Terminal Impact

by Charles Henderson

  “Alosi and Blevins,” Gray said.

  “Yeah,” Hacksaw said.

  “Like what?” Gray asked.

  “A dead rat in my silverware drawer,” Gillespie said.

  “They break in for that?” Gray said, not believing it.

  Gillespie waited, thinking, wanting to tell him the truth but knowing that the first thing to happen would be him investigated for possible spying, possible treason, definitely violating the National Security Act. Would anyone believe that he had really found the op plan and thumb drive, obviously with more damning evidence on it? More likely his frame-job accusers had their play backed up with more bullshit.

  “Hang on a second,” Gillespie said. “I got some asshole rattling my door.”

  He put the phone down, went to the door, and said to no one, “Oh, no, pal. He’s got the room down the hall.”

  It gave him a moment more to think. “Do I trust Gray with the truth? He is a fellow Marine. So is Ray-Dean shit-for-brains.” Then he thought about what would happen to people like Jack Valentine and his Marines if he said nothing. How in the hell had Ray-Dean or Alosi or both of the sons of bitches gotten their hands on the top secret plan in the first place? More importantly, what all had they done with it? Who else got copies from them?

  “Look, dude,” he said to Gray. “I’m real scared. You seem like a stand-up Marine. Speedy, too. I’m going to come clean with you.”

  “Dead rat in the silverware was creative, but I wasn’t buying it,” Gray said.

  “Really? I thought it was pretty believable,” Hacksaw said, a little bit hurt that his goofy excuse didn’t wash.

  “Alosi and Blevins are killers, not high school sophomores,” Gray said.

  “Right,” Hacksaw said. “They wouldn’t do stupid shit like that. They’d set me up to get killed. Or put in prison the rest of my life.”

  “Exactly,” Gray said. “What’d they do?”

  “Rat in the silverware drawer turns out to be a copy of the top secret one-five op plan and a thumb drive that has no telling what kind of bullshit on it,” Gillespie said, and it felt awfully good to say it. “You need to warn Black Bart immediately. No telling who those assholes shared it with.”

  “You sure it’s Alosi that done it?” Gray asked.

  “Who else?” Hacksaw asked. “That slimy waste of skin has wanted my ass from day one. Victor Malone thinks my shit don’t stink, so Cesare has his hands tied. This is exactly the kind of crap he pulls to cut off people’s nuts, unless he has them murdered.”

  “Like the Marine in Wisconsin?” Gray said.

  “Exactly that one,” Hacksaw answered.

  Gray looked at Speedy Espinoza, who stood next to him, listening to the call. “You need to get Black Bart and his counterintelligence people here right now.”

  Then back on the phone to Hacksaw. “Listen, Walter. I need to make a call to an FBI investigator and send her to your place. Get everything verified.”

  “That would be Liberty Cruz,” Hacksaw said.

  Chris Gray hesitated, clearly disturbed. “What would you know about her? What does Alosi know?”

  “Alosi knows jack shit,” Gillespie said. “I gotta come clean on some more shit, Chris.”

  “It’s getting pretty deep at this point, Hacksaw,” Gray said, a little anger getting into his voice.

  “What I say to you can’t go beyond you. Me and my boys’ lives depend on it,” Gillespie said.

  “Okay,” Gray said. “My word.”

  “Your word as a Marine,” Hacksaw said.

  “My word as a Marine,” the CIA agent said.

  “About a year ago, Jason Kendrick approached me in Washington. I had just landed home from my first rotation with Malone-Leyva, started my supervisory training at our DC headquarters, getting to know Cesare Alosi real well. That’s when I brought in Kermit and Habu as my team, got Victor Malone to hire them, and guaranteed he’d never regret it.

  “Kendrick found me and said he was looking for someone with my credentials to work for the FBI as an inside man at Malone-Leyva. I didn’t like the idea because I didn’t know better. So, he took me to his office, showed me all the underworld connections with Victor Malone. Granted, I kind of liked Malone, still do, and he definitely liked me. So it was a tough business, me seeing that man’s dark side. How people have disappeared who’ve crossed him. They don’t just wind up dead, but literally evaporated. Something to do with hydrochloric acid reducing the body to liquid protein and flushed down the river.

  “I told Kendrick that I wanted my boys, Alexander and Webster, brought aboard, and I would do it. We’ve been over here, this whole tour, reporting back to Kendrick.”

  Gray smiled. “Jason and I are old friends. I knew he had some people at Malone-Leyva undercover, but I didn’t know who. The way Alosi hates you makes sense.”

  “Right. We don’t do his sleazy crap, and that pisses him the fuck off,” Hacksaw said. “Ray-Dean Blevins, on the other hand. Totally compromised.”

  “Your cover may be blown,” Gray said, considering what he had just learned. “Alosi wouldn’t take a big chance, violating national security, setting you up, just because he doesn’t like you.”

  “My feelings exactly,” Hacksaw said. “You can verify everything with my boys.”

  “They’re right here by my side, nodding their heads,” Gray said. “What about Liberty Cruz?”

  “She doesn’t know shit,” Gillespie said. “Kendrick may have told her that he had some people here undercover, but I am certain he would not have told even her about us. It’s a great risk even your knowing.”

  “Maybe we need to take a different approach,” Gray said. “An open investigation for an NSA violation is likely the thing Alosi wants to see happen. It literally takes you and your team out of play.”

  “Roger that,” Hacksaw said.

  “I’ll go to Baghdad and discuss this with Liberty,” Gray said. “Gives me an excuse to take her to dinner again.”

  “She’s Jack Valentine’s girl, I guess you know,” Gillespie said, looking out for his old friend.

  “Painfully aware of it,” Gray said.

  “You have any ideas about this classified crap hidden under my silverware tray?” Hacksaw asked.

  “A couple,” Gray said. “I know what I’d like to do.”

  “What’s that?” Walter asked, smiling. “Maybe you’re thinking what I’m thinking? Some CIA-type dirty shit? Like, put all this back on Alosi?”

  “Be nice,” Gray said. “At least bust him up some.”

  “I got an idea,” Hacksaw said.

  “Something to do with his stooge, Blevins?” Gray said.

  Hacksaw grinned. “His room’s just a few doors down. Only question is how to put the spotlight on Cooder so he gets his room tossed by Liberty and the crew.”

  “I’ll work on it,” Gray said. “Meanwhile, put the smoking gun someplace Blevins won’t find it but the FBI team will. Call me when it’s done.”

  —

  First thing Jack Valentine saw was the rooster tail of dust climbing in the air. Then he saw the blue Toyota pickup truck racing straight at him. As the vehicle got closer, Valentine could see the Haji behind the machine gun, lying over the top of the cab, locked into the headache rack.

  “You on the SASR, Jaws?” Jack said on the intercom.

  “Roger, boss,” Alex Gomez said. “Locked and loaded, crosshairs on the motherfucker with the machine gun.”

  “Drop it down on the driver,” Valentine said. “Everybody else, keep your sights on him but stand by. Jaws will take the shot. You ready, Corporal?”

  “Fuckin’ A,” Jaws responded. “Got a range of fourteen hundred meters and closing straight at us at high speed. Wind is light, quartering left to right at two miles per hour. Aiming down at the wipers and letting him drive into
my crosshairs.”

  “Light him up,” Jack said.

  The shot hit the windshield a few inches higher than Gomez had planned. It split the driver’s head at the top, exploding it from his nose up. The impact of the MK 211 Raufoss round set off its internal high-explosive charge and sent glass and fragments into the two other occupants of the pickup cab. The tungsten-carbide penetrator not only took off the top of the driver’s head, but also went through the cab and got the machine gunner square in the crotch.

  Jaws’s single shot scored four killed. The tumbling truck was merely the aftermath, scattering their bodies across the desert not far from the remains of the Haji on the Honda.

  “Fuck!” Bronco exclaimed. “Might as well have hit those fuckers with a 198. Dude, nice shot. You fucked up their shit!”

  “That’s our job.” Jaws grinned. “We fuck shit up!”

  “We get back to Lejeune, I’m putting that on a T-shirt.” Bronco laughed.

  Then, together, they both chimed, “We fuck shit up!”

  Jack had stayed on his spotting scope and tuned the focus far in the distance on their left flank. He didn’t like what he saw. Not just another rooster tail of dust, but a whole line of them. Headed at them from the side.

  “Eyes left, gentlemen,” Valentine said. Now he understood how Custer must have felt when he saw the line of Sioux warriors coming over the rise at the Little Bighorn.

  “Maybe we should pack our shit and head east,” Cotton said, already gathering his kit, getting ready to run.

  “Fuck, dude, I’m packed,” Bronco Starr said, shouldering his gear.

  Jaws was right with him, pack on his back and big gun in his hands. That’s when incoming shots began dancing off the sand along the ridge.

  Both Scout-Snipers hit the deck and dropped into the dry wadi. Over their heads, the ridge came alive with incoming fire.

  —

  “Corporal Butler! Get your ass in here! Now!” Captain Mike Burkehart yelled as loud as his voice could carry.

  No answer.

  Burkehart stood over the open classified-documents-file safe; the green government logbook open in his hands. He yelled again, “Butler!”

  Still no answer.

  He slammed the drawer shut hard and went to his desk and picked up the phone, punching in the number for the MARSOC operations boss.

  “Staff Sergeant Claybaugh,” Billy-C answered.

  “Butler there with you?” Burkehart snapped, his words so sharp they could bite the heads off live kittens.

  “Yes, sir,” Claybaugh answered. “He’s watching a training video, sir. Part of his NCO school.”

  “Put it on pause and both of you get over here, standing tall before I can hang up this phone. That clear?” Burkehart commanded.

  “Aye, aye, sir!” the staff sergeant responded.

  In thirty-six seconds flat, both Staff Sergeant Billy Claybaugh and Corporal Ralph Butler burst through the front doors of MARSOC Detachment, Iraq Headquarters, Billy-C limping as he ran, his crutches in his hands.

  “Sir! Staff Sergeant Claybaugh and Corporal Butler reporting as ordered!” Billy-C said, snapped at attention with Smedley tight at his left side.

  The captain got in their faces. “One simple question. The one-five operation plan. Where is it?”

  Both Marines looked scared. They didn’t have a clue.

  “What?” Billy said.

  The captain took a deep breath. “Two weeks or so ago, First Sergeant Alvin Barkley personally hand carried our copy of that top secret operation order to this office and put it in my hands. I signed his classified documents logbook and accepted possession for the detachment. I placed that envelope on Colonel Snow’s desk.

  “Corporal Butler, when you cleared the incoming correspondence and documents from his desk, you should have logged in that operation plan along with the other classified materials. Until that was done, you were under strict orders not to leave this office until all classified materials were secure. Am I correct?”

  “Yes, sir, Captain Burkehart,” Corporal Butler said, his face dead pale and his heart about to stop.

  “Then why can’t I find the one-five op plan in our classified files, and an entry in the logbook stating that it was placed in our files?” Burkehart said, steamrolling.

  “I have no idea, sir,” Butler said. “I logged in everything. I swear, sir. I don’t read the stuff, I just log in the documents. Sir, I’m at a complete loss.”

  “I received a flash message just a few minutes ago, urgent fucking on fire,” Burkehart said. He looked at his two dumbfounded Marines, and added, “At ease.”

  “What happened, sir?” Billy asked, now frightened.

  “CIA intelligence reports that the operation plan’s security has been compromised. Information from it, if not the entire bloody plan, may have fallen into enemy hands,” the captain told the two Marines. “All recipients of the operation plan have been ordered to inventory their classified files and account for all copies of it.”

  He took a deep breath. “Gentlemen. We have a problem.”

  “Sir, Jack and the team have a lot bigger problem,” Billy said. “Did you read their portion of the operation plan? They’re out in the middle of no-man’s-land, on patrol with no immediate support. You’ve got to figure that if the enemy has this plan, they also know all the contingencies and have them addressed.”

  The captain hung his head. “Keenly aware, Billy. That’s why Colonel Roberts has ordered a halt to the operation and a redeployment of forces. More or less they’re going to do a little hip shooting, hoping to catch the Hajis trying to catch us.”

  “But what about Gunny Valentine and the team?” Butler asked.

  “Hopefully, he’s got our people dispersed and they’re getting the word to fall back and regroup, too,” Burkehart said. “But back to the burning question. How did that operation order disappear from our hands? Who’s been in our office?”

  “There was that drop-dead-gorgeous FBI agent looking for Gunny Valentine. Then those three guys from Malone-Leyva,” Smedley offered off the top of his head.

  “Liberty Cruz, the gunny’s better half,” Billy-C said. “Very unlikely candidate. Did she even go in the headquarters office?”

  Ralph shook his head no.

  “Hacksaw Gillespie and those other two guys from Malone-Leyva, Kermit and Habu, they’re old friends of Jack’s. Marines from the old days,” Billy said.

  “I know Top Gillespie, and both Kermit Alexander and Cory Webster,” Captain Burkehart said. “Back in the old days, when I was a young buck sergeant. They’re rough as a cob but straight-arrow. Besides, I was in the office the whole time when they stopped by on their way out to Hit, wanting to see Jack. They’re contracted to the CIA. All three hold top secret clearances.”

  “Then again, sir,” Billy offered. “You never know about a guy. Not the first time good guys went bad.”

  “For a price,” the captain added. “Money brings out the evil, that’s for sure.”

  Corporal Butler began searching around like a dog in a round room looking for a corner, like he suddenly had to take a shit.

  Captain Burkehart looked at him and gave him a nod to run to the head. Smedley took off, and the captain looked at Billy-C. “Poor kid has like a spastic colon. Gets the drizzles at a drop of a hat. Nerves mostly. Especially bad when he gets excited. He’s the guy that can get the shit scared out of him. Literally.”

  Billy laughed. “Sorry, sir. Smedley’s a good Marine, but spastic colon is not something I want by me in a hide.”

  “That’s why he’s our admin clerk and supply NCO,” Burkehart said. “He wants to be a super trooper so bad he can taste it. I really feel for the guy.”

  “Yeah,” Billy said. “We still let him wear the haircut and suit. Definitely, he’s one of ours.”

  A
s the captain nodded agreement, Corporal Butler hurried back from the head.

  “Sir, I know who stole that operations plan,” he said. “I had to take a shit. Like just now. He’s a Marine, so I asked him to watch the phone for five minutes. Not even five. He must have taken it. I’m pretty sure he came the same day that you had that big pile on Colonel Snow’s desk.”

  “Marine?” Billy asked.

  “Who was it?” Captain Burkehart followed.

  “I made an entry in the duty NCO log, when he left,” Smedley said, and went to his desk for the ledger. He thumbed through several pages, found it, and smiled. “Ray-Dean Blevins. He works for Malone-Leyva.”

  —

  Walter Gillespie used a set of picklocks to get in Ray-Dean Blevins’s apartment door. He had carried the burglar tools in a zipper case ever since he bought them in Medellín, Colombia, on his last drug-interdiction tour with Elmore Snow, Mutt Ambrose, Kermit, Habu, and Jack Valentine.

  The smell of dirty clothes and a filthy, sex-stained bed stopped him for at least two steps.

  “We get free maid service. Why doesn’t he use it?” Hacksaw said, looking around the efficiency kitchenette hotel room.

  He didn’t even want to see what went on in the bathroom. The living room that doubled as a bedroom was a disaster, so he went in the kitchen. He smiled as he pulled out the silverware drawer.

  “Perfect,” he said, as he looked in it and saw the same kind of white-plastic organizer that he had in his own apartment kitchen’s utensil drawer.

  Walter took the paper copy of the operation plan, which he had carried in the back of his pants waist, under his shirt, and put it beneath the silverware organizer. Then he took the thumb drive, wiped clean of fingerprints, and dropped it in the back left corner of the drawer, exactly like Alosi or Blevins or both of them had hidden it in his apartment.

  When he walked out of the flat, and locked the door behind himself, he called Chris Gray.

  “It’s done,” Hacksaw said.

  “Good,” Gray said. “Too bad we didn’t know yesterday.”

  “Why’s that?” Gillespie asked.

  “I just heard on the net that Gunny Valentine and his seven Marines got in some serious shit,” Gray said. “Heavy fire from three sides.”