Dead or Alive

by Grant Blackwood

  “On it!” Tait replied.

  Up the trail, Barnes had found a niche between some rocks and had his M249 SAW-Squad Automatic Weapon-up on its tripod. The muzzle started flashing. Its windshield spider-webbed, the UAZ started backing up now, the 12.7-millimeter still pumping rounds into the hillside. From Tait’s direction Driscoll heard the crump of a grenade, then another, then two more in quick succession. Now more shouting in Arabic. Screams. It took a half-second for Driscoll to realize the screams were coming from behind. He spun, M4 to his shoulder. Fifteen meters up the trail, Gomez’s prisoner was on his feet, facing the UAZ and shouting. Driscoll caught a snippet-Shoot me… Shoot me…-and then the top of the man’s head exploded and he toppled backward.

  “Barnes, get that thing stopped!” Driscoll shouted.

  In answer, the SAW’s tracers dropped from the UAZ’s cab and roof to its front grille, which began sparking. Bullets thudded into the engine block, followed seconds later by a geyser of steam. The driver’s-side door opened and a figure staggered out. The SAW cut him down. In the truck’s bed, the NSV went silent, and Driscoll could see a figure scrambling. Reloading. Driscoll turned around and signaled to Peterson and Deacons-grenades-but they were already on their feet, arms cocked. The first grenade went long and right, exploding harmlessly behind the UAZ, but the second landed beside the truck’s rear tire. The explosion lifted the truck’s rear end a few inches off the ground. The gunner in the bed tumbled over the side and lay still.

  Driscoll turned back, scanned the far cliff wall through the NV. He counted six gomers, all prone and pouring fire into Tait’s position. “Light those fuckers up!” Driscoll ordered, and eleven guns began hosing down the cliff face. Thirty seconds was all it took. “Cease fire, cease fire!” Driscoll ordered. The gunfire ceased. He got on the radio: “Tait, head count.”

  “Still got four. Caught a few rock splinters, but we’re good.”

  “Check the tents, mop it up.”

  “Roger.”

  Driscoll picked his way up the trail, checking each man in turn and finding only minor scrapes and cuts from flying rock. “Barnes, you and Deacons check the-”

  “Santa, you’re-”

  “What?”

  “Your shoulder. Sit down, Sam, sit down! Medic up!”

  Now Driscoll could feel the numbness, as though his right arm had fallen asleep from the shoulder down. He let Barnes sit him down on the trail. Collins, the team’s second medic, came running up. He knelt down, and he and Barnes eased Driscoll’s pack off his right shoulder, then the left. Collins clicked on his hooded flashlight and examined Driscoll’s shoulder.

  “You got a rock splinter in there, Santa. About the size of my thumb.”

  “Ah, shit. Barnes, you and Deacons go check that truck.”

  “Got it, boss.”

  They trotted down the trail, then across to the truck. “Two dead,” Deacons called.

  “Frisk ’em, check for intel,” Driscoll said through gritted teeth. The numbness was giving way to white-hot pain.

  “You’re bleeding pretty bad,” Collins said. He pulled a field dressing from his pack and pressed it against the wound.

  “Pack it up as best you can.”

  Tait, on the radio: “Santa, we got four KIA and two wounded, both are on their way out.”

  “Roger. Intel check, then get back here.”

  Collins said, “I’m gonna call for an evac-”

  “Bullshit. In about fifteen minutes we’re gonna be drowning in gomers. We’re humping out of here. Get me up.”

  6

  IT WAS GOING TO BE a sad day, Clark knew. His gear was already packed-Sandy always handled that, as efficiently as ever. It would be the same at Ding’s place-Patsy had learned packing from her mother. Rainbow Six was moving into its second generation, much of the original crew gone by now, rotated back stateside in the case of the Americans, mainly back for Fort Bragg and Delta School, or Coronado, California, where the Navy trained its SEAL candidates, there to tell such stories as the rules allowed over beers to a very few trusted fellow instructors. Every so often they’d come through Hereford in Wales, to drink pints of John Courage at the Green Dragon’s comfortable bar and trade war stories rather more freely with fellow graduates of the Men of Black. The locals knew who they were, but they were as security-conscious as the Security Service agents-called “Five” men in a nod to the former British MI-5-who hung out there, too.

  Nothing was permanent in the service, regardless of the country. This was healthy for the organizations, always bringing in fresh people, some of them with fresh ideas, and it made for warm reunions in the most unlikely of places-a lot of them airport terminals, all over the freaking world-and a lot of beers to be drunk and handshakes to be exchanged before the departing flights were called. But the impermanence and uncertainty wore at you over time. You started wondering when a close friend and colleague would be called away, to disappear into some other compartment of the “black” world, often remembered but rarely seen again. Clark had seen a lot of friends die on “training missions”-which usually meant catching a bullet in a denied area. But such things were the cost of belonging to this exclusive fraternity, and there was no changing it. As the SEALs were fond of saying, “You don’t have to like it; you just have to do it.”

  Eddie Price, for example, had taken retirement as Regimental Sergeant Major of the 22nd Special Air Service Regiment, and was now the Yeoman Gaoler at Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress, the Tower of London. John and Ding had both wondered if the UK’s Chief of State understood how much more secure her Palace and Fortress was today, and if Price’s ceremonial ax (the Yeoman Gaoler is the official executioner there) had a proper edge to it. For damned sure he still did his morning run and PT, and woe betide any member of the regular-Army security force quartered there who didn’t have his boots spit-shined, his gig-lines in order, and his rifle cleaner than when it had left the factory.

  It was a damned shame that you had to get old, John Clark told himself, close enough to sixty to see the shadow of it, and the worst part of getting old was that you could remember being young, even the things best forgotten, in his case. Memories were a double-edged sword.

  “Hey, Mr. C.,” said a familiar voice at the front door. “Hell of a day out, isn’t it?”

  “Ding, we talked about this,” John said without turning.

  “Sorry… John.”

  It had taken John Clark years to get Chavez, colleague and son-in-law, to call him by his first name, and even now Ding was having trouble with it.

  “Ready if somebody tries to hijack the flight?”

  “Mr. Beretta is in his usual place,” Ding responded. They were among the handful of people in Britain who got to carry firearms, and such privileges were not lightly set aside.

  “How are Johnny and Patsy?”

  “The little guy is pretty excited about going home. We have a plan after we get there?”

  “Not really. Tomorrow morning we make a courtesy call at Langley. I might want to drive over and see Jack in a day or two.”

  “See if he’s leaving footprints on the ceiling?” Ding asked with a chuckle.

  “More likely claw marks, if I know Jack.”

  “Retirement ain’t fun, I suppose.” Chavez didn’t push it further. That was a touchy subject for his father-in law. Time passed, no matter how much you wished it wouldn’t.

  “How’s Price handling it?”

  “Eddie? He takes an even strain with life-that’s how you sailors say it, right?”

  “Close enough for a doggie.”

  “Hey, man, I said ‘sailor,’ not ‘squid.’”

  “Duly noted, Domingo. I beg your pardon, Colonel.”

  Chavez enjoyed the next laugh. “Yeah, I’m gonna miss that.”

  “How’s Patsy?”

  “Better than the last pregnancy. Looks great. Feels great-least she says she does. Not a big complainer, Patsy. She’s a good girl, John-but then again, I ain’t te
lling you anything you didn’t already know, am I?”

  “Nope, but it’s always nice to hear it.”

  “Well, I have no complaints.” And if he did, he’d have to approach the subject with great diplomacy. But he didn’t. “The chopper is waiting, boss,” he added.

  “Damn.” A sad whisper.

  Sergeant Ivor Rogers had the luggage well in hand, loaded in a green British Army truck for the drive to the helipad, and he was waiting outside for his personal Brigadier, which was John’s virtual rank. The Brits were unusually conscious of rank and ceremony, and he saw more of that when he got outside. He’d hoped to have a low-profile departure, but the locals weren’t thinking that way. As they rolled onto the helipad, there was the entire Rainbow force, the shooters, the Intel support, even the team armorers-Rainbow had the best three gunsmiths in all of Britain-formed up-the local term was “paraded”-in whatever uniforms they were authorized to wear. There was even a squad from the SAS. Stone-faced, they collectively snapped to Present Arms, in the elegant three-count movement the British Army had adopted several centuries earlier. Tradition could be a beautiful thing.

  “Damn,” Clark muttered, getting out of the truck. He’d come pretty far for an old Navy chief bosun’s mate, but he’d taken a lot of strange steps along the way. Not knowing quite what to do, he figured he had to review the troops, as it were, and shake hands with all of them on the way to the MH-60K helicopter.

  It took more time than he’d expected. Nearly every person there got a word or two with the handshake. They all deserved it. His mind went back to 3rd SOG, a lifetime before. These were as good as those, hard to believe though that might be. He’d been young, proud, and immortal back then. And remarkably, he hadn’t died of being immortal, as so many good men had. Why? Luck, maybe. No other likely explanation. He’d learned caution, mostly in Vietnam. Learned from seeing men who’d not been lucky go down hard from making some dumb mistake, often as simple as not paying attention. Some chances you had to take, but you tried to run them through your mind first and take only the necessary chances. Those were plenty bad enough.

  Alice Foorgate and Helen Montgomery both gave him hugs. They’d been superb secretaries, and those were hard to find. Clark had been half tempted to try to find them jobs in the United States, but the Brits probably valued them as much as he had and would’ve put up a fight.

  And finally Alistair Stanley, the incoming boss, was standing at the end.

  “I’ll take good care of them, John,” he promised. They shook hands. There was not much else to be said. “Still no word on the next posting?”

  “I expect they’ll tell me before the next check comes.” The government was usually good about getting the paperwork done. Not much else, of course, but paperwork, surely.

  With nothing left to be said, Clark walked to the helicopter. Ding, Patsy, and J.C. were already strapped in, along with Sandy. J.C. especially loved flying, and he’d get a gut full in the next ten hours. On lifting off they turned southeast for Heathrow Terminal Four. Landing on their own pad, a van took them to the aircraft, and so they were absolved of passing through the magnetometers. It was a British Airways 777. The same type they’d flown over on four years earlier, then with the Basque terrorists aboard. They were in Spain, though in which prison and how the conditions were they’d never asked. Probably not the Waldorf Astoria.

  Are we fired, John?” Ding asked as the aircraft rotated off the Heathrow tarmac.

  “Probably not. Even if we are, they’re not going to call it that. They might make you a training officer down at The Farm. Me…? Well, they can keep me on the payroll a year or two, maybe I can hold down a desk in the operations center until they take my parking sticker away. We’re too senior to fire. Not worth the paperwork. They’re afraid we might talk to the wrong reporter.”

  “Yeah, you still owe Bob Holtzman a lunch, don’t you?”

  John almost spilled his preflight champagne at that reminder. “Well, I did give my word, didn’t I?”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, then Ding said, “So we make a courtesy call on Jack?”

  “We kinda sorta gotta, Domingo.”

  “I hear you. Hell, Jack Junior’s out of school now, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah. Not sure what he’s doing, though.”

  “Some rich-kid job, I bet. Stocks and bonds, money shit, I bet.”

  “Well, what were you doing at that age?”

  “Learning how to handle a dead drop from you, down at The Farm, and studying nights at George Mason University. Sleepwalking, mostly.”

  “But you got your master’s, as I recall. Lot more than I ever got.”

  “Yeah. I got a piece of paper that says I’m smart. You left dead bodies all over the world.” Fortunately, it was virtually impossible to bug an airliner’s cabin.

  “Call it foreign-policy laboratory work,” Clark suggested, checking the first-class menu. At least British Airways pretended to serve decent food, though why airlines didn’t just stock up on Big Macs and fries still mystified him. Or maybe a Domino’s pizza. All the money they’d save-but the McDonald’s in the UK just didn’t seem to have the right beef. In Italy it was even worse. But their national dish was veal Milanese, and that had a Big Mac beat. “You worried?”

  “About having a job? Not really. I can always make real money consulting. You know, the two of us could start up a company, executive security or like that, and really clean up. I’d do the planning, and you’d do the actual protection. You know, just stand there and stare at people in that special ‘don’t fuck with me’ way you do.”

  “Too old for that, Domingo.”

  “Ain’t nobody dumb enough to kick an old lion in the ass, John. I’m too short to scare bad guys away.”

  “Bullshit. I wouldn’t mess with you for the fun of it.”

  Chavez had rarely received that magnitude of compliment. He was overly sensitive about his diminutive height-his wife was an inch taller-but it had its tactical value. Over the years, several people had underestimated him and then come within his reach. Not professionals. Those could read his eyes and see the danger that lay behind them. When he bothered to turn the lights on. It rarely came to that, though one street tough in east London had gotten impolite outside a pub. He’d been awakened later with a pint of beer and a playing card tucked in his pocket. It was the queen of clubs, but the back of the card had been a glossy black. Such instances were rare. England remained a civilized country for the most part, and Chavez never went looking for trouble. He’d learned that lesson over the years. The black deck of cards was an unauthorized souvenir for the Men of Black. The newspapers had picked up on it, and Clark had come down hard on the men who carried the cards. But not that hard. There was security, and there was panache. The boys he’d left behind in Wales had both, and that, really, was okay, as long as the troops knew where the line was.

  “What do you think our best job was?”

  “Gotta be the amusement park. Malloy did a great job of setting your team down on the castle, and the takedown you did was damned near perfect, especially since we couldn’t rehearse it.”

  “Damn, those were good troops,” Domingo agreed with a smile. “My old Ninjas didn’t even come close, and I thought they were as good as soldiers got.”

  “They were, but experience counts for a lot.” Every one of the Rainbow team was at least an E-6 or equivalent, which took some years in uniform to achieve. “A lot of smarts comes along with time, and it’s not the sort of thing you get out of a book. Then we trained the hell out of them.”

  “Tell me about it. If I run any more, I’ll need two new legs.”

  Clark snorted. “You’re still a pup. But I’ll tell ya this: I’ve never seen a better bunch of triggers, and I’ve seen a fair share. Christ, it’s like they were born with H-and-P’s in their hands. How about it, Ding, got a personal champ?”

  “Have to measure it with an O-scope and calipers. I’d take Eddie Price for brains. Weber or
Johnston on a rifle, hell, there ain’t nothing to choose from. For short guns, that little Frenchie, Loiselle… He could have scared Doc Holliday out of Tombstone. But you know, all you can really do is put a bullet in the X-ring. Dead is dead. We could all do it, close or far, day or night, awake or asleep, drunk or sober.”

  “Which is why we’re paid the big money.”

  “Shame they’re pulling back on the reins.”

  “A damned shame.”

  “Why, goddamn it? I just don’t get it.”

  “Because the European terrorists have gone to ground. We shut them down, Ding, and in the process worked ourselves out of a full-time job. At least they didn’t pull the plug altogether. Given the nature of politics, we’ll call that a success and ride into the sunset.”

  “With a pat on the back and an attaboy.”

  “You expect gratitude from democratic governments?” John asked with a slight grimace. “You poor, naive boy.”

  The European Union bureaucrats had been the main reason. No European countries tolerated capital punishment anymore-what the common folk might have wanted was not considered, of course-and one such representative of the people had said aloud and repeatedly that the Rainbow team had been too ruthless. Whether or not he insisted on humane capture and medical treatment for rabid dogs had never quite been asked. The people had never disapproved of team actions in any country, but their kind and gentle bureaucrats had gotten their panties in a wad, and those faceless people had the real political power. Like every place else in the civilized world.

  “You know, in Sweden it’s illegal to raise calves the efficient way. You have to give them social contact with other critters. Next you won’t be able to cut their balls off until they get laid at least once,” Chavez grumped.

  “Seems reasonable to me. That way they’ll know what they’re missing.” Clark chuckled. “One less thing for the cowboys to have to do. Probably not a fun job for a man to do that to somebody else.”