I was late. First, tony mercaldi called on the secure phone in Hans’s cabin to pass on two nuggets of wisdom about the Foca, and to tell me that half a dozen faxes would be on their way within twenty-four hours. Then, Pinky got to me, jabbering about new intelligence, demanding to know what Sir Aubrey and I had talked about (fat fucking chance I’d tell him), and complaining that Randy Rayman couldn’t find me anywhere. Finally, I stopped off at the Marriott, called Rogue Manor, and woke up Half Pint Harris. I told him to grab eight of Green Team’s most experienced shooters, get their butts on a London-bound plane out of Dulles ASAP, and charge it all to my credit card. Pinky would piss and m-m-moan—after all, he’d denied my request for additional men. But there was no way I was going hunting without a virtual full platoon—and I was going hunting.
So, it was close to 1030 when I was finally ushered into the inner sanctum at the Ministry of Defense, just off Whitehall. I was carrying a huge, securely wrapped package containing the stabilizer fin I’d retrieved from Portsmouth harbor, and was followed by a hulking, suspicious MOD security man.
“Ah, finally.” Sir Aubrey rose from behind the huge antique partner’s desk that dwarfed him and waved Fearless Fosdick Yard off the case. “We’d been ready to declare you MIA, Captain,” he said, extending a limp paw.
The two other men in the office also rose. He turned me toward the first. “Captain Dick Marcinko, this is Major Geoffrey Lyondale, Earl of Lockemont, commander of the Royal Marines Special Boat Squadron.”
Instinct means a lot to me. And instinctively, I didn’t like this guy at all. He looked like an ad from a men’s fashion magazine. Tall, Eurotrash thin with prominent cheekbones, and sporting the kind of finely tailored, pinch-waisted, double-breasted, chalk-striped suit favored by people like Fred Astaire and the Duke of Edinburgh.
He wore his hair longish—the way the models in those Calvin Klein perfume ads wear theirs. A bright paisley handkerchief flopped foppishly over the breast pocket of his oxford, gray suit coat. His shirt was striped in green and purple, with a high, tight, white collar that made his head look like a ventriloquist’s dummy. The white French cuffs were secured by small gold coins. His tie had huge white polka dots on a black background. But it was the tan suede wing-tip shoes that pushed the whole package over the edge. He looked down his aristocratic nose at me, thrust his hand vaguely in my direction, and sniffed (only Brits can sniff when they talk), “Chawmed. Cawl me Geoff, old man.”
I took his hand, gave it a squeeze that made him wince, and answered in my best cockney imitation, “Geoff old man, call me Dick the prick, ’cause ’at’s wot eye yam.”
That brought a smile to the face of the other party. I turned toward him, extended my hand, and said, “Dick Marcinko.”
“Lord Brookfield, Dick,” he said, extending his own. “Call me Ishmael.”
He had the brightest green eyes I have ever seen. They were the color of emeralds, and they bore into mine as if he were peering into my soul. He was as tall as I, and muscular in a thin, ascetic way. His short hair was coal black and straight, his skin tone the color of burnished copper by firelight. He wore dark trousers, and a multihued Harris Tweed coat over a gray cashmere turtleneck. His shoes were mahogany suede, and obviously bench-made. His hand was cool and his grip strong when it took mine. “I’ve heard a lot about you from Geoff.”
“Have you?”
“Metter of feckt, he hes,” Lyondale said.
That old phrase about mincing words took on a whole new meaning at this point.
I could see by the look on Sir Aubrey’s face that things weren’t going as smoothly as he would have liked. Well, Sir Aubrey was a big boy. He could handle it.
I figured it was time to get down to business. “I brought you something that might help us establish responsibility.” I took the Emerson CQC6 from my pocket and slashed the wrapping, uncovering the stabilizer. “I found this yesterday.”
“Where?” Sir Aubrey’s eyes were wide as proverbial saucers.
“Portsmouth—in the harbor.”
Geoff Lyondale’s plucked eyebrows rose half an inch. “I had my lads search thoroughly. Where did you—”
“The far side of the chennel, old man—beyond the ferry route.” I could tell by the look on Geoff’s face that he’d never thought of having his men look there. “It’s a stabilizer from a Foca minisub—a six-meter Foca. Crew of one. Holds up to six passengers, and half a ton of explosives. Made by MondoMare in La Spezia. It’s the same kind of minisub used by Italian frogmen. It came off when the sub brushed a concrete piling that fell off a barge. That’s how they came and went.”
Lyondale looked critical. “How do you know it’s a Foca?”
I knew because Tony Mercaldi told me. “Ran tests last night. Positive ID. Each piece of the Foca is numbered” I showed them where. “This one was delivered three years ago to the Yugoslav Navy base at Split.”
Sir Aubrey fixed his monocle and examined the stabilizer, running his fingers over the metal. He flexed his cheek muscles and the silver-rimmed glass dropped back atop his waistcoat. “What’s the range of this thing?”
“Three hundred fifty miles plus.”
Brookfield scratched his chin. “So it could have launched from France—or the Channel Islands. Guernsey, perhaps.”
“Sure. Or it could have been shit from a mothership to come a-calling.”
Sir Aubrey coughed discreetly. “Very interesting, Captain.”
I nodded. “Which, as I said last night, we should act on—now.”
“Indeed,” Sir Aubrey said. “That is precisely why I asked you here this morning.”
I looked at Brookfield pointedly. “Isn’t this a purely military matter?”
“You see, old man,” Geoff Lyondale interjected, “I’ve hired Lord B as a consultant to SBS. He’s been thoroughly vetted by Sir Aubrey. Top-secret clearance and all.”
I turned toward Brookfield. “What’s your operational background, sonny?”
Lyondale started to object, but Brookfield held up a manicured hand. “None at all, Captain. I’m what you operators call a thumb-sucker. Purely academic. I’m here because Geoff and I go back as far as Eton—we’re a couple of Old Boys.”
I didn’t need this sort of thing so early in the day. “What is this crap? He’s here because they took cold showers together when they were teenagers?” I looked at Sir Aubrey. “Goddammit, lives are at stake.”
Brookfield continued unruffled. “In addition, I speak a modicum of Arabic. I’ve studied the Muslim world now and then. In fact, I’ve published three well-received little books on the subject.”
“Lord B is being modest,” said Sir Aubrey. “He took highest honors at Oxford. He speaks seventeen Arab dialects fluently, thirty others passably. His first published effort, The Oriental Mind, received the Prix Goncort. Two years ago, as he worked on the restoration of the Phoenician galley he himself discovered off Tyre, he was kidnapped by Hizballah terrorists. He was held for three months in the Bekáa Valley.”
Captured by Hizballah was no way to spend time. “It must have been quite an experience. How did you survive?”
“I prayed a lot. I argued theology with my captors. I read the Koran.” Lord Brookfield looked at me intensely. “I had an epiphany, chained to a radiator in Baalbek. I realized that, should I get through my crisis, should I survive, I had a sacred duty to help my friends here understand Islam; understand it so well that Hizballah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or any other group would have no reason to kidnap and kill Westerners anymore.”
I was dubious about that. Like I said, perps are perps.
“He survived,” Geoff Lyondale said proudly, interrupting my suspicions. “And he kept his promise—he came to me and offered his services. I jumped at the chance to bring him on board.” He clapped Brookfield on the shoulder. “Lord Brookfield bridges both worlds. He can—and does—meet regularly with fundamentalist mullahs, Islamic radicals, moderate Egyptians—the whole spectrum of Muslim thought. And
reports back to us on his findings. It’s all very valuable.”
I was dubious. But that’s my nature.
Lyondale, however, seemed positively intoxicated by Brookfield’s meetings with tango groups. “Besides,” he bubbled enthusiastically, “Auntie was delighted, too.”
“Auntie?” Who the hell was Auntie?
“Her Majesty,” Sir Aubrey explained before I could ask. “Young Geoffrey is Prince Charles’s second cousin. He is quite the Queen’s favorite these days.”
Just what I fucking needed—a Royal. I tried to smile. It didn’t quite work.
Lord Brookfield caught my pained expression and brought the conversation back on track. “In any case, Captain, even you must admit that we thumb-suckers have merit from time to time.”
I held up my hand. “I agree. In providing background. But not the sort of ‘hot’ intel my shooters need to score a hit.”
“No? What about the current crisis? You say, for example, that the fin from the Foca came from Split, Bosnia.”
“Right.”
“And Split is in Serbian hands, isn’t it?”
“I guess.” I hadn’t kept up with the current intel dumps on the Balkans.
“So that would make the perpetrators Bosnians, right?”
I shrugged. Maybe it would, maybe not. I wasn’t assuming anything.
“Except, I heard from a source of mine—an imam in Turkey, who said he’d been told by a fellow imam in Macedonia—that a Muslim group calling itself the Sons of Gornji Vakuf hijacked a Foca forty-six days ago, and the Serb Navy covered up the theft because it didn’t want to be seen as inept.”
“Gornji Vakuf?”
Brookfield nodded. “The site of an appalling massacre in early 1994. Bosnian Serb fighters entered the village. They killed every Muslim they found—more than six hundred in all. They crucified the men, raped, tortured, then killed the women, and murdered the children. The scene was discovered by a unit of U.N. peacekeepers—in this particular case British troops. Even those tough paras were overcome by the brutality of what they saw.”
“So the attack at Portsmouth was what? Retribution for that massacre because the Brits got there too late? It doesn’t make sense—first of all, they never took credit for the attack. Besides, wouldn’t the Sons of Gornji whatever hit a Serb target?”
“It’s not that simple. The Bosnian Muslims believe that the West has abandoned them. I’ve studied them—they always considered themselves Europeans. Now they’re convinced that we here in Europe look at them in the same racist, anti-Arab way we look at the Algerians, Turks, or Yemenites who work in our kitchens—dirty Arabs. The Sons of Gornji Vakuf have vowed to make the West pay for its abandonment, and its anti-Muslim sentiments, by any means possible.”
I looked at Sir Aubrey. “Have you heard anything about this?”
“Well,” Sir Aubrey said, somewhat abashed, “as a matter of fact, not until Lord B informed me yesterday morning.” He beat a tattoo with his fingertips on the fine inlaid wood surface of his antique desk. “But now, we’re up to speed. The group exists. And the other elements of the story were verified. The sub disappeared from the former Yugo Navy base roughly six weeks ago. Now, you’ve provided hard evidence it was in Portsmouth harbor.”
“Well, whoever did it—there’s something else,” I said.
“Yes, Captain?”
“I believe the terrorists came ashore in Britain.”
Sir Aubrey’s fingers went thrummmp-thrummmp. “Why?”
I slapped the fin with my hand. “Because of this. The sub lost a stabilizer. It could be steered left or right, but not up or down. That makes getting to a rendezvous next to impossible. I think the crew ditched it, then swam to shore.”
“Excellent reasoning, Captain. We are convinced of the same thing—in fact, we believe they are still here, and that we even know where they are.”
“Cheltenham picked up message traffic yesterday at about noon,” Lyondale interjected. Cheltenham was the main British SIGINT—SIGnals INTelligence—listening post, operated in conjunction with the earwigs from No Such Agency. It was located in the quiet Gloucestershire countryside, about eighty-five miles west of London. Its eight square miles of antennas were like a huge vacuum cleaner, sucking signals out of the air. “We couldn’t decipher the meaning, until we called Lord B to come in and listen.”
“They were speaking in Bacovici, a seldom-heard dialect from a small Muslim district southwest of Sarajevo,” Brookfield explained. “Quite parochial. Hard to interpret. Very much the same way you Yanks used Navajo Indian ‘talkers’ during World War Two to confuse the Germans and Japanese.” He paused. “But I know Bacovici. Studied it at Oxford. Sun-dried brick, quasi-defunct languages, and all that rubbish, y’know. Musty, dusty libraries, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.” He smiled beneficently. “So you see, Captain, thumb-sucking has its advantages.”
Perhaps it did. “What was the message?”
“The gist,” Sir Aubrey said, “is that our quarry have gone to ground in Portsmouth—waiting until it gets quiet so they can strike again.”
“Then let’s go get the sons of bitches. Five of my shooters should be here by noon. We’ll hit ’em tonight.”
“Not so fast, Dick,” Geoff Lyondale interrupted. “First of all, we’re not prepared to go anywhere tonight. We have neither operational intelligence nor a coherent mission plan. Second, when we do choose to stage an attack, the we, in this case, will be SBS. Your SEALs will support our assault.”
“Hey, Geoff, in case you missed the story on CNN, it was my CNO who got killed.”
“In deference to which,” he said, “Sir Aubrey has decided to allow your men to participate in the raid. But my commanding officer, too, was murdered. In any event, this is not a matter for debate. The bottom line, as you Yanks are so fond of saying, is that SEALs will remain in support, while SBS performs the assault. It makes sense. You, after all, are only five. We will send a full squadron.”
“Five?” He was one man short.
“You said you have five men arriving today.”
“That makes six of us.” Plus the others from Rogue Manor he didn’t know anything about.
“Surely, you’ll be with me in the command center.”
“No fucking way, Geoff. I don’t sit on my ass while my men’s lives are on the line.”
“Command, Captain, is a sacred duty—but it doesn’t require that you sacrifice yourself. Besides, this is all moot. Five or six men cannot do the job properly. We will need at least fifty. We have them and you don’t.”
He was right, damn him.
Thanks to Pinky da Turd, the lady may have spread her legs and given me the green light, but my dick was currently tied in a knot. Doom on me. “What’s your plan?” I asked, thoroughly depressed.
Tommy and the boys were waiting in my suite when I got back. They’d already run up a hefty room-service tab, so to save the U.S. taxpayers further deficit spending, we adjourned to a pub two blocks away on Davies Street, occupied the secluded corner table, and took our Courage by the pint.
Tommy explained that our bundle must have had heart trouble, because he’d gone into shock by the time they’d put to sea and died shortly before the rendezvous.
“There was no sign of that in the cover documents.”
“Nope,” Tommy said. “He had a clean bill of health—no problems.”
I shook my head. “Maybe it was the carbon monoxide. All that time in the trunk of Doc’s car.”
“Maybe. We dumped the body before the rendezvous.”
That was good. No corpus delicti for Pinky—or anyone else—to find.
Then I brought everyone up to date as much as I could, sitting in that public place, not to mention the fact that we were probably being shadowed by one or two of Sir Aubrey’s watchers. I described the players, explained the sorry hand of cards we’d been dealt, and hinted that reinforcements were arriving soon.
Our circumstances didn’t make anybody happy. S
till, the men surrounding me were the real nucleus of Green Team—shooters I knew I could depend on no matter what happened.
Stevie Wonder had put his career on the line for me dozens of times. I call him Stevie Wonder because he wears opaque, wraparound shooting glasses, and he swivels his head left-right-left, right-left-right, in a passable imitation of—you guessed it—Stevie Wonder. This goofy-looking, red-haired ex-Marine (in appearance he’s somewhere between Howdy Doody and Ted Koppel) holds two classified Silver Stars for missions in North Vietnam back in the early seventies, so there’s no doubt he knows how to shoot and loot. Stevie tried to go to BUD/S—Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training—at the age of thirty-two. He lasted just under six weeks out of the twenty-six he needed before his USMC-issue feet gave out.
Even so, he was as tough and resilient as any SEAL in the world—and smarter than 99 percent of’em when it came to operating in a hostile environment. Lots of operators can jump and dive and patrol when ordered. There are fewer and fewer these days who live to kill. Wonder is one of them—a true hunter. He’s the kind of aggressive, driven, energetic asshole who looks for missions, instead of waiting to be told what to do. Indeed, Stevie’d killed more Japs than anyone at Green Team—except me.
Tommy T had volunteered to work with me even though he’d been the commanding officer of SEAL Team Eight and a trip to Green Team meant moving down the chain of command from CO to executive officer. Rank and standing didn’t bother him in the least—what counted was the possibility of doing what he’d trained all his life to do, kill Japs. Tommy’s my kind of warrior, too. Like me, he leads from the front—he doesn’t ask anything of his men he won’t do first.
One indicator of his success was that the current SpecWar commodore, a bald, bean-counting, squeaky-voiced twerp I’ll call Captain Sphincter Twiddle Jr., tried to assign Tommy to a six-month tour aboard an aircraft carrier, while he was CO of Team Eight. Why? Because Tommy was spending too much money training his men for war, and not devoting enough time to the playing of football, baseball, and volleyball. To Commodore Twiddle, the Little Creek Amphibious Base intramural league was more important than SEAL Team Eight’s ability to go to war—and because Tommy didn’t see it that way, Twiddle wanted to get rid of him.
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