My only problem with Gator is—as you have seen—he keeps wanting to shout, “Stop—police!” at bad guys when he should just shoot the motherfuckers dead and warn them later. He’ll learn, or I’m going to boot his ass into next week.
They already knew that our situation wasn’t good—hell, they’d only had to read the papers they’d signed up in NDBBM to know we were out in the cold—operating on our own, sans backup, sans even the support of that informal safety net of chiefs I’d spent so many years building up.
“What’s your point, Skipper?” Cherry wanted to know. “Look—we’re fucking SEALs. We’re supposed to operate on our own.”
“Besides,” said Wonder, “they’re gonna goatfuck us anyway, sooner or later. What the hell do we have to lose?”
“You’re forgetting the most important element of this whole exercise, Captain Dickhead, sir,” Doc Tremblay said in his broad New England drawl.
He drained the last of his twenty-two-ounce bottle of Asahi Dry, slapped it on the table loud enough to draw attention from a waiter and signal for a refill, then looked us all in the eyes. “Hey—let’s take for granite the motherfuckers are trying to ambush us. Okay—so what? That means our only possible fucking choice is attack. We go balls to the wall—hit ’em before they hit us.”
I just love it when he talks dirty. He was absolutely right, of course. It was time to take the initiative. As Roy Boehm, the godfather of all SEALs would say, it was time to fuck the fucking fuckers, whoever they were.
I decided that we’d HQ at the Manor. So after we left Germaine’s we convoyed out and set up shop. I can bunk up to twenty without a problem, and there’s always enough beer on hand for an entire company of infantry—or a platoon of SEALs.
Saturday morning we got down to work. I had the boys read every page we had skimmed from Intelink. While they read, Stevie Wonder made music with his keyboard.
Guess what? In the last seventy-two or so hours, there had been eight requests for information about LC Strawhouse, the ADAM Group, and/or Richard (NMN) Marcinko. That gave us eight new account and password codes to use.
Wonder printed them out. Then he asked the computer to backtrack the requests, so we could see what had been asked for.
The first had been for the FBI afteraction report from Key West.
Another had been a detailed request for all military operations relating to the ADAM Group.
The third was a probe checking to see who had asked for information about LC Strawhouse.
And five were directed at finding out about me—where I worked, who I worked for, what my most recent fitness reports said, and what my current assignment was.
People were nosing around.
I set my coffee down on the computer table. “Can we trace these queries?”
Instead of answering, Wonder removed the offending mug. “Liquids and computers don’t go together,” he said, sounding very much like my third-grade teacher, Miss Shoemaker, for comfort. Miss Shoemaker used to rap my knuckles with a thick wooden ruler, and I looked around to make sure that Wonder had no similar weapon within reach.
Instead of a knuckle rap, Wonder gave me a dirty look. “Go busy yourself elsewhere and let a man work.” I know when I’m not wanted, so I left him to his tapping and typing while I stripped down and went outside for a bracing workout on the weight pile.
Half an hour later, he appeared with a single page of printout.
“You’ll just love this,” he said.
I rolled off the bench, found my half glasses, and perused.
The query on LC Strawhouse had emanated from JSOC—the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg. That made no sense to me. JSOC is not tasked with any domestic missions—certainly not political ones.
The ADAM probe originated at DIA. That made no sense either, because I knew that DIA already had the FBI materials on file.
And what about me? Every one of the requests for information about Marcinko, Richard, had come through the Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa. They had been made by Vice Admiral G. Edward Emu, SOC’s vice chief of staff, and the nation’s highest-ranking SEAL.
I found that real surprising. Why? Because Eddie Emu knows all about me—we’ve been at loggerheads for years. As ensign G. Edward Emu, he tried to get me court-martialed. Just over a year ago, he tried to get my SEAL Team Six mementos removed from the UDT/SEAL museum in Fort Pierce, Florida, because he believes that I am not a “proper” sort of SEAL.
Thus, it made absolutely no sense for Eddie to start a computer search for my whereabouts, my assignments, or my fitreps—because he had all that information right in his files.
I told all of this to Wonder, who said, “That’s what I figured, too. So, my eval is that somebody’s using Admiral Emu’s passwords, just the way I am.”
It made sense to me. But who was tapping into Intelink? Could we trace the calls coming in?
Wonder frowned. “Not really,” he said, “unless we have access to phone lines and phone company equipment.” Which we did not have—yet. “It can be done, but it’s gonna take me a few hours to play.”
Time? He needed time? We had a lot of that. Besides, we knew someone out there was sniffing. That was helpful. It would be more helpful to find out who.
I pumped some more iron, then took a sauna and a shower while I gave the problem some thought. The answer came as I was soaping my nuts. Come to think of it, a lot of things come to me while I soap my nuts.
The solution lay in following Major Robert Roger’s Standing Order number seventeen.
Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of Robert Roger. He was the founder of Roger’s Rangers, and is the father of all SpecWar. His buckskin-clad, flintlock-and-hatchet carrying warriors tore up the French and Indians back in the seventeen fifties.
Well, in 1759, Roger wrote nineteen Standing Orders for his men—maxims that still form the tactical backbone of all SpecWar operations. Number seventeen goes like this: “If somebody’s trailing you, make a circle, come back onto your own tracks, and ambush the folks that aim to ambush you.”
Except the circle we’d make here would be an electronic one—a program that would allow us to see where the requests were coming from. We’d do it by laying a false trail. The trail would force the pursuers to move slowly, working their way down a path they hadn’t anticipated. While they scrambled through the unfamiliar territory, we’d come around from the back—and be able to identify them.
While Wonder composed his computer gibberish, I constructed the bait. I wrote out a bunch of bogus memos and E-mail messages from made-up DIA gumshoes and spooks, NIS investigators, and Pentagon bureaucrats. One series of messages gossiped about a new, code-word secret intelligence-gathering program, involving LC Strawhouse’s American Phalanx. Another skein mused about a back door tie-in between LC and the ADAM Group. And a third vein of E-mail dealt with the nasty particulars of my upcoming court-martial. I planted “evidence” of improper behavior and financial chicanery. I left broad hints that SECNAV was going to appear and testify against me. The way I wrote it, my case did not look good.
Wonder then injected all of my missives under the skin of the DIA system, using bogus mailboxes and fake file folders. He even made it appear as if they’d been written at different times over the past day or so. And he left enough flags around so that anybody doing any serious hacking or cracking would stumble across them.
Then we sat back and drank Coors for three hours. At 1700, Wonder fired up the computer. Nada. No one had nibbled yet. Since we were in the mood for light entertainment, we put a laser disk of The Terminator on big screen, popped a microwave load of popcorn, and went back to our beer.
We stayed up most of the night, checking periodically. Nothing. Maybe these hackers worked five-day, forty-hour weeks. Then, at 0400 Sunday morning, just as we were about to hit the computer’s ON button, we lost all power at the Manor.
What the fuck? I got on the cellular to VEPCO’s emergency li
ne, and after twenty-five minutes on hold, was told that some humongous transformer just outside Quantico had gone ka-boom, and hence we’d be without power for at least eight hours while they reconstructed the grid.
Well, I keep a gasoline-powered generator on hand for just this sort of emergency. You don’t live out in the boonies without one. So5 while I wasn’t about to fire up the computer, at least we kept the beer cold and the coffee hot for the next seven-plus hours.
Just after noon on Sunday we were finally able to log in. And guess what? Having not watched the pot for all those hours had made things come to the boil: there’d been another query. This one had been routed through the Naval Special Warfare Center at Coronado. But now, Wonder was able to track it back down the line—or in this particular case, up the line. Why up? Because it had originated just outside Rancho Mirage, California.
Guess, gentle reader, who lives just outside Rancho Mirage? The answer is that Lyman Clyde Strawhouse does. On two-thousand-plus acres of what used to be scrub, sand, and cactus.
It was time to travel. I wanted to pay old LC a visit—my kind of back door, sneak-and-peek, snoop-and-poop visit. I gathered the troops and told everybody to pack for the high desert. When I told them why we were going, Doc Tremblay raised his hand and objected.
“What’s your problem, asshole?”
“Well, Skipper,”—Doc waved a copy of the latest issue of American Sniper magazine at me—“seems that the object of your research won’t be in California. Says here that starting tomorrow, he’s gonna be in Detroit. They’re gonna honor him at the Special Operations Association annual convention, and he’s scheduled to speak at their big banquet.”
That changed things. Rancho Mirage could wait—Detroit was the primary target. It was an opportunity to see this guy LC Strawhouse up close. Moreover, we’d discovered all those damn FBI reports about contacts between the ADAM Group, fundamentalist tangos, and Zulu Gangsta Princes in the Detroit metro area.
And there was something else, too—a puzzle I had the pieces to but no solution for. My late and much lamented sea daddy, CNO Arleigh Secrest, was a great believer in looking at information in unconventional ways. We tend to categorize things—and in doing so, we overlook significant data. His advice to me was to overlay all my information, and see what develops. Sometimes it’s as impenetrable as a Jackson Pollock oil. Sometimes, however, it’s as clear as Canaletto.
I said a silent prayer of thanks to CNO, grabbed Wonder by the ear, walked him toward the computer, and watched as he turned it on. “Make me a database,” I said.
“Okay—you’re a database.”
“Be serious, asshole.”
“Mr. Dickhead, sir,” he said, spelling it with a c and a u, “I am serious. I need material to input into a database.”
And so he did. So I gave him material. I went to my files and read off to him the dates when LC Strawhouse had made his public appearances over the past year or so. Then I pulled the list of sites of stolen weapons compiled by the Department of Defense’s inspector general. Then I found the locations for as many of the fringe militias, white supremacist groups, Islamic fundamentalists, and huge street gangs as I could.
“Now—juxtapose everything.”
Wonder played with the keyboard and printed his results. Guess what. Of the thirty-three LC Strawhouse speaking engagements I’d come across in magazines and newspapers, nineteen of them occurred in, or near, cities cited in the IG report where arms thefts had taken place. Baltimore, Virginia Beach, and St. Louis were all on the list.
Now, if it had been me, gentle reader, I’d have made sure I was nowhere near the site of any weapons thefts—the less to leave any kind of trail. But then, I didn’t have LC Strawhouse’s ego, either. And from my research, I knew he had an ego the size of my dick.
There was more, too. Of the thirteen nasty organizations I’d had Wonder enter, seven of them were in places where LC Strawhouse had made speeches or appeared at a convention. And guess what—all seven were also listed in the IG report.
Now I don’t know about you, but I found that information pretty damn significant. Enough to make me want to skip Go, skip the $200, and go straight to the Motor City.
OVER CENTRAL WEST VIRGINIA I BROWSED THE SPECIAL OPERAtions Association of the United States’ convention schedule, which Doc Tremblay had clipped from his sniper’s magazine for me. Yeah—there’s even an association for the special operations community these days, complete with membership cards, roster booklet, and an annual get-together-cum-trade show. And guess what—anybody can join. You don’t have to be a SEAL, or a Ranger, or any other form of Blankethead, Recon Marine, or Pave Low chopper pilot. You can be a goddamn lobbyist or a four-eyed wannabe and you can still obtain a gold-embossed card that says you are a member in good standing of the Special Operations Association of the United States.
No bona fides checked—all you have to do is pay $160 per annum, and you get a card that identifies you as an “Operator” in SOAUS. What horse puckey.
There was no need for the whole team to go on this little jaunt—after all, there were budgetary considerations now that we were in the private sector. So, I brought only my personal zoo—Gator and Rodent. It’s not the first time in my life I’ve traveled with animals. As an enlisted Frog, I was once in a platoon along with a Rabbit (as in John Francis), a Fox (Jim), and an Owl—Everett. We were a bunch of wild party beasts, too—constantly on the prowl for more livestock—for example, wild pussy and tame beaver. Anyway, because I booked at the last minute, there were no direct flights available to Motown, so we flew commuter: Dulles-Cleveland-Detroit.
I never saw the passenger manifest, but it became obvious by the time we landed in Cleveland that Mr. Murphy had accompanied us on the trip. Thus, a half-hour layover turned into a two-and-a-half-hour delay while mechanics probed and poked all around the port wing landing gear well of our aircraft. Then, having lost our takeoff slot, we waited on the runway behind twenty-three fucking jet aircraft. Did I mention the heavy ground fog and quarter-mile visibility? No? Well guess what—I was in a terrific mood when we touched down on Detroit Metro runway 33-N almost four hours behind schedule.
We rented a car and drove past a five-story Uniroyal tire, east on 1-94, some twenty-five miles into the city. Detroit is something of a physical anomaly. It actually sits to the north of its Canadian sister city, Windsor, because of a knob of land around which sluices the Detroit River, carrying the waters from Lake St. Clair thirty-two miles south and east into Lake Erie. Fanned around that knuckle lies the city of Detroit, spreading north, west, and south from the water.
Of all the Rust Belt cities, Detroit is the roughest, toughest—and least revitalized. Much of the place has never recovered from the race riots that took place almost three decades ago. We came in from the west—driving past prosperous suburbs, malls, and shopping centers.
Suddenly I got a glimpse of a sign that said INKSTER. That was where T. D. Capel lived. “Hey—”
We swerved off the highway and turned north, cutting through blocks of nineteen twenties and thirties one-story, gray, stone chalets—middle-class housing built for the folks who’d worked at the assembly lines at Cadillac in Warren, or Ford in Dearborn. I pulled a note from my wallet and checked the address against the AAA street map. “Turn right.”
We drove past the city hall, turned east, then south, then east again until we found ourselves on a quiet suburban street that backed up onto a small park. I checked the number on the street sign. “Pull over—we should be pretty close.”
Gator edged up to the curb. I peered down the street. The house was about 150 feet ahead of us—it had to be the place, because it was all strung with bright yellow and black police crime scene tape. It was a blackened shell, completely gutted by fire, just past the still-smoldering stage. Obviously, Mr. Murphy had gotten here ahead of us by a few hours.
I got out of the car and looked, dejected. I saw a woman on the opposite side of the street coming toward us, wa
lking an immense Rottweiler. “Excuse me—” I waved and smiled at her. “Excuse me?”
“Yes?” She stopped. She had a friendly smile. The dog didn’t, and I kept my distance, remaining in the middle of the street. “I was just wondering what happened here. I’m looking for a friend of a friend’s house—guy named Capel—and I think it may be the one that’s burnt down—”
“A fire. Yesterday. They think it was arson.”
“Anybody hurt?”
She shook her head. “Nope—nobody home. But look at the house—such a shame. These old places are wonderful. Great to restore. That one was done only a year or so ago. Now look at it—totaled.”
So much for any evidence we might find at Capel’s house. And the nice lady’d just said they thought it was arson, too. And guess who was in town. That’s right—LC Strawhouse himself.
Coincidence? Happenstance? What do you think?
“Thanks.” I waved and climbed back into the car. We found our way back to 1-94 and continued into the city. It didn’t take long until the road surface got noticeably worse—I caught a sign designating the city limit—and the eight-lane highway descended into an uncovered trench, with the city streets running above us. Looking up, I could see acres of burnt-out houses that resembled Bihać or Sarajevo more than a midwestern American city. Indeed, the occupants of the few blue and white police cars we saw on the road sat hunched and apprehensive—very much the same body language as U.N. peacekeepers in Bosnia. They probably had as much effect on their surroundings, too.
We peeled off 1-94 onto 1-96. I was looking down at the map and so we missed the turn onto the Fisher freeway. We got off the highway, looped around Tiger stadium twice to get our bearings (we didn’t), cruised across Michigan Avenue, then turned south and east, heading, according to the map, toward the river.
Shit—even much of the downtown area looked deserted. We drove by a graffiti-covered building named Cobo Hall, a rundown Civic Center, and finally the huge Ren Cen, formally called the Renaissance Center, a tall, riverfront complex of modern glass office buildings, a hotel, and a conference facility, where the SOAUS convention was being held.
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