Most of us were going there, that is. A small group was simultaneously visiting the prime minister to pay our regards, Red Cell style.
Guess which group I was with.
* * *
There were plenty of guards around the prime minister’s residence, and a well-trained security detail inside. But while I don’t want to make anything too easy for anyone out there, a frontal assault would not have been out of the question. Remember, the goal of most terrorists is footage on the nightly news.
But we weren’t rolling tanks up to the front door of the palace. We went up in a tow truck.
We meaning myself, Sergeant Phurem, and Corporal Sesha Nadar, Phurem’s more-or-less sidekick.
I was at the wheel. My head was wrapped to make me look like a Sikh, and I had the faded coveralls of an army grease monkey. Corporal Nadar’s face was smudged with grease, and Sergeant Phurem had the universal sign of authority — a clipboard.
The sergeant sprang from the truck as we drove up to the gate.
“Where is the Mercedes we’re to be working on?” he asked, tapping the back of the board on his knuckles. “What is its problem?”
The sentry looked at him as if he had stepped off a flying saucer.
“Bad gas, no doubt. We’ve had two other vehicles with the same problem this week.” The sergeant paused, glancing at his clipboard. “We were told the car would be waiting. Should I guess that you weren’t even told?”
The sergeant was speaking English, though I barely understood him. The sentry said something in Hindi, and the two of them were off to the races, discussing bad gas and car parts, complaining about bureaucracy and the fact that no one ever told the guys on the ground what the hell was going on.
And do you know about the new salary freeze they’ve proposed? I haven’t had a raise in three years!
The corporal and I sat in the front of the truck, trying to look as bored as possible. In fact, I think Nadar may have been dozing. When Sergeant Phurem raised his left hand, gesturing as he pontificated about some intricacy involving fuel injection, I poked Nadar. He picked up his cell phone and hit one of the presets.
The phone in the guard booth rang.
What a coinky dink.
The sentry who had been talking to Sergeant Phurem went to answer the phone. The two other guards eyed the truck warily. It was hard for them to see into the cab. It was dark, we’d pulled to the side to make sure the light didn’t glare into the cab, and we were a few feet above them to boot. So it would have been impossible to see the corporal, much less make out the fact that he was on the cell phone.
No, not a special phone. We hadn’t even bothered with reprogramming the ID to make it look as if the call came from the maintenance office where the corporal claimed to be calling from.
The conversation was short, covering just the pertinent facts: one of the minister’s bodyguards’ vehicles had to be fixed before sunup, and a crew was on its way.
“Just like everything else around here, an hour and a half late,” the guard told Sergeant Phurem. “And then he yells at me, like I have anything to do with any of this.”
“Try working for them,” commiserated the sergeant. “But I hope you have a good stomach for that.”
“I would not trade jobs with you for anything in the world,” said the sentry, pulling back the gate. “My job is better than most.”
* * *
You almost feel guilty in a situation like that.
Almost.
* * *
We had obtained a set of IDs a few nights before by visiting a café where members of one of the government motor pools hang out. Corporal Nadar had put some real effort into the task, taking on the job of a waiter. That made grabbing the IDs off coats and in one case a pants pocket relatively easy. All the time he was hustling tea and soft drinks through the crowd.
Yours truly had a role as a diversionary guest star, a foreign visitor being fawned over when recognized by a pair of starstruck Americans out for their first Indian tea.
Trace and Shotgun made such a lovely couple.
But all that effort proved unnecessary. We didn’t even need the IDs: the truck and clipboard were authority enough.
Once past the front gate, we moved around with impunity — not surprising, since generally anyone on the inside figures that anyone else they see belongs there. Because the credentials were already checked at the gate, right?
To be fair, we were attacking the soft underbelly of the security system. There was only one guard on duty at the garage. He yawned at us, and shrugged when the sergeant asked him which car it was that we were supposed to work on.
Five minutes later, we’d wired all four vehicles so that they’d work only if we wanted them to. (You know those remote start devices that let you get your car nice and toasty on a cold winter’s morning? Same principle, slightly different specifics, and radically different application.)
Sergeant Phurem checked his watch. It was three minutes past five. The fun was just about to begin.
( III )
Even I can’t be in two places at one time, though I enjoy creating the illusion. So my account of what happened next depends largely on what various people reported to me. It’s in the ballpark, though one or two details may be slightly off-kilter.
While we were playing tow truck repairmen, the rest of Special Squadron Zero was fanning out near the dorm where the athletes were sleeping. Three shooters were already in the building, disguised as janitorial staff members, mopping up the hall on the late shift. They had more than Spic and Span in their wash buckets: all three had tear gas grenades and a few flash-bangs to add to the excitement.
This was just an exercise, and we didn’t want the athletes to get hurt, either by jumping from a window or doing something really foolish like resisting. So we’d taken the precaution of printing up notices warning them what was going on. The janitors began slipping them under the doors to the individual rooms at precisely five A.M.
About five minutes later, a pair of drunken buffoons were singing loudly as they walked up the steps to the main building.
I’m not sure what the song was, but it certainly attracted the guards’ attention. They both came down to shoo the drunks away.
Four team members slipped into the building behind them.
They intended on simply staring down the guard at the security desk in the front hallway, flashing their weapons, but it turned out they didn’t have to — they found him sleeping. They trussed him, put a funny clown mask on his face, then left a note indicating that he was “dead” and should look forward to his further incarnation as a water bug.
Flank secured, they went back out to the front, where the two guards were still haranguing the drunks. Two passing policemen had stopped to help corral the unruly men. The guards were just helping them into the car when they found themselves both locked in the back, unable to open the doors from the inside.
As soon as the door was locked, one of the policemen gave a sharp whistle. The back door of a panel van up the street opened, and four ninjas in black garb emerged. Two sprinkled booby traps along the street, while the others ran into the building.
The upstairs floors had two guards apiece. The policemen went upstairs to question the two about the disturbance outside. Neither man had heard anything — not to imply that they were sleeping at their posts. They were asked to come down and speak to the policemen’s supervisor at the sentry station on the first floor.
They shambled down the steps, into the waiting arms of two Special Squadron Zero members, who trussed them, then parked them next to the rest on the floor.
Unlike the students, the guards weren’t told what was going on. There was no sense being too nice to them; their lives were going to be shit after this anyway, and nothing Squadron Zero did would make them feel any better about their fate — or the people they were going to blame for it.
The guards on the top floor were not only awake, but were actually suspicious when the tw
o policemen came up to them. They asked questions about what was going on — the audacity! — and one even had the nerve to call down to the desk to see if he had been sent for.
“Yes,” answered the deskman. “We have problems with the police.”
He slammed down the phone. The row of captives soon had two more.
It was 0511. The operation was a little more than fifteen minutes old. The entire building was now in terrorist hands.
* * *
Over at the minister’s garage, Sergeant Phurem and Corporal Nadar shared a cigarette while waiting for the next stage of our operation to unfold.
We had a good view of the back of the house. I stood by the door, arms folded, and counted off the windows to find the minister’s room.
It was dark.
“Always hits the snooze button twice before getting up,” I told the others, checking my watch.
* * *
Neither Trace nor Doc had been alerted to the raid. It didn’t come as a surprise to either one, though, since they knew what we were up to and what the overall game plan was.
Doc was sleeping when they knocked on his door; he saw the gun, heard the explanation — “Just a drill; don’t be alarmed” — and rolled back over in bed mumbling something about needing his beauty rest. But with the building secure, the ninjas had orders to round up all the athletes and team personnel so they wouldn’t be harmed if things went wrong when the authorities responded. One of the soldiers shook his leg and insisted he get up. Doc grumbled, but decided to comply. He knew I’d be quizzing him on the squad’s work.
Trace, on the other hand …
Let’s put it this way: three Special Squadron Zero members were injured in the exercise. Two had broken kneecaps; the third had to have his jaw wired shut. There’s a rumor that he made a disparaging and potentially sexist remark during the proceedings, though fortunately for him the video the squad made of the takeover didn’t pick it up.
Trace might have worked her way through the entire squad had Doc not heard the ruckus on the floor below him. Realizing what was going on, he managed to convince a ninja to take him to talk to her; he found Trace loading one of the tear gas canisters into the grenade launcher.
“Good God, woman, show some restraint!” he yelled. “These are Dick’s guys.”
“All the more reason to kick them in the balls,” she said. But she put the launcher down.
The athletes were taken down a back stairwell to the cafeteria, where Captain Birla was waiting. He was in his dress whites, very spiffy — the glare blew out the chip on the video camera, so all you can see is this white flash moving back and forth at the far end of the room.
“Very sorry to bother you,” he told the athletes and their trainers. “We are conducting a review of the security procedures to improve protection. I realize that this is inconvenient for you, but I hope that you will agree the goal is worthwhile. We want to ensure your safety and that of everyone at the Games.”
The captain then released them to breakfast, asking them to stay in the cafeteria for their own safety until the exercise was concluded. This would happen very soon, he assured them; they would not miss any of their day’s workouts.
There was a bit of grumbling, but no outright protests.
The captain made eye contact with every athlete, shook all the coaches’ hands, then went back to the main floor to initiate phase two of the operation.
* * *
At exactly 0523, the light in the minister’s room flashed on.
I turned to my co-conspirators and told them that the minister had just woken up.
Five minutes later, a member of the Special Protection Group came into the garage, yawning and sucking down a steaming cup of strong tea.
Now let me say this about the SPG. They’re the equivalent of the American Secret Service, charged with protecting the Indian prime minister and other key members of the government. Their training is excellent. The men in the Transport Wing, a subgroup of Operations, are top notch drivers, able to handle all sorts of situations.
But like any service, SPG does have its weaknesses.
We’d been comparatively gentle with the security people over at the school, primarily because we knew that they weren’t going to be too hard to handle. But we didn’t take any chances with the driver.
We hit him with a baseball bat.
Actually, the electronic equivalent, though at the time he might have preferred the real thing.
A lot of police departments have started using Tasers when subduing unruly subjects. They have a number of advantages in nonlethal situations, and in fact their stopping power can actually be more dependable than the conventional bullets some cops carry.
There are downsides, of course, including the goofy wires that spin out from the weapons and deliver the shock.
The Taser Sergeant Phurem used on the driver was wireless. It delivers a shotgun shell-sized dart into the target.
These aren’t the darts you toss down at the pub on Friday nights. These slugs consist of a battery, a step-up transformer, and prongs that make the target a human lightbulb.
A malfunctioning lightbulb. Electricity surges through him for about twenty seconds, hitting him with wave after wave. This paralyzes his muscles and makes him tingly.
It’s not a good tingly. You’re left with a very serious headache. You really can’t move much for an hour, either.
The dart comes out of the gun so hard and so fast that it can bowl the victim over, not to mention leave a good-sized welt. In this case, the surge threw the driver against the wall he was next to. The hot tea he was carrying spattered all over his face, which probably wasn’t too pleasant either. He couldn’t yell, or at least didn’t, because the shock from the shell was messing up whatever mechanism it is that works your vocal chords.
We couldn’t do anything about it, either. The contractor who made our gun — I’m testing it for a concern in the Midwest — advised me not to touch the target for at least thirty seconds “out of an abundance of caution.”
The poor driver’s eyes bugged out. I’m sure he thought he was seeing death.
“It’s thirty seconds,” I told the corporal, counting it off on my watch. “Put him in the trunk.”
I unzipped my coveralls and took them off, revealing a suit remarkably similar to the one the Transport driver was wearing. I pulled a tie out of the pocket — clip-on; knots can be dangerous.
Even so, it had been a while since I wore one, and I felt a little uncomfortable as I drove the car around to the side entrance where the minister was waiting with two of his bodyguards. Sergeant Phurem was with me. I went up to the entrance slowly, avoiding the urge to scratch my collar, which was chafing badly. The sergeant got out and held open the back door, waiting for the minister to come out. One of the guards peeked through the inside door, then stepped back.
Out came the minister, trailed by his two bodyguards.
Just as the minister reached the car, a flash lit the night. The ground shook, and the air seemed to suck itself into a black hole.
Sergeant Phurem reacted exactly as a bodyguard is trained to act. He pushed the minister into the car and jumped on top of him.
The driver, yours truly, hit the gas.
A second explosion shook the ground as I veered away from the entrance. Corporal Nadar had gone ahead with the tow truck and was waiting a few yards ahead, just around a curve from the gate. He, too, stepped on the gas, gathering speed and momentum as he went down the driveway. One of the sentries came out to stop him, or at least see what was going on; the corporal, ducking as low as he could in the seat, clamped his foot down and rammed through the gate. We followed a second or two later.
One of the guards may have shot at us. The limo was bulletproof, and we were moving so fast that I really didn’t have time to notice.
“Sorry about this, sir,” said Sergeant Phurem, getting up off the minister. He pulled him up onto his seat.
“Special Squadron Zero, Pr
ime Minister. You requested that we test the security for the Commonwealth Games? I’m sorry to say that it is not quite up to acceptable standards.”
“Not quite,” agreed the minister, sliding back in the seat.
( IV )
Before leaving his residence, the prime minister had been alerted to the hostage situation by Captain Birla himself. The captain had obtained the prime minister’s private phone number from an overly talkative — and no doubt soon to be fired — secretary. He then made a second call to the local police, telling them where they could find their stolen squad car.
That done, he and the rest of the members of the Special Squadron vacated the building. Most of them went back to their barracks. The captain, still in dress uniform, strolled instead down the road a bit to a small tea shop for a spot of breakfast. He wanted to be in the vicinity when the police arrived, so he could evaluate their response.
We had similar plans.
I pulled into a large parking lot. Just as I did, a searchlight found the front of the sedan. The air quickly filled with dirt and grit as a helicopter appeared above the light. It was the same heli, as Captain Birla would have it, that we had flown into Pakistan a few nights before.
We got out of the car. Corporal Nadar had gone on to return the tow truck, leaving just the sergeant and me with the prime minister.
“Mr. Prime Minister, my name is Dick Marcinko. I’ve been helping your men work on the security arrangements.”
“Yes!” he said, practically shouting. Name recognition is a beautiful thing.
“Mr. Prime Minister, we’d like you to join us in the helicopter so you can observe the response to the hostage taking, both at your residence and the school. But we’re concerned that there might be some danger when the units realize that you’re gone and begin responding. We can drop you off at your office, or anywhere else you want to go.”
“Where exactly are you going?”
“We’re going to fly over the school and watch the response. After that, it will depend on what the response to your kidnapping is.”
RW16 - Domino Theory Page 12