RW11 - Violence of Action (20 page)

“Goddamn it, Danny!” I hollered. “We gotta get to a radio right now and tell the Feds not to fuck with Lassiter’s laptop! Damn thing is probably rigged like Jack’s was. We need EO-fucking-D on-site now. I want that fucking hard drive pulled the very instant
after
they disarm the cocksucker. You handle that. I’m calling Karen and getting another egghead sent down. I hope Gates pays his people combat wages ’cause this next fucker is going to earn ’em!” I gave Danny’s massive shoulder a friendly punch and began trotting for the control tower. From there I could reach Karen on a secure line. Danny would alert the FBI about the IED Lassiter most likely had in his kit. That would make their fucking day, I thought.

As I dogtrotted across the tarmac for the tower, I replayed in my head everything we’d faced in the last two days and, grudgingly, I realized I had to give Blanchard a certain kind of credit. I’ve taken on some serious international players in my career and been nearly done in by one or two of the best. But this homegrown son of a bitch was giving me a run for my money like no one else had. It didn’t help that he was an operator, and had a team of operators riding shotgun for him. I’d run out of options and Lassiter was my only card left to play. I knew Blanchard hadn’t already detonated the SADM only because he didn’t think he was in any danger of getting caught. I knew he wasn’t bluffing, he wasn’t going to get an attack of conscience and decide that he couldn’t do such a bad, bad thing. Nope, he was just biding his time. We—I—was nowhere close to him. I was getting the shit shot outta myself and my team and the fucking HRT. We were just nibbling at the edges of Nemesis and its self-proclaimed mission from
Yahweh
. I gave us a few more hours at best before the shit would really melt the fan. Lassiter’s capture would not go unnoticed by Blanchard. If Jack was
Numba Two
in the organization it stood to figure Lassiter was the man behind the scenes when it came to having the whole fucking plan either on his laptop or in his head. That meant he knew where Blanchard and the rest of Nemesis would be found and where the nuke was to be detonated. He’d also know Blanchard’s E&E plan. If nothing else, I planned to be waiting for him somewhere along that route with Trace, Paul, and Danny.

If my hunch was right we’d be hearing from Blanchard on the news very soon. He’d make his media appearance and scare the fucking shit outta anyone not already pissing in their drawers. Such an announcement would put even more unshielded targets on the streets and add to what was promising to be the largest mass murder in world fucking history carried out by a single terrorist organization. If it was a race war Blanchard wanted, he’d sure the hell have done his best to get one started. At the very least, the current administration would crumble under the political repercussions of its failure—
my
failure—to prevent Portland from becoming a nuclear waste dump. The country would skew sideways under unimaginable pressures, with the already struggling economy going full tilt boogie into the shitter and our foreign policy collapsing as all efforts were turned inside our borders to save the Republic from self-immolation. Fuck! Deep breath. Okay, I needed to put this big-picture crap out of my head and focus only the task at hand, only deal with things I had a shot at controlling. If I started dwelling on the global implications of this situation, I wouldn’t be able to keep my eyes on the prize. In this case, a titanium suitcase with enough firepower to take out a million or so of my fellow citizens. Not to mention yours truly!

Taking the tower’s steps two at a time I burst into the controllers’ bullpen and promptly found myself staring down the barrels of two M-9 Berettas and a 12-gauge riot gun. “Hi, fellas,” I smiled while putting both hands up, “I’m Captain Richard Marcinko. How do you like me so far?”

It took five fucking precious minutes for the air police to sort things out. While they fiddle-fucked around I lay on my belly on the floor spread-eagled like a new bride after a hard ride in the rack. I’d have to check with the accountant and see what I was charging OISA for all this fun. Whatever it was we were going to triple it!

With brusque apologies I was finally hauled up off the floor, dusted off, given back my Glock and my knife, then handed a secure cell and told to go stand in the corner. Aye-aye, motherfucker! I got hold of Karen on the third ring and ran down the most recent disaster for her. I placed my request for Egghead #2 and told her I wanted a team of shooters from SIX sent my way ASAP.

“Why SIX, Dick?” she asked. “HRT is on-site and seem to be holding their own.”

“They are,” I answered, “but we’ve taken a beating and, for the final push, I want operators who I fucking know and who fucking know me. Blanchard has
his
shooters with him and it’s making all the difference in the world right now. They are thinking and moving and fighting as a unit. It’s an edge I don’t have. HRT is shit hot and I love the bastards to death, but if I’m gonna get a shot at Blanchard it’s going to be up close and very personal. I need SEALs to back our play and I need the best fucking SEALs in the Teams and that’s SIX. Can you make it happen?”

There was a pause at the other end. I heard a muffled whisper, then someone in the background talking. Suddenly Karen was back. “Dick, Clay just called his contact at the Navy. They don’t like it but he used the president’s authority and explained to them that anything less than immediate and total cooperation would see court martial proceedings initiated regardless of rank. You’ll have your shooters. There’s a couple of boat crews up in Bremerton that have been doing some training at the base there. I’ll have the Air Force chop the fastest plane or chopper they’ve got at McChord over to Bremerton and then down to you. Will that do it?”

What a fucking gal! “Yeah, and tell Mulcahy I owe him one.”

I heard Karen pass along my kudos. “He says you just need to do your fucking job, Dick. He’s doing his.”

“That’s a hardass motherfucker you’ve got working for you, lady. I’m on it.”

“I’m so sorry to hear about George. He was such a brilliant man. And a kind one. Gates will be furious when he hears this.”

“All I can tell you is that it was quick,” I said. “Wasn’t pretty, but at least he never knew what him him. Karen, I gotta go. Lassiter’s chopper is coming in and we’ve still got to disarm the fucking computer and get a secure spot for the Feds to interrogate the miserable bastard. Will you call Danny and tell him when the egghead is going to arrive? And let him know we’ve got shooters coming in. He’ll handle the arrangements. Out here!”

I tossed the cell to the nearest air cop and jogged down the steps and out onto the tarmac. No tearful farewells with my new buddies who almost blew my fucking head off. Fire and medical crews were cleaning up the wrecked Op-Center. I could see the outline of several full body bags under the harsh glare of the banks of emergency lights that had been set up all around the building. Despite all this, I was once again feeling confident. Like Clay said, all I had to do was my job. If Blanchard punched our tickets right now it wouldn’t matter, just as long as I went out trying my very goddamned best. And for me to be able to do my best, I needed to know I was surrounded by the best.

When Karen asked why I had to have SEAL Team SIX join this party, I told her the truth—but only part of it. Full disclosure, it was a lot more personal than I’d wanted her to know. If this was the most important mission of my career, then I damn well wanted to carry it out with the support of the team I’d created out of my own sweat and blood. HRT might have been just as skilled in the mechanics of waging war, but I couldn’t know with absolute certainty how they’d respond in any and all situations. I knew SIX—because, in a lot of ways, I
am
SIX and SIX is me.

When the green light was given for me to commission a naval counter-terrorist SEAL team, the word came down from the chief of Naval Operations that I had carte blanche to get the job done. And to accomplish my mission I had to think—and act—outside the standard issue Navy box I’d been brought up in. The creation, training, and fielding of such a force had never been done before, so there were no standards to adhere to and no previous efforts to guide me. It was like walking off the ramp of a C-130 at 25,000 feet above the earth at midnight. You just take a deep breath and do it, and hope the landing is a good one.

I had Chargin’ Charlie Beckwith, founder and first commanding officer of the Army’s elite DELTA team, to bounce ideas and experiences off. As a young Green Beret officer, Beckwith enjoyed the advantage of having been an exchange officer with the British Special Air Service, or SAS, England’s topnotch counterterrorist force. He’d participated in their rigorous selection course and been tabbed after successfully completing it. He built DELTA along the same lines as SAS. Beckwith was also able to draft off the already existing fifth Special Forces Group’s in-house CT unit. Called Blue Light, it was an organic, in-house Special Forces response to terrorism made up of a number of highly qualified and blooded Green Berets with Vietnam special projects experience and know-how. But for your old friend Demo Dick Marcinko, the waters were less well charted.

When it began, SEAL Team SIX had no formal program of instruction, so we made one up. There was no existing CT operator course, so we taught ourselves. If we wanted to learn the best way of scaling the outside of a ninety-story building, I’d assign an operator to become the subject matter expert for that block of instruction. That’s why I required creative, independent, intelligent SEALs on SIX. They had to be both instructors and students to get the Team off the ground.

The first thing I needed was someone I could count on one hundred percent to handle details and watch my six as the new Team was launched. I pulled in Norm Carley, an Academy graduate, who’d trained with Britain’s elite Special Boat Service. Norm had stood up MOB 6 at SEAL Team 2 and his shooters came closest at the time to a naval CT asset. Carley had participated in a number of maritime ship takedowns with the SBS and I knew he was a rock-solid, smart, loyal teammate. He was the right man for the job.

Command Master Chief Ken MacDonald came next. Ken had been my swim buddy in UDTR Training Class 26 and had done a two-year exchange tour with the SBS. MacDonald was a no-nonsense, hard-chargin’ senior enlisted SEAL who knew all the ropes and many of the men we’d need to make SIX go. Between me, Carley, and MacDonald, the foundation was laid and the seriously hard work began.

In the Navy, the captain’s ultimate responsibility is to prepare his people for war and to take them there when they are needed. As the founder and commander of SIX, this was my primary objective. We were setting the standards and there was no one qualified or knowledgeable enough in the Navy to give us a blessing—or withhold one. I was on my own. Brigadier General Dick Scholtes, then the commanding general of the Joint Special Operations Command, was aware of my unique spot. When he heard the Navy was going along with my approach—as had been made loud and clear by the CNO—he gave me my lead and helped guide me whenever he could with such thorny issues as unit interoperability. More than anyone, Scholtes got that I was one helluva brain surgeon but that my bedside manner sucked! (Okay, maybe it’s still not perfect.) But I wasn’t the lead dog for SIX because I was good at shining brass and kissing ass. I was there because I had the vision and the will to make things happen, and to do so with immediate, verifiable results.

I was also there because I wasn’t interested in punching my ticket to make admiral. SIX required—
demanded
—a commander who would fully commit to the mission, operators, and the unit. A commander who would seek first and foremost the welfare of his men as opposed to the welfare of his career. I was willing to go into the trenches with my teammates, as opposed to the hallowed halls of command. The shooters building SIX needed to know they could depend on me at all times. If we were to succeed, they needed to see me shoulder to shoulder with them every day.

Take a fucking note! Too much bullshit has been spewed over the years about how and where my operators and I spent the little downtime we had, doing what we wanted to. The short version is this. I recognized early on that the rigorous demands I made on SIX’s operators would soon burn them out. Every second they were on duty, they had to maintain a state of extraordinarily high operational readiness in case a mission came down without notice. There has to be time to relax, to decompress, to come down from hour after hour of adrenalin pumping through your body like water through a high-pressure hose. When we partied, we partied hard. Period. When we worked, we worked harder, longer, and at levels more demanding than
anyone
else in either the Navy or existing SEAL teams could conceive of, much less match. Period. In my mind those who bitch about SEAL Team SIX outfighting, outdrinking, and outfucking all the other kids on the block are really saying they didn’t have what it took to earn the right to run with the best in the business to begin with. I make no apologies and I make no excuses. Like Clint Eastwood says, a man needs to know his limitations.

Following the example set by the legendary Admiral Rickover, father of the Navy’s modern nuclear submarine service, I made the first selection of SIX shooters personally. My criteria were simple. First, I was looking for a specific personality type. For the assaulters, the SEALs who would actually kick the doors down to get at the Tangos, I wanted supercharged, type-A personalities. These were primarily younger guys, the kind who would spend hours in the gym pumping iron and then run countless miles to attain an extreme state of physical conditioning. They were
super
-aggressive types and they had to be since they had the job of actually taking it to the terrorists at any time, from any place, using any means possible. Then I looked for some more standard type-A personalities to provide a balance to the Super-A operators and form the main body of the Team. Finally, I looked for the borderline-A personality, or the Super-B. These were often the older, more mature SEALs who made excellent snipers and senior technicians. They had all been combat tested; they had all felt a bullet with their name on it go right past their ear. These were the “War Dogs!”