RW04 - Task Force Blue

by Richard Marcinko

  Still, if you follow my three basic rules for nighttime urban operations, you will probably succeed in getting where you want to go, and getting there in one piece.

  Rule One. Always keep low, because a silhouette offers the enemy a great target.

  Rule Two. Avoid open spaces unless absolutely necessary. I may not be the world’s most touchie-feelie guy, but when I’m in situations like this, I become a big devotee of wall hugging and cement sucking.

  Rule Three. Move slowly. The less attention you attract, the less attention you’ll attract.

  Because I believe in my own commandments, I volunteered Wonder and me to stage our little foray, with Cherry, Duck Foot, and Nasty providing backup. That was because, over the years, I’ve worked so closely with Wonder that we don’t really have to talk anymore—we’re like a couple of old marrieds who read each other’s body language and breathing.

  Wonder, being a former Recon Marine, led the way. He squirreled up the alley on knees and elbows, moving slowly but deliberately as he squirmed along a ragged, rotted picket fence, using the darkness to his best advantage. I followed, two yards behind, content to play catch-up.

  One reason I was happy to let Wonder take point is that our crawl was not going to be a pleasant one. A plethora of nasty items tends to collect in alleys such as this one. So our expedition was enhanced by the addition of broken glass, rotting garbage, and other more colorful substances that are best left undescribed but not unimagined. Since he was first, Wonder would go through them, moving carefully, and I, noting his discomfort—remember how well I can read his body language?—could work my way around the bad stuff. Our passage tonight was made more challenging by the fact that our path led through piles of soot-and-dirt-encrusted snow, which camouflaged the above-mentioned goodies.

  We’d writhed our way down about thirty nasty yards when the door opened and one of the hip-hops stuck his head out of the doorway, as if he’d heard something. He walked outside and closed the door in back of him, shutting out the light. He stood there, his eyes getting accustomed to the darkness, sucked on his cigarette, took a peek down the alley—and looked straight at me. There is only one way to react when that happens. You avert your eyes slightly, so as not to make any contact. You do not move, or breathe, or blink. And with every molecule of your heart, soul, and brain, you believe, I am invisible.

  Ah, Marcinko-san, you say, more of this psycho-warrior b.s. you’re always trying to foist on us. Come off it already.

  No, Tadpole—read, and learn. One of the first lessons at the SERE—Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape—schools to which all Spec War operators regularly go, is how to react when it appears that you have been discovered.

  The instructors will tell you that if you have paid attention to the three basic tenets of concealment—shape, shine, and silhouette, and you don’t draw attention to yourself by moving—in other words, believing in your own invisibility—the man who is looking straight at you, probably hasn’t seen you yet, and won’t see you at all.

  The reason for that lies not in the metaphysical, but in the physical laws of nature. Remember biology 101, when you studied the principles of vision? No? Well, let me give you a little refresher course.

  The reason you won’t be seen is because most of us discern most of what we see through our peripheral vision, not by looking straight on. Example? It’s easier to see a deer in the forest when he’s to your left or right than when he’s straight ahead, because your peripheral vision picks out his movement. Ditto a car coming at you as you’re crossing the street in heavy traffic.

  At night, the situation is compounded because of the way we see. The human retina is composed of two kinds of cells. There are cones, which help us see during daylight, and rods, which surround the cones, and help us see at night. The rods are very sensitive to light. But since they are not at the center of the eye—remember, they surround the cones—they do not pick up anything emanating from the center of one’s vision. They work best when your sight is directed slightly off-center. I knew, therefore, that if the hip-hop was staring right at me, he couldn’t see me.

  So instead of panicking, I simply froze where I was—which was in midcrawl. My gloved hand had just hit something definitely rotten. My left leg was hyperextended. My right knee—the one I’d mangled back at the armory—was atop something uncomfortably sharp. But I did not move. I knew that my S-words were okay. My shape was low, and indistinct against the fence. There was no shine, because my face was blacked out and the rest of me was covered in old, dirty, black gear. And my silhouette, softened by the picket fence, garbage cans, and lack of light, was indistinct.

  I focused my eyes on the hip-hop’s feet. That way I’d know if he was approaching me, but I still would not make eye contact.

  I made myself breathe so s-l-o-w-l-y that I wasn’t apparently breathing at all (there are real assets to being a SEAL and having learned how to hold my breath under water for three minutes at a time).

  And I waited. And waited.

  Two yards ahead of me, Wonder was in the exact same mode. He’d learned his stuff at the same schools I had—and put it to use in the same uncomfortable places, from Afghanistan to Libya, from western France to Eastern Europe, over his two-decades plus in the Marines and the Navy.

  I heard a flick, and a hiss, and the cigarette landed between us. I raised my eyes slightly, just in time to see the hip-hop adjust his Malcolm X cap, spit, and saunter back inside.

  I moved for the first time in some minutes—my knee joint cracked loudly enough to make Wonder react with a dirty look. We waited to make sure we weren’t going to be interrupted again, then continued to the truck undisturbed.

  Wonder wormed his way forward, under the motor. He loves to play with motors. He played with this one by taping a two-ounce wad of C-4 plastic explosive to the manifold, rigging it with a pencil-detonator, then running the detonator wire up into the ignition system.

  Turn the key, and ka-boom.

  Meanwhile, I was having my own fun. I picked the padlock on the tailgate and slid the gate up just enough to make sure we had the right truck. (Yes, friends, I follow my own commandments—especially the one that says, “Thou shalt never assume.”) I saw weapons and ammo crates, and that was good enough for me. So I closed the tailgate, clicked the lock shut, and squirmed underneath the chassis.

  There, I took a chunk of C-4 about the size of a large can of shoe polish and rolled it out between my hands until I’d made it into a long, narrow-shaped ribbon charge just over three feet in length. Using duct tape, I taped the charge underneath the truck bed in an uneven rectangle. I reached down to my thigh pocket to retrieve my Emerson CQC6 and cut the tape. The knife wasn’t there. That pissed me off.

  I lay on my back and went through all my pockets. The damn thing was gone. Five fucking hundred dollars’ worth of hand-made, personally inscribed knife, a gift from Ernie Emerson, who designed it for me. I lay there and tried to figure out what had happened and decided that it must have come loose when Dawg and I were going at it.

  Well, there was no use crying over spilt steel. I dug in my breast pocket for the lightweight Benchmade folder I always carry as a backup, and sliced the tape. Then I ran a piece of trip wire around an exposed bolt head in the rear door, brought the wire under the bumper, past the exhaust, tied it securely to an M-1 trip-wire firing device I’d attached to the plastic explosive, and cut off the surplus OD wire.

  I unrolled a second piece of trip wire, which I handed to Wonder. He secured it to the manifold, after which I stretched it taut and attached it to the M-1’s detonator ring too.

  I like M-1s because they’re Keep-It-Simple-Stupid detonators. Sure, there are more elaborate gadgets available today—electronic detonators complete with semiconductors and computer chips, as well as sophisticated radio-controlled contraptions that cost hundreds of dollars per unit.

  But when you’re jumping out of planes, locking out of subs, or crawling through the mud in hostile terr
itory, you want something that Mr. Murphy can’t screw with, no matter how hard he tries. And the M-1 is guaranteed Murphy-proof. Believe me, these things work. In good weather, or bad. Wet, or dry. Hot or cold. They are foolproof because they are old-fashioned, KISS devices with very few moving parts, no complicated electronics to go awry, batteries to run down, or miniconnectors to come apart.

  Basically, the M-1 is a metal tube—a cylinder-shaped device about four inches long. At one end is a coupling assembly and protector tube. That’s the business end, where you attach the firing device to the explosive. Just behind the coupler lies the primer which, when it explodes, detonates your C-4, your Semtex, or whatever other payload you’ve chosen. Immediately fore of the primer, is a cotter pin safety device, which physically separates the firing pin from the primer.

  The firing pin and its heavy-duty compression spring are held in position by two additional cotter pins. When the explosive has been attached, and the device has been installed and secured in position—this is very important—a taut trip wire is then stretched and attached to the firing-pin-release ring. At that point, you remove all the cotter-pin safety devices (being careful to drop them in your pocket so you don’t leave a telltale sign that you’ve come a-calling), and clear the area.

  The results? When our friendly Zulu Gangsta Prince hip-hops unsuspectingly opened the rear hatch of the truck, they would yank the trip wire, which would pull the ring, which would release the firing pin, which would ignite the primer, which would detonate the C-4, which would explode, which would dismember said hip-hops into thousands of separate, fragmented, and hard-to-identify pieces. Moreover, the explosion would detonate whatever explosives were inside the truck—ammo, grenades, mortar rounds, they’d all go up. The earth would move.

  If, however, the bad guys decided simply to drive away, the sequence would be slightly different. They’d climb aboard and turn the ignition key, which would detonate the C-4 taped to the manifold, which would then move enough to trigger the M-1 and the shaped ribbon charge of C-4. Result? Death and destruction. And, once again, the earth would move. As you can probably tell, I love to make the earth move.

  Kind of gives you goose bumps, too, doesn’t it?

  We exfiltrated smoothly and were well on our way south toward Toledo when we heard the explosion in the distance. I low-fived Wonder. Another job well done. Another evening well spent. It’s not a career—it’s an adventure.

  It was still well before dawn when we linked up with Doc, Half Pint, Gator, Pick, and Rodent just north of Cincinnati. We chatted by secure radio. Gator told me he’d been able to plant the passive beacon on our target. That made me breathe a little bit easier. Maybe we’d left Mr. Murphy behind for a while. I sat back and sipped hot coffee from the huge jug Mugs had left us. Shit—life was pretty fucking good. We’d roasted the Zulu Gangsta Princes, destroyed the stolen weapons and ammo they were going to sell or use, and by now, Mugs probably had a line on the asshole who was stealing FBI license plates.

  I call that a good night’s work. I peered through the windshield at our little convoy. In the adjacent lane Gator Shepard touched the brim of his ball cap in a ragged salute, which I raggedly returned. Sixty yards ahead of me in the dim predawn, Doc Tremblay caught my eye and threw me a shadowy finger. I tossed it right back at him.

  Let me pause long enough, gentle reader, to tell you a simple yet profound truth. There is no emotion so strong, no satisfaction so deep or fulfilling, as the incredible high you experience when you lead a great body of warriors into battle. If you’ve ever done it, you know exactly of what I speak. If you haven’t, then you never will.

  It was getting light as we crossed the Ohio River on the 275 bypass, and we followed the semi southward at a steady seventy miles an hour. This was getting boring already. I had another cup of coffee, sat back, and grabbed a combat nap.

  “Skipper—” Nasty tapped my shoulder and I shook myself awake.

  “What’s up?”

  “They’re pulling off the Interstate.”

  “Where are we?”

  “About a dozen miles north of Lexington. Place called Sadieville. They’re about two miles ahead of us.”

  I stretched and yawned. It was time to go to work.

  Everybody needed a potty break, but we’d have to do it in shifts. Our crew would follow close, while Doc in his car and Gator in his would run backup. When me and my guys had returned our rented coffee to the men’s room, we’d switch places.

  I turned to Nasty. “You overtake Gator. We’ll go in behind the truck.” I picked up the radio, pressed the TRANSMIT button, and told Duck Foot and Cherry to stay with the station wagon—but give ’em some leeway. I didn’t want anybody spotting us. Not here.

  We performed a smooth transition and watched as the semi lumbered into the huge parking area reserved for tractor-trailers while Gator and Pick coasted their Chevys into the gas lines to top off their tanks. Nasty slid our sedan into a convenient slot, from where we could see the rest rooms, the fast-food joints, and the truckers’ shops, and keep an eye on the semi.

  Once, when I was working a one-car surveillance in Italy with SEAL Team Six, I got burned because me and my guys all followed the driver and backup as they went to breakfast at the huge rest stop near Ponte corvo, on the A2 autostrada between Rome and Naples. We watched them eat their uovi—eggs—munch toast and marmellata, and drink their cafě latte as if they had all the time in the world. Which they did. And why?

  Because a new driver and assistant had been waiting in the wings, and as we followed the old crew into the ristorante, the new boys watched as we left the scene, then they slipped on board and drove merrily away, leaving us well fed, and holding our limp salsicci in our sorry SEAL paws.

  So I’d learned my lesson—and I wasn’t about to get singed again. I always keep both the crew and the truck under surveillance now. And there would be backup, just in case Mr. Murphy decided to put in an appearance. Gator and Rodent, who’d filled their gas tanks and were parked by the southward exit, and Doc, Half Pint, and Pick, running on full, were doing sentry duty on the northbound side. No way were these assholes going to slip away from me.

  I tucked my hair under a ball cap, ambled toward the men’s room, drained my lizard, then made good use of the sink, soap, and paper towels to wash the residue of the black camouflage cream I’d worn last night off my face and hands. Then, clean (and mean) I dried myself off, went into the sundry shop, where I bought a newspaper and a dozen lithium batteries for the cellular phones and secure radios, and wandered back out to the car to relieve Nasty. While he attended to business, I rolled the car into the gas line and filled ’er up.

  Our crew finished its break and we shifted with the others. The look on Half Pint’s face as he headed for the head was nothing less than anguished. I watched through binoculars as he emerged three minutes later, a humongous, relieved smile on his face. He gave me a quiet thumbs-up, and headed back to his car.

  Two minutes later I scanned the restaurant area through my 7X35s and picked up Doc Tremblay coming through the door. There was no relieved smile on his face, though. Doc and I have known each other since we were fleet sailors—a couple of enlisted pukes whose idea of a good time was a case of beer, a night of pussy, and a good bar brawl. I have seen Doc in all kinds of circumstances. But I have never seen him look so frantic and distraught as he looked right now. He came out of the rest area, his eyes wild—searching everywhere. When he didn’t see what he wanted to find, he ran for the car.

  I picked up the radio. “Yo, Doc—what’s the prob?”

  “Dick—where the hell are you?”

  I told him.

  “Turn on the news. Turn it on now.”

  I reached over and flipped on the car radio. I got full-bore country and western on the FM band. I switched to AM, and scanned until I got an all-news station.

  The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t put a handle to it for a few seconds. Then I realized that it was Dawg Dawkins I was l
istening to. He was talking about me—not nicely, either. Then a correspondent came on and summed up the story. “Marcinko,” he said, “whose bloody assault knife was found at the scene, is thought to be armed and dangerous. The FBI, which believes he has left Michigan, has issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of interstate flight from felony murder. Billionaire businessman and undeclared presidential hopeful LC Strawhouse, whose security employee Marcinko allegedly executed, has issued a half-million dollar reward for information leading to the rogue ex-Navy captain’s capture.”

  Part

  Two

  ESBAM

  DID YOU KNOW THAT WITHIN THE LAST YEAR AND A HALF A government contractor has developed devices that allow us to pinpoint the locations of cellular phones in a matter of seconds? Well, it has, and they are out there. That’s how the FBI tracked down Herman Slotnik, the computer terrorist who’d been at large for more than two years. Slotnik was able to elude both the Bureau and civilian computer security experts because he employed a modem attached to a cellular phone to place the calls he made to break into secure computer systems. He knew that it was virtually impossible to trace a cellular phone unless you knew its precise phone number.

  Enter S3 Systems. For those of you who’ve never heard of it—and I’d venture to say that most of you haven’t—S3, for Stealth, Security, and Surveillance, is the nation’s largest corporation devoted exclusively to black-ops and Skunk Works projects. It is based in the center of an anonymous, five-hundred-acre industrial complex twelve miles outside Dallas, Texas. That is, it’s anonymous if you give it a quick once-over. If you look closely, you’ll see that the entire five hundred acres make up, in fact, only one artfully designed compound, which in turn is monitored by a formidable assortment of sophisticated antiintruder arrays.