RW11 - Violence of Action (15 page)

What to do?

Sometimes, the right answer is just handed to you. In this case, it exploded on top of me, literally, courtesy of the HRT team in the penthouse directly above us. It felt like my eyes had been blasted outta my thick Slavic skull when the concussion of an overhead breaching charge slammed into me with all the gentleness of a tidal wave. Forcing myself to respond, I got to my knees and emptied the little Glock down the hallway where BG2 was holding out. I holstered the pistol in one smooth motion and jerked my MP-5 up to my shoulder. ATTACK-ATTACK-ATTACK! To my left I saw Trace, who now looked like a drowned she-rat, throw another flash bang hard into the hallway. Closing my eyes, I pressed the MP-5’s trigger and began running forward. The first magazine emptied itself on full auto as I sent its full load down range where I hoped BG2 was. The full force of the flash bang’s explosion hit me square in the body, bouncing me sideways and off the fucking wall. I opened my eyes. At least I could still see. ATTACK-ATTACK-ATTACK! Thousands of hours of doing magazine changes took over as I switched out the empty mag for a full one from my left thigh cargo pak. I found my balance and kept moving forward. I couldn’t hear shit over the sharp staccato of continuing gunfire. It was clear HRT had blown through the ceiling above us. We were now reinforced and could begin taking the fucking fight to Nemesis.

I cleared the short hallway with Trace backing my play. A quick glance backward showed Danny leading the charge on BG1 with HRT covering his six. BG1 was not going to have a good day. Sandwiched between HRT blocking elements and Danny on point he was pretty well fucked. I couldn’t stop to think about Paul’s status. He’d been breathing and talking when I last saw him so I figured he’d live. Right now I wanted BG2 alive and talking if at all possible. I turned to Trace. “Got any ‘bangs left?”

She nodded and hauled two of the small black grenades out of a thigh pak and hefted them so I could see they were good to go. I nodded in the direction of the bedroom where I figured BG2 was now preparing to make his last stand. I knew I could have HRT blow the far wall and make an entry but if that happened they’d probably kill the silly fucker. I needed information. Dead guys can’t talk. So it was up to Trace and me to get the job done.

“FIRE IN THE HOLE!” Trace called as she tossed both flash bangs into the room. As they bounced in the damned SAW opened up again, this time its fire chopping through the plasterboard walls of the room where we were crouched. I hit the floor and hugged the water-soaked carpet for all I was worth. I figured Trace was doing the same. Bits of debris swirled around us as the high velocity slugs turned the hallway into a nightmare of death-dealing fragmentation. The double
BOOM-BOOM
of the flash bangs was sweet music to my ears. With a roar I leapt up and rushed into the bedroom. Kicking torn up, ruined hotel furniture out of my path, I clambered across the soaked king-size bed, the barrel of my H&K swinging in short little arcs back and forth as I searched for BG2. Trace, her H&K at the ready, covered me from the doorway. I saw the silly fucker where he lay all stove up and stupid from the combined blast of the grenades. We’d rung his bell good. “HERE!” I yelled to Trace. Jumping down off the bed I pulled the SAW away from the unconscious form at my feet. A trickle of blood was running from his nose but other than that he looked fit as a fucking fiddle.

“CLEAR!” yelled Trace back down the hallway toward HRT. “WE GOT ONE DOWN BUT ALIVE! NEED A MEDIC PRONTO!” She checked her weapon then gave me a thumbs-up. It was only then I saw she was bleeding from a flesh wound near the base of her throat. If she knew she’d been hit she didn’t give any indication of it. I wondered how Danny had made out. All I could hear were the sounds of men shouting instructions back and forth and the damn BEEP-BEEPBEEPING of the fire alarm system. The sprinklers had stopped, which was at least some improvement.
Shit
, I thought,
what a fucking cock-up!

Two HRT operators called out to us before entering the room. I jerked a thumb toward the Nemesis geek and said, “Hook him up and get him outta here!” The two nodded and roughly checked the inert form out for any hidden weapons. They then flex-cuffed his dumb ass and dragged him away. I’d be talking with him later. Right now I needed to check on Danny and Paul, not to mention the HRT guys and BG1. Placing my H&K on “
SAFE
,” I headed back down the hallway to the suite’s living room. Trace fell in behind me. “Get your throat checked out by the medic,” I growled at her. “You’re bleeding like a stuck pig!”

She punched me hard in the back. “You love me and you know it!” she quipped. “You
care
about me! I think that’s sweet. I think you’re sweet. You can’t shoot worth a shit but you
are so sweet
. I think I love you, Captain. Really, I think I do.” She slipped past me before I could clobber her, her teasing causing me to smile for just a moment.

“Kossens! Where are you, you son of a bitch!” I was now standing in the middle of the shot-to-shit room where we’d made our less than dynamic entrance. The fucking fire alarm had FINALLY been turned off. Still, my ears were ringing and my eyes stung from all the cordite swirling around the suite. I still couldn’t see Danny and now HRT was all over the fucking place. Looking up I saw where their breachers had blown a beautiful entry point through the floor to get to us. It had been a good thing, too. If they hadn’t dropped down the chimney like Santa-Fucking-Claus, we’d have bought the farm.

“Over here, boss!”

It was Paul. He was sitting out on the balcony, an HRT operator swabbing his face with a wet towel or some such shit. I kicked my way through the trashed contents of the room to where I could see him clearly. Fucking glass was all over the rug, mingled in with blood, spent shells, and blast debris. Remind me never to try to blow a sliding glass door with a beanbag round again! From now on I’ll simply have someone shoot the fucker out with a heavy caliber elephant gun. “How bad you hit?”

“Minor face and hand cuts. A few good welts, bumps, and bruises. Shit was flying pretty thick in there. My bad luck. We get anyone alive?”

I nodded. “Trace and me nailed our guy with a double dose of sound and white light. Knocked him up, down, and out. HRT just hauled him up to the roof. We’re pulling out and heading for the PANG. I’m gonna chat with him there. You good to go?”

Paul flipped me a bloody bird then grimaced as the HRT shooter pulled a wicked splinter of glass outta his right eyebrow. “Ouch! Fucking-A! Yeah, I’m fine, Skipper. Dry clothes, hot meal, a few beers, and a hot tub with any female but Trace in it and I’ll be perfect.”

I laughed. Although come to think of it seeing Trace in a hot tub wasn’t all that bad a mental picture. “She’d fuck you and me to death then ring for room service. Get patched up and let’s move.”

Turning I brushed past a gaggle of HRT uniforms and headed towards Danny’s voice. The entire suite was shot to shit at this end. I peered into the suite’s second bedroom and saw where BG1 had blown his exit point. It was a nice piece of work. Too bad for him and his buddy that we’d secured the room next door and were waiting for just such a move.

“Any of your people hit?” I asked a tall, lean HRT shooter.

“Yeah, we got two down with serious gunshot wounds and one dead.” The man nodded curtly to me and walked away. Fuck! I hate losing people, especially other people’s people. Good men are hard to come by. HRT operators are among the best. There’d be some more sad calls to grieving parents and spouses before this was over. I could feel it in my bones.

“Dick? You okay? How’s the kids?”

It was Danny. He was soaked like the rest of us and covered with grit and glass. His H&K looked like a kid’s popgun hanging from its three-point sling around his massive chest. The S&W .41 was secured in its tac-holster and Danny’s black knit watch cap was pushed back on his head. He didn’t appear to have been scratched during the firefight. Come to think of it I’d never ever heard of Danny taking a round at any time in his career. Some guys are like that. They just live right, I guess. “Trace has a flesh wound in the throat but nothing that will shut her up. Paul’s face looks like a logger tap-danced on it with those fucking spiked boots they wear. He’ll be okay, though. How about you?”

“Right as rain,” replied Barrett. “No hits, all misses. We nailed the cocksucker in the bathroom. I got maybe two good rounds into him when HRT fucking filled the bastard with enough lead to choke the EPA! All that’s left ain’t worth squat to us. I heard the Feds lost a man.”

“Yeah, one dead and two down hard. They saved our asses, you know. Fucking sniper across the way took the window out when my fucking brilliant idea about using beanbag rounds went to shit. Their coming through the ceiling when they did was heaven sent. I thought we’d bought it until then.”

“That was Paul’s call. With all that fire raining down, he got on the ICOM and told them to blow the ceiling and get the fuck down to us. Gutsy kid. You got a trooper in that one.” Danny shook a somehow dry cigarette from a soft pack he’d fished out from a deep cargo pocket. Lighting up he drew in a long, deep drag of tobacco-rich smoke then exhaled. “You manage to keep anyone alive at your end?”

“Got one topside with HRT. We’re going to hit him with a new chemical interrogator the boys and girls at Langley have come up with. After the blood-and-guts thing with Karras, Karen made sure we got the shit before the Lear lifted off.”

I massaged my skull with one hand. My graying ponytail was pleated tight and soaking ass wet. The adrenalin was starting to fade and I was beginning to feel the places all over my body that hurt. The smoke in the suite was clearing out some. We needed to keep moving and I knew it. Three down, and a hatful of terrorist assholes to go unless Blanchard went nuclear now. Then all this would mean fuck.

Danny nodded. “Dick, you know it’s going to be like this—just like this—from here until we get to Blanchard. When we get to the PANG, how about you give me some time alone with this fucker? I’ll bet he hasn’t had a lot of opportunities to get to know African Americans. I’d like to begin his reeducation personally.”

I couldn’t help but smile at this idea. Irony isn’t completely lost on the Rogue Warrior, you know.

And I could use an hour of recovery time. I knew Danny was right—we were in for the fight of our fucking lives. If the others were willing and able to put up a battle like these two cocksuckers had, it was going to be a long, long day. “Agreed. We’d better stop talking about it and just get the fucking job done! This whole thing is beginning to piss me the fuck off! Let’s go. I’m hungry anyway. You hungry? I’m hungry. I always get hungry after shit like this. Must be a defect in my personality.”

I made my way down to where Paul and Trace were waiting for us. “The ’hawk’s topside. Dry clothes and more ammo at the PANG. Eat when we get there. I need an intel dump so whoever has the opportunity needs to run it down for me. Danny will have a sensitivity training seminar with the prisoner. Let’s hope our POW knows something worth sharing.”

We trooped out of the suite and headed for the emergency stairs. I could hear the
whomp-whomp-whomp
of the helo as it awaited us on the roof of the Fitz. Sure as shit, Blanchard would hear about this little party, if he didn’t know already. What he’d do I didn’t have a fucking clue. All I could do was my job. If the City of Roses turned to black glass while I was on the meter, so be it. In the meantime we needed to keep moving. I wanted to find the next cell and climb another rung up the ladder. I wanted Blanchard and I wanted the stolen nuke. I wanted payback for the dead HRT and NEST shooters. I wanted Karen to be able to look me in the face again and tell me she understood. I wanted my kids safe and sound and banging steel at the Manor once again. I wanted Danny Barrett home with his wife and grandkids.

I wanted too much to slow down now.

Upon reaching the roof I ducked low and began running hard for the bird. The first act was over. No intermission in this show.

“Dick? Dick? Wake up, brother. Time to run and gun again.”

When I opened my eyes all I could see was Danny Barrett’s massive face not a foot from my own. The room the base commander made available to me was wrapped in soft darkness except for a single small light atop the desk in the corner. I was comfortable. I was warm. I was sore and not at all inclined to begin moving quickly just yet. “What the fuck? How long I been out?”

Barrett pulled back into the darkness. “Forty-five minutes. I got some good poop outta the asshole we hauled in. That chemical cocktail Karen sent along may work on soft cases. But it ain’t worth a shit on guys with SERE training and a religious bent toward radical racism.”

I gently swung my feet off the bed and sat up. Sore is not the word to describe how I was feeling. I gingerly touched my ribs on the right side of my battered carcass. Yep, that hurt. So did my head. So did my ass where I’d bounced off the railing on the ride down the fast rope. The interior of my mouth was dry and there was a bitter, ammonia like odor to my breath. I needed a hot shower, a toothbrush, some strong, strong coffee, and some good fucking news. “So, what’d you find out?”

Danny lit up a smoke. He seemed to enjoy the shit. Me, I prefer a good cigar. My old sea daddy, Ev Barrett, used a well-worked cigar to light demolition fuses. I learned from Ev how to light a fuse and how to smoke a good cigar at the same time. “I whupped him.”

“You what?”

“I whupped him. Sent everyone out of the room and bounced him around like a redheaded stepchild. Kicked his ass. Played pinball with him. Beat him like a yeller dog. Southern justice. Works every time.”

“He talked because you beat his ass?” I started laughing. This was too good.

Danny nodded in the shadows. “Yes. He did. I can be very persuasive. I have a way about me, or so I’ve been told.”

Grabbing a clean, dry turtleneck from the neatly folded change of clothes next to the bed I pulled it over my head. A shower would have to wait. Next came the new jeans, socks, and a pair of Danner Arcadia tactical boots. In under three minutes I was dressed. I belted on the Glock and checked my extra magazines. I fished the big folding fighter Kelly Worden had given me before I left Tacoma out of my ditty bag and slid it into my left front pants pocket. The Emerson would stay behind from here on out. I’d undone and brushed my hair out before lying down. Now I pulled it hastily back into a loose ponytail and triple cinched it with an elastic hair band. Finished, I grabbed my Eagle daypack and checked its contents. All was in order. I was ready to roll.

“Where are the kids?” I asked Danny.

“Asleep. I made ’em get some rack time. They got spirit, I’ll give ’em that. After I had my little heart-to-heart with Fuck-face, I ran our two misguided youths down and sent them to their rooms. We got all sorts of Cracker Jack admin types running around this place now. Fucking post is shut down, locked down, and staffed with the cream of the crop from everywhere you can imagine. No need for Paul and Trace to do more than they have already.”

I opened the small fridge in the tiny kitchen. It was stocked with fruit and power bars and bottled water. I grabbed some water. I was dry as a boneyard! Taking a long swig from the clear plastic bottle, I reveled in the feel of the liquid as it ran down my throat. Looking at Danny from across the room, I nodded. “Good call. What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Did you get some rest, you crazy motherfucker?”

Barrett smiled. “Nope.”

“Silly question. Okay, then. Next. What do we know now that we didn’t when we left the Fitz?”

Danny snubbed his smoke out. “Blanchard is smart,” he began. “Nemesis is still broken down into cells. While the colonel has the bulk of the team with him and the nuke, our boy told me Karras only knew to link up with him and his pal at the Fitz. From there they’d get their orders from the team’s control cell, which is still at least a link away from Blanchard himself.”

“If not Blanchard, who?”

“Jack Laski. SF. Nemesis. His bio says he’s a top dog when it comes to intelligence work and tradecraft. All the big boys wanted him on their payrolls but he hooked up with Blanchard and Nemesis. File says he’s as cold as they come. Likes to use a knife. He’s Blanchard’s techno wizard and he’s operating solo out of the Hotel Campbell in Tigard, just outside Portland.”

“Does this Laski know what Blanchard intends to do, and where and when?”

“Our little bird seems to think so. He told me Brother Jack is Colonel Max’s
numba two
man in the organization. Laski is the operational control for all the cells. He runs them. They report to him and receive their orders from him. They only know what they need to, when they need to. Our songbird knew Jack was setting up at the Campbell because he overheard Blanchard talking to Laski on a secure cell before the crew left some little burg in eastern Oregon called Bend.”

This was good. Real good. We’d bagged three out of twelve and had a fourth in our sights. And if Danny was right, we were ready to close in on the information hub of Nemesis and therefore a direct link to Blanchard and the SADM. I finished my water and grabbed an apple. I was starving! We needed to move. Take a note: There’s no wickedness for the rested in my book. “Have you confirmed that Laski is still at this hotel?”

“Yep. Local law enforcement showed his old army pic to the hotel desk clerk. He’s registered under the name of Morgan. Room 910. Top floor, corner. No exterior balconies, you’ll be glad to hear, but the hotel is built around a big central courtyard, a glassed-in atrium kind of thing. The guest rooms circle the courtyard. Fountains, pool, eating areas, the works are all open to guests and visitors. Safety railings run the length of each floor. You can step out of your room and from the comfort of your doorway look down and see what everyone is doing in the lobby. The entire place is very posh and very busy. And it’s a very smart place to run a clandestine command and control pod from.”

“Do we have eyes on target yet?”

“HRT is setting up now. Exterior perimeter. Soft clothes. No uniforms. They have scouts inside. Laski is in his room. Made a call for room service about twenty minutes ago. Maids say the room is neat and clean when they come in. No booze. Two carry-on bags and a daypack. Daypack is in the main room by the door. Laski is quiet, friendly, the perfect guest. Room is on a credit card in the name of Gregory Morgan. Using it instead of cash means no driver’s license checks and copies at the front desk. Our boy probably created the identity alongside his various covers at Nemesis and masked the paperwork from the brass hats. After all, these guys were trusted.”

“Get Paul and Trace up. We’re going now. Snatch and Grab. He won’t fight. He’ll run first. The daypack probably has his techno shit in it. Close to the door, easy to shit and git. Blanchard needs Laski to coordinate the players and the hit. He’ll have a safe house to run to, probably another hotel or motel within five miles of the primary. He’ll have secure cell capability and an escape and evasion plan. If we miss him now, we’re not gonna find him again so easily.”

Danny pulled the door open for me and I rushed past him. My mind was going a million miles an hour again. A little rest, a little food…

“Speaking of plans, Dick. Do we have one?”

“Of course we have a plan! I’m making it up right now, Danny Boy. Fire up the helos, we’re airborne in fifteen minutes!”

I actually meant that when I said it. The best laid plans…

I was in the communications center at base headquarters about to place a call to Karen in Washington when the news flashed across a bank of television monitors installed by the PANG’s crisis management team. A local Portland station was announcing an unconfirmed report that a nuclear device had been found near the Chinatown section of the city. A ten-block radius of town was being roped off by the local police and the Oregon National Guard was reported to be en route from their airport staging area. The pretty female announcer promised she’d be back with late breaking news so we shouldn’t change channels!

Fuck me to absolute tears.

“Mr. Marcinko? Your call, sir. Ms. Fairfield’s on the line for you. You can take it over there if you like.”

I thanked the airman and grabbed the hardline phone’s receiver off its cradle. “Karen? Have you heard the news in the last two minutes?”

“Yep. That information is coming out local. No leaks here yet. We came down hard on the press in New Mexico about the NEST team story in the interests of national security. I can’t guarantee how much longer before they run with it anyway. With this latest in Portland, I’d say all hell is about to break loose.”

“Agreed,” I replied. “You heard about our little party earlier today?”

“Yes. We got a good report from HRT. It’s national news, in case you hadn’t heard. The FBI is playing it off as a ‘Ten Most Wanted’ shootout. But that story will be in the toilet once this nuclear bomb in Chinatown bullshit starts rolling downhill. Are you okay, Dick?”

The tone of concern in Karen’s voice was real. “Yeah, I’m okay. A few bruises, that’s it. Trace and Paul got the worst of it but they’re okay. Danny’s fine. Didn’t even muss his hair. How about you?”

I smiled as she laughed softly into my ear from clear across the country.

“Tired. The president is going day and night. I don’t know how he does it. I’m okay, though. Thinking about you.”

Well fuck me to tears again! “Does this mean I’m forgiven?” I asked.

“It means I understand more now than I did then. Clay sat me down and gave me a lecture on the real world. Your world. We intellectuals forget there are lions and tigers and bears out there, you know. I couldn’t do what Trace did in a thousand years. But I understand why she did it and why you approved. You get this mission done and come back to D.C., understood Captain?”

“Understood,” I growled. “We’re going after Blanchard’s 2IC in a few minutes. If we’re lucky and get him alive it could be the break we need. We’re hunting a needle in a haystack but the haystack is getting smaller. This nuke thing downtown is a surprise, though. It doesn’t make sense. Blanchard wouldn’t just set the fucking thing down in a bus terminal and walk away. I’m not liking this.”

“I can’t say, Dick. You’re there. You deal with it as you see fit. If you need anything just call Clay. I’ve got to brief the president in ten minutes. Bye for now.”

The line went dead. As I hung up, Paul and Trace made their way toward me from the far end of the busy command center. I could see Danny talking with the pilots outside by the two helos. Two teams of black-suited HRT shooters were loading into the birds. They would be our security teams on this hit. There was no time to run down the source of the breaking story downtown. I’d have some hotshot civil affairs geek here at the PANG monitor that shit for me. Right now we needed to get airborne.

“Who’s next on the hit parade, Skipper?”

“How’s your face, kid” I asked.

Paul gently touched the row of stitches running along his lower left jaw. “Hurts.”

“Only fair—your face has been hurting me for a long time. Ready to go hunting again?”

“Who’s the target,” asked Trace. She was likewise stitched up. A bullet had zinged her alongside her carotid artery on the right side of her throat. Another millimeter and she’d have faced a little problem of bleeding to death.

“Let’s get out to the birds. I’ll fill you in as we walk. One thing I can promise you is that we won’t be fast-roping onto a postage stamp balcony on this trip!”

As we walked and I explained the situation to them, the pilots climbed into their cockpits and Danny issued last minute instructions to the HRT security teams. The sun was starting to set out over the western hills ringing Portland’s very pretty skyline. Beyond them, I knew there were some of the prettiest beaches to be found anywhere in the world, created over centuries by the constant ebb and flow of the Pacific Ocean. Why anybody would genuinely think it was a good idea to detonate a nuclear bomb in the middle of all this God-given perfection was beyond me.

I belted Trace and Paul in, then climbed aboard our helo and sat next to Danny on the deck. The crew chief checked us out and then closed the doors so we’d be a little warmer during the short flight over to Tigard. I began digging through my daypack and hauling out the shit I wanted to take in with me this time around. Danny and the kids were busy doing the same. My brain was working overtime turning the general plan I’d come up with into a more precise and detailed map of attack. I wanted Jack Laski alive and well. At the same time, if the news reports were accurate about the threat now being handled by Portland’s finest, I was half-afraid I’d be seeing the city evaporate before we got close to Laski. Shit was moving too fast for my liking. I could imagine the local and national media igniting a general panic. If that happened we’d have chaos on the streets. All of Portland and the surrounding area would go into gridlock. Emergency response systems would be overloaded. Law and order would go out the window since the cops would be incapable of getting where they needed to, when they needed to, and in any sizable numbers.

I felt the bird lift from the landing pad and slowly begin a gentle rotation into the wind. There was no turning back now. And there was no place to hide if we wanted to. The stakes had just been jacked up a thousand fold and the hand I was holding couldn’t beat Blanchard’s. At least not yet. As the hawk lifted us higher and higher into the setting sun I ran my hand over the well-oiled receiver of the 12-gauge cut-down I’d dog-robbed off a DEA agent in Colombia years ago. At just fifteen inches from stem to stern, the little equalizer was the best close-in manhandler I’d come across in a long time. Although it held only three shells in the tube and one up the pipe, the devastation it could wreak more than compensated for the little gun’s small combat load.