Raul was batting third, and his groundball led to a double play, but Eric managed to score their first run. Lance was batting cleanup and managed to tease everyone with a shot to the wall, but it was caught with a sensational play from the professional centerfielder.
The team took the field with confidence and poise and proceeded to get shelled for ten minutes with the score at the end of one, four to one. Moose was throwing hard—the problem was these guys were just damn good.
For baseball fans that weren’t into pitching duels, it was a fun game to watch, with the lead changing twice by the time they got to the ninth inning. At the bottom of the ninth, the prince’s team had tied the game, and they went into extra innings.
Mackey welcomed his players back into the dugout for the top of the tenth. “I know my team isn’t tired. My team is the most bad-ass assemblage of war lords on the motherfucking planet. Look over at their dugout! A bunch of retirees who need oxygen. No one needs to hit a homer. Just make them keep running around. They’re tired and they don’t give a shit if they win—they’re getting paid either way. You do give a shit if you win, because if you lose I will have you running and working out until you die. Now get out there and hit the ball. And cheat if you have to!”
It was bottom of the order, and Moose was up. He looked at his normal bat, and then decided on the corked one instead. He looked at Eric and whispered, “You stay in the on-deck circle and grab this friggin bat if it breaks.”
“Roger that. Send it downrange,” said Eric quietly.
Moose walked out to the plate and looked at the other pitcher. They had replaced their starter in the seventh inning, and Moose had switched places with Ernie P. in the eighth. Moose had thrown a lot of pitches, but he was a beast, and was fresh and itching to swing.
After watching the first two, Moose made contact with the third pitch and sent it so far it bounced off the scoreboard four hundred feet away. He threw the bat to Eric, who jogged it back to the dugout. The American catcher, retired from the Twins, stood up and pulled his mask off. He turned to the umpire and screamed “Bullshit!” as Moose rounded second. While the catcher complained to the umpire, Eric and his teammates switched bats, which they then produced for the umpire, who inspected it, tapped it, hefted it, and examined it again for several minutes. He was still holding it when Moose crossed home plate and demanded to know what they were doing.
The umpire declared the bat was legal, to which Moose agreed. “Of course it is! It’s not my fault if I hit it out of the dome.” He smiled and jogged back to the dugout where his teammates snickered and avoided eye contact.
Eric was now up, and couldn’t use the loaded bat with everyone now watching. Instead, he laid down a bunt and sprinted like a fresh track star to first, beating the throw. The other team was showing their fatigue and frustration, and the prince called the coach, demanding a pitching change. The coach reluctantly put in the third pitcher, who was an Arab, and not a professional. And while it wasn’t what he wanted to do strategically, he wasn’t going to ever say no to the sheikh.
The new pitcher took the mound and warmed up. He looked terrified. The Navy All Stars stood in the dugout watching him warm up and licked their lips.
Ripper walked to the plate. The pitcher’s first batter was the largest man he’d seen in years with arms that barely fit in his shirt sleeves. The pitcher kicked the dirt, played with his hat, and talked to himself. He threw the first pitch, which literally bounced in front of the plate, the catcher making a good stop. The catcher, another American ringer, yelled encouragement in English. The second pitch hit Ripper in the upper arm, and Ripper took a step towards him. He stared at the terrified kid a moment, then dropped the bat and jogged to first. Mackey took great pleasure watching the prince’s face up in the stands. The man was a nice shade of purple.
Raul was up next, and the poor kid on the mound aimed a pitch instead of throwing it. It hung over the plate and Raul crushed it to the left field alley. A stand up double had Ripper crossing home plate. The go-ahead run. From there, the wheels came off the bus. The catcher twice asked to inspect the bat, but chose two times when they were legitimate bats. When two men were on base and Jon Cohen got to the plate, he grabbed another cork special and put it over the wall for a three-run homer. Mackey was praying the umpire’s hearing wasn’t as good as his. The ball definitely sounded funny coming off the bat, but Raul had grabbed the bat and thrown it into the dugout before it could be inspected. By the time the home team was back up, the score was eleven to seven.
Ernie P. was fresh and feeling good. While he didn’t have Moose’s power, his curves and sliders were good stuff, and with only one single, they retired the side and won the game. The prince was obviously outraged, after paying huge sums of money to import ringers to win the game, but he was obliged to once again offer a feast to his guests. This time, Mackey happily accepted, and his team hit the showers.
2 PT- “Physical training”
Chapter 22
Post Game
The Navy All Stars enjoyed hot showers in the prince’s locker room. It was nicer than most resorts in the world, and the men took their time with fancy soap and shampoo, steam showers and whirlpool baths.
Bathroom attendants brought them lemon-water and fruit platters to enjoy as they changed into their team sweat suits. Ninety minutes later, the fresh-looking crew followed Mackey to the bus, which brought them back to the prince’s palace located only a mile away. The team bus rumbled along a quarter-mile long private cobblestone driveway, lined with palm trees and statues. The men were in awe when the bus pulled up in front of the palace. It was surreal in its opulence, with architecture that was a cross between Arab mosque and Baroque, with endless statues and fountains.
The team was received outside the palace by a long line of servants and one of the prince’s wives. They were then escorted through a long marble hallway that was as fine in accoutrements as any five-star hotel or art museum. The men looked around in silent amazement at the paintings, statues, chandeliers, and furniture. The marble for the walls and floors had been imported from Italy and Africa and masterfully put together to from intricate designs. The grand ballroom, where they would be dining, was big enough to accommodate a hundred dinner guests at one long table. The table itself was mahogany with mother of pearl inlay and solid gold legs that had been hand engraved and adorned with gemstones. Everywhere the men looked, they stared in amazement.
Ernie P. and Smitty were now about to get to work. Each of them had multiple electronic listening devices in hidden pockets all over their clothes. The small devices had been designed by Langley’s techs to intercept wireless communications including all Wi-Fi, phone, and satellite communications that would occur inside the palace once they were operating. The only downside to these high-tech toys was that they needed to be inside the network they were bugging. It was for this reason only that they had asked for a rematch and planned on being in the palace after the game.
“Dude’s table is bigger than the apartment building where I grew up,” whispered Earl to Raul.
“Yeah, man, no shit. Probably more expensive, too. I was in a few palaces in Iraq during the war, but they were blown up and looted already. This shit’s off the hook, bro,” said Raul.
The three hours that followed were course after course of amazing gourmet food. It was mostly French food, with some local Middle Eastern favorites mixed in as well. The men ate like they were going to the electric chair. As they awaited desert, Smitty asked a waiter where the men’s room was. As he walked out of the dining room, he stopped at the prince’s chair at the head of the table.
“Excuse me, your eminence, but I was wondering, do you have a computer somewhere that I could use? I’d love to check in at home with a quick email. We just had a baby, and I’m missing my new son,” lied Smitty.
“You are Joe Smith, the infielder. You played very well today,�
�� said the prince. “Of course, you may help yourself to a computer.” The prince snapped his fingers, and a servant quickly came to his side. The prince said a few words in Arabic, and the man motioned for Joe to follow him.
Smitty walked a long hallway to another room, were there was an ornate antique desk of carved and inlaid wood that cost more than Smitty’s apartment. The man pointed to a computer desktop and walked over, waking up the hibernating machine and keying in the password. He then opened a drawer and pulled out another keyboard, this one in English, and turned it on after he turned the first one off. The machine found the new keyboard, and they were all set. In broken English, the servant said, “I wait,” and walked outside the doorway.
Smitty slid a small sticky device, no bigger than a sunflower seed out of a plastic packet in his pocket. Figuring he was on close circuit TV, Smitty concealed his movement. He leaned forward like he was staring at the screen and reached under the desk above his knees. He moved his fingers around until he found a tiny opening were he pushed the device. He then quickly checked over his shoulder and made sure the servant was still outside. He began typing into a false email account that looked innocent enough with the name mrsrachaelsmith, and he opened up the email that had been left for him by the Langley techs. By opening the mail, he released a program into the machine that would be undetectable to any virus software. The program would infiltrate every computer on the network and would turn this machine into a wireless hunter that would also find every other machine within the palace and pull its data. The small seed in the desk would bug every phone and dish antennae. To keep up appearances, Smitty sat back and looked lovingly at a baby picture. He typed in big letters, “I love you and miss you both so much,” then sent the email. He closed up the server and left, thanking the servant and returning to dinner.
* * *
“I love you, too, Smitty,” said Kim Elton to her computer screen in Langley. She watched a tree open up on her screen that began showing computer after computer popping up on the prince’s network. Twenty-two machines, some of which were backup drives, were now wide open for review. Kim grabbed her phone. “Marty—you seeing this?” she asked one of her tech guru’s buried in another room.
“All over it, boss. Already copying every single piece of data. A couple of the servers have ten terabytes on them. We’ll have our own systems running this stuff all night. It’s a huge bingo. I’ve also got the history on every one of these—even the ones they think they erased. Give me a day or two and I’ll have his entire life story including financials for you.”
“Outstanding.” She hung up with him and called Eric Chow in another tech room. “Eric, you catching anything from the new target?”
“Hell, yeah. We’re five by five—clear as a bell. Recording multiple calls already. Everything will be run for hidden codes. Hey, if you’re interested, they have three televisions watching Al Jazeera and one watching porn, which I think is illegal in the Kingdom. They cut off your hand for stealing; what do they cut off for watching porn?” He laughed.
Kim returned the laugh. “Great job, Eric. Log and copy everything. Anything real weird pops up, you call me any time of day or night on my cell.”
“You mean like a goat showing up in the porn?”
“No, I said weird. I’m pretty sure goats and camels are fair game.” She hung up and called Dex.
“Boss. We’re in.”
Chapter 23
Al Udeid Air Base
The team drove by bus from the prince’s palace to their new home almost six hours away at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. With Doha coming up in the chatter on several occasions, it made more sense to stay there than in Riyadh. They could have arranged for a plane and a quick trip, but Mackey wanted everyone to see the terrain. Most of the drive was through dessert wasteland, with the occasional small village or smattering of farms that had irrigation systems.
“I changed my watch when we landed,” said Cascaes to Mackey. “But I don’t think I have the right century.”
Mackey looked at the line of men on camels off in the distance and nodded. “Sure doesn’t look like Iowa.”
Chris looked out at the wasteland. “Doesn’t look like earth. I’m guessing the crop dusting business isn’t real big out here.”
“Not so much. Besides, they have plenty of dust already.”
Moose was sitting in the seat across the aisle from them. “Why is it that the most lethal amphibious fighting force in the world is in the middle of a fucking dessert?” he asked. He added, “Sir.”
Mack laughed. “Because you go wherever the action is and you love it. If you need water to fight, I’ll sprinkle some on you.”
Moose gave him a thumbs up. “That’s us. Instant ass kicking fighting force, just add water to activate.”
The men eventually fell asleep as it grew dark. The bus rolled along for hours of highway. When they reached Qatar, the driver put on the lights inside the bus, and a Qatari border guard boarded the bus. Mackey spoke to him for a while, showed him his documents, and was allowed through the small border crossing.
They reached Al Udeid forty minutes later, a beacon of lights in the middle of more nothingness. With over ten thousand US military personal, it was a busy place. The Marine Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 3 was stationed there, and their EA-6B Prowlers were backed into bombproof hangers along the runway. A large sign read “Moon Dogs” with a motto underneath, “Not seeing is believing.” The Marine air element was tasked with conducting airborne electronic warfare, day or night, in all weather, to support the Marine Ground-Air Task Force. These days, they were flying missions in Afghanistan.
Earl Jones walked up the aisle and stood near Mackey and Cascaes. “Jarheads? Shit! You said airbase, I was thinking Air Force. Then I knew we’d have a nice hooch. This is a Marine Air Wing—we might as well sleep outside.”
“It won’t be so bad. The Qataris are happy to have us here. The accommodations will be just fine. Besides, I’m hoping we’ll be out working soon.”
Raul Santos, another Marine Recondo yelled from his seat. “No man, Earl’s hardcore. He needs to sleep outside. Keep him tough.”
Earl gave him the finger.
Raul looked at Eric, the only other Marine. “You see that, man? No respect.”
Earl looked back at Mackey. “Hey, skipper, what’s a Moon Dog?”
Mackey laughed. “Electronics warfare squadron. Just a nickname. The third squadron does electronic jamming. When you jarheads were humping around in A-Stan, the Prowlers were flying overhead knocking out all the cell phones so the hajjis couldn’t make a call and set off an IED. They also take out enemy radar and disrupt communications.”
Earl nodded and grumbled. “Jar heads. Food’s gonna suck.”
Eric was looking out the window. “This country is a shitty place for a sniper,” he mumbled, half to himself. He didn’t like any place that didn’t offer high ground with concealment. Wide open rolling wasteland could be used to hide, but it made for lousy line of sight.
Raul shook his head. “Friggin country boy—always looking for someplace to hide and whack somebody.”
Eric looked at him and shrugged.
* * *
The bus pulled up in front of a large building that looked like every other building. A Marine staff sergeant was there to greet them. On the side of the building was another sign. In big red letters, under the Marine Corps Globe and Anchor, was written:
WE STOLE THE EAGLE FROM THE AIR FORCE, THE ANCHOR FROM THE NAVY, AND THE ROPE FROM THE ARMY.
ON THE SEVENTH DAY WHILE GOD RESTED, WE OVERRAN HIS PERIMETER, STOLE THE GLOBE AND WE’VE BEEN RUNNING THE WHOLE SHOW EVER SINCE
The men piled out of the bus and stretched. They were still dressed in their white Navy All Star sweat suits, with the red and blue stars and stripes design. Mackey said hello to the staff sergeant, who offered to lead them d
own to their sleeping quarters. They had been given a wing upstairs on the second floor that was separated from the rest of the Marine detail housed there.
“General Gallo says your team gets the royal treatment. Whatever you need that we can supply is yours. You guys played the Saudis today?”
“Yeah. A prince out there, with his personal billion dollar stadium. He even brought in ringers from the states,” said Mackey.
The young Marine grimaced. “Didn’t go well, huh?”
“Fuck that. We kicked his ass,” said Mackey.
“Ooohhh Rrrraaaa!” replied the Marine with a fist bump. “Outstanding, sir. You need anything, pick up a phone and dial twenty-five. That’s either me or my staff. Whatever you need. Mess opens at oh-five hundred because of the early flyers. It’s two buildings over, the green door. Good night, sir.”
The Team Page 9