Rogue Warrior rw-1

by Richard Marcinko

  Gordy thought about it. “Cunning devil, aren’t you?”

  By Monday morning we’d taken Pt. Mugu Naval Air Station way past chaos, all the way to anarchy. We had blown up most of our targets without resistance. The local cops were so tired they were walking into doors. The fire department was bouncing off the walls. The doctors were on the verge of staging a sit-down strike. The FBI had picked up its toys and gone home because no one was playing fair. Only the Coast Guard was steaming unconcernedly off the coast without so much as a flutter.

  Gordy was delighted with the exercise because he’d been able to see where his vulnerabilities lay. Bob Laser was happy because he’d been able to let his Rambos and Rambettes go balls and boobs to the wall. Their mistakes would be corrected, and the next time around they’d be much improved.

  I was euphoric because my guys had worked hard, played hard — and had fun. A couple had even managed to get laid, which was more than I could say for myself.

  It was almost time to go home. But one succulent, irresistible target remained — Air Force One, which was scheduled to depart about midday, k was just too tempting to ignore. Dressed in mechanic’s covecalls, Frank and Cheeks climbed into the weapons carrier that had remained parked all weekend in-the BOO lot and drove it over to the far corner of the field, where the president’s 707 was being fueled and serviced. They climbed out and activated the explosives rigged to the pallet-load of 500-pound bombs. Just to be extra thoughtful. Cheeks set another charge: he booby-trapped the weapons carrier’s driver’s seat.

  Their job completed, Frank and Cheeks sauntered back to the BOQ and changed clothes in Trailer’s room. The three of them packed the car and got ready to leave. Then they went up onto the roof of the BOQ to watch the results of their handiwork.

  As a parting gesture of friendship, we’d also rigged explosives in the SWAT team’s emergency response truck. When Minkster telephoned our threat against Air Force One to Bob Laser, virtually every one of Bob’s Rambos and Rambettes headed for the truck, which “exploded” in a cloud of smoke.

  The umpires ruled ten dead, ten injured. Doom on you. Rambos and Rambetles.

  When the SWAT survivors finally discovered the weapons carrier (it took them more than an hour to work their way onto the lot adjacent to Air Force One), they approached it with great caution. You could see the apprehensive looks in our long-lens video shots. They were going to do this by the book.

  They sealed off the area. They called for EOD — the demolition team. It arrived and there were fifteen minutes of consultation. Then, carefully, the explosives in the rear were disarmed wire by wire. With the bombs safely defused, a Rambo climbed into the cab to drive the vehicle away.

  Ka-boom — our smoke-grenade booby trap went off and exploded the whole pallet-load of 500-pound bombs. It was a Frogman’s dream come true — a living centerfold from the Blaster’s Handbook. Trailer radioed me that the view from the BOQ roof was spectacular.

  “Skipper, the only thing missing was the caption ”The End — a Dick Marcinko Production of a Red Celt Scenario.‘ “

  I roared. “Wait till they see the goddamn sequel!”

  The season changed from warm and friendly to frosty and cool shortly after we got back from Mugu. At a farewell party for Ace Lyons, I met his successor, my new boss at OP-06, a gaunt, balding vice admiral named Donald Jones. I knew Jones slightly. As a staffer working out of the Joint Chiefs, he’d helped me transfer a one-eyed ops officer from Coronado to SEAL Team Six. Jones was an integral part of the Coronado Mafia, which included officers who liked me — such as Bob Stanton, the captain who’d taught me to write memos when I started my first staff job at COMPHIBTRALANT— and officers who didn’t, such as Cathal “Irish” Flynn, the mean-tempered son of a bitch who’d been commodore of West Coast SEALs when I was forming Six. Jones was also friends with Rynn’s successor, Ch-Ch-Ch-Chuck LeMoyne, who liked me even less than Irish did.

  It was bad enough that Irish was about to be appointed to run NIS — he was, in Ace’s opinion, too rigid and smallminded to be given the responsibility. But now, OP-06 was being turned over to a pleasant but by no means aggressive admiral, an antisubmarine-warfare aviator whose deferential personality was exactly the opposite of what the Job called for. Ace’s raison d’etre had been to rattle cages. Jones was less prone to make waves.

  Ace’s party was held at the Fort Myers Officers’ Club. We’d put together some gifts — Red Cell’s parting shot to Ace was a booby-trapped bottle of vodka — which were presented with much fanfare. After the presentations and the speeches, it was time for the ritual backslapping and the hot hors d’oeuvres.

  I was reintroduced to Vice Admiral Jones. He reached out to shake my hand. His grip was dead fish. By way of greeting, he said, “I’m surprised you’re not in jail yet.”

  If I’d been perceptive, I’d have realized that working for this guy was not going to be one of life’s great pleasures.

  I, however, smart-assed an answer and went back to my Bombay.

  Strike one.

  About a month later, I’d forgotten all about Vice Admiral Jones’s greeting. “Anybody feel like a European vacation?”

  Duke’s hand shot up. So did Baby Rich’s and Hartman’s.

  “Too bad, cockbreaths. I got the list already. The Gold Dust Twins and Ho-Ho-Ho. It’s gonna be a short trip — so we’re traveling light.”

  We flew military. Hop one was to London, where we transferred onto a small, twin-engine jet for a two-stopper: Sigonella, then Naples. I made another friend on that flight, a two-star, who thought he had the plane all to himself. When he saw Larry and Frank and Ho-Ho-Ho and me — dressed in jeans, with long hair and Fu Manchu mustaches and no “Ayeaye, sir” in us at all — he went ballistic.

  An aide inquired, as aides are wont to do, who we were.

  “I’m performing a function for the CNO,” I said- “Goodbye.”

  A minute later he was back. “Where’s your authorization?”

  I displayed my middle finger. “Here. Ciao.”

  A minute later he was back again. The admiral wanted to see our ID cards.

  “If the admiral wants to see my fucking ID card, I’ll be happy to fucking come fucking forward and show it to him.

  But as for the rest of my team, who they are is none of his business.“

  I gave the aide Vice Admiral Jones’s name and address.

  “Please send all inquiries there. Now, will you please be a good boy and bugger off?”

  The two-star didn’t ask any more questions. But Jones got a letter. Unlike Ace, he didn’t round-file complaints. He hung on to them.

  I may have sounded capricious when I told the men we were going to Naples. The reason behind our visit, however, was anything but frivolous- There was a real terrorist threat in Italy. In 1981 the Red Brigades kidnapped Brigadier General James Dozier in Verona. He was held forty-two days before being freed by Italian countertenor forces. In 1984, they assassinated Leamon Hunt, the American director general of the multinational force that monitored the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. Those acts, and others, caused Ace Lyons great concern about the vulnerability of the U.S. Navy admiral in Naples, a three-star I’ll call Mott.

  Even though Ace had become CINCPACFLT and no longer oversaw Red Ceil, he’d wanted me to take my unit to Naples — and I had agreed. When we arrived, I saw that Na- y pies was just as busy as I remembered it. I thought about visiting some of the haunts where I’d played on my one-year tour when I worked for Big FUC, or the bars where Ev Barrett.‘ had taken Second Platoon of UDT-22. But we only had five days, so we got right to work.

  We rented two cars and a motorbike and drove to the admiral’s home to stake it out. We toured the streets leading to the admiral’s house, dodging Neapolitan taxis, cars, buses, and cycles as we went. We circled his home a couple of times to get the layout. Then we rang the doorbell.

  Mrs. Mott answered the door. She was an attractive woman in her late thirties with a confid
ent smile and an easy manner about her. I introduced myself, Larry, Frank, and Ho-HoHo and explained who we were and what we were doing. She seemed relieved.

  “I’ve been telling the admiral we’re vulnerable,” she said.

  “What with all the Red Brigade activity, and the Mafia kidnappings, I’ve been a little nervous. And now, with that ship hijacked — the Achille Lauro — who can tell what’ll happen next. But NIS says we’re very secure here. The house has a high wall, we’ve got two humongous guard dogs, and an armed driver takes us everywhere.“

  “That seems like a good start. We’ll see what we can do to help.”

  The admiral came downstairs and greeted us warmly. “Let me show you around,” he said.

  He led us outside. “We’re on top of a hill, which is good,” he said. “And we’re part of a compound — there are Navy people all around us. so if something happens, we can call for help.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  I walked to a gray box attached to his wall and opened it up. It had a power switch. I turned the switch off. From inside the house, I could hear Mrs. Admiral wail, “What happened to the lights?”

  I turned the switch back on. “So much for the electricity.”

  “NIS never noticed that,” the admiral said.

  “Scenario one: they pop your power- You come out to fix it. They grab you, toss you in the trunk of their car, it’s five minutes to the autostrada, and — ta-daa — you’re another General Dozier.”

  Admiral Mott’s face took a definite downturn.

  Ho-Ho-Ho was jimmying a manhole cover that sat directly in front of Admiral Mott’s front gate. He pried an edge up and lifted the steel disc as if it were papier-mache.

  Larry and Frank poked flashlights into the darkness. “Scenario two: ten kilos of plastique to surprise you when you come through your gate.” The admiral’s face fell another inch-

  “Your water pipes are down there, too. Easy for them to be tampered with. Maybe a little spritz of bacteria in the tap water.”

  “Shit,” the admiral said- “NIS never told me about that, either.”

  “Frank,” I said, “show the admiral how easy it is to pay him a visit.”

  Frank scaled the wall with no problem, loped across the front lawn, climbed a grape arbor, and was through the ad-miraFs bedroom window in about thirty seconds. He waved at us.

  “But NIS put broken glass on top of the wall so no one could go over it.”

  “I guess they forgot a spot or two.”

  “Well. the dogs would stop anybody coming over the wall.”

  “Larry…”

  Larry produced a silenced 9mm automatic from his shoulder bag. “Hollow-point, subsonic ammo,” he said matter-offactly. “Deadly against dogs.”

  Admiral Mott’s brow furrowed. “What do you suggest, Captain?”

  “I’ll draw you up a long list of suggestions, sir, after we’ve done the complete survey — five days from now. But for now, why not put everyone on full security alert and have NIS button up your house. Meanwhile, we’ll try to take you hostage. And that way we’ll test some of the other security arrangements NIS has in place.”

  He shook my hand. “Sounds great, Captain. I’li be awaiting your report with interest. I hope to see you and your men before you leave.”

  “I think you can count on that, sir,” I said with a knowing smile.

  Both the NATO base and the Navy’s Neapolitan facility were already at full alert because of the Achille Lauro incident, which was under way while we were in Naples. But security was still a joke. We kidnapped Admiral Mott that first night. He made a well-received speech at the NATO base Allied Officers’ Club — the event was publicized on television, no less. His wife looked on proudly. We shadowed him so heavy-handedly that even Egyptians would have sensed something was amiss. NIS saw zippo. We took pictures; we asked questions; we made pests of ourselves. Nothing. Not even a nibble.

  Admiral Mott’s armed-and-dangerous driver never saw us either. We bullied our way into the 0 Club without benefit of ID cards by talking tough and acting as if we owned the place. The guards let us through.

  We followed Mott’s car on the base, and just,as it turned into the hills, we ran it off the road, pinning it against some trees.

  Larry and Frank jumped out, balaclava hoods over their faces and guns drawn. They subdued the armed driver, pulled the admiral through the door, hog-tied and blindfolded him, then tossed him unceremoniously into the trunk of their car.

  Mrs. Mott went absolutely bonkers. This was not a diversion she’d signed on for.

  Ho-Ho-Ho waved politely as he wheehed and sped away.

  “Ciao, Mrs. Mott,” he called out.

  They drove the admiral to his house — he actually arrived before his wife did — and dropped him off. Larry told me that he was shaken, but smiling gamely, and muttering evil things about NIS as he staggered through his front gate.

  That night, Larry and Frank staked out Casa Mott, hidden in trees well inside the high walls. Larry even dropped into the front yard and made friends with the two huge bullmastiff watchdogs. He tied notes around their necks as evidence he’d — played with them.‘s Then, precisely at 0730, the admiral’s car pulled up to drive him to the office. The driver honked. Admiral Mott came out his front door and walked toward his gate.

  Larry dropped out of the tree. “Bon giorno, Ammiragho.”

  “Oh, no — not again.”

  “Si, Ammiraglio, ripetutamente.” He stuck a pistol in the admiral’s ribs, and they marched out toward the car in lockstep. The driver and a Navy Security men were sitting in the front seat. Larry was polite. He and the admiral chatted. No one noticed anything askew.

  Together, they rode to the naval base, through the gate, past the Marines, and up the elevator into the command center. “Now we open your safe and I get to see all the operational codes,” Larry suggested.

  “Would you settle for an excellent cup of espresso instead?”

  Larry shook his head. “Nope, sir. But do you have any sea gulls?”

  Later in the day, Frank and Larry “assassinated” officers.

  Navy personnel were constantly being warned about the dire consequences of wearing uniforms to work and using NATO license plates on their cars. But uniforms were cheaper than dwies, and NATO plates meant easy parking in restricted areas.

  So, Larry and Frank took their motor scooters and waited by the Navy Base gate. They followed cars with NATO plates or cars driven by men wearing Navy tan jackets — rank and all — over their ciwy shirts. They’d pull up at a stoplight and slap a paper sticker on the driver’s-side window. Then they’d roar off into traffic. The stickers had bullet holes and the legend, “You are one dead Navy asshole, sir. Love and kisses, the Red Brigades.” They were hell to peel off, too;

  We had a productive five days- But talk about agitated admirals. By the time we flew out of Naples for London and home, Admiral Mott had reamed his security people new sphincters and sent a barrage of rockets to NIS headquarters about the idiots allegedly sent out to provide for his safekeeping- He may have been happy with our work, but the officer in charge of those “idiots” at NIS, on the other hand, was decidedly less than enthralled with our performance. And as luck would have it, the officer in charge was none other than “Irish” Flynn — the old and dear pal of our new boss, Admiral Jones.

  Strike two.

  My career died the day Ace left for Hawaii, but I didn’t know it. Others did. But not me. Besotted with my own immortality, I kept playing my own version of hardbali. My marriage had come unraveled, and Red Cell was my life, my existence, my reason for living. Besides, I had it all: I wore four stripes. I’d assembled what I believed to be the best team of unconventional warriors in the world. We worked where and how I wanted to work; we did what I wanted us to do.

  For the first time in my career, no one was yanking my leash; no one muzzled me or tied me down.

  Then, Ace left to become CIN
CPACFLT, and the thick, protective wall that had been protecting my back and flanks was gone.

  Ace’s former executive assistant, Phil Dur, tried to tell me, but I wouldn’t listen. I hadn’t been back from Naples more than a week when I ran into Phil as I was sailing the corridors outside OP-06, trying to find something or other. I hadn’t seen him in a while — at least since Ace had left for Pear!

  Harbor.

  I liked Phil. A big, moon-faced guy who moved like a Polack pulling tackle from Penn State, he’d worked hard and loyally for Ace. He slammed me on the shoulder and asked how things were going. 1 gave him a two-minute dump on our op in Naples that had him in stitches. The fact that we’d kidnapped Admiral Mott twice in twelve hours brought a roar to his throat.

  Then he drew me aside. “Dick, do yourself a favor.”

  “Sure.”

  “Get out of town.”

  “What—”

  He flicked a thumb toward the OP-06 doorway. “They don’t want you around anymore. You’re an embarrassment. You give them grief. Admirals write letters of complaint, and the new guy takes them seriously. Ace could cover your ass.

  Now — it ain’t gonna happen.“

  “I’m a big boy, Phil.”

  “They’re gonna get you. They’re beginning to put an investigation together — initiated by your old ‘pals’ from the West Coast.”

  “That’s a load of crap. Besides, I’ve got nothing to hide. I can take anything they throw at me.”

  He backed me up against the corridor wall. “You could be the biggest man on the whole frigging campus, and it won’t mean a goddamn thing- Believe me, Dick, they’re gonna hang you out to dry.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “It took a long time for you to get your four stripes. Want to keep ‘em? Get the hell out of town.”

  But I knew better. “Screw ‘em all,” I told him. “I’m staying.”

  Strike three.

  Chapter 23

  I should have taken Phil Dur’s advice. Because, while Red Cell blithely played Peck’s Bad Boys all over the world, NIS, under “Irish” Rynn, was stealthily organizing its own guerrilla attack — on me, and on SEAL Team Six.