RW04 - Task Force Blue

by Richard Marcinko

  I chanced a peek—and was delighted to see that the rear door was still cracked open. That was great—it meant I could toss my flashbang inside without having to go up to the doorway itself—a potentially hazardous move if there was a tango on duty right behind it.

  By now, my swim-buddy pairs were positioning themselves. They’d sneak up and lay the padded tops of the side rails on the fuselage next to the doors, or up along the inside, forward edge of the wings. Then ever so slowly, ever so carefully, they’d move into position.

  The wing men would creep inch by inch, staying low and out of sight, below their assigned windows. On my signal, they’d pop the windows, toss flashbangs, then swarm.

  The door men would ease their ladders alongside the hatches, positioning themselves so that the first man could slide the release handle and open the door catch. On my signal, the first man would open the door, the second man would toss his flashbang, then hit the cabin.

  We’d rehearsed the sequence in the hangar, so we knew one another’s fields of fire. Doc and I had the longest range—running from row 16 up to row 23. Duck Foot and Rodent had the rear-window fire field—rows 14, 15, 16, and 17. Gator and Cherry took the forward windows. They’d take down rows 9 through 14.

  Half Pint and Pick had the rough entry: starboard galley hatch. If they were lucky, they’d clear it and both be alive to sweep rows 8, 7, 6, and 5. That left Wonder and Grundle. They’d come through the front door. Wonder would clear the flight deck then follow Grundle into first class. It was Grundle’s mission to secure SECNAV while Wonder dealt with any tangos.

  The double tsk-tsks coming through my earpiece told me everyone was in position. Just to be double sure, I whispered “Ready? Count off” into my lip mike. I got eight tsktsks—and since Boy Wonder’s radio lay on the ground below I knew we were set to go.

  Did you ever want to know what’s going through a team leader’s mind at this instant? Yes? Well, let me tell you. It’s not good stuff. Instead, you’re thinking of all the things that can go wrong; all the stuff that can get your guys killed. Here is a quick selection from the scores of goatfuck possibilities that were running through my mind as I crouched at the base of the steps, in position and ready to go:

  The tangos had tied off the interior door handles. If they had, we’d have to blow the doors using ribbon charges, by which time all the hostages would be dog meat.

  The Ts had booby-trapped some of the hostages. That possibility made me shiver. You can lose both your shooter, and the hostage, if things go sour—and things often go sour.

  More to the point, had they booby-trapped any of the doors or windows? If they had, I’d lose some shooters as we made our entrance because we’d take more time, giving the tangos an opportunity to wax our asses.

  One of the TV trucks had night-vision equipment and was broadcasting a live picture of us, which a tango was watching on his battery-operated TV set.

  I could have sat there all night pondering the unpleasant possibilities. But it was time to move.

  “On three,” I said, and pulled the pin from the flashbang.

  “One.” I held the spoon down with my thumb.

  “Two.” I swung my arm back so the twenty-eight-ounce, gun steel cylinder would get some lift when I tossed it through the doorway.

  “Three.” I brought my arm forward, pitching the flashbang device softball slow pitch style, in a gentle arc. I watched in horror as it flew three inches to the right of where I’d aimed, bounced off the edge of the door frame, and came back at Doc and me.

  The DEF-TEC No. 25 flashbang distraction device has a one-and-one-half-second fuse. When that 1.5 seconds runs out and the explosive takes over, you get a flash that measures 2.42 million candlepower, and a bang that’s rated at 174.5 decibels at five feet.

  Let me translate that into English for you. It’s bright enough and loud enough to scare the living shit out of just about anybody—which is exactly what the fucking thing did to me when it caromed off the stairs, bounced once, and went off precisely six inches due south of my crotch.

  The concussion lifted me and my jewels a foot in the air, and I came down in a heap—my legs going out from under me. I hit bad and wrenched my ankle—I felt my talus and proximal phalanx bones (didn’t know I knew that, did you?) go pop-pop-pop. I felt these things because I couldn’t see or hear anything—I was temporarily blind and deaf, thanks to the efficiency of the flashbang.

  Instinct took over. I rolled to my left, promptly dinging my knee on the unforgiving steel tread, and smashing my nose against the railing. Oh, that hurt.

  So much for surprise. Well, fuck surprise—we’d do this by sheer aggressive force and violence of action.

  I pulled another flashbang from my pouch, pulled the pin, and threw it like a Phil Niekro fastball through the narrow opening. This one actually slid through and went off inside, and I charged up the stairs and through the door, Doc hot on my hobbling tail.

  There is almost no way to describe the inside of a plane during a hostage rescue, except to say that it is complete pandemonium—and that’s an understatement.

  There was no light—except the faint glow of exit signs, the lights we carried on our weapons, and the residue from the blinding explosions of the flashbangs. There was a lot of smoke. We were all screaming, “Abajo, abajo—down, down—” so the passengers wouldn’t jump up and get shot by mistake. Even so, a couple of heads raised themselves. I whacked at ’em as I charged down the aisle, screaming obscenities.

  My halogen USP light was on, sweeping the cabin as I moved steadily down the aisle. Three rows forward I saw something—caught sight of a muzzle coming up in my direction. I shouted “Gun—left” at Doc, brought my pistol up, got sight picture through the Trijicons, and squeezed off four pairs of rapid double-taps.

  I shot past the asshole five times and hit him three—groin, belly, and chest. The .45-caliber SWAT loads lifted the son of a bitch off his feet and slammed him back against the seats. He fell between two rows of screaming, ducking passengers and I pursued him, oblivious of the bodies I was stepping on.

  Damn—he was obviously wearing body armor because even though the .45 had knocked him down, he was still shooting—his 633HB stitching a ragged line in the ceiling as the hostages scrambled to get out of the way. Okay—I’d shoot the son of a bitch again. Except I didn’t have a shot—he was between the seats, and there might have been hostages between him and me. I launched myself over the headrests, drawing the DSU-2 as I went. I mashed my face against a tray table, stretched out my arm as far as I could to squeeze between the seats, and stuck the thick, black serrated blade right through his body armor in the center of his chest, and cut upward until I’d eviscerated the cocksucker. Now there was no way he’d get up. I wrested the weapon from his hands and tossed it in Doc’s direction. I sure as hell didn’t want it sitting unattended.

  I sheathed the knife, changed magazines, wiped blood from my nose, and looked forward, where I saw the light beams from Duck Foot’s and Rodent’s weapons through the rising smoke. They had a tango facedown and were Flexicuffing him. Beyond them, in the front of the cabin, there was smoke and shooting—shit, that’s where SECNAV was supposed to be.

  I heard something behind us and turned. Doc was ready—his MP5 caught a shadow coming out of the rear starboard head and stitched a neat three-round burst in the tango’s face. “Shit—” Doc screamed, and charged. He scooped something off the floor, flung it down the stairway, then hit the door and the deck simultaneously.

  I heard the explosion and then Doc screamed, “Aw, fuck me—”

  I would have checked on Doc but I was occupied by another tango. This one popped up between the starboard seats just aft of the galley like a fucking shooting gallery target. He had a submachine gun pointed vaguely in my direction. Now a second asshole popped up on the port side. What was this, a fucking convention?

  I double-tapped the starboard T—he was the most immediate threat—in the chest, shoulders, and head. He d
ropped.

  Now, my peripheral vision caught the glint of a weapon in the second man’s hand, and I swung to my left, bringing the USP around.

  “Yo—scum bag—drop the fucking gun, get down, arms out, palms up and don’t fucking move!” It was Gator. Except, instead of shooting the bad guy like he was supposed to do, he was shouting orders. Well, Gator’s an ex-cop and he still likes to whisper those sweet cop nothings, like, “Freeze, motherfucker, or name your beneficiary.”

  This was no time to be polite. No time to lose, no warnings, no Mr. Nice Guy. Nothing but three double-taps. I caught tango two in the chest and neck with two bullets. A third shattered his jaw and he went down, too.

  I moved forward, coming right up on the galley when there was a slight pause in the action—we’d been at it for about fifteen seconds now—and then I heard three wonderful words. “Bow section clear.” Wonder’s New Yawk accent punched through my headset.

  A half second later, I heard “Midships clear.” That was Rodent’s welcome chirp.

  “Doc—”

  “Aft clear, Skipper.” Doc picked himself up off the deck. He’d caught a piece of shrapnel on his cheek, and he looked like he’d been sliced by a straight razor—a ten-stitch repair job at least. I saw in my flashlight beam that he was already slapping a piece of tape on it.

  Damn, we’d done good. No—we’d done great—ten men had done the job of seventeen, and I was very proud of ’em all. “Okay—let’s get SECNAV and secure. And get some fucking lights on—now!”

  “Aye-aye, sir.” Nasty’s voice was followed shortly by the overheads. I winced—my eyes had become accustomed to the darkness.

  Incredibly, the minute the lights came on, the passengers started to move, as if they were about to disembark. A couple of ’em even started for the overhead bins.

  Well, the authorities were on their way, there were corpses blocking the aisle, and the proprieties had to be observed, so I stopped them real fast by applying a liberal dose of shock therapy. “Nobody fucking move—sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. Put your hands on the goddamn seat in front of you where we can see ’em.”

  They complied meekly. Good—that meant we could get to work sans interruptions.

  “Sit-reps,” I barked into my lip mike. “SECNAV? Body count?” No one answered. “Nasty?”

  “Clear. Wonder and me got two Ts down up here, no civilians injured—and no SECNAV.”

  Shit. “Let’s find her.” That was important—but so was making sure we’d put all the bad guys down. Let’s see—I’d killed three, Doc waxed one, and we’d left one alive on the tarmac. That made seven tangos so far—and not a single hostage injured. “Cherry?”

  “Clear—nobody down.”

  “Duck Foot?”

  “Clear. Clear. One DOA—he’s hog-tied, Skipper.”

  That was eight. “Pick—”

  “Clear, Skipper. One bad guy DOA.”

  Nine. “Half Pint?”

  I got no answer. I called again. What the hell had happened to the fucking squidge? I edged my way forward, slaloming my way up the detritus-filled aisle. “Pick—where the hell’s your swim buddy?”

  Pick was on his hands and knees in the aisle just forward of row 12, Flexi-cuffing his DOA. He looked up at me and wagged his head. “Beats me, Skipper—last I saw he was hanging on the galley door.”

  I stepped over him and pushed my way fore of the starboard galley bulkhead, shone my light down, and picked up the inert form of Half Pint Harris, sprawled arms akimbo on the tarmac, lying faceup in the rain.

  Well, shit may happen during these ops, but I’m never happy about it. I clambered down the wet, slippery ladder and checked Half Pint’s neck. His pulse was strong and there was no blood. Okay—when he came around, we’d find out what the hell had happened.

  Meanwhile, it was back to work. And by the time I’d worked my way up the ladder and back inside the cabin, the plane had been surrounded by police cars from half a dozen jurisdictions. Dozens of Federal law enforcement vehicles, cop cars in twenty-one flavors, ambulances, fire trucks, and airport security jeeps were skidding on the wet runway. It was like a goddamn traffic jam of Keystone Kops.

  At least Bob and his Marathoners were there. Like an old UDT platoon chief, he simply assumed command of the situation, signaling, barking orders, assigning his men to the entryways so that no unauthorizeds made their way into the cabin. That was good—we SEALs don’t pay much attention to the preservation of evidence. With Bob on the job, that detail would be taken care of.

  The yang to Bob’s yin was La Muchacha, who arrived at the nose of the plane, a bright yellow sou’wester rain suit (and attitude to match) over her street clothes. She went right to work—on me.

  Frankly, I had no time for her. There was work to be done—for example, the no small matter of SECNAV. The Honorable S. Lynn Crawford had to be extracted from the plane, debriefed in private, cleaned up, driven the three and a half miles to the Naval Air Station at Boca Chica (where our own C-141 sat), and sent on her way with a minimum of fuss—this time on a hijack-proof, regulation, by-thenumbers U.S. Navy aircraft.

  The question, of course, was where the fuck said Ms. SECNAV was, since she hadn’t been sitting in first class. I made my way aft, comparing faces with the photo I’d been faxed a few hours ago.

  I hadn’t gone a third of the way through the cabin, when Doc Tremblay discovered her just behind the galley bulkhead, and summoned me with an urgent whistle and wave. The Honorable S. Lynn Crawford, secretary of the navy, was sitting on the deck at row 15, staring down at the body of a dead tango. She was in tears—completely unable to speak.

  Unbelievable. Talk about classic Stockholm syndrome. (Stockholm syndrome, for those of you who may not know, is the hostage’s transference of loyalty from the authorities, to the terrorists. It happens because of emotional stress. Since the hostages are at the complete mercy of their captors, they often begin to identify with them out of a subconscious desire to survive.) Okay, well, this was as perfect a case of it as I’d ever seen.

  But despite her Stockholm syndrome—or whatever else she may have had—my orders were to get her off the plane. “Goddammit, Madam Secretary, we have to move—now.”

  It was like talking to a wall. She didn’t react to me at all. I waved Doc over. His bedside manner is a hell of a lot more diplomatic than mine is. He kneeled and faced Madam Secretary, smiled that wonderful New Englander’s smile, took her hands in his, and spoke softly.

  It worked. She responded to him in a matter of seconds, nodding through her tears. She gulped, hiccoughed, and gulped again, as if she’d taken some coffee down the wrong pipe. With Doc’s help, she rose into a kneeling position. Then she shook free of his hands. She inclined her head as if in prayer, pressed her palms to her face, dry-heaved a couple more times, caught her breath, and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

  Then she looked up, catching me, I must in all truth admit, in the radiant, self-satisfied afterglow of a job well done.

  Except, her face was contorted in an agonized expression that blended fear, loathing, contempt, and shock. “You moronic ignoramus,” she said. “You feeble-minded, Neanderthal knuckle dragger. You contemptible murderer. You killed my bodyguard.”

  SHOOTING THE NIS AGENT MAY HAVE BEEN UNFORTUNATE, BUT it was righteous. There was absofuckinglutely no question about that. You don’t wave a gun aboard a hijacked plane during a rescue attempt and not expect to get shot. NIS conceded on paper—no doubt in quintuplicate, although I only got to see the mauve copy—that what had taken place was (in their own Navyspeak words) “a deplorable act, which resulted because of an unfortunate, and ill-fated departure (!?!) from appropriate Naval Investigative Service Command security procedure.”

  The FBI’s SAC of shit from Miami, who had no love for me or my methods, wrote in her report that what had happened was inevitable, given the fact that I had acted before I’d received proper clearances. Right. Sure. Her report went on to say that, despite
the fact that we’d saved all the hostages, rescued SECNAV, and hadn’t destroyed the plane, she was considering filing a sexual harassment grievance against me, for using offensive language and behavior.

  I took the SAC’s memo as a compliment. In her own bureaucratic way, she was saying that I might be a hell of a brain surgeon, but my bedside manner sucks. Well, doom on her—it does suck, and I’m proud of it.

  But neither backhanded FBI compliments nor NIS Navy-speak did much to assuage SECNAV. The networks couldn’t discover anything about the ADAM Group, so they decided that the hijack story was really about me. My face—conveniently plucked from book jacket covers—was all over the network news, along with a lot of inaccurate reporting on my controversial history as a renegade in the United States Navy’s Special Warfare commands. CNN used its file footage of me making face pudding out of the Royal Marine Special Boat Squadron CO, Major Geoff Lyondale, after the Portsmouth, England, fiasco you read about in Green Team.

  It wasn’t hard to find a dozen former SEAL officers (whose behinds had at one time or another borne my size eleven double-E boondocker prints) who didn’t mind giving ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and anyone else who asked, their version of my controversial history as a SEAL. By the time Sunday night rolled around, I’d been described as a stone killer, a sociopathic misfit, and a delusional psychopath—and those were some of my better alleged qualities.

  Yeah—the networks called to see if I wanted to respond, but in no-win cases like this one, I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut. I’d been judged—and the judgment wasn’t kind.

  Then there was SECNAV. She’d been hijacked on Thursday and rescued early Friday morning. By 1355 the following Monday—that’s five before 2 P.M. on your civilian ticktocks—a special assistant to the deputy executive assistant to the executive confidential assistant to the chief of staff to the secretary of the navy had hand-delivered an eyes-only memorandum to the special assistant to the deputy executive assistant to the executive director of the office of the executive confidential assistant to the Acting Chief of Naval Operations, demanding that I promptly be guillotined, drawn, quartered, and (more to the point) dismissed from the Navy with removal of pension and all benefits.