RW12 - Vengeance

by Richard Marcinko

  Dancers, a lion tamer, all sorts of veterans groups, a dozen fire departments, actors and actresses—this was Independence Day Vegas-style. Everything was larger than life, the costumes, the routines, the floats—even for boring acts like myself. Since I’d begged off the parachute-jump-into-the-open-car routine, they arranged for something almost as showy—a touchdown via helicopter on a large float made up to look like a next-generation SEAL fast boat called the “Very Slender Vessel.” I was supposed to meet the helicopter near the staging area, which gave me a chance to familiarize myself with the float before trying to land on it—always a wise idea.

  Despite the asinine name, VSVs are very cool follow-ons for the Mark V. They look like what you’d get if you crossed an F-117 Stealth Fighter with a speedboat. The superstructure rises no more than six feet off the surface of the water. I’ve had a tour but not the chance to use one, not because I’m an old fart (true enough) but because no one’s used them yet. The Navy being the Navy, they’re still screwing with the suckers. Maybe by the time my grandchildren’s grandchildren are meeting with the recruiters they’ll put them into service. Of course, by that time, the people they’d be useful to use against will have figured out how to detect them.

  Whoever built the float had a good set of photos or plans to work with, because the float looked exactly like the one I’d seen at DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Except for the platform—and the neon blue and gold paint job. But they spelled my name right on the side, so who am I to bitch?

  The float was controlled from the cockpit of the boat. I spent a few minutes talking to the driver, a forty-something type named Jimmy who thought it was pretty funny that he’d been in the Army and was now driving a boat on land. I didn’t think it was quite as funny as he did, but then I hadn’t spent the past hour strapped into the little compartment with nothing to do but stare straight ahead. The drivers, once vetted, had been instructed to stay in their vehicles, and Jimmy believed in following instructions to the letter. Not a bad idea, I guess, if your ambition in life is to be a boat driver on land.

  Security teams were inspecting all of the floats, and even after security ticked the floats off on their handheld computers, they were still subject to random checks. The flow-through point from the staging area to the marching line included another last-minute search and inspection.

  By now, everyone involved in security, and most of the participants in the parade, had heard of the LNG port incident. Whether or not it made them more focused than they would have been, I can’t say. The place boiled with adrenaline and nervous energy. If NASA could figure out how to bottle the frenzy, they’d have had enough fuel here to send a rocket to Saturn every day of the week.

  The communications system we were using, adapted from the military’s Joint Tactical Radio System program (known as “Jitters”), worked off a black box about as wide as the book in your hands and maybe half as thick. It could connect through satellites and just about any radio frequency known to man. It had onboard encryption and waveform generation, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if it could make popcorn, too. It fit into the back of a special bulletproof vest as if it were a ceramic plate, and supposedly it provided the same level of extra protection.

  I linked into the system through what looked like a set of wraparound sunglasses. Besides a high-tech speaker that worked by vibrating the bone behind my ear and a miniature microphone hidden in the nose bridge, the glasses had a small screen in the right eyepiece controlled by voice commands. The commands were enabled by touching the top corner of the frame, and the system was trained to work only with my voice, so that ambient noise or nearby conversation couldn’t screw it up.

  As you can imagine, the glasses took a little getting used to. I felt like I was looking at the world through a floating cloud with a television show projected onto it. But the system also allowed me not only to talk with the rest of my team but to get live video feeds from the JSTARS and the various command posts scattered around the city. I felt like one of those creatures in Hindu mythology that have a thousand eyes, including one in each palm of their hands.

  The helicopter was en route by the time I finished checking out the float and getting updates from my team. As I made my way toward the LZ, I saw that the security people had corralled a bunch of clowns—literally. The clowns, dressed in colorful outfits, big shoes, and red plastic noses, were not in the databank that was used to check IDs and biometric information, though they swore that they had registered and already cleared security. They were sent to the “Penalty Box”—a grandstand area several blocks from the marshalling point and the parade route—for the duration of the event, which left them none too happy.

  The Army had detailed a number of Blackhawks in for the event. Naturally I got one of the special operations models, an MH-60L DAP* outfitted with a couple of 30mm chainguns, a 2.75-inch rocket pod, and a 40mm grenade tosser. The guns were all loaded in case of trouble, but the rocket pods had custom-built flares that would ignite as I touched down, adding a little fizz to my arrival.

  I pulled on a headset and stood by the open door as we did a circuit of the parade route. Just above us, a pair of Predator unmanned aerial vehicles flew a slow track up and down the strip, their video cams supplying a detailed view of the action. Two Air Force fighters orbited much higher overhead. A squadron of AH-64 Apache helicopters were warming up at McLaren Airport. A flight advisory had been posted to keep all unauthorized helicopter traffic out of the area, and officials were enforcing it rather vigorously. There would be no repeat of the private plane incident at Cove Point; anything in the air that didn’t belong there would be shot down long before it got close to the parade.

  If it all sounds impressive on paper, it was three times that at the scene, with the hardware rushing around and people shouting over the comm gear. So why didn’t I feel secure?

  We took a circuit of the area, then buzzed in from the direction of the Outlet Center, the Blackhawk’s rotors doing a heavy whomp against the street below. As we drew even with the Excalibur Hotel and Casino, I assumed the position—swinging out the door and hanging by my harness. I extended my arms and started to windsurf below the helo, but because of the way the harness had been rigged or the air currents that whipped around me—or both—I quickly found myself swinging from side to side. Within a few seconds, I’d started spinning like a top. The flares in the rocket pod started going off. I’m sure the whole thing was one hell of a show for the people on the ground, but if it weren’t for the fact that I had no time to think, I would have seriously questioned my sanity. The fireworks kicked up a thick cloud of smoke, which collected around me as the wash from the helicopter blades concentrated it beneath the chopper.

  Finally, either because the helicopter had slowed or just dumb luck, I stopped gyrating. The green-faced replica of Lady Liberty winked at me as I passed, and I spotted the target float ahead. I got my feet on the deck right at the Banly’s, which was as planned. I don’t think anyone in the world has ever snapped off a quick release harness that quickly. A good thing, too: the MH-60 lingered for all of a tenth of a millisecond before tearing away.

  I’d like to think that the roar of the crowd nearby was for me. But just at the moment I made my entrance, a dozen beauties popped out of the cake on the float directly behind me. Wearing little more than their birthday suits, they were the prettiest cake decorations I’ve ever seen, and I added my applause to the crowd’s.

  “Hell of an arrival, Dick,” said a female voice in my headset as I turned back around.

  It wasn’t Trace and it wasn’t Tiffany.

  “Where are you?” I said.

  “We’ll meet soon enough,” she said.

  The line went clear.

  I didn’t give Shadow the satisfaction of hearing me say anything else.

  *Officially DAP stands for Direct Action Penetrator. I’ll let you develop the unofficial meanings on your own.

  Chapter

  20
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  The military people had assured us that the commo system could not be cracked. Believing that about as much as I’d believe anything the Army ever told me, we’d worked out a backup system to communicate. I initiated it now, sliding open the cell phone and keying in a preset. It was possible that Shadow was watching, and even that she had some way of compromising the backup system, but I couldn’t worry about that.

  The preset initiated a series of calls to the rest of the team. They didn’t bother answering the calls. Instead, they switched over to the backup radio system, which were civilian jobs that used chips and downloaded codes that changed every day. They didn’t interface with the military system, but at this point that wasn’t a negative. I didn’t realize it then, but most of my people had already heard the voice; it had come through a shared channel.

  Even after Danny’s adventure, I hadn’t seriously considered the possibility that Shadow was a woman. Blind spot on my part.

  I still had the glasses on. The video feed was working and I could hear the comm channels fine. Danny had been tasked to alert the event supervisors if the comm system was breached; either that hadn’t happened yet or they had decided it would be easier to proceed. In any event, they were still using the Jitters units.

  “Traffic’s backing up on Twains,” said one of the ops on the common channel. “Bunch of trucks coming from one of the construction sites. Should I send them around on Paradise Road?”

  The request bounced up the line to the traffic coordinator, who approved it; it was part of the overflow plan directing traffic away from the Strip. The trucks they were talking from were coming from a construction site across from the closed Desert Inn Golf Club.

  I pushed the control on my glasses and dialed into the feed from the Predator. The trucks kicked up a cloud of sand getting off the work site. With no breeze to speak of, the cloud hung in the air like a veil covering the site and the roadway nearby. The trucks were filthy; they’d been on the site for a while.

  Ten of them, snaking into the line of cars parallel to the Strip and heading in the direction of the Chamber of Commerce building. They were the only trucks in the line.

  “Get the trucks!” I said over the compromised Jitters circuit, realizing what was going on. “Get them.”

  Or I should say, realizing half of what was going on.

  If you go straight down Paradise Road, you can get over to the Hilton, or you could take a left onto Sahara and from there get back onto Las Vegas Boulevard heading toward the city. Or you could turn down the service road to the Riviera, jump the curb and run through the strip mall parking lot a few hundred yards from the Strip. If you didn’t particularly care about the people who’d be in front of you, you’d have a clear shot at the heart of the parade—and the Strip.

  Ten trucks, packed with explosives and poison gas—a very big boom. I pulled the MP5 from the bag—anyone who saw it probably thought it was just part of the show—grabbed the extra mags and started to the side of the float, intending to jump down and run over toward the Riviera and the service road, which was a few blocks away on my right. Just as I got to the street, two Blackhawk helicopters swooped down on the block and headed for the vehicles. The command circuit was flooded and even ours was jammed as everyone tried to talk at once. I could see the feed from the Predator. One of the trucks was just pulling out, pushing to get up on the sidewalk and get around the traffic. Sean yelled to me; I yelled back. Just as I started to follow him I saw something out of the corner of my eye, not through the glasses, not with the high-tech crap I’d outfitted myself with, but with my trusty Mark-1A1 Eyeballs (original equipment).

  Two men were darting from the sidewalk across the street, running toward the new Vegas Starship.

  Instinct made me follow them. I’d caught nothing more than the quick glimpse, but one of the outlines didn’t look quite right. Both were wearing long jackets on a day when the temperature was eighty degrees, and they were running the wrong way if they were on the security team.

  A few of the people who lined the side of the street started to applaud, thinking that it was part of a show or something. I yelled at them to get out of the way, but my shouts had very little effect.

  The submachine guns the thugs pulled out from beneath their jackets—MP5s similar to mine—did a much better job. People started diving for the ground, and by the time I reached the low wall separating Starship Vegas from the walk, most of the crowd had either taken cover or was sprawled on the ground.

  The newest, latest, and greatest hotel on the Strip, Starship Vegas looked like a saucer from one of the Star Wars movies that had been plopped down in the middle of the city. A large space needle towered over it at the side; from the distance, the pair looked like two spaceships competing in an intergalactic race. Up close, the area in front of the hotel was a cement garden of textured concrete with a series of pools and futuristic metal sculptures. If you stood near the entrance, you had a free shot at anything coming up toward you. Including me.

  I tucked and rolled back behind the shallow wall at the edge of the property as the ground exploded with bullets and concrete chips. The parade had stopped moving forward and for a wild second I thought I might hop in the VSV and christen it as a SEAL vehicle. I might even have tried that—probably without managing to get over the curb—had I not seen a Hummer two floats behind it. This was a civilian H2 model made by General Motors, a slightly downsized version of the real thing, but I wasn’t in the position of sending out a Request For Proposals. I leapt back toward the truck, yanked open the door, and threw the driver to the ground. The passenger, a local real estate pooh-bah and big shot political donor, started to object, but I told him it was a matter of national security for him to get the fuck out of my vehicle.

  I believe he complied, though truthfully, I didn’t notice at the time.

  I got the vehicle into reverse and pulled around the back of the fire engine that had been following it in line, flooring the mini-Hummer and hanging on tight. The truck bolted up the walk and then across one of the shallow ponds, picking up speed. The two cretins who’d retreated to the front of the casino began unloading their weapons on the boxy front of the truck, blowing out the windshield and perforating much of the front end, including the radiator and the right tire. I set a general course and ducked down, pushing the gas to the floor and bracing as best I could as the 9mm bullets sprayed against the front of the Hummer.

  The vehicle took the first of the steps up to the casino pretty well, and if there’d been only two or even three steps, I might have made it straight into the front of the reception area. But there were five steps, and by the time I hit the last one I was moving mostly sideways. The truck tumbled over and rolled into the glass doors and wall. Glass shattered and metal flew all over the place. I twirled inside the truck as the Hummer rolled at least twice more before stopping in the middle of the sloping floor that led down toward the main reception hall maybe two dozen feet inside the casino and right next to the reception desks. The laser lighting threw such a wild pattern of red around the interior of the Hummer as I scrambled up toward the window, gun in hand, that I thought the vehicle had caught fire. Fortunately, I was wrong. That didn’t happen until I’d managed to pull myself about halfway out.

  There was some gunfire to my left, and as I turned to return it, the vehicle shook with a kind of low rumble. I thought to myself, “Oh shit,” and tried as best I could to dive away. I think I may have gotten about a quarter of the way to the floor when the gas tank exploded. Demo Dick became Rocket Man, hurtling into space where no man had gone before. I sailed into the registration area, rolling into a row of computers and then falling onto a stack of cardboard boxes where they’d placed some files. The boxes probably kept me from breaking my neck. My knee got banged to shit, but somehow I managed to hold onto my MP5. Between the fire and the laser light show, though, I had no idea where the two apes had gone.

  Somewhere in the vast bowels of the hotel, security people may have be
en ushering guests to safety. Somewhere inside, an Emergency Response team might have been racing to deal with the situation. But if any of this was happening, I never saw it. The only thing I knew was that the front end of the casino was on fire, the automated sprinkler alarms were going off, and a Klaxon that could have woken up half of San Diego was rattling the floor.

  I crawled to the side of the registration desk, jumped up, and threw myself behind a shallow platform at the left, which housed some of the lights that played across the vast open floor that greeted people as they came into the hotel. Holograms floated across the top of the room, meteors and spaceships that ran across the room in a completely random pattern beneath a rotating sky of stars. A planet appeared at about nine o’clock midway across the room; it looked as if someone had taken a bite out of it. It was a clue to where my quarry had gone—he was blocking one of the projectors, distorting the image—but by the time I realized what that meant, the gunfire had stoked up again.

  As I lay on the ground, I heard a familiar voice calling to me from somewhere around my stomach. It was Trace on the backup radio. The earbud had dropped from my ear but the device was still working somehow—definitive proof this model hadn’t been made by the Chinks in one of China’s prisons. As I started to pull the set up so I could hear and talk, the room exploded with gunfire from something bigger than the MP5, something at least on the order of a light squad-level machine gun. I rolled back behind the platform, keeping my head and butt at low altitude.