After I finished, Harrington handed me two single sheets of paper. The first was a top secret code-word note, handwritten on the buff-colored, four-starred, engraved letterhead of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:
“Gunny” was the informal, first-name signature of the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General A. G. Barrett, USMC. Unlike many of his predecessors, Gunny Barrett had a close personal relationship with his commander in chief. The JCS Chairman was a regular jogging companion and golf partner to the president. In fact, according to the newspapers, the CINC saw more of A. G. Barrett, General, USMC, than he did the head of the CIA, or the secretary of defense—and their relationship had gone far beyond a professional one. If the Priest worked for Gunny, then he had the kind of clout that comes straight from the Oval Orifice.
Thanks to Wonder’s arthroscopic B and E, I had seen the second sheet before. It was a photocopy of a portion of a classified fax from the FBI Miami field office to the counterterrorism intelligence unit, at headquarters. It was a portion of the inventory of all the belongings taken from the hijackers of Flight 1252. Halfway down the list was the LAW I had stripped from the tango under the jet’s tail. A handwritten notation next to the weapon’s serial number read “Lincoln Weapons Stowage Depot—St. Louis.” A second LAW was also listed just below it. According to a note in the margin, it had been taken from an armory in Rhode Island. The rest of the sheet had been blacked out. But I knew what was underneath: a note that the tangos’ Colt 633HB submachine gun serial numbers had also been checked, and that two had been stolen from the SEAL Team Four weapons locker at the Naval Special Warfare Command in Little Creek, Virginia, two came from an arms stowage depot outside Baltimore, and the rest were from an Air Force Reserve security unit in Florida.
“You have a big problem—and I have a big problem,” General Harrington said. “But between us, we may be able to find a common solution.”
I kept a poker face while Major General Harrington threw my big Br’er Slovak behind right back into the briar patch.
He was, no doubt, a terrific and dangerous poker player, because he knew how to bluff. But I’ve been down that road before, too. So, when he showed me FBI files and DOD E-mail, I looked surprised, even though I’d read them all before. I even learned a lot from reading them again—learned, because the Priest had redacted them artfully. See, intelligence is often discerned not from what you are shown, but from what you are not shown.
An example? Okay. General Harrington had erased all evidence of FBI illegality. These were not the shredded black-bag memos I’d seen. Moreover, any suggestions that the Bureau might have been compromised had been redacted, too. That told me he was, at the very least, sharing intelligence with them. Which then told me I’d have to filter what I told him.
He’d kept many of the references to the Zulu Gangsta Princes, to Imam el-Yassin, and to LC Strawhouse. That told me his inquiry pointed toward the Texas billionaire. Fine: it was a direction in which I’d been headed, too.
He had solid background on the Zulu Gangsta Princes. That was good. I hadn’t seen much of this information before, and the Princes’ connection with ADAM might be significant. So might ADAM’s relationship with an imam who advocated war against the United States.
While I was happy with what I read, there were also some niggling questions that were left unanswered. The material on LC Strawhouse was little more than I had been able to uncover using unclassified sources. Given the Priest’s obvious connections and position, that was a bit curious.
You see, I knew from reading Forbes that Strawhouse hired only ex-generals and ex-admirals to run his companies, so there might be an ulterior motive here. Maybe LC had already offered the Priest a job after he retired—or, more ominously, he’d offered him one before he retired. It had happened before. Indeed, perhaps S. J. Harrington, Major General, USA, had a buddy or two already working for the California billionaire.
Finding out the truth would take more research on my part—and in the meanwhile, I would be careful about what I did and said within the Priest’s earshot. I have been in this business for too long to believe in coincidence.
Within an hour, I came to realize why he’d been nicknamed the Priest. When I asked (he answered in such a beautifully offhanded manner that it had to be a studied move) he said it was because his initials were SJ, the same as the Society of Jesus, the Jesuitical order that had inculcated him in philosophy and logic at Georgetown University.
Maybe. I would have thought it was because he had the ability to make a true believer, even out of an apostate like me.
He must have been a hell of an intelligence officer because he was goddamn persuasive on behalf of Mother Army Church. The Priest’s sermon was simple. He wanted me and my men to work for him. Our objective would be to find out who the hell was stealing the military’s goodies and help take them down. He doubted that the job would take longer than a couple of months, during which time we’d be detailed to DIA—well, sort of detailed.
His homily continued: our mission was to be a Priority One. It was being undertaken at the personal behest, and under the protection, of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The chain of command was magnificent in its catholic austerity. The Priest was the Chairman’s acolyte; I was the Priest’s altar boy. That ecumenical chain of command, he promised, overrode anything the secretary of the navy, the Justice Department—or any other authority—might want to do to me or to my men. No matter that we were about to be indicted for murder—he said he could fix it.
But what about afterward, your fixerdom? Do my guys still get hog-tied then deep fried?
Ah, the Priest continued, if things went well he would guarantee that the Navy and the Department of Justice would grant us all complete absolution for the sins of body, mind, and soul we had committed in Key West. The slate would be wiped clean.
That’s when I realized he was speaking for the White House. I’d seen the clue—the handwritten note from Gunny Barrett—but the significance of that heavy, engraved stationary hadn’t seeped through my thick skull until now.
It has been said that the best time to get a great deal from the government is before you sign anything. And since I realized that my men and I could still be harassed by the legal system—that we could be made to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend ourselves against specious charges—this was the time to fixee-fixee.
Clean slate forever, I asked? Deep-six all the charges stemming from Key West? Nothing in our records? No hidden agendas?
Absolutely, positively, 100 percent clean, pledged the Priest. Better than if you’d come from confession with the pope.
And do I get a copy of that piece of paper? Absolutely, said the Priest. Copy for the files. This is all on the up-and-up, after all.
Well, that being the case, I decided I’d be silly not to play along. After all, the Priest’s goals and mine were similar. We both wanted to put the bad guys down. And until I knew he could be trusted, when it came time for a visit to the confessional I’d deal with this priest the same way I’d dealt with all those others back at St. Ladislaus Church in New Brunswick when I was an evil-minded, teenaged boychik, thinking impure thoughts and doing impure deeds—I’d lie through my teeth.
We sandbagged Pinky da Turd in the Chairman’s office. When he came through the ornate wood door I was sitting behind the Chairman’s antique desk in a huge, black leather high-backed judge’s chair—the same one used by Bill Crowe, Colin Powell, and John Shalikashvili. The Chairman’s flag, the Marine Corps flag, and the Stars and Bars were arrayed behind me. I was turned out in dress blues with all my ribbons. The Priest was standing behind my right shoulder. The Chairman, General A. G. “Gunny” Barrett—the first Marine four-star ever to be appointed—was behind my left. General Tom Crocker, the lanky former West Point wide receiver who was deputy chairman and Gunny Barrett’s chief confidante, stood dead center.
The secretary had buzzed a warning, so we knew the Pi
nkster was coming. He strode into the office as if he was about to get a medal. He was two yards from the desk when he actually perceived our living tableau.
I caught his eye. “Yo—Pinky, guess who?”
In the great Tom and Jerry cartoons of the forties and fifties, whenever Tom the cat saw something absolutely horrifying, his eyeballs would look as if they were on springs—they’d go boy-oy-oy-oy-oy-inng, right out of their sockets. Well, that’s exactly what happened when Pinky saw me.
I thought the son of a bitch was going to have a heart attack. He went absolutely livid. Then he went completely sallow. His hair, which has a remarkable tendency to cowlick at times of stress, did a full Dagwood Bumstead. Pinky clutched his throat, made a braying sound that resembled “Wha-wha-wha?” then he turned and started running for the door.
The Priest stopped him in midstride. “Come in, Rear Admiral Prescott. Have a seat.” He pointed at an uncomfortable, battleship gray metal-framed straight-back chair we’d had brought to the Chairman’s office especially for Pinky’s scrawny behind.
Pinky stopped in his tracks. He turned. I could see him counting stars—the Priest’s two stars, General Crocker’s four, and the Chairman’s four. That made ten stars to Pinky’s two. His whole body sagged. It was as if his bones had turned to Jell-O. He gritted his teeth—which must have been painful, because his jaw was wired—and then he trudged back and parked his bony butt exactly where the Priest had indicated.
I rose, and Chairman Barrett assumed his rightful place. “Thanks for coming, Tom,” he said, flicking an index finger at Crocker as if he was pointing a Colt 1911.
Crocker cut for the door. “Nada, Gunny. I’ll let you people get down to business.” He stuck his thumb in the Priest’s direction and smiled. “Besides, Major General Harrington here says this is need-to-know business, and when the Priest insists I don’t have any need to know, I don’t wanna know—because then he’d have to kill me.”
The Chairman waited until his deputy had left. Then he fixed a steely eye on Pinky Prescott. He didn’t say a word. He let Pinky sit there and stew for a full ninety seconds. If you don’t think that’s a long time, try timing it right now. If you don’t want to take the time, then take my word for it. Believe me, it is a long pause, especially when the fucking Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is staring you down as only an angry Marine general can stare.
Finally, he spoke. “Rear Admiral Prescott,” he said, underlining the word rear, “Major General Harrington and I would like to borrow Captain Marcinko and put him to work for us on an assignment of some considerable sensitivity and importance. Would that be all right with you, Rear Admiral?”
Pinky nodded in the affirmative.
“I can’t hear you, Rear Admiral Prescott,” said the Chairman, doing a real passable imitation of a Parris Island boot camp drill instructor.
“Yes, sir,” said Pinky.
“I can’t hear you, Rear Admiral Prescott,” the Chairman said again, making Pinky repeat himself, too.
“And I need nine of Captain Marcinko’s enlisted SEALs as well. Is that a problem for you, Rear Admiral?”
Pinky was actually sweating. His hair was now completely messed up. “No, sir,” he said loudly and clearly through his wired jaw.
He must have said it loudly and clearly enough this time, because the Chairman didn’t make him repeat himself again.
“Now, Rear Admiral Prescott,” Chairman Barrett said, “is there anything you’d like to know about Captain Marcinko’s assignment?”
“Well, I’d—” Pinky began.
The Chairman cut him off. “I don’t think you want to know anything, Rear Admiral. What do you think, Major General Harrington?”
The Priest shook his head. “I don’t think Rear Admiral Prescott has to concern himself with the particulars of Captain Marcinko’s new assignment, sir. He probably has more important things to do than bother with bureaucratic minutiae emanating from this office.” He smiled. “Isn’t that right, Rear Admiral?”
“Well, n-n-no—” Pinky began. I was delighted to see that he still had his stutter. Some things should never change, and that was one of them.
General Barrett cut Pinky off. “‘No need to deal with minutiae.’ Quite correct, Major General Harrington.” The Chairman paused and quite transfixed Pinky with an ominous glare. The asshole looked like a fucking jacklighted deer sitting there.
The JCS Chairman’s lip curled malevolently and he inclined his body toward Pinky’s. “What I am saying, Rear Admiral Prescott, is that you will not interfere. You will not talk about this. You will treat this as a code-word sensitive matter. In fact, Rear Admiral Prescott, you look somewhat peaked right now. Perhaps the next month or so would be a wonderful time for you to take your family and go off on a camping excursion. Someplace where there are no phones or faxes.”
“B-but,” Pinky b-began.
“Take the fucking vacation,” Gunny Barrett said. “If you don’t, and if you meddle in this assignment I have for Captain Marcinko, you will be a very, very sorry person.”
He gave Pinky an offhanded salute. “That will be all, Rear Admiral Prescott.” The Chairman swiveled his chair away. “Dismissed,” he said.
WITH PINKY OUT OF MY PONYTAIL FOR THE NEXT MONTH, I assembled my troops, then the Priest led us all back to his office at DIA to deal with paperwork. He had a corner suite on the fourteenth floor, which gave him a panoramic view of the whole national capital area from Catholic University and the Anacostia River on the east, to the U.S. Capitol, the mall, the White House, and all the memorials. To the right of the doorway, where the room number and section-slash-department placard are normally posted, there was a small white-on-blue printed sign that read NDBBM.
When I asked what it meant, the Priest said, in all seriousness, “Nobody’s Damn Business But Mine.”
The doors were equipped with electronic digital and hand-print-analysis lock systems. You could break into them, if you had a computer, a digitally correct bogus palm print with accurate body temperature—and a couple of uninterrupted hours in which to play with the dial. Then I noted the floor sensors, passive monitors, and heat detectors. While nothing is impossible, I decided that breaking into the Priest’s offices would be a nasty, nasty chore.
Inside, we walked up three steps into his office proper—that meant the floor had been insulated and a vacuum airvoid installed so it could not be bugged. I looked around casually and saw that the windows were made of triple-paned glass, with white-sound pipes between the two outer panes to foil electronic eavesdropping. I’d seen the same type of curtains that framed the Priest’s windows before, too—in a bug-proof bubble room inside the U.S. embassy in Moscow. They were made of a space-age fabric that made them impervious to infrared and laser penetrations. I was impressed. Despite the million-buck view of Washington, we were sitting in a state-of-the-art bug-proof room that made the SCIFs back at the Pentagon—the acronym stands for Special Classified Intelligence Facilities—as leaky as old mobile homes.
The Priest settled behind his desk, checked his messages, and leafed through the half dozen pages that had come across his secure fax. He pointed us toward the small, comfortable settee on the far wall, the two armchairs, and the four metal straightbacks that had been left by the door. “Coffee?”
“Sure.”
He pressed a buzzer on the phone console twice rapidly, paused, then repeated the signal. Thirty seconds later, an Air Force staff captain carrying a luncheonette-size tray with eleven blue-and-white DIA mugs, eleven spoons, a carafe of coffee, a bowl of sugar, and a pitcher of milk came through the door, set the tray on the coffee table in front of me, poured the Priest a mugful, topped it off with milk, stirred thrice, placed it gently atop an antique Portuguese tile that sat on the starboard side of the general’s desk, then withdrew as efficiently and quietly as any proper Brit butler. God bless Air Farce staff—they are good for something after all.
I waited until my guys had all served themselves, then I pou
red myself a mug and sipped. It was good coffee—the kind of rich, smoky stuff that’s brewed from expensive beans. This guy had style. I saluted the Priest with my mug. “Thanks.”
“Time to get down to business.” The Priest withdrew a thick sheaf of papers from a two-drawer, fireproof safe that sat behind his desk, and laid them out one by one so that we could inscribe, sign, and initial them paragraph by paragraph, page by page.
“Think of this as if you were joining a religious order,” he said, a sardonic smile on his face.
I used to be an altar boy and I know the routine. So I dipped my finger in blood and took the fucking vow of silence. Then I put a dollar sign next to the fucking vow of poverty. I signed the fucking vow of chastity with a pecker-track, and put my thumbprint at the bottom of a document that warned me to think only pure thoughts in order to perform God’s work on earth.
The last sheet was interesting—and brought back a lot of memories. What I did, essentially, was to sign myself on indefinite release from the Navy and transmogrify my nasty Slovak SEAL butt into a private, civilian-type person who had no overt tie to the military, the government, or anything official while simultaneously promising to obey, observe, and glorify all the manifold commandments of the Priest’s somewhat Jesuitical intelligence-gathering order.
I’ve done this sort of thing before—but not quite so totally. As CO of SEAL Team Six, I actually transferred my entire command out of the Navy. See, the Navy still denies that there is a SEAL Team Six. To give that denial credibility, we were listed on the books as civilian employees of a MARESFAC, or MArine RESearch FACility. We all had, in fact, signed papers removing ourselves from the Navy’s books and placing ourselves in MARESFAC. But since SEAL Team Six was a clandestine, not a covert, unit, we still got USG checks—just not from the Department of the Navy.
The Priest was going a few steps further. We were essentially being sheep-dipped, the way SEALs who go to work for Christians in Action are sheep-dipped out of the Navy and into a spooky netherworld.
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