RW16 - Domino Theory

by Richard Marcinko

  I tried not to huff too loudly as I ran the last twenty yards to a small stanchion where the others were crouched waiting. No matter how much you run during PT, sprints during combat are always ten times as hard.

  I think Junior might have smirked when I caught up to them, but if so he was smart enough to hold his tongue.

  “Weapons ready?” I asked when I caught my breath.

  They were both set. We pulled on our night goggles and took a last look around. The closest train car was fifty yards away.

  “Mongoose, you go to the door. Junior and I will cover you. Don’t trip.”

  Mongoose said something in Spanish that I didn’t catch. Probably he was saying what a genius I am.

  Then he ran off. I could hear his breath over the team radio.

  Kid huffs and puffs, and it’s because he’s working hard. A veteran huffs a little …

  Mongoose slowed as he reached the train car. He practically glided against it, putting up his hand and leaning gently against the base. He put his head against the wooden side, listening. He didn’t hear anything.

  I swear he tiptoed to the door. It had a big lock on it. He looked around, up, down, then he waved us forward.

  We checked the other side. Same thing.

  While Junior climbed up to the top, Mongoose ran to the second car. Once again, he found the doors locked, and no one around.

  “You sure these are the right cars?” I asked Junior.

  “Serial numbers match,” he said. “The records show they just came here. Do you remember seeing them the last time you were in the yard?”

  I didn’t, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t been here. I hadn’t been taking inventory.

  “Let’s have a look inside,” I said. “Bend over, Junior.”

  Hold the jokes.

  I retrieved the long-handled wire cutters from the back of his vest where we’d strapped it, then climbed up so I could reach the lock, which was mounted high on the car to make it harder to tamper with.

  Cutting the lock off was easy enough. Now we had to ask ourselves, was the car booby-trapped?

  I had a small device that checked for electric currents in my tactical vest. I ran it over the area near the door. There was nothing. But that only ruled out a battery-powered device. There were plenty of ways to rig something simple, like a hand grenade, so that pushing the door open would set it off. And given what we’d seen of People’s Islam so far, nothing could be taken for granted.

  We rigged a line to the handle, then moved back about thirty feet. If something blew, we might catch some splinters, but not the full force of the blast.

  “Pull,” I told Mongoose.

  He tugged. Nothing budged.

  “And you’ve been working out?” I said.

  He tugged again. The door stayed closed.

  “Maybe it’s time you tried steroids.”

  Junior grabbed the line. Both of them pulled. Nada.

  “All right, you sissy boys,” I said. “Let’s get a man on the rope.”

  They welcomed me with an assortment of tender endearments — which became a virtual shower when I, too, couldn’t pull the goddamn door back. All three of us tugging together, and the thing stayed closed.

  “I say we blow the mother up,” said Mongoose.

  He said a lot more than that, but I don’t want to offend your tender eardrums.

  Besides, reproducing them all would take up three pages.

  “I say blow the mother,” he insisted.

  “We aren’t blowing anything up, at least not tonight,” I said.

  “We could hook a truck or something to it,” said Junior.

  “I don’t think that will do it,” I said. “Let’s go have another look.”

  I went back and took a look at the door. It had a metal frame with wheels that rode on a set of rails at the bottom. I expected to see the wheels rusted in place, or something blocking them. But when I studied it, I realized the problem was more permanent.

  “They welded it shut,” I said. “Somebody doesn’t want anyone getting in.”

  The other boxcar had been sealed the same way.

  Until now, I’d had only a lukewarm feeling about Junior’s theory. It had all sorts of holes. Why bring the helicopters back to Delhi? If you were planning to use them, it would be a lot safer to fly from outside the city. And hell — if you had another helicopter or, Allah be praised, two, why go to the trouble of stealing two more?

  Terrorists aren’t like air farce procurement officers, who have never seen a piece of expensive equipment they didn’t want. As a whole, they’re cheap bastards — they take what they can get and do the most with it. Whatever else you think of them, you gotta love their frugality.

  But finding the doors welded shut put things in a whole new perspective.

  “What we need is a Sawzall,” I told Mongoose. “Preferably a battery-powered one.”

  “Where are we going to get that?” Mongoose asked.

  “Does our fancy hotel have a maintenance department?”

  They did. And they had a Sawzall — two of them in fact. Unfortunately, both were corded models, and the nearest electrical outlet was some one hundred yards away in the slum. And it wasn’t exactly UL tested, either — it was a wire hacked into the overhead power line.

  Junior managed to get us connected without either frying or blacking out all of northern India, a minor miracle. In the meantime, Shotgun returned with the kids. We put them to work as lookouts on the road, telling them to watch for bucket trucks — we were more worried about the local electrical company than tangos at that point.

  * * *

  There’s something about cutting into wood that does a man good. Rip away at a board with a ten-inch blade and you really feel like you understand the universe.

  We had to work around a few metal straps, but otherwise the job was easy. It took Mongoose and me all of five minutes to cut a four-foot-by-four-foot hole in the side of the boxcar. I gave it a good slap with the saw, cringing at the last second just in case there was a booby trap.

  No worries. No explosion. The only thing I could hear besides my pounding heart was the occasional snap of a spark back at our electrical connection.

  I leaned toward the hole, then fell back, practically knocked over by the stench.

  My time in India featured many exotic smells, but this one may have been the worst. The train car, and its companion, were filled with potatoes that had been left to rot.

  Judging from the stench, they’d been in the car for at least six months. Temperatures inside had, I’m sure, reached well into triple digits. The smell was so bad it even curbed Shotgun’s famous appetite.

  “Never really liked baked potatoes anyway,” he claimed after he caught a whiff. “Fries. That would be a different story.”

  ( V )

  Junior will eventually live the infamous potato car episode down. Assuming he lives to be three hundred years old.

  We razzed the shit out of him, as he so richly deserved. This was a tiny payback, given the damage to our lungs.

  “Definitely an al Qaeda plot,” said Mongoose. “They’re using friggin’ germ warfare on us.”

  Let me tell you something, though. I went back there the next day, just to see if we’d missed something. Every one of those damn potatoes was gone — eaten, I’m sure, by the people who lived in that slum.

  There are days when I just get down on my knees and thank God I was born in America, and that was one of them.

  * * *

  Mongoose and Shotgun went to see the doctor at Dublin, the Irish bar at our fancy hotel. Junior, licking his wounded ego, said he was going back to the Maharaja Express to go to bed.

  I said sure, even though I knew that wasn’t what he had in mind. Not that I blamed him.

  Pissed off at his failure, he did what we all should do when life kicks us face-first into a shit pile. He rolled up his sleeves and got his butt back to work. He went to one of his computer hideouts — probably one o
f the colleges he had scouted, though I’m not sure — to try and figure out what the hell he had done wrong.

  I had my own work to do. I shooed Leya and the kids back to their respective hovels, then went over to the stadium23 to see how the Special Squadron Zero operation was going.

  Following in the tradition of KISS — the plan was simplicity itself.

  Sergeant Phurem and several accomplices detained two of the night guards at their homes just as they were about to leave for work. Taking their clothes and IDs, they reported to the stadium in their place. The stadium security force was so large and relatively new that no one noticed.

  Ten minutes into the shift, there was a disturbance near one of the gates. An alert was sounded, and the security teams began deploying. As they did, a dozen Squadron Zero members infiltrated through another gate manned by the two imposters.

  The disturbance turned out to be nothing more than a fight between two drunkards, who were quickly packed off to the local hoosegow. The security teams returned to their posts.

  Special Squadron Zero began picking them off one by one and two by two. Within an hour and a half, the entire stadium was under Squadron Zero’s control.

  This was just an exercise — or maybe more precisely a demonstration — so we couldn’t actually slit any of the guards’ throats, even if they did deserve it. On the other hand, just tapping them on the shoulder and saying, “You’re out of the game, sweetie,” wouldn’t have quite driven home the point of the operation.

  If we had been terrorists, they’d be dead. Period. A lot of other people would have been dead. Period. We wanted them to understand and remember that.

  So each guard was gagged and maced, then shot with a fluorescent pink paintball before being taken to the holding area, a pair of stuffy rooms under the stands where they were locked in for the night.

  That pissed some of them off, and it didn’t please their supervisor either.

  Ain’t life a bitch?

  The protests amused Captain Birla, who was smiling when I arrived at the stadium. I hadn’t seen him happy since before our night run into Pakistan.

  “I expect the minister will be getting many phone calls today,” he said triumphantly. “There will be many complaints about how good a job we are doing.”

  I laughed. Captain Birla would undoubtedly face a political shit storm, but he was finally developing the sort of attitude he needed to deal with it.

  The exercise was essentially over, but the captain couldn’t leave the stadium without protection. He sent most of his men home, leaving six men to guard the gates and wait for the morning shift to arrive. Then he had two of his bomb experts begin a sweep of the facility to make sure that there were no IEDs embedded anywhere that the regulars had failed to find.

  Nada.

  When they were done, he sent them home as well, then went up to the main security office at the top of the stadium to relax and wait for the morning crew to arrive.

  I went up with him, thinking I’d take a look around the place and maybe scout a good seat for the Games. After the semifiasco in the train yard, not to mention the series of setbacks over the past few days, it was good to see something working right.

  Captain Birla took me aside about halfway up the ramp.

  “Commander Rick, I have a desire to tell you something,” he started, “but I hope it doesn’t offend.”

  “Fire away.”

  “With respect, Commander Rick. You stink.”

  I guess I’d picked up a little potato scent and couldn’t shake it. I went off and hit the showers, using half of Delhi’s supply of hot water to wash the stink away.

  Nothing like a good shower to put you in a good mood. And the stadium’s facilities were top-notch in that regard — perfectly placed ceilings to give maximum acoustics as you sang.

  I’ll spare you the song.

  Fully refreshed, I shut off the water and realized I had neglected to properly preposition my gear prior to embarking on the operation — in other words, I’d forgotten a towel.

  Sacrifices have to be made in wartime, and modesty is the last resort of scoundrels. If that’s not a quote in Bartlett’s, it ought to be.

  I went into the locker area to look for something to use to dry off. I’d been in the showers so long a warm, wet fog filled the air, misting over everything, and making it hard to see more than a few feet in front of me. I had to feel my way across the row of lockers, pulling open the doors and fishing around inside.

  The problem was, the lockers were all empty. The stadium had been built for the Games, and not yet occupied. Finding a towel in them was going to be harder than finding a hamburger in a Hindu temple.

  I was just about to turn back to the shower room where I’d left my clothes when I heard a noise in the hall. Thinking it was Captain Birla or one of his men, I was just about to yell that I needed a towel when I heard something else:

  An AK47, rattling in the hallway.

  Through the mist, I saw two figures run into the locker room, heading for the shower. They were dressed in black, with red rags around their foreheads. They grunted directions at each other as they ran.

  They were speaking a language I didn’t understand, with the exception of one word — “Marcinko.”

  I don’t think they were complimenting me on my singing.

  6

  ( I )

  Standing naked in a locker room with a couple of guys going crazy with AK47s a few feet away is not exactly my favorite after-shower occupation. I also don’t think it’s a great way to spend the wee hours of the morning. Any morning. But I didn’t think I was likely to get a timeout if I asked.

  I moved back between the lockers and hoisted myself up on top. They were double-banked, back to back against each other, making roughly a twenty-four-inch-wide top. Unfortunately, the tops were angled down the way a house roof would be. I had to straddle it on my hands and knees.

  * * *

  I’ll let that image sink in for a minute.

  Yeah, I get a weak feeling there just thinking about it myself.

  * * *

  The gunmen shot up the showers, either because they couldn’t see too well with all the mist, or because they felt like wasting ammunition. Meanwhile, water dripped off my hairy carcass like rain falling from a summer cloud burst, and I was worried that the puddle below would tip them off. The lockers were spaced too far apart for me to easily move to the next row without getting down. Instead, I moved in the only direction I could, toward the showers, gingerly trying to keep my balance.

  The gunfire stopped, and the two tangos started talking again. I have no idea what they said, but when they came out of the room, they split up, one going to my right, the other going to my left. They moved down the aisles, looking for me.

  They were on the lazy side. Rather than opening the lockers, they simply shot through them. The bullets flew through the thin doors like paper, rattling the metal and filling the room with the lovely smell of cordite and burning steel.

  Bastards had a lot of ammo. Some of the bullets ricocheted wildly. I was hoping they’d shoot each other, but no such luck; apparently Murphy was off in bed somewhere.

  They worked down the aisles methodically, shouting to each other every few steps, no doubt proclaiming what brave SOBs they were to be taking on all these unarmed cubicles.

  The tango nearest me came down the aisle on my left, shouting and firing. I waited until he was just passing, then pushed up and swung around to jump on his back.

  I’ve made tougher jumps, but given the circumstances, this one really was incomparable.

  Did I say Murphy was sleeping in bed?

  My bed.

  The son of a bitch reached up and grabbed my leg as I jumped, pushing me off balance just enough to make me slam into the side of the opposite locker as I fell.

  Damn, that hurt.

  I’d intended to grab the asshole around the neck and twist it off, but I was lucky just to get my arms out and push him down as I
landed. I spun up, intending to swing my leg around in a kung fu-style kick — I had been making a lot of guest appearances at mixed martial arts matches lately before coming to India.

  Unfortunately, I hadn’t counted on how wet and slippery the damn floor would be, and my leg shot out from under me. Instead of kicking the asshole, I flew into his gut, slamming him against the lockers and sending his gun to the floor.

  His face was next to mine. There was a look of horror on it. I guess he’d never seen a naked infidel before.

  Two good elbows to his nose later, I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see the other tango turn the corner ahead, automatic rifle in his hand.

  I’d like to say he saw us grappling and didn’t fire, fearing that he’d hit his companion.

  That would be giving him too much credit. He pressed the trigger, sending a burst of bullets into the wall behind us. By the time he corrected his aim, he was out of ammo.

  For that magazine. He dropped it, fishing another from his pocket.

  I launched myself at him just as he slammed it home. Bullets sprayed from the gun as we slammed against the lockers.

  My eardrums felt like they had been hit with a hammer, and the rest of my body wasn’t much better. But I didn’t pause to take inventory. There’s nothing like fighting for your life to knock the rust of age off your bones. I was damned if either of these punks was going to make retirement mandatory.

  I punched, I kicked, I kneed — I did everything but throw up on the bastard to subdue him, and I would have done that if I’d had any food in my stomach.

  He fought like a madman. Blood poured from every visible orifice. Finally I managed to get my hand under his chin and gave it a good snap as I pulled up on his neck with the other from behind. He crumbled, game over.

  The other tango was lying dazed. I put the AK47 against his forehead and pushed the trigger.

  Nobody screws with me when I’m taking a shower and lives to talk about it.