Rogue Warrior: Blood Lies

This is a work of fiction. fict ion. All Al l of the charac c haracters, ters, organiz orga nizations, ations, and a nd events portraye por trayed d in this t his novel are either products of the authors’ imaginat ions or are used fictitiously fict itiously.. �� ®: �� Copyright © 2012 by Richard Marcinko and Jim DeFelice Alll rights reserved. Al res erved. A Forge Book Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC 175 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10010 www ww w.tor .tor-forge -forge.com .com Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC. Library of Congress Cataloging-inCataloging- in-Publication Publication Data Marc inko, Richard. Marcinko, R ichard. Rogue warrior— warrior—Blood Blood lies / Richard Marcinko and Jim DeFelice.—1st DeFelice.— 1st ed. p. cm. “A Tom Dohert Dohertyy Ass Associates ociates book.” ISBN 978978-00-76537653-25412541-9 9 (hardcover) ISBN 978978-11-42994299-46384638-4 4 (e-book) 1. Rogue Warrior Warrior (Fictitious character)— character)—Fiction. Fiction. 2. Special forces (Mil (Military itary science)—Fiction. science)— Fiction. 3. Terrorism— Prevention—Fict Prevention—Fiction. ion. I. DeFelice, Jim, 19 1956– 56– II. Title. III. Title: Blood lies. PS3563.A6362R57 PS35 63.A6362R57 2012 813'.54—dc23 2012017067 First Edition: September 2012 Printed in the t he United States States of America A merica 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

(I )

I

t’s not not hard to get mugged in Juarez, Mexico. Walk down the t he wrong street, �ash some cash, ca sh, act a little l ittle tipsy t ipsy — before you know it, you you’ve ’ve got a crowd lining lini ng up behind you, fighting over who has dibs. Getting kidnapped is harder. First of all, it pays to be choosey. You Y ou don don’t ’t want wa nt to be kid kidnapped napped by just anyone. Or let me say say,, you don’t want to be kidnapped by the wrong anyone. anyone. The crime has to be seen as a business transact tr ansaction, ion, not not one of passion. Passion Passion will wil l quickly quick ly get you killed, kil led, not just in Juarez but anywhere. It also has to be the right kind of business transaction. You don’t want it to be part of a merger and acquisition. The latter is pretty common in Juarez, where drug cartels and their various factions are constantly jostling for position. If your kidnappers grab you as part of a hostile takeover, your your chances of emerging with significant sig nificant limbs li mbs intact is small. You Y ou want to be kidnapped by someo someone ne who doesn doesn’t ’t see you as competition, who expects a good ransom, and who knows that damaged goods are bad for business. He should be fairly adept at it, too — the last th thing ing you want w ant is a nervous finger on the 191 911 1 Model knockoff when it’s pushed against your ribs. (Most kidnappers in general are male, and this is especially true in Mexico. I’m not sure why they gravitate toward inexpensive versions of the venerable Colt automatic; maybe they get a bulk discount. Or maybe they missed out on our ATF royally fucked-up fucked-up scam — excuse me, sting operation — “designed” to trace U.S. illegal gun sales throughout the Southwest, Midwest, and dead West. It was your ty typical pical cockedcocked-up up brain-dead brain-dead government operation, helped along by some greedy cock breaths on the U.S. side of the border.) If you want to be grabbed g rabbed by higher-end thugs, you have to position yourself just right. Attractive and available alone won’t cut it.

Richard Marcinko and Jim DeFelice DeFelice

Your cover story has to fall Your f all close to the t he profile of people they like l ike to snatch. You also have to present yourself as easy, but not such a patsy that lesser villains try to pick you off the street. Becoming functional bait isn’t just a difficult business, it’s an art form. My interest interest in kidnapp kidnapping ing was sincere and ho hono norab rable. le. I wante wanted d to be grabbed as part of a plan to free a legitimate kidnap victim, vict im, the twentyt wentytwo- year year-old, old, tactfully blond and delicately curvaceous daughter of a fellow fello w SEAL. SEA L. There were ulter ulterior ior motive motivess as well, the most impor importa tant nt of which whic h had to do with w ith Hezbolla Hez bollah h1 and a reported terror camp in the border area. But that part of the story is best saved for a moment when th thing ingss are a lit little tle ca calmer. lmer. Becau Because se at the moment th this is book begins, I’m east of Juarez being chased by a pair of pickup trucks filled with gun-toting gun-toting banditos. My foot is to the �oor and the big Cadillac is fishtailing across a sandy Mexican road parallel to the border. The car ca r responded by pulling pul ling to the t he left, the torque steer nearly jerking her out of my hands. Careful not to overcorrect, I muscled the vehicle onto the pavement, holding the nose steady as the speedometer stretched toward toward triple t riple digits. I’m not ordinarily a Cadillac guy; if I were going to choose a car from Government Motors at all it would probably be more in the Chevy line. But this Caddy had a lot going for it — most especially the ceramic plate inserts throughout the chassis and body designed to withstand anything short of a 120 mm armor-piercing armor- piercing shell. The glass — front, back, and sides — had been replaced with w ith thick bulletproof material, all of which added a shitpot of extra weight to this

1

Hezbollah is the Iranian-funded Iranian- funded terror group that controls the Gaza Gaz a Strip, hates Israel, and has sworn to do things th ings to the t he U.S. that don’t don’t include include giving us a birthday cake. We’ll go into more detail later.

12

Rogue Warrior: Blood Lies

lead sled. In exchange, the armor could ward off slugs from a .300 Win mag. Unfortunately, the bastards behind me opened fire with a pair of fifties fift ies — as in i n 50 mm machine gu guns. ns. The bullets, heavier and designed desig ned to act like frickin’ can openers, peppered the back of the car. A dozen shattered the window, embedding themselves in the ceramic plates in the driver’ dr iver’ss seat behind behi nd me. I ducked as low as I could, trying to hide behind what was left of the seat as bullets splattered through the interior of the car, smashing the burled walnut interior accents and adding random vents to the automatic climate control. The front windshield spiderwebbed with bullet holes, and the radio, which had been playing an old Willie Nelson tune about cowboys, gave up the ghost. That was pretty prett y much the last straw. I veered veered right, then reached for the �asher button. The button was preset to send a radio signal to my tra trail il team; roughly translated, the signal meant “Get your fucking butts over here and rescue my ass. a ss.”” Only not as polite. In theory, I didn’t need the signal: we had a small UAV overhead watching, sending sending signals to a temporary command post and the trail team. But theory and reality realit y had already separated: in theory the gang I was enticing as a kidnap victim didn’t fire at its victims. In reality, the bastards behind me were about to fry me alive. I swung sw ung left and a nd right, onto the shoulders, shoulders, then back to the t he high way.. As I came up over a rise, I spotted a tractor-trailer way tractor-trailer headed in my direction and moving at a good clip. I waited until he had pulled almost even, then swerved my car, sliding off the road behind him but managing to regain the pavement in the opposite direction of my pursuers. 2 2 The

lawyers suggest I add the standard disclaimer here, to the effect that you should not not try tr y this th is at home; I am a trained tra ined professional professional who has taken ta ken several counterterrorist driving classes. But I say screw the legal beagles. bea gles. If you have keys and a driveway, give it a whirl.

13


Somewhere between the bullets and the hard turn, two of my four tires blew out. That didn’t slow me down too much, since they were run-�ats run-�ats (or more more accurately accur ately “run while shot to shit” sh it” �ats), �ats), but I strongly suspect there was a connection between the blowouts and the stench of burning rubber that began filling the cabin. At least I didn’ didn’tt have to worry about ventilation. ventilat ion. I kept my foot firmly on the �oor, heading in the direction of the pickup truck with the first half of my trail team, Shotgun and Mongoose, aka Paul “Shotgun” Fox and Thomas “Mongoose” Yamya. Somewhere to the east, behind me now, was another vehicle with two more of my shooters, Trace Dahlgren and Tommy “Tex” Reeves. Both halves were undoubtedl undoubtedlyy headi heading ng at high speed to my resc rescue. ue. I thought eventually they were going to converge and help get me the hell out of this mess.3 Unfortunately, it didn’t look like I was going to reach eventually. As I approached the back of of the tractor-trailer, tractor- trailer, the tailgate rolled up, revealing another another machine gun. g un. It began peppering the pavement in front of my car with bullets. I pulled the wheel hard right, taking the car off- road. The Caddy’s front end had been carefully reinforced, but even a Bradley Fighting Vehicle V ehicle would have buckled under the strai strain. n. W hat was left of the windshield wi ndshield disintegrated; steam started shooting from the hood hood area. I lost the rest of of the tires and a nd struggled to keep the car moving, movi ng, wrestling with it as it wove and bucked in a drunken, smoky swirl. Flames �icked � icked from the �oor. �oor. I had two t wo options:

3 But

to complete my earlier earl ier thought — if you do try t ry th this is at home, I recommend recom mend using a rental car, preferably something along the lines of Rent- a-Wreck, definitely not your own wheels. And buy — what am I saying? — steal a a set of cheap tires because you are going to burn the ones you start with down to the cords. It’s It’s all shits and giggles — shit when you fuck f uck up and giggle g iggle when you pull off of f a maneuver mane uver out of your ass. Thi Think nk of it th this is way: it’s a selfself-taught taught defensive driver course. Probably deductible dedu ctible on your taxes as a s an education expense.

14


a) get the hell hell out of the car or or b) start a second career as a burnburn-center center test dummy. I chose a). The car, car, against all common sense and pro probab bably ly the laws of of physphysics and motion, was still moving at a very good pace; jumping would have been even more suicidal than staying. We careened back toward the road, then swirled swi rled sideways sideways and slid down a washboard gully �ank�a nking the macadam. Sparks �ew as the rims and chassis hit the asphalt, rebounded across the highway, then spun onto the soft desert sand and came to a stop. I wish I could have said the same for my head, head, which was turni t urning ng revolutions so fast it felt like it was trying to unscrew itself. By the time I managed to get my seat belt undone and the door open, I was engulfed in a thick, t hick, inky in ky fog of of smoke smoke and fire. I coughed coughed like a threepack-a-day packa-day smoker smoker,, falling fall ing to my knees k nees on the ground. I started crawlc rawling toward daylight. The tractortractor-trailer trailer stopped catty-corner catty-corner across the road about seventy-five seventyfive yards ahead. The machine-gun machine-gun fire had stopped. For a moment I thought the smoke might give me enough cover so I could hide in the desert until my people arrived; surely they’d be along any second now. Then something �ew out of the back of the trailer. tr ailer. It looked looked like a fastball thrown by Nolan Ryan during his heyday, but it was even more explosive ex plosive — a 40 mm grenade. It sailed well off the mark, a good seventy yards or more over my head: right into one of the kidnappers’ pickup trucks. The driver tried veering at the last moment, moment, but but all he succeeded succeeded in doing was tipping the vehicle as the grenade hit. It toppled over impressively. I scrambled to my feet and began running to the south, trying to get behind as much of the drifting cloud of haze and smoke as I could. A second grenade �ashed overhead overhead,, exploding ex ploding a little l ittle closer than tha n the t he other.

15


Murphy,4 or his close cousin, Dumb Luck, smiled on me at that Murphy moment, sending a tourist bus down the highway. The bus driver, driving like the attentive, cautious man most are, was doing close to ninety and didn’t realize the truck wasn’t going to get out of the way until he was wa s too close to stop. stop. He hit the horn, slammed slam med on the brakes, and then power-steered power-steered off the road, trying to swerve around it. He nearly made it it . . . until the t he rear quarter panel of the bus bus came back and clipped the front fender of the truck. The bus tu tumbled mbled and the tra trailer iler slammed sideways just as the grenadier fired another round. I jumped up and ran, heading toward a wide ditch a hundred or so yards off the road. Sliding in, I took as long a breath as I dared, then started down it to the east, trying to put as much distance between me and the artillery as possible. Unfortunately, the plan to have myself kidnapped had left me withoutt a perso withou personal nal weapo weapon; n; even even busin businesslike esslike kidnappe kidnappers rs tend tend to think the worst when they spot a gun. There was a small radio device in my belt transmitting transmitt ing my location, and I also had a special phone imbedded imbedded in the heel of my boot.5 But aside from my fists and my wits, I was unarmed. There were were undoubtedly undoubtedly weapons in the overturned overtur ned pickup. pickup. The occupants were scattered around it, mostly doing what people tend to do right after they’ve they ’ve broken broken their necks: neck s: nothing. Figuring they wouldn’t mind if I borrowed their guns, I started climbing out of the ditch and heading in their direction. I got about two steps before two or three of the campesinos in the other truck, 4 I

can’t believe I have to explain who Murphy is, but I will: the proprietor of the famous law dictating that whatever what ever can go wrong will go wrong, but only at the worst possible moment. 5 Readers of a certain age and aficionados of Nickelodeo Nickelodeon n will wil l notice the similarity simi larity to the device used by Maxwell Smart. Shunt, who designed it, swears he never heard of Don Adams, though if you’ve seen Shunt’s apartment, you’ll know he’s a big fan of Chaos.

16


which had stopped stopped nearby, nearby, spotted me. The ground erupted erupted with automatic weapons fire. I slid back into the ditch. The Mexicans started tak taking ing target practice. They weren weren’t ’t particularly good, nor did they seem to realize that I was in a ditch rather than a hole. I crawled about twenty yards eastward while they continued firing where I had been. Right about then, Shotgun and Mongoose finally arrived on the scene. Assisted by instructions from Doc, who’d been studying the video feed from our overh overhead ead UAV, Mongoose pointed the Jimmy SUV straight at the tractor-tra tractor- trailer iler.. Shotgun rolled down the window w indow and hung out the side. As they closed in, he began writing his name on the trailer with his HK416. 6 The bad guys g uys immediately forgot about about me and a nd started sta rted firing at the Jimmy. Jimmy. Mongoose Mongoose spun the truck t ruck to give g ive Shotgun Shotgun a chance to aim ai m at the banditos near the pickups. pick ups. Then he turned tur ned to come back back around for another blast at the trailer. As he did, a grenade smacked into the Jimmy’ss rear quarter panel. The Jimmy’ T he truck tr uck bounced upward, then settled sett led down on all four wheels, engine dead. The boys bailed just before before another another grenade hit the truck’s cabin, setting it on fire. Good thing we’d opted for the optional insurance. While W hile all th this is was going on, I climbed out of the t he ditch and half crawled, half ran to the nearest gun, an M16 lying in the dust near one of the dead banditos. ba nditos. 6

Doc is A l “Doc” Tremblay — aka Cockbreat Cockbreath h and a nd other ot her assorted as sorted terms of endearment — one of my original partners in crime; he’s been with me since the invention of of gunpowd gu npowder er.. The gun gu n Shotgun was using was built for him by Heckler & Koch, one of several my company (Red Cell International) is testing. We also have somewhat similar M4 derivatives built for us by a company owned by a former SEAL; the weapon may or may not go into general production and I’ve been asked to avoid publicizing it. Basical Ba sically, ly, it’s it’s an M4 on steroids; ste roids; do a Google search and odds are you’ll come across acro ss it. From here on out I’ll just ju st refer to it as an a n M4. We We also had h ad SCARs, a few Chinese AKs, and of course my trusty MP5 at our disposal during this op.

17


The gu gun n was a U.S. A rmy issue early model, proba probably bly given to the Mexican army under some sort of assistance plan, only to quickly fall into the hands of drug gangs. But I didn’t particularly care about its provenance, just the fact that t hat it was loaded. loaded. Looking through the drifting black smoke, I saw a fat- ass Mexican near the trailer with a single-shot single-shot grenade gren ade launcher lau ncher — probably an M79 M7 9 — tak taking ing aim at the t he Jimmy. I sigh sighted, ted, shot . . . and missed. m issed. Several times. Frustrated, I �ipped the ri�e off single to burst fire, and took aim again. Even so, it took three bursts before I hit him. He staggered backward, straightened, then lowered his launcher and tried loading it. NATO rounds never seem to put anyone down when you need them down. I fired before he could get his hi s load in the t he launcher, launcher, this th is time ti me putputting the burst into his face. Shotgun reached me a few seconds later. later. He and a nd Mongoose had already killed the three campesinos who’d been left; Mongoose walked wal ked slowly among a mong them, them , mak ing sure su re they the y were dead. Trace and Tex T ex showed up maybe mayb e thi t hirt rtyy seconds second s later. “About time you got here,” said Shotgun with a laugh as Tex hopped out of the truck. “You’re tardy to the party.” “You’ “Y ou’re re all goddamn late,” late,” I told them, sprink spri nkling ling the t he usual words of endearment among my hearty congratulations that they had actually seen fit to arrive. “Hey look,” yelled Mongoose, holding up a small metal box he’d found in the cab of the tractor-tra tractor- trailer iler.. “It’s “It’s filled with pesos. Gotta G otta be fifty thousand at least.” “Buy a burger at least,” said Shotgu Shotgun. n. “Drinks are on them,” I told everyone. “Let’s head back to the motel.”

18

=(N"' +,==8(=S !<((B <8'C

!"# %&' !(() *(+ ,-./01 !.2134 !.2134 5 *0673 819:3!0;19

<',=* >(=' ,!("% %&' !(()

-.?-:77.1@?0-

Rogue Warrior: Blood Lies

Recommend Documents