RW11 - Violence of Action

by Richard Marcinko

  Twice married and twice divorced, once in college and again after joining the Army, Dahlgren became an intelligence analyst assigned to SFOD-DELTA. In 1993, when DELTA began graduating female shooters, she volunteered for the DELTA selection program and passed with flying colors. As one of DELTA’s first female operators she took up weight lifting, running, and Bruce Lee’s famous martial art, Jeet Kune Do. At 5’8” and weighing in at 135 lean pounds of pure cougar, Trace is also one helluva beautiful woman. Full figured with shoulder-length reddish-gold hair and gray-green eyes, she turns heads wherever she goes. Just don’t tell her that.

  She came to my current team after hearing through the DELTA grapevine that I was looking to recruit a female operator. Discharged from the Army, she nonetheless remains on Uncle Sugar’s payroll, retirement benefits and all.

  Paul Kossens is German-American and looks it with his athletic build and thick blond hair. His father was with German Naval Intelligence in Spain during the Second World War. When the war ended, he was brought to the U.S. by German spymaster Reinhard Gehlen to help build the new and upcoming Central Intelligence Agency’s East European spy net. He met Paul’s mother when she was working for the OSS in Washington, D.C., as the executive assistant to Wild Bill Donovan. Paul came along late in his parents’ lives and because of this he was raised with the benefit of the maturity and wisdom of older parents. He inherited his father’s love for secrecy and special operations. From his mother he received his passionate zeal to serve a cause higher than himself—which is why he joined the Navy, his vater’s service during the war. Paul became a Navy corpsman and then a SEAL. He served at SEAL Team ONE on the West Coast, eventually becoming a dignitary and asset protection specialist. His talent and coolness under fire saw him selected as part of the team charged with locating and taking POW the rancid little pineapple-faced dictator of Panama, General “Manny” Noriega. Paul went on to participate in numerous special operations throughout Central and South America, including the 54-hour harbor-mining mission at Corinto, Nicaragua, courtesy of the CIA.

  Like Trace, Kossens came to me after hearing I was looking for a few good SEALs who were interested in doing more than playing war games on their platoon’s laptop computer. With a B.A. in business administration from the University of San Diego, and a third language (Russian, as a useful balance to his German), I couldn’t pass up this eager 8492 Special Operations Technician from the Teams.

  In the gym, the three of us were sweating through the exercise and weight-training routine two young studs from SEAL Team SIX had custom-designed for me eight months earlier. It was a ball-buster. I couldn’t care less. Like I said, life is not fucking easy and neither is staying in SEAL Team shape. I saved the bench press for last knowing it was the meanest bitch in the program. Twenty-five joint-creaking, muscle-wrenching reps at 300 motherfucking pounds of unforgiving steel plate—I love the challenge! Sheer pain lightly wrapped in animal willpower. Give me an impossible task any day of the week. As I pushed through the routine, Trace and Paul each worked out at their own pace. We left each other alone, except for the occasional wisecrack now and then as we taunted and pushed each other to do one more rep or add an extra twenty pounds to the stack.

  Finished on the bench, I grabbed a towel from the black rubber gym floor and sopped rivers of sweat from my face and neck. Then I grabbed a basketball and sank a nice three-pointer from mid-court. Yeah, the Rogue was physically feeling damned good these days, fuck you very much.

  Which is as it should be.

  I’m 240 pounds of muscle strapped to a stainless steel frame. I’m running eight-minute miles and every other day I swim 2000 meters at a nearby pool. Besides helping me set up a new gym full of the best workout equipment and designing a twenty-first-century fitness routine, the shooters—MY shooters—from SIX spent a weekend at the Manor doing their best to educate me and the girls about nutrition and the fucking evils of alcohol (as if I couldn’t have educated everyone present on that subject!). When we said our good-byes on Monday morning and the boys from SIX hit the road back to Virginia Beach, I had to admit one thing: the new kids now running with the Devil at SEAL Team SIX are all right.

  Wait a minute, you may well ask. How is it the Rogue Warrior, bane of the United States Navy and scourge of its elite SEAL Teams since being railroaded through not one but two show trials at the American taxpayers’ expense, can now freely hang out with the ultimate in counterterrorist units, SEAL Team SIX?

  Good question, grasshopper. Sit and let an older and wiser Rogue explain it to you. You may recall that the government had last required my unique brand of service in the pursuit of two darling Irish terrorists, William and Gerry Kelley. They went to their watery graves, courtesy of Yours Truly, during my tour with Detachment Bravo in jolly old England.

  After submitting my carefully sanitized after-action report pro forma I found myself under furious attack from every direction. My unilateral decision to play the adult version of Sink or Swim with Mrs. Kelley’s murderous sons hadn’t gone over (under?) too well with the gutless wonders at our State Department. Their whining alerted some of my still-powerful enemies at the Pentagon and Navy, enemies who orchestrated a call for my head to be put on a spike. It seems there are rules governing the care and feeding of those who make careers out of murdering the innocent among us, and drowning them is not found in the State Department’s official handbook. I’d played by my rules and the Irish bastards had gone down to Davy Jones’ locker—hook, line, and fucking sinker. No loss to the world and certainly no loss to moi. Trials are too expensive these days. When you send me out to kill Tangos, then that is what the fuck I do. You’d best expect the mother-raping bastards to die and die damned hard where I find them. I—pay close attention here—will not bring a terrorist back alive. My version of the old Wild West wanted poster reads WANTED: DEAD OR MOTHERFUCKING DEADER!

  Make a fucking note here.

  You’ll find this in the Rogue Warrior’s updated and abridged rulebook on whacking Tangos. The Rogue says drowning terrorists is perfectly fine and dandy. Gutting the bastards and using their innards for chum is okay, too. Although I hate punishing a good shark by feeding it trash like the Kelley boyz. I have an affinity for sharks.

  Within a week of my return from England I began hearing nasty rumors about congressional hearings and criminal charges with me in the bull’s eye. Been there, done that. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s when to fight Stupidity with Fire. With all the lovely money I’ve made from my best-selling books I no longer have to rely on limp-dicked, court-appointed Navy JAG lawyers whose careers are at the mercy of the very judges who hear their cases. I called my outrageously expensive civilian junkyard dog attorney, a former SEAL teammate who’d decided it was more fun to make big money and fuck with people using the law than it was to kill them, and explained my plight. Within days a flurry of extremely hard-assed letters were sent out to All Concerned. They basically said I wasn’t talking to anyone and no one was going to talk to me unless it was through my lawyer. In other words, BLOW ME!

  Next I made some not so discreet phone calls around Washington, as in “Bite-My-Sack-D-fucking-C.” As an up-and-coming naval officer with a talent for intelligence work, I’d learned that knowing shit—really good shit—about people, places, and things is a must if you want to wage Rogue war on the world at large. Some of the voices calling loudest for my decapitation were also the subjects of long-held and informative little entries in my personal database. After crashing through the various security firewalls my tormentors had built around themselves at their offices and homes I set about enjoying a few short but immensely productive conversations with my detractors. Chats with those whose own questionable behavior and peculiar habits I’d carefully logged while coming up through the ranks. “You fuckee-fuckee me and I’ll fuckee-fuckee you bigger, harder, and faster!” I told each suddenly squirming goody-goody two-shoes at the other end of the line. One by one they got my message and—would
you believe?—the self-serving chest pounding lessened up on the Hill and down at the Pentagon.

  Blackmail, you say? No, just Washington power politics at their most pure.

  Once this initial round of chitchat was over, I moved on to a few face-to-face meetings with some old-and-not-so-dear friends who’d smelled my blood and were clamoring to get on board the “GET DICKIE” bandwagon. One such fan, a former SEAL officer I’d nicknamed “The Little Ensign,” made the tactical mistake of accepting my invitation to meet for lunch at the posh O-Club at Fort Meyers next to Arlington National Cemetery.

  We hadn’t cottoned to each other during our earliest days on the Teams and our dislike of each other had only intensified as we were each promoted up the Navy ladder. My personal intelligence network informed me my old nemesis was rattling his tiny little saber again. Old rivalries never die. I’ve made my fair share of enemies over the years and they never tire of taking cheap shots whenever an opportunity arises. I’d offered one such “officer and gentleman” the chance to fight me fair and square, man to fucking man, on the beach during a SEAL Team reunion in Little Creek, Virginia. He declined. Then he whined to anyone who would listen that I was crazy to challenge him. The fucking pussy was as yellow as the piss that flows out of my prick after a half case of good German beer. He couldn’t handle the ass whipping he knew he deserved and would have gotten. In the land of the Rogue Warrior, there are straight shooters and there are back shooters. I’ve noticed most of my enemies prefer the latter role.

  Anyway, The Little Ensign showed up for his free lunch looking awfully smug; no doubt he thought I was down-and-out and planning to ask him for some sort of favor. His South Carolina drawl had only gotten thicker over the years and the Citadel ring on his finger glinted every time he moved his hand. We shot the shit over the meal, each of us probing the other for those openings where you can shove a fucking knife in and hit something vital. I’d first learned the Art of Diplomacy during my tour as an embassy-based naval advisor in Cambodia during our nasty little war in Vietnam. When I went to Washington (as in D.C.), higher-level table-turning and informed statecraft were taught to me by the very best in the business. If I say so myself, I’ve only improved with age. The beady-eyed little bastard sitting across from me was about to fucking find this out the hard way.

  With lunch over and a crisp hundred dollar bill fresh from my wallet sitting atop the politely delivered check, it was time to take the safety off my weapon. I mentioned to The Little Ensign that I’d been hearing some disturbing things lately. Things with his name attached. Things having to do with me.

  “Why, what in the world do you mean, Dick?” he drawled, his palms upturned, an oily mask of phony innocence plastered on his bulldog ugly mug.

  “I mean just what you fucking heard me say, cockbreath!” I replied. “You never had what it took to join SIX, and you’re still pissed as all hell that I wouldn’t look the other way and let you come to the party anyway!”

  I could see in his eyes that I’d nailed it. Yeah, the rat-bastard remembered his interview with me as vividly as I did. He’d waltzed into my office thinking he was going to bamboozle me with his family pedigree and all the bullshit he’d managed to pull off during his career, but he’d ended up limping out the door with his gold trident shoved sideways up his ass. He never figured out if you wanted to make it on SIX you had to run the gauntlet—MY gauntlet—and come out the other end bloody but still standing. SIX was my command, my responsibility, my job, my fucking life. The Little Ensign may have been a dandy SEAL elsewhere, but he wasn’t Team SIX material and never would be.

  “Suck my dick, Dick.” He sat back, arms folded across his chest, his plump little belly rolling down and over his silver SEAL Team belt buckle.

  “No can do,” I said. “You’re the only cocksucker at this table. You’re gonna walk out of here with my dick in your mouth, and you’ll remove it only long enough to call your people and tell them what a wonderful time you had with your old pal Marcinko. You’ll tell them how clever you were, getting me to trust you after all these years. You’ll tell them that I confided in you I’m considering taking legal action against some powerful and influential individuals—as yet unnamed. The allegations will include defamation of character, slander, and even libel once the evidence I have gets into my lawyer’s greedy little meat hooks.

  “Then you’ll do what you always did when you were kissing ass in the Teams. You’ll pound your little tail on the deck and yap loudly about how important this information is and how you’re going to ‘cultivate’ our new relationship. You’ll say that you and your friends can really fuck me over by your passing on to them all the nasty old secrets I may tell you. But in reality, asshole, you’re going to keep me briefed as to what the fuck is on their agenda. That’s what good little informants do. They rat on anyone who is stupid enough to trust them.”

  I stopped and waited, letting the realization of what was now happening to him sink in.

  “Fuck you, Marcinko!” His fists balled up and for an instant I thought the little cocksucker was actually going to take a swing at me. He’d thrown the dice and they’d come up snake eyes. Now it was time to blow him out of the water.

  Over the years I’ve learned the key to effective diplomacy is to let your opponent’s theatrics and emotions sail past you without comment. You deal strictly with his actions, with the facts. So I let my lunch guest vent his rage but I didn’t respond in kind.

  “I appreciate your position,” I offered politely. “However, let­­s be frank with one another. I know about the federal judge you were pushing to go after me a few years back and the totally illegal surveillance you’ve had placed on the Manor.”

  His face paled. I noted with satisfaction how his hands began to tremble slightly. I had him by his fuzzy little balls and I was now about to squeeze them velly velly tight. And tightly squeezed cojones are painful. I know this because my own nuts have been tightly squeezed a time or two…and not by somebody sexy initiating foreplay on the way to the main course.

  “I also know you went a little ‘rogue’ yourself upon retirement.” This revelation hit home like three rounds of high velocity 9-mm ammunition coming out the business end of my favorite Glock. “That anti-government bullshit won’t play well with your pals on the Republican side of the aisle, not to mention the yogurt stirrers on the Democratic side. Especially now with the war on terrorism and all. They hate anything remotely tied to your brand of patriotic—or should I say racist—fervor.

  “There’s not much about you and your little scams that I’m not aware of,” I said in the most matter-of-fact voice I could muster. “But let’s not waste our time belaboring the point.” I sat back in my chair, palms flat on the table, my diplomat’s face now given way to the warrior face I’d worn as a career killer for the United States Navy.

  “Dick,” he uttered so quietly I had to lean forward to hear him. “That shit’s over. I’m doing okay now. Good job, good contacts. You know how it is…”

  Fucking-A, I do.

  He was mine.

  “You tried to fuck me, son,” I growled. “You came here thinking you’d break it off in my ass…on my time…on my dime. You were wrong.”

  He looked me dead in the eye but I could see he now understood how bad a hand he’d played. He could only hope to get out the door with some dignity left. You never crush a man when you’ve got a use for him. It was time to close the deal and send The Little Ensign off with his little white sailor hat held tightly in his hands.

  “What do I gotta do?” he murmured.

  “Anything aimed my way you’ll report back to me. At the same time you’ll stop-all-engines any of the bullshit you’ve hatched on your own. If any of our other ‘colleagues’ from the bad old days in the Teams ring you up and want to play Fuck Marcinko, you’ll string them along and then report it to me immediately. Anything less and I’ll put a Limpet mine beneath your hull and sink you in place. Any questions? Good. You’re dismissed.�
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  As I watched him shuffle out of the dining room I reminded myself I had a few more such meetings to hold with other detractors. Meetings meant to douse the fires being fanned against me by my own kind. I didn’t figure on hearing much from The Little Ensign. He was lousy informant material. I figured the little bitch would find a way to drop out of the political ballgame and that was good enough for me. One less enemy on my flanks meant I could concentrate on my front where the real fighting takes place.

  Up front and personal.

  Make a fucking note. The best defense is a hard-assed offense. I never fight fair. I fight back. And when I go to war it’s all or nothing. The bottom line strength of your commitment is what often carries the day in war or in business. I’ve never questioned my commitment to anything once I’ve given it. My enemies have learned this the hard way. My friends—and I’ve damned few of those—know never to worry about their six if I’m on it. I’ve grown older, wiser, and a damn sight meaner with age. I’m a gray-backed Grizzly with whom you will not fuck unless you’re bound and determined to get your ass punched, kicked, bit, and shoved into the dirt. The Rogue Warrior’s Rules on Taking Prisoners: Don’t. Truth is, I don’t have to hate you to kill you.

  After sealing the watertight doors behind me and leaving word with my attorney I was not to be bothered, I hit the road. Taking a chunk of royalty money out of the Rogue Warrior® bank account, I bought a Dodge RAM and camper and had both custom-painted in SEAL Team gold and blue. I outfitted the Beast, as I named my new all-terrain war wagon, with the luxuries of home and set out with map in lap and a fresh bottle of the good Doctor Bombay at my side (on ice, of course!). Along with my favorite Glock 26 and a half a dozen extra magazines of 9-mm brain busters, for good measure I threw in a new Stoner .308 battle rifle with a 4-power Leupold scope attached. America hasn’t been a safe place for a man or woman on the road for some time now. Properly armed and willing to be dangerous is an American tradition and I’m all for tradition when it comes to keeping my frogman’s ass in one piece.