Detachment Bravo

by Richard Marcinko

  He broke into my words. “You see? You see? Just listen to yourself, Captain. ‘I can’t allow …’ Don’t you know how arrogant that sounds to people like me? Don’t you understand how off-putting those words are to those of us who come from sovereign nations other than yours? ‘I can’t allow …’ That is gunboat diplomacy, Captain Marcinko. That is hubris. It is absolute conceit.”

  Gerry Kelley paused. And then he said something else he shouldn’t have. “Conduct like yours,” he said, “invites retribution. Indeed, Captain, conduct like yours deserves retribution.”

  Invites retribution? Deserves retribution? Oh, I’d show him some old-fucking-fashioned Roguish God-of-War retribution. I didn’t wait. I didn’t say “May I?” I was simply jump-his-bones on him all of a sudden. Like stink on shit.

  Oh, yeah, his hands may have been rough from manual labor. And oh, yeah, he was a wiry, strong, feisty youngster who from the way he handled himself obviously liked a bar fight every now and then. And he’d no doubt hired himself a personal trainer who knew a few moves. But that and a one-pound coin would get him a ticket on the fuckin’ Jubilee Tube Line, so far as I was concerned.

  You see, my friends, I have decades of real-world experience handling and mishandling assholes like this one. And so, I let him make his moves, running the gamut all the way from a to b. And then, when he’d run out of said moves, I feinted left and popped him open-handed, slaaap across the cheek. “This is retribution, Gerry,” I said, keeping a safe distance between us as his hands judo-flailed and kung-fucked up. I feinted left again, smiled nasty through my War Face, and caught him with my other hand, slaaap, leaving a red welt on his freckled skin. “This is Old Testament–style retribution.”

  He forgot both a and b and simply bull-in-china-shop charged. I stepped out of the way and caught him with an elbow blow to the back that staggered him. And then, when he did the bull-charge thing again, I let him get close, wrapped him up in my big, strong arms, popped him with my forehead, and when his eyes unfocused I caught him with a knee to the balls that crossed his eyes the right way and sucked every bit of breath out of him. And as he stood there, gagging, bent over, and in full-tilt agony, I smacked him with a smart jab to the nose, which broke the damn thing (I heard the cartilage splatter), and put him plop onto his back, atop the nineteenth-century red, blue, and mustard Turkish Kirshehir graveyard carpet upon which we were so fittingly standing.

  I watched for a few seconds as he lay writhing in agony, the blood running down his upper lip. “Gerry,” I said, “there are some things youth and money can’t buy.” I reached down and grabbed him by the lapels of his quilted robe and stood him up so that I could look him in the eyes. “Real life experience is one”—I smacked him—“and Old Testament retribution is another.” I smacked him again. Then I held him up close to me so he’d never, ever, forget what I was telling him. That’s the way it is with kids these days. You have to be very explicit, so they understand what you are saying.

  “Y’see,” I told Gerry Kelley, “retribution is an Old Testament kind of word, and you are not an Old Testament kind of guy.” I searched his face to make sure he was getting the message. “I am an Old Testament kind of guy, Gerry.” He wasn’t getting the message as well as I would have liked, and so I kneed him in the balls again.

  When his eyes uncrossed, I resumed my monologue. “Gerry, you have to listen in order to learn. So listen, and listen good.” I peered into his eyes to stare into his soul. I have to tell you I didn’t much like what I saw.

  “Okay. We were talking about retribution,” I said. “Retribution is what people like me do to people like you, when we discover that people like you have been doing something naughty.” I gave him a few seconds to absorb the concept. “Got it?”

  But from the look on his face, he obviously didn’t Got It. Not yet. And so, I popped him one more time. After all, proper inculcation takes real effort. And, just as I hoped he would, Gerry Kelley finally Got It.

  I dropped him back on his carpet and headed for the front door. As I opened it, I could hear him retching onto his antique graveyard carpet. “Be a good kid, Gerry. Stick to computer programming. Leave all the retribution stuff to us Old Testament people.”

  7

  MY MOOD NOW CONSIDERABLY IMPROVED, I MARCHED TO the top of Hay’s Mews, crossed Berkeley—pronounced Barkley—Square, and walked north on Davies Street, one of Mayfair’s major north-south arteries, heading toward Oxford Street and Remo, my favorite eggs-and-bacon coffee shop in the world, to grab some breakfast. Davies Street was not yet rush-hour crowded. But knots of pedestrians were beginning to throng the narrow sidewalk, making their way to work in Mayfair’s exclusive shops and high-rent offices. Traffic was heavy, but moving. The morning air was still cool and Roguishly perfumed with diesel fumes.

  As I walked, I thought about what I’d just learned. And everything in my long experience in dealing with terrorists, psychos, and other felonious malefactors all over the globe told me that like them, Gerry Kelley was up to no good. None at all. More to the point was that Gerry came from Ballynahinch, the same location of the unique Irish accent that NSA’s voice recognition program had tied to a member of the Green Hand Defenders.

  That could be just a coincidence, you say. In my line of work, friends, there are no coincidences.

  And think about this. All perps can be identified by three elements: motive, means, and opportunity. Gerry Kelley satisfied elements one and two. He’d just told me that we Americans deserve whatever we get. And he had the financial resources to pay established tangos to do his dirty work. That left element three: opportunity. Once I was able to establish that part of the triad, Gerry’s ass would be mine.

  Which is why I decided that, after my breakfast and well fortified by Remo’s strong coffee, I’d head back to Curzon Street House to find Mick Owen and fill him in about Gerry Kelley, Brother Gwilliam, the Green Hand Defenders, and my week’s worth of research. Yes, I remember that Eamon the Demon had specifically ordered me to keep my investigation to myself—and to him. But frankly, I didn’t give a rusty F-word what Admiral Eamon Joseph Flannery wanted. I knew the sonofabitch would sell me out sooner or later, whenever it would benefit his career the most. That had always been his modus operandi.

  Besides, to be perfectly frank, if you’re working in a foreign country, you’d better have a local rabbi or sea daddy who can cut through the red tape for you and make your work easier. But you don’t get unless you give. In Japan, I’ve always traded information with my pal Toshiro Okinaga, whom I first met when he was a sergeant in the National Police. Now he’s a high-ranking officer in Kunika, Japan’s counterterrorist police unit. In Germany, General Fred Kohler, who runs Berlin’s newest CT unit, the Kommando Spezialkräfte, or KSK, has pulled the ol’ Rogue dick out of the fire more than once. In the Middle East, a diminutive Warrior named Avi Ben Gal has always been there to put his Israeli back up against my American shoulders during the tough times. But the key to working with these Warriors has always been that we work together, as a TEAM. To Eamon, the concept of TEAM is foreign. To Eamon, loyalty goes only one way: it worms up the chain of command until it reaches him. I follow the precept set down long ago by Roy Boehm, godfather of all SEALs, who always preached to us tadpoles that loyalty is a two-way thing. It ascends the chain of command, but it also goes the other way. I demand loyalty from my men. But I return it molecule for molecule. That, my friends, is how you encourage and promote unit integrity and the TEAM concept. And it is how I have always worked with my foreign counterparts.

  I also understood that Mick was in a tough spot politically. Mick’s rank had changed. And with that star, so had his responsibilities. But Mick’s personality hadn’t changed—not one iota. And when you have operated balls-to-the-wall with someone, and they’ve always come through for you in the past, there’s no reason to believe they’ll let you down in the present. Bottom line: there was a lot to talk to Mick about.

  And I guess I was concentrating
on that, rather than keeping my eyes open. Because I can honestly report that the protective radar system that sits in my brain behind the pussy detector, which is usually operational 24-slash-7, was either malfunctioning or unmanned. Because I certainly did not notice the old VIQ, or Van In Question, as it cruised past, and then drifted to curbside sixty feet ahead of where I was walking.

  I’d just passed abreast of an antique store specializing in Greco-Roman sculptures. I glanced toward the shop window to admire a small section of frieze featuring the goddess Diana, then continued at flank speed toward the low, Victorian wrought iron fence that sits around the red brick of Claridge’s Hotel. Then, in passing, I noticed three men in dark, anonymous coveralls pile out of the van. They walked to the rear, threw open the tailgate doors, and began to pull out a huge, rolled-up Persian carpet.

  Mister In Front grabbed the front end of the rug and yanked it. Mister Middle took up the bowed-down middle as it cleared the van, and Mister Rear End grabbed (what else?) the rear end. They hoisted the carpet onto their shoulders and began to cross the sidewalk, heading for Claridge’s service entrance. Their action now effectively blocked the sidewalk a mere eight feet ahead of me, causing me to slow down. And that, friends, was when the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. Why this happens I have no idea. But there it was: another example of this instinctual, primordial, primeval act that has saved my life scores of times over the past decades.

  It is said that when you are about to die, your life flashes before your eyes in slow motion. And so, here is a complete list of what I suddenly became conscious of, in the few milliseconds after the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up.

  • I realized I was virtually alone on the sidewalk: one-two-three-four pedestrians six yards ahead of me, two about ten yards to the rear, and one, in a black leather jacket, uncomfortably close in the blind spot off my left shoulder.

  • I recognized the van’s driver. It was Mister Shit Brown Suit from earlier in the day. And guess what: Mr. SBS had not moved from his seat behind the wheel and the van was still in gear. I knew that because he was tromping the brake lights and looking back in my direction somewhat nervously.

  • I saw that the three rug carriers were not paying attention to the rug, or looking toward the service entrance of Claridge’s. Like the van driver, they were all focused on me.

  • I saw a small, curved black plastic box with two metal contact points on one end in the hand of the man holding the middle of the rug.

  • I saw that there was no advertising on the side of the van—that, in fact, the vehicle had been recently repainted, judging from the dark color of the inside of the rear doors.

  • I realized that the yellow and black license plate on the rear was covered in insects—a strong sign that it had been removed from the front of another vehicle.

  And that was when all the alarms finally went off and the Klaxon horn in my brain went oougah-oougah, dive, dive, dive.

  Oh, this was sweet. A professional snatch op in broad daylight, right in the fucking center of the city. And it was moi these tangos were after. It’s simple, really: you knock the target into Mister Middle, who zaps him with the stun gun. And then, as the target collapses you load him into the truck and off you go. If anyone protests you say the poor asshole’s had a heart attack and you’re taking him to the hospital. It is a classic snatch move, first used by the Corsicans who work for DST, which stands for Directorate for Surveillance of the Territory, the French domestic intelligence, counterespionage, and counterterrorist service. I once watched a team of my old pal Jacques Lillis’s Corsican thugs snatch an Algerian tango on the crowded, upper-crust Rue de Rivoli not half a block from the Ritz Hotel. They were so smooth that the tourists and shoppers never noticed as they grabbed their target, smacked him unconscious, tossed him into a van, and drove off.

  That’s impossible, you say. No it’s not. Believe me. A good team can make it appear easy. Effortless. You can be walking ten feet behind the target, they can snatch him right in front of your nose, and you’ll never notice. The fact is, daylight snatches are tough, complicated, intricate maneuvers, and you’d better use professionals who’ve rehearsed the moves hundreds of times. But these assholes were nervous. Downright jittery. If I’d been paying attention, I would have seen ’em the proverbial mile away. But even now, even this late in the game, I could take active and effective countermeasures. When you are ambushed, after all, your best defense is a furious, aggressive, uncompromising counterattack.

  That is precisely what I did. Instinctively, I whirled toward the curb side of the street just as a leather shoulder lurched into the space where the center of my back had just been. I ducked away from the blow, turned, and struck back toward where it had come from, gratified when my forearm made contact with a young kid in a black leather jacket and jeans. To no one’s surprise (especially mine) it was the same Greasy Leather Boy who’d shadowed me from the hotel earlier in the day. He twisted away. No chance. I grabbed him by the sleeve, spun him around, and smacked him hard upside his head.

  But obviously not hard enough. From out of nowhere, a fucking sap in his off-side hand whipped around and caught me whap in the face. To be precise, it caught me right on my much-broken Slovak snout.

  Broad daylight be damned—I saw fucking stars. In fact, I saw most of the whole fucking Milky Way. But I had no time to appreciate the view because I was engaged in demonstrating the Rogue’s First Law of Physics. I sidestepped, grabbed at the hand, wrist, and arm attached to the sap, then swiveled and hyper-extended the aforementioned arm, causing the rest of Greasy Leather Boy’s body to follow.

  That was the good news. The bad news was that my movement carried me toward the rolled-up rug. That, of course, was when Mister Middle brought up the stun gun and tried to apply it to my body so I’d stop making such a fuss and come along like a good chap. His arms went wide to corral my path, the stun gun in his right hand, its business end pointed toward my midsection.

  I lurched to my left, dragging Greasy Leather Boy with me as I pulled away from the stun gun.

  Mister Middle slashed at me, his face contorted, eyes narrowed. All he fucking needed to do was hit me once with the fucking thing, a fact I realized that he knew just as well as I did.

  But here’s what he did not know. He did not know that I am a big strong motherfucker who presses 450 pounds, 155 reps, 365 days a year at the outdoor weight pile at Rogue Manor. And so, I held on to Greasy Leather Boy, one-handing him as he struggled to simultaneously fight me off and not get stung by his pal’s stun gun electrodes. Oh, he was serious about not getting zapped. But not as serious as I was. So struggle be damned, I put Greasy Leather Boy between the stun gun and me, holding him with both my arms now and using the kid as my own human shield.

  Mister Middle thrust at me once-twice-thrice. I parried by using GLB. The fourth time he came at me, he zapped it right into Greasy Leather Boy’s thigh. That, too, was GNBN. Good news because it wasn’t me who’d been electrocuted. Bad news because I was now holding on to 160 pounds of dead weight.

  It was time to lose the shield. But instead of simply dropping Greasy Leather Boy I took the kid by the belt and the scruff of the neck and threw him at Middle Man, whose hands (and stun gun) instinctively went out in front of him, which of course applied a second huge jolt of electricity to Greasy Leather Boy.

  “Aw, shit,” Middle Man said aloud. His eyes followed the kid’s body to the ground. “Shit,” he said again.

  Mister Middle’s eyes were on Greasy Leather Boy. That meant he wasn’t looking at me. I reached out and grabbed his right wrist to ensure that the stun gun would come nowhere near moi. Then, I—

  Okay, okay, okay. I’ve got to interrupt myself to provide you with unshakable evidence that these assholes were absolute fucking amateurs.

  It is this: the two guys holding the ends of the rug didn’t react. They just stood there holding the rug.

  Back to real time. Mister Middle, however, was
moving. And his actions didn’t bode well for me. He dropped the stun gun (onto Greasy Leather Boy, who got yet a third heavy jolt), reached into his pocket, and extracted a hufuckingmongous combat folder.

  My friends, I hate edged weapons. They are dangerous. They are nasty. You almost always get cut. And so, I didn’t wait for Middle Man to take the initiative and do a quick slice ’n’ dice on the ol’ Rogue man. He brought the blade around, business side out, as if to slap me.

  I jumped back, beyond his reach. As his arm went past, I trapped his wrist with both my hands, stepped in toward him so that I could use my bulk, then took his wrist and bent it back-back-backward over the top of his arm until I heard it snap. He screamed. His fingers released the knife, which went clattering.

  Too fucking bad. I released his broken wrist, grabbed him by the shoulders, and head-butted the sumbitch, which sent him reeling backward. I went after him. That’s when Mister Murphy decided to stick his ugly puss into my business. Mister Middle grabbed me with his good arm and pulled me with him, ripping my blazer and jerking me rudely enough to make me trip over Greasy Leather Boy’s inert body. Now that I was off balance, Mister Middle kicked out at my legs. He missed the direct blow but smacked me good upside the right knee.

  Oh fuck oh shit that hurt. I went down—hard—onto the sidewalk, dislodging the P7-M8 from its inside-the-waistband holster, and sending it skittering across the sidewalk.

  Pistols in London are a bad idea if you are a foreigner—even a military foreigner like me. And so, I went scrambling after the gun, which gave Mister Middle the opportunity he needed. He launched a wicked kick at my head. I saw it coming in enough time to deflect the blow.

  I grabbed his foot, twisted, and yanked. That took the cockbreath right off his feet—and gave me enough time to tackle the pistol and jam it back into its holster. Then I returned all of my Roguish attention to Mister Middle.