RW11 - Violence of Action

by Richard Marcinko

  It was high time to find the nuke, and maybe in the process reintroduce myself to Colonel Max Blanchard. I checked my M4 and switched out a half-empty mag for a full one. Slamming the clip into the carbine’s well, I jacked the slide to the rear and extracted a live round, replacing it with a fresh one from the new mag. I let the bolt fly forward and hit the forward assist for good measure. The little rifle was once again locked and loaded.

  Okay. Where would I take the nuke? Where would I go if I were in charge of this sack of shit outfit?

  To beat a terrorist you have to think like a terrorist.

  My eyes roamed over the shattered upper decks finally coming to rest on the badly mauled wheelhouse. Who’d been steering this ship when we’d come up on her? Who’d kept her on track during the initial assault and firefight? Who’d leased the bitch to begin with?

  I began climbing over small mounds of burning debris and headed toward the wheelhouse. Through its shattered windows I could see flames licking away at its interior. Someone had been up there doing his job and I was betting that person was none other than my MIA crackpot colonel. Find the colonel, find the nuke. It just made good sense. Behind me I could hear the sounds of the ’47 maneuvering into position and dropping off the six-man SEAL reaction force. They’d bolster Fletcher’s thinned out assaulters and help load the wounded and the dead.

  I couldn’t wait for the cavalry to ride in. I crept past bits and pieces of something vaguely human and scooted up next to the blown out doorway leading into the once super-luxurious control room. Remind me never to let Trace do my interior decorating, unless I’m looking for sawdust everywhere. Pulling my last flash bang from the drop pouch on my assault vest, I gave a quiet warning to anyone listening on the radio that I was about to make some unpleasant noise topside. I worked the safety pin free, dropped it to the ruptured decking, and tossed the grenade into the gutted wheelhouse. It never hurts to be sure.

  As soon as I heard the KA-WHUMMP of the little banger and saw the momentary bright flash of light it emitted upon detonation, I pulled my goggles off and let them fall against my chest on their dummy cord. Rather than bursting in with my normal roguish flair, I slipped quietly inside the cabin area, the muzzle of my M4 sweeping from left to right, my trigger finger poised above the smooth steel lever, ready to apply instant pressure if necessary. A small blaze crackled near the center of the cabin, providing a hellish kind of illumination to the scene. Fire and brimstone, present and accounted for. But was Blanchard here or not? It was a damn good thing I was playing it coy since the sound of a handgun going off to my right reached me a split second after the bullet it fired took off the lower half of my right ear! I dropped to one knee and fired the M4 on full auto into the cabin, trying to aim in the general direction where I thought the bullet had come from.

  I stopped shooting and waited, holding my breath and trying to discern any movement or sound in the cabin. Out on the deck I heard the ’47 pull pitch. Its roar was replaced by the PAVE ’Hawks I’d ordered in to get the wounded to safety. With a sudden lurch I felt the Storm begin to keel over on her starboard side. Time was running out. I had to search the cabin and hope to fuck I’d killed whoever had fired at me. If I really hit the jackpot, it would have been Blanchard! If I were lucky, if I were truly blessed, if Murphy had forgotten about his old pal Demo Dick, I’d get my bad guy, get my nuke, and get my frogman’s ass off this fucking tub before it went to the bottom of the river!

  Crouched just inside the doorway, all my senses strained to the max, I tried to detect any movement or sound in the wheelhouse that would tell me where my opponent was taking cover. I didn’t need to work so hard; from across the cabin, a voice suddenly called out my very own name.

  “MARCINKO! I figured it’d be you who’d come.”

  Blanchard’s smoke-filled, rasping voice sent a chill up my spine. Sounded like a dead man talking. But maybe that was just wishful thinking….

  “Where’s the nuke, colonel? Neither one of us has time for small talk.”

  “Oh come now, we’ve got all the time in the world. And I’m so enjoying getting reacquainted with your little Jew friend here. That ugly bit of gunfire you just sent in here almost deprived me of his company. How sad that would have made me.”

  There—in the corner—I could just make out two figures. One had to be Blanchard, partially protected behind a massive, solid brass table that had been turned on its side. The metal tabletop, pocked with scores of bullet scars, must have acted like a wall of armor and allowed him to survive the assault. But somewhere along the way the fire had obviously gotten to him. His uniform was badly scorched and I thought I could see places where actual bits of skin were peeling from his body. Fine. He deserved to burn. What concerned me was the man on his knees next to him, gagged and blindfolded, totally exposed. Blanchard held his gun directly against the man’s handsome, blond head. Paul Kossens.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  “Blanchard, you piece of shit. Let him go and deal with me like a man. I’m the one you want.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Dick, but I don’t give a fuck about you. Believe it or not, this is bigger than either you or me. And I’ll be rewarded in the next world for all I’ve done in this one.”

  “Newsflash—you failed, asshole. You completely and utterly failed. There’s no reward coming to you anywhere. You’re going straight to hell.”

  “If that is the case, I’ll expect to see you there. After all, we’re much the same Dick. I just got tired of taking orders from men I couldn’t respect. You’re too pussy-whipped by the machine to understand.”

  “Maybe we are alike, except for one big thing. I’m gonna be alive tomorrow, and you’re not.”

  Another sudden lurch. I felt the Storm beginning to keel a bit farther over on her starboard side. I could see Paul’s jaw working madly against his gag. If Blanchard could just be distracted for a moment and take his gun away from Paul’s head, I was pretty sure I’d be able to get off a round or two without signing Paul’s death warrant. Time to use that famous Rogue charm.

  “Blanchard, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. I just want to be fucking certain you appreciate the fact that you and your pathetic team of lady golfers have been taken down by a gang of true, out-and-out mongrels. A Jew, a Black, and an Apache, along with Yours Truly, kicked your tender white ass. Oh, did I mention the Apache is a girl? I think your kind of inbreeding must be overrated.”

  I felt his contempt as I spoke and I was sure he’d swing his gun in my direction and give me my chance to take him out. But instead he just took a deep breath and replied in an almost pitying tone, “Marcinko, I don’t blame you for what you’ve done. I understand you’re just a servant of the Satanic government that employs you. I understand that your brain isn’t big enough to fully comprehend the importance of what I’m doing here. I am a true warrior, fighting for the only things that matter—blood, homeland, destiny.”

  “Cut the shit, Blanchard. Your destiny is to be the prettiest bitch in the prison yard. You’ll have a swell time.”

  “Dick, I want to help you. I want to pray for your soul and see if we can’t both find some peace. Come here, let me lay my hands on you just for a moment and say a prayer for our wounded nation. Don’t deny me something you can give so easily. Then I’ll let your friend go and together we can decide what to do about the bomb.”

  Before I could respond, a terrible and primal roar erupted from Paul’s throat, surprising me as much as Blanchard. Still blindfolded, he sprang upward with all the power his legs could muster and managed to throw himself right at Blanchard’s head. The colonel’s gun went off. I heard myself scream in fury as I watched the back of Paul’s head explode in a blur of blood and bone. My own gun barked to life, sending a withering hail of bullets at Blanchard’s makeshift hiding place. He’d completely disappeared behind the big wall of metal and I couldn’t know for sure whether I’d managed to hit him or not.

  The sight of Paul’s blood
running dark and red across the deck from his shattered skull filled me with the kind of pure, burning anger and hunger for revenge that I’ve only experienced a few times in my life. In that moment I became a machine with just one single, all-consuming thought—Max Blanchard is a dead man. I no longer cared a rat’s ass about Portland, about the nuke, about Karen, about anything but finding and destroying the man who had just killed my friend and teammate before my eyes. Paul had sacrificed himself to even out the equation. That final act of heroism wasn’t going to have been in vain. Blanchard was mine.

  Fuck caution. Without pausing to seriously consider what I was doing, I ran directly towards the overturned table barricade. Using my shoulder like a battering ram, I slammed into it as hard as I could so that anyone behind it would be knocked over and pinned between it and the wall. The table slid a foot or two before it crashed hard against the bulkhead. I could tell by the way it struck the bulkhead that there hadn’t been anyone behind it.

  What the fuck?

  I grabbed the table and hurled it aside. There, behind it, a piece of the floor in the wheelhouse cabin’s corner had been neatly cut away, providing an escape route down into the lower decks. Of course Blanchard wouldn’t have allowed himself to get caught like a rat in a hole. He’d always plan an alternate way out for himself.

  Given his weakened condition, that SADM had to be feeling awfully heavy by now, but even at this point I doubted he’d be willing to let it out of his hands. It was the last and most powerful card he had to play. He’d be moving pretty slowly, probably trying to get to a place on the ship where he could arm it. Even though he’d miss the heart of the city, he’d figure blowing it up here was better than not using it at all. Since his escape route was taking him to the lower decks which were filling with more and more water, he didn’t have many options left.

  Not knowing what was waiting for me, I lowered myself through the hole in the floor. The ship’s emergency lighting was still turned on down here and I found myself at one end of a fairly long inner passageway that had several doors opening from it along both sides. Here, closer to its belly, the creaks and groans of the vessel were unmistakable. Probably only a few minutes remained before it would capsize. The handsome wooden doors leading to the staterooms up and down the corridor banged open and closed as the ship lurched about in agony. All except the last one on the starboard side, which remained conspicuously shut. Blanchard.

  I darted down the corridor and quickly blew the doorknob and lock to bits. Crashing into the room, I saw Blanchard hunched over an all too familiar looking titanium suitcase. He was fumbling with its locks, muttering distractedly to himself. Praying or cursing, I couldn’t tell. My finger lovingly caressed the trigger of my Glock as he turned toward me—and for an instant I was stunned by the hideousness of his face. Or what used to be his face. His entire forehead and scalp were peeling away in thick, fleshy ribbons. He seemed confused by what was happening, like he wasn’t really sure if I was there or not. That’s when I realized it—he was blind. His facial wounds had oozed and bled so severely that his eyes had gradually been turned into useless sacks of fluid. Paul’s last-ditch attack had probably done the rest. Motherfucker. A blind man trying to arm a nuclear bomb.

  “See you in hell, Max,” I growled and sent every last bullet I had into him. Each one had Paul’s name on it.

  I walked over to his body and pushed my gloved hand into the mass of pulped and seeping flesh that was his corpse. There wasn’t any head left which kinda fucked up a down and dirty facial feature ID, but I was betting he was wearing his dog tags out of habit. I was right. I felt the steel chain with its two oval-shaped steel disks right where I knew they’d be. Jerking the ID necklace free, which is pretty fucking easy when there’s no head to deal with, I wiped bits of bone and flesh away from the stamped metal and read “Strongman, Maxwell, Col.” With a sigh, I dumped the tags into my fatigue shirt breast pocket. Then I fished out my Wor-Tech knife from its pouch on my left thigh. With two quick cuts I removed the index finger and thumb from his right hand. I wrapped these in the OD drive-on rag I was wearing around my throat and dropped my little treasures into my left drop pouch. Nothing quite says you like your fingerprints and I wanted incontestable proof that I’d killed Blanchard before the river rushed in and washed what was left of his body out to sea.

  I felt the Storm lurch farther sideways and start to slide into the river’s depths. Time was not on Dickie’s side any longer. Within seconds I’d have to get out of here or risk being trapped with Max’s evil corpse as we went down to Davy Jones’ Locker conjunto. Not my idea of a happy ending to what had been a great party so far. Besides, I had a president and a helluva woman both waiting for me back in D.C.—and I was gonna fuck them both, although in very different ways.

  Behind Blanchard’s corpse was one badly battered titanium-cased man-fucking-portable nuclear weapon. Come to papa, baby!

  I holstered the Glock and grabbed the case and leaped out of the cabin just as the Storm gave a mighty groan of agony and began her final voyage. From my headset I could hear my teammates’ voices urging me to get clear. No shit, I thought to myself as I tripped and bumped and fell down the passageway, then heaved myself back up into the wheelhouse, relieved at least to be out of the certain deathtrap of the lower decks. I could hear the helos roaring around overhead and I figured somebody had to see me given all the high speed IR we’d been using with such abandon. All I had to do was keep my cool—and a firm grip on the nuke. I’m a fucking SEAL and water is my natural habitat. I just needed to get my ass clear of the suck-hole the Storm would create as she went down. The rest would be a piece of cake.

  Unless the nuke detonated, of course.

  And if that happened I wouldn’t give a fuck either way. At least it would be quick and I would have accomplished my mission. Well, sort of.

  I made a break for it and jumped as far out and away from the doomed vessel as I could. As I hit the surface of the river and sank below I used my free hand to unclip my M4, which sank immediately. The case was weighing me down but with the rifle gone I could drag the fucker behind me while swiming my ass off and push-pulling with the one arm I had available. SEALs are trained to swim in any circumstances and I’d started my career as a frogman. Old habits die hard and old rogues die even harder. I was not going to lose the case or my life. Not now. Not after good men had died in the process of getting me to my objective. My ear would be an “easy fix” for my friend and personal plastic surgeon, Mark Zukowski. He’s now in private practice in Chicago. I keep him close at hand; he knows Rogue Manor and all of its sins well.

  My shaggy, bleeding, one-eared head finally broke the surface and I sucked in as much oxygen as I could get. Reaching down I snagged my emergency strobe light from its pouch and activated the little fucker. Holding it as high out of the murk as possible I kicked for all I was worth to remain above the surface. I heard the ’47 coming in and soon great swells were washing over me from its beautiful, beautiful prop blasts. I saw the rear ramp come down and the crew chief and Trace, both tethered to the interior of the airframe by long, supple safety lines, scooted out to the ramp’s edge, now just inches above the river. I kicked with all I had left in me and felt strong hands grabbing at my uniform, and then hauling my tired ass up and into the Chinook. I kept my death grip on the case and nodded to Trace that I was okay. As the ’47 lifted off I dragged myself deeper into its hull, finally collapsing on the fully inflated Zodiac I’d ordered to be stowed there.

  I’d made it.

  “Get us at least twenty-five miles out to sea,” I croaked to no one in particular. “You’re gonna drop me and the case off in the Zod and wait exactly twenty-four hours before picking me up. I don’t know if this fucking thing is armed or not. Let’s roll!” With that I fell backwards into the rubber raiding craft, placing the nuke beside me on its hard-ribbed flooring.

  Damn, I reminded myself, I am so fucking good!

  Chapter

  20

>   “I am the War Lord and the wrathful God of Combat and I will always lead you from the front, not the rear.”

  COMMANDER RICHARD MARCINKO (ret.), The Real Team

  There was nothing more I could do, needed to do, or wanted the fuck to do except lie in that fucking Zodiac and catch my goddamned breath. What about the nuke, you may well ask? The damn thing hadn’t gone off yet so—for the time being—life was sweet. On the other hand I could feel every fucking bump, blister, scrape, bruise, and cut my roguish body had sucked up during the last two days. Two fucking days? That was all? When this was finally over I’d be gargling down Dr. Bombay’s mighty fine Sapphire by the canteen cup and popping 800-milligram hits of Motrin (known in the Teams as “SEAL candy”) for weeks. I felt as if I’d been tossed into the world’s biggest rock polisher and tumbled for hours on end. I was not happy about Blanchard’s having blown most of one of the only two fucking ears I came into this world with clean off my fucking skull, either. I had to give it to the miserable bastard. He’d hung in there long enough to take his shot. Trouble was, he’d missed and I hadn’t. He’d gotten my ear but I’d gotten his head—and I’ll take getting head any day of the fucking week!

  I pulled myself up and grabbed hold of the fucking case so many men had died for. I knew these hellish devices like the back of my callused hand. Nuclear nightmares in a convenient travel size is what they are. The damn Russians built an unknown number of SADMs and then went and lost, misplaced, or sold a shitpot of them when the Evil Empire caved in on itself. We weren’t much better at keeping track of our own, as I’d proven at Red Cell. Hell, looking at the battered thirty-pound world-ender, I remembered getting ahold of a similar device simply by kidnapping a senior naval officer who had access to such things and threatening to rape his tight little ass with a fucking banana! Funny how patriotism, loyalty, and the Honor Code of the Academy go out the window when someone you don’t know starts working a long, thick hunka something up your shitter while you’re blindfolded and bent over a nice soft piece of furniture. It hadn’t taken but two well-measured inches of yellow fruit and some graphic pillow talk to elicit the necessary access code to the storage facility where the nukes were kept. And I wonder why some of the Navy brass don’t love me like a son…