***
Roger the intel squirrel screwed the end of the fiber optic cable into the viewer, and I was finally able to peer at a trio of screens whose fields of vision now surveyed the whole apartment except for the long hallway leading from the front door. The images were slightly fuzzy, but at least we had ’em. I picked up a grease pencil and marked the position of the bombs on the white board Mick had used to diagram the flat. The assembled bomb was in the bedroom, which made my lacerations worth the pain. The other two sat in pieces on a table in the living room.
The flat was laid out in a rough T-shape. You came in the front door and immediately hit a fifteen-foot-long hallway, off of which were two doors (one was a walk-in closet; the other led to a loo, which is how Brits call the head. As you can see, Britain and America are two friendly countries separated only by their common language). At the end of the hallway was the rectangular living room. To the left side of the living room was the bedroom. To the right sat a small kitchen, with no door. I checked the screens and understood from what I saw that these TIRAs were professionals. They had one man stationed at the front-door end of the hallway, and another behind cover at the far end. They’d put heavy drapes over the windows to preclude flashbangs coming through or surveillance catching them from the outside. This was going to be one hard, hard fucking target. And so, even though every one of us could allegedly shoot a twenty-five pence coin at fifty yards with his MP5, I understood only too well that the goatfuck potential for this little exercise was very high, given our lack of unit integrity.
I peered at the screens and made Xs on the white board where I saw tangos, then diagrammed the moves I wanted our assault team to make. It didn’t take long to come up with a game plan, because like those all-star football games, we’d have to stick to the most basic plays. So, I’d KISS this op off by keeping it simple, stupid: we’d blow the door, hit the hallway, wax the first two bad guys, then swarm the living room, split into three two-man groups with Butch Wells our rear safety, and take the rest of the bastards down. We’d have it AODW—all over and done with—in sixty seconds, and then it would be off to the Goat, my favorite London pub, for a half dozen rounds of the SEAL’s favorite bitter—Courage.
I went over the plan three times. Shit. The Brits were shaking their heads up and down like the fucking toy dogs that sit in the back of car windows. But there was no choice here: the music was playing, and we had to dance with these assholes. Well, at least I’d do the leading in this little waltz. I caught a glimpse of Boomerang’s expression. It told me he understood this op was as full of big, loosely basted seams as Herr Doktor Frankenstein’s monster. But then, WTF, this was only rock and roll, right?
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
RICHARD MARCINKO retired from the Navy as a full commander after more than thirty years of service. He currently lives in the Washington, D.C., area, where he is CEO of SOS Temps Inc., his private security firm whose clients are governments and corporations, and Richard Marcinko Inc., a motivational training and team-building company. He is the author of The Rogue Warrior®’s Strategy for Success: A Commando’s Principles of Winning, and the four-month New York Times business bestseller Leadership Secrets of the Rogue Warrior: A Commando’s Guide to Success. In addition to his bestselling autobiography, Rogue Warrior, he is coauthor with John Weisman of the New York Times bestselling novels Rogue Warrior: Red Cell, Rogue Warrior: Green Team, Rogue Warrior: Task Force Blue, and Rogue Warrior: Designation Gold. Their newest novel, Rogue Warrior: Seal Force Alpha, is currently a Pocket Books hardcover.
JOHN WEISMAN is one of the select company of writers to have both fiction and nonfiction works on the New York Times bestseller lists. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including the critically acclaimed novels Evidence and Blood Cries, and the nonfiction bestseller Shadow Warrior, the biography of CIA agent Felix Rodriguez. Weisman’s well-received CIA short story, “There Are Monsterim,” was part of the 1996 anthology Unusual Suspects, and Best Suspense Short Stories: 1997. He divides his time between homes in the Washington, D.C., area, and the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. John Weisman can be reached via the Internet at [email protected].
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