sean undertook to separate them, or at least I think that’s what he was doing when he asked Tiff if she wanted to dance. In the meantime, Trace and I consulted on the Texas situation. Her basic take was that the interrogation routine was overkill; the Bosnian maniac was being held in security so tight it took two hours to get him into the talking room. The change of scenery hadn’t made him any more loquacious. If anything, it had had the opposite effect.

  “I think he’s told them everything he knows, such as it is. Which is squat.”

  Trace leaned back in the chair, arms furled at her chest. When she stretched her legs, I noticed she’d taken the opportunity to do a little shopping in Texas. A pair of brand-new snakeskin boots peaked out from under her tight black jeans.

  “Real rattlesnake,” she said, pulling up the pant legs to show them off.

  “Purr-ty. You had time to go shopping, huh?”

  “There’s always time for shopping.”

  “New necklace?” I asked, pointing at the stone around her neck.

  Trace’s face tinged slightly. She touched the stone, which was bright red and highly polished. A simple piece of leather through it. “Kinda new. For me. But it’s been around for a long time.”

  “Apache?” I was guessing, but it wasn’t much of a guess.

  “More or less.” Trace’s tone said, No more on this.

  I returned us to the matter at hand. “You don’t think they’re trying to keep this guy quiet, do you?”

  “Trying to keep him quiet? By putting him in an interrogation center?”

  “Best place in the world to keep somebody quiet,” I said, jumping up. I had just realized something I should have realized long before—long, long before.

  “Where are you going?” Trace asked.

 
“Kidnap an NSA official. Want to come?”

  *Estimates vary between four hundred and seven hundred pounds and are based on the size of the hole the explosion punched in the armored hull. The bastards who actually know were pulverized beyond the powers of DNA reconstruction, a fate too good for them, in my humble opinion.

  Chapter

  16

  For an organization that obsesses about security, the agency that does not exist doesn’t do a very good job protecting its employees. In fact, it could be argued that they don’t do any job, or at least they didn’t in the case of Boreland. Not that it would have mattered if they had.

  We ran it like a nighttime snatch circa 1969 or so, an oldie but goodie and a nod and a wink at our friend Shadow. In quietly, out even quieter. We slid into the condo complex in onesies and twosies. I appropriated a mountain bike from the next complex over. Cheap chain locks should be outlawed in this day and age. This allowed me to get into the targeted area via a path at the rear of the apartment cluster. It also made me look like a wingnut yuppie getting his predawn exercise, always a good cover for a snatch operation. I was just coming up the path when Sean signaled from the lookout area on one of the roofs.

  “Out of his unit, heading for his Nova,” said Sean, who was lookout. “Got coffee, paper, briefcase. Asshole’s going to work this early?”

  Sean’s amazement was understandable, given that Boreland was a government employee and it was barely five A.M. Nonetheless, there are a few dedicated souls left in the Washington, D.C. area. Boreland had thrown us a curve, but it was a hanging pitch.

  “We’ll take him here,” I said. “How’s the lot?”

  “No guards. We’re clean,” said Sean.

  “Do it.”

  Boreland, juggling a travel mug with coffee and a newspaper in one hand as he reached into his pocket for his keys, was about eight feet from his car when another vehicle sped into the lot, wheels squealing. He stopped, terrified for a moment as he realized the auto was heading straight for him. But the car swerved sideways, stopping about twelve inches from the frozen NSA honcho. As he winced, a young woman strolled up behind him and placed the cold end of a pistol in his back.

  The cold end probably wasn’t that cold, considering where it had been carried, but a Rogue is allowed some poetic license. The car’s rear door flew open and Boreland was pushed inside by the girl with the gun. The yuppie on bicycle jumped off his bike and ran to the other door, sliding in just as the car left the scene somewhat more sedately than it had arrived.

  Being a polite sort, and like all NSA employees rather intelligent, Boreland didn’t curse or demand to know what the hell was going on. He just blinked twice as Hulk drove us out of the lot at a leisurely pace and headed for the highway. I glanced toward the mirror and saw a look of pain on Hulk’s face; obviously, driving at the legally posted speed took more out of him than I thought.

  “Mr. Boreland, I’m Dick Marcinko. I’m sorry we have to meet this way. I’m a friend of your cousin.”

  “Sheila,” he said, as if he were filling in a blank on a test.

  “I need to talk to you about that intelligence you gathered from our little switch operation in New York.”

  “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”

  “I know. And officially you don’t exist, either. But I’ve been having some second thoughts about some of the people at Homeland Security we’re working with.”

  “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t make me hit you,” said Tiffany. She might have been a new member of the team, but she had picked up the basics real quick. Trace, who was sitting in the front seat next to Hulk, grinned in spite of herself.

  Boreland’s face pinched in at the cheeks. I think he lost his breath for a second. He tried to say something but ended up only shaking his head.

  “Spit it out, Boreland,” I told him, though I already knew exactly what he was going to say.

  “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. I haven’t run operations with Homeland Security.”

  “You know a guy named Cox? He’s with Tadpole. Or he is Tadpole.”

  “Cox. Yeah, I guess. Talky little twerp who’s always pestering me for intelligence and claims he has scoops. I tell him to work through channels. I have to keep changing my contact information because of him.”

  “You didn’t run a job through him?”

  “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”

  He didn’t, either. It took a few orbits of the block to make sure we were all talking about the same thing, but in the end it was pretty damn clear: there was no cooperative effort between Homeland Security Intelligence and the NSA. We had planted a bogus hard drive up in Queens, or at least one that did something different than what we were told it did. That was not necessarily a bad thing. The SpecWarrior is often the last one to be told the actual truth. But it meant Cox and I had to have a very serious talk.

  After I rearranged his dental work.

  Unlike our NSA friend, Cox believed in security, or at least in muscular types roaming the bushes around his Maryland yard. One of them was actually an ex-SEAL, but I wasn’t in a particularly friendly mood. He and another bodybuilder closed ranks at the front door in what was probably intended as an intimidating stance as I approached.

  “No,” I told him, pointing. I used about the same voice I would use on one of my dogs when I was in a good mood. “And you”—I pointed to the right, where one of the security team members thought he was hiding in the bushes. “Don’t even think about using that Taser, or Pepco is going to be plugging you into their circuit to draw off extra current for a week.”

  “Who the fuck are you?” asked one of the security people.

  “Dick Marcinko.”

  “Not Demo Dick?” said the former SEAL. “The Demo Dick? Like, the guy who wrote all those books? I’m a SEAL. I used to be.”

  I told him I was heartened to hear that they were still taking guys who could read, and joy for him aside, I was in a pissy mood and wanted to talk to Cox, posthaste and immediately.

  “Can’t do it, sir. He’s out.”

  “Look, don’t bullshit me. I have an NSA guy in the car who I have to deliver up to Fort Meade by nine A.M. or he’s going to turn into a pumpkin. And besides, my backup people get awful cranky.”

  The SEAL didn’t fall for that old gag and turn his head to check for my backup team. He stayed focused on me with very admirable discipline. This made it easier for Hulk to get closer. Not that it mattered at this point. What’s another two inches when you’re just a foot away? Especially if the weapon you’re holding is a SAW. Overkill maybe, but I wasn’t lying about being pissed.

  “Geez, I’m not shitting you, Dick,” said the SEAL when Hulk made his presence known. “Can I call you Dick? I mean, it’s Dick, right?”

  I’ll skip the rest of the starstruck crap. The shift supervisor, who’d been watching the whole thing unfold from inside a post in the garage, came out stage left, demanding to know what the hell was going on.

  Let it be said that Homeland Security is an equal opportunity employer. The supervisor in question was a thirty-something blonde with a very snug waist, nicely sculpted biceps, and even better breasts. Perfect teeth, too. She insisted that Cox had gone away. My bullshit detector told me she wasn’t lying. I think it was my bullshit detector. It was so close to the pussy detector in my brain that I wasn’t entirely sure. I asked to be shown inside. She frowned, but the way she frowned told me she was going to make the suggestion herself.

  What’s twenty minutes when the day is young?

  Cox had, in fact, left. According to his office calendar, he had an appointment in Los Angeles on Tuesday, the day after Independence Day. He’d arranged to take off yesterday afternoon and all of Friday, arrive early, and spend the weekend. He was so anal or maybe so worried about GSA auditors that he had even arranged to separate out the billing on his travel so the government would only be dunned fo
r the business time. There was absolutely no reason to doubt his integrity, and far be it for Dickie to impugn the integrity of a U.S. government employee.

  I did, however, have one question that no one—not the security commander, not Cox’s secretary, not even Karen—could answer.

  Why did a person who was a charter member of Americans Against Casino Gambling include a stop in Las Vegas on his itinerary?

  Part Three

  Gamblin’ Man

  “It is bad to lack good fortune, but it is a misfortune to lack talent…. The fortune of war is on the side of the soldier of talent.”

  —FIELD MARSHAL ALEKSANDR V. SUVOROV (1729–1800), QUOTED IN

  OSSIPOV, SUVOROV, 1945

  Chapter

  17

  Some people say that Las Vegas could only exist in America. I say, Las Vegas could only exist in Nevada. It’s the one place in the U.S. where people will really let you alone to do whatever the hell it is you want to do. And the fact that they do that defies all sorts of logic or formulas or theories about behavior or whatever you want to throw at people. If there is a scam, has been a scam, will be a scam, it is, was, or will be tried out in Las Vegas. Las Vegas remains a test bed for anything that can make money.

  Factoid 1: A lot of the land that the major casinos are built on is owned by Mormons, whose teachings may not necessarily be considered the most hospitable to gambling. Or some of the other things that take place in those hotels.

  Factoid 2: The massive casinos that dominate the Strip cost over a billion dollars to build. They are the most lavish monuments to entertainment ever constructed by mankind. Next to them, the Colosseum in Rome looks like one of those carnivals that sets up every year in the next town over to help raise a few bucks for the local fire department.