Oh, shit. Doom on Dickie.
I looked for an exit. There were none available. I looked up. I saw three cross members in the axle area, and I pulled myself up, wrapping my arms and legs around them until I was hanging upside down like a fucking tree sloth.
The door closed and the ambient light shut off. I heard the scrunch of shoes on hard-packed snow, coming in my direction. I tried to make myself invisible.
Movement stopped. Then I heard another sound—it was familiar but I couldn’t identify it. Until, that is, the son of a bitch took a leak on the rear fucking tire, less than a yard from where I was hiding.
I held on until he walked back to the station wagon and climbed inside. As the door opened and the interior light went on, I moved—fast. There’d be about ten seconds when they’d lose their night vision because of the dome light. As it came on I dropped off the cross members and snaked my way along the back side of the flatbed until I was out of sight of the station wagon. If I couldn’t see them—they couldn’t see me, either.
Now I had another ten yards of open space to crawl. I went slowly, carefully, foot by foot, until I found refuge behind a two-ton transporter, perhaps fifteen yards behind the driver’s side door of the van.
The good news was that I’d positioned myself in the van’s blind spot. The bad news was that if I wanted to get any closer, I’d have to move into an area where the driver could see me.
How did I know that? It’s simple. I could already make out the shadow of his face in the rearview mirror. And if you can see someone in a mirror, they can see you.
I hunkered next to a huge tire, pulled out the radio, turned it on—carefully, so that the squelch wouldn’t give me away—and whispered into it. “Nasty.”
“Yo.”
“Can you move on the van passenger?”
There was a momentary pause. “Affirmative.”
“On my signal”
“Roger.”
See—I’d learned something during my long crawl. It was that all these stakeout vehicles were out of sight of one another. The van couldn’t see the station wagon, and the Ford out front couldn’t see either the van or the wagon. It was a huge tactical error, which allowed me to take them one by one—if that was what I’d wanted to do.
In this case, however, I just wanted to see what the hell was inside the van—and who these assholes were.
I came up directly behind the van, moving slowly, cautiously, silently on knees and elbows. Any ambient noise I might have made was being thoughtfully covered by the two assholes in the driver’s and passenger’s seats—because the motor was purring nicely, and the heater was turned on full.
From where I crawled, I could see Nasty. He’d moved from his position behind the trash bin and come up under the van’s nose—in the blind spot. I dropped flat. So did Nasty. I displayed my leather sap for him. He displayed his right middle finger for me.
I signaled back with circled thumb and forefinger—a sign that told him everything was okey doke in London, and that he was an asshole in Rio. Then I raised my head and put my ear to the door. They were talking to each other, although I couldn’t make out anything specific because they also had the van’s radio on and music drowned out the words. What were these guys—amateurs?
I dropped again, pointed to the radio, and as soon as Nasty put it to his ear, I pressed the SEND button. “On three—”
He gave me a thumbs-up and moved around the nose of the van just behind the passenger door.
“One.” I slid my own back against the side panel and reached toward the door handle with my right hand while my left held both the radio and the leather sap I’d retrieved from my BDU pocket.
“Two.” I put down the radio and set myself, so that as soon as I’d flung the door open I could reach inside, grab the driver, and quiet him down.
I stage-whispered “Three—” loud enough so that Nasty could hear me, then reached up, took the latch in my hand, and opened the door.
Talk about total surprise. I took the scumbag by his fucking throat before he could react, sapped him twice before he saw my face, knocked him cold, and pulled him down onto the ground. Mission accomplished.
Except it wasn’t accomplished, because Nasty hadn’t whopped the upside of the passenger’s head yet. In fact, he was nowhere to be seen.
How did I know that? I knew it because said passenger was coming at me like the fucking Twentieth Century Limited, his elbows and legs working like steam engine pistons as he hurled himself across the bench seat in my direction.
I looked past him and saw Nasty—absolute, shit-eating frustration all over his face—working at the door. The door that was, of course, securely locked from the inside.
And then I saw the passenger’s face as he hurtled toward my throat, arms outstretched. It was Dawg Dawkins. And he didn’t look happy to see me at all.
IT WASN’T THE FIRST TIME THAT THE DAWG AND I HAD TANGLED. But I don’t have time to give you a history lesson about that right now because he was moving fast and he had murder in his eyes, and I had to put this asshole d-o-w-n before he sounded any kind of alarm.
I fell back and let him come, waited until his body was fully extended but his feet were still caught up in the steering column, then I advanced like the picaron picador— that’s a rogue picador en español—I are, and as he tried to seize me I stepped between the bull Dawg’s deadly arms— Hola!—and slapped the back of his head with the sap, whaap!
The whack stunned him. It also made him mad. But it certainly didn’t stop him. He bellowed in pain, then growled, struck wildly in my direction, and caught me just below the heart with a ham-size fist—a wallop that had a lot of shoulder power behind it.
The blow caught me good—it knocked me backward. And, being the suave, unflappable asshole that I am, I tripped over my own two feet and went down—absorbing most of the impact right on the point of my throbbing right knee.
As I regrouped, he scrambled, pulled his legs free of the steering column, lurched out of the van headfirst, tumbled and stumbled all fours onto the ice, found his footing, came at me with his legs windmilling just like a fucking linebacker going after a quarterback. He sacked my ass, too— clotheslined me in the Adam’s apple, and took me onto the ground. It was definitely Doom on Dickie time. Dawg is a heavy sucker. He threw me down hard, and my friends, there is absolutely no “give” at all to a frozen macadam parking lot.
I heard nasty things popping in the vicinity of the small of my back—it felt like he’d broken it for me. But there was no time to worry about vertebrae, ribs, cartilage, or muscles, because this asshole was trying to kill me. He wrapped my ponytail around his hand and yanked backward, snapping my neck nastily. I twisted away, but he had me by the long-and-straights. I sucker punched him in the solar plexus. He wheezed, wrenched at my hair again, and chopped at my exposed throat with his free hand.
I parried, caught it just above the wrist, and bit him—I hope I gave the son of a bitch rabies—and he yanked it away, simultaneously releasing my hair.
That tiny break gave me a way in. I poked him in the eyes, grabbed his ears and head-butted him, drove him back against the van like he was a tackling dummy and kneed him in the balls. Then I jumped on him and we rolled around doing a passable imitation of a bar brawl free-for-all no-holds-barred gang bang. Okay, so it was finally getting to be fun. But to be honest, there was no time for fun right now. Besides, while the Dawg might have had no qualms about screaming his damn head off, I certainly didn’t want him making any noise—there was absolutely no reason at all to disturb the occupants of the other two vehicles. So in addition to trying my best to disable the cocksucker—not to mention fending him off—I had to keep the sumbitch quiet, which would have been a lot easier if I’d come equipped with a third arm.
Speaking of which, it occurred to me as Dawg was trying to reconfigure my face to look like a pound of ground chuck, to ask myself where the hell Nasty was, anyway—still pulling on the fucking door?
I wrestled Dawg to my left, then my right, escaped his grip and flipped him onto the ground with a satisfying thud. Then I wrapped my legs around his thick torso and, using my knees, elbows, and belly weight, I finally managed to come up on top of him—more or less straddling his chest. He poked me a good one in the balls, but I got him back, slapping him in the whitewalls—that is, just above his ears—with the sap, whap-whap, whap-whap.
That slowed him down some. Finally, Nasty decided to drop by. He jumped Dawg from the back, choked him around the carotid artery, and the asshole finally went limp.
“Where the fuck were you while I was getting the crap kicked out of me?” I wheezed. I was lying flat on my back on the cold asphalt, too tired to get up. Damn it, I was tired and I was sore. “I’m getting too old for this kind of merde. If I’d had a gun I would have shot the motherfucker.”
Nasty was having none of that. “You have a fucking gun, Skipper. Besides, you looked like you were enjoying yourself.”
See how I am treated, gentle readers? I get no fucking respect. They treat me like the Rodney fucking Dangerfield of SEALs. I might as well be an ossifer.
Nasty bound and gagged Dawg and the van driver while I went through their pockets. One thing was certain: the van man was no FBI agent. I recognized the name on his California driver’s license and concealed weapons permit: he was a retired SEAL from Team Three in Coronado—a CPO—chief petty officer—nicknamed Johnny Cool (it was because he wore sixties-styled sunglasses, loved dirty dancing, and played Volleyball, as I remember) who didn’t have either the brains—i.e., the book learning—or the smarts— i.e., the streetwise edge—to make senior chief.
He’d wanted to join Red Cell, but I’d turned him down. Despite the fact that he had a hell of an overhead serve and the hips of a disco pro, he didn’t have the heart or soul of a Warrior.
The weapons permit and driver’s license told me he was probably one of Dawg’s mutts. And tucked inside the left-hand waistband of his jeans, snug in a nylon holster, was the blue steel French-made Walther PPK/S known as a Manhurin, with seven of Federal’s best 95-grain HydraShok jacketed hollowpoints in the mag, and one in the pipe. Since the CWP was legal only in California, I gave the pistol to Nasty as a souvenir just to show him I wasn’t mad.
Then I searched Dawg. He wasn’t armed, and he wasn’t carrying anything of interest, either. There was no list of phone numbers in his wallet. There were no discreetly marked maps in his pockets. In fact, there was nothing incriminating at all. Boring. There was a cellular phone sitting on top of the gearshift console. I took it, dropped it onto the ground, and stomped it flat.
It occurred to me that maybe I’d want to have a little chat with the retired general—perhaps attach a field telephone wire to his pecker and ask him a few questions about what he was up to. But any interrogation would have to come later. Why? Because right now, Nasty was gesturing frantically at me—pointing toward Duck Foot’s position. I looked up and saw him. He was furiously silent signaling—enemy approaching. Take cover.
Shit—they were coming, and here I was with two unconscious assholes on my hands. Doom on me. Okay—first things first. Camouflage—the fucking van had to look normal. Moving quickly, Nasty and I hefted Dawg into the passenger side of the van, seat belted him in position, and taped him in place so he couldn’t shift around and hit anything that would make noise.
Next we placed the driver behind the wheel, running tape around his ankles, which anchored him to the tubular frame. Then we wrapped a long X around his torso, mooring him firmly to the seatback.
I turned the motor off and pocketed the keys. These sons of bitches were about to get cold until I could come back and grab ’em. I sent Nasty back to his Dumpster and made my own way back to the semi-trailer.
* * *
I hadn’t been there more than five seconds when I got the first report from Mugs—an anonymous-looking twenty-two-foot, gate-lift panel truck drove past the building. It went clear around the compound, circled back for another look-see, then cruised around the block to the truck storage yard, where it stood, engine running and lights off.
Duck Foot gave it a once-over with his night vision and called the plate numbers in to Mugs. As he was whispering, a man dressed in dark clothes and wearing a knit watch cap jumped out of the truck cab, sauntered over to a tractor-trailer, climbed aboard, and turned the engine over. As the huge diesel revved, two more men, these guys dressed all in black, slipped out of the panel truck, ran up to the chainlink fence separating the armory parking lot from the truck park area, and snipped the nylon ties out of the ten-foot fence section that had been precut.
As the fence came down, the tractor-trailer eased carefully through the opening. It passed out of my sight line, and I got on the radio to Duck Foot.
“Sit-rep?”
“They’re backed up to the door.” He paused momentarily. “They’re inside.”
“Dick—” Mugs’s voice.
“Go, Chief.”
“The step van. It’s registered to an address on the East Side.”
“Roger that.”
They’d gotten in ORDCOMSOMICH effortlessly. Ah, Army security.
We all waited, silent. Even though they’d prepared everything in advance, it was almost half an hour before the huge semi rolled slowly past me and back into the truck area. Then the panel truck backed through the fence to be loaded.
“Duck Foot—”
“Yo.”
“Is the semi moving?
“No—it’s idling.”
That was good—and it was bad. We had two trucks to deal with, not to mention two cars of bad guys, plus the van. I had to know where they were all going.
That meant splitting up my forces.
Okay, what did I know?
First, I know that tractor-trailers are used more often for long-haul than short-haul trips. They’re cumbersome and hard to handle in the city.
Lift-gate panel trucks, on the other hand, are perfect urban camouflage, which meant that we’d deal with it first. I got on the radio and made assignments. Doc, Half Pint, Pick, Gator, and Rodent would follow the tractor-trailer. Mugs, Duck Foot, Nasty, Wonder, Cherry, and I would deal with the locals—then we’d bat-out-of-hell it to catch up with the other guys. We’d stay in touch via cellular. I’d miss my Q&A session with Dawg and Johnny Cool, but life is full of little disappointments and this would be one of them.
And what if I was wrong?
Well, then it would be doom on Dickie time one more once, as Count Basic used to say. Ain’t life grand?
While the bad guys load up, let’s you and me spend a few minutes talking about automobile surveillance techniques. You know how, in the movies or on TV, you see all those video cops wheel out into traffic and U-turn, tires all a— screaming, to stalk the bad guys?
Well, friend, that’s so much bull puckey. I mean, don’t you notice those assholes who drive like Bullitt when you’re eking your way through rush hour traffic?
Let me put the gist of it in a simple, declarative sentence for you. Shadowing a bad guy is a tough job. A successful surveillance op can take as many as a dozen vehicles, a couple of bottles of Bufferin, and a bunch of empty wideneck bottles with tight-sealing tops. There are untold variables, which include weather and road conditions, traffic flow, time of day, and number of assets available. Then there’s Mr. Murphy, the constant backseat driver who’s always trying to screw you up. Other goatfuck factors include countersurveillance—that’s when the bad guys use their own vehicles to check that they’re not being followed. Or overt ambush—when they set up a roadblock to keep you from following the target.
So you see, surveillance is not as simple as it’s made out to be in the movies or on TV. But it can be done—and done well. The easiest way is through the use of electronic beacons. The old devices were hard to track and gave off such a big call that they often interrupted the AM/FM radios in target vehicles and tipped off the bad guys. The most recent generation of passive
beacons combines secure transmissions, lithium batteries, and a miniature package. They beam a signal that can be accessed by a trailing vehicle, from an aircraft, by a satellite, or through the use of telephone land lines. (Yes, friends, just like the AT&T ad says, you actually can reach out and touch someone.)
If you can’t plant a beacon, then you have to do it the old-fashioned way—out where the rubber meets the road. The two most effective vehicle surveillance techniques are known as leapfrogging and paralleling.
In leapfrogging, you use five or six cars that constantly surround the target vehicle, all the while changing their relative positions. The cars run ahead of the target, then fall back—just the way real traffic flow moves. If the bad guy turns left or right, the cars in front race to the next street, track on a parallel route, then fall back in line. If the subject U-turns, the cars at the rear line pick him up.
If leapfrogging is done well, the target never sees the same surveillance car in his rearview mirror more than once— even though he may be driving for hours. On the plus side, it’s hard to spot a leapfrog tail. In the minus column: it takes a lot of vehicles to do it right.
Paralleling is where one chase car remains far enough behind the target so as not to alert him, and four or more other cars travel on parallel streets, bracketing the target. Plus side? It’s an almost invisible technique. Minuses? Well, for one thing, if traffic lights run against you, you get screwed. For another, if the target does a quick turn, and heads back the way he’s come, you can lose him.
Both techniques require good communications— preferably secure, so that the bad guys, who probably have police scanners and other countersurveillance devices in their cars, can’t eavesdrop on your conversations. It also helps to know the area in which you’re going to operate. When I ran SEAL Team Six, I used to play a game called SEAL tag. SEAL tag entails long, fast car chases and clandestine surveillance exercises in European cities. It was played against a series of Naval Investigative Service security details—the people in charge of protecting our flag officers overseas—to give them a chance to see how terrorists would behave when under observation.
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