Echo Platoon by Richard Marcinko, John Weisman Page A
Authors: Richard Marcinko, John Weisman
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Plenipotentiary, wasn’t checking out any of the above questions. Instead, she was trying to figure out some way to pin the blame on moi .
Well, fuck her—let her try. I have big, wide, strong shoulders, and I’ve taken a shitload of blame in my time. So, whatever Madam Ambassador might try, there’d be nothing I haven’t seen before—and very little I couldn’t handle proactively.
Besides, I had more important things to do than worry about blame or political correctness. I wanted to know who these tango assholes were, where they’d come from, and most important, who’d put ’em into play. Multi-part operations like this one do not just happen. They are always a component part of a much larger and more complicated series of events.
Someone was developing an intricate, elaborate, and multilayered scenario here: a plan that had Spec-War Ivans (remember the blond corpse on the awl rig) and fundamentalist Iranians running joint terrorist ops. That fact alone could have serious national security implications for the United States. And me? I wanted to know who was involved, and where it was all going to end up. I’d need Ashley’s help, too. When I took her aside and asked directly, she’d said she’d do whatever she could. But we couldn’t communicate directly. Not without the ambassador finding out.
I thought about it. “You know an Air Farce bird colonel at DIA named Mercaldi?”
“Tony? Sure. He was my rabbi at spy school.”
Good news. We could go through Merc. Ashley’s head bobbed in the affirmative. “Works for me.”
And so, we left three of Araz’s Azeri gruntz at the airfield to watch the bodies, and six more to block the entrances of the service road. Then the rest of us climbed back onto those abominable Russkie trucks, and headed back to Baku.
4
I T WAS JUST ABOUT 1600 WHEN A RAZ LED US INTO THE cool marble lobby of the Grand Europe Hotel, which was on the dusty airport road a couple of kliks northeast of Baku’s old city. By then we were all beyond ripe. And any pretext of saving my clandestine mission got tossed completely out the window as we trooped through the thick glass doors. Why? Because as I recced the lobby I realized we’d walked into the middle of a fucking spy convention.
Over there—near port side—a pair of Turkish/ Georgian/Azeri/who-could-tell Mafiyosi muscle, pistol bulges under the armpits of their plaid zoot suit jackets, stood next to the souvenir kiosk, talking on cellular phones. Three stooges in boxy, ill-fitting KGB-model double-breasted suits tried to look inconspicuous, as if that was possible when they were jammed side by side on a single couch, legs crossed in triplicate, all reading identical newspapers. A local gumshoe idled by the reception desk looking like a bad imitation of Bogart, a maize-papered cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth. A Georgian pimp, hair slicked back like a 1930s flamenco dancer, herded half a dozen whores d’combat toward theneon sign entrance to the hotel bar which, according to the sign in the window, poured draft Bass Ale and served Cajun fried chicken.
So much for the multicultural local color. Then there were the half dozen spooks of various types scattered through the place, watching one another and everyone else. How did I know they were spooks? I knew because I’ve been in the business for a long, long time, and one develops a keen sense of whom is who. They had a certain look to them. They sent out vibes. Signals. So far as I was concerned, it was as if they’d had beacons implanted. I saw their reactions as we came through the doors, and I just knew that within half an hour, our arrival would be duly noted, logged, and registered with a dozen government agencies in a dozen countries, over a dozen time zones.
The spooks weren’t the only ones putting out signals. I saw the expressions on the desk clerks’ faces as we came through the door. One prim woman, hair in a tight bun, nose wrinkled in distaste, her
Well, fuck her—let her try. I have big, wide, strong shoulders, and I’ve taken a shitload of blame in my time. So, whatever Madam Ambassador might try, there’d be nothing I haven’t seen before—and very little I couldn’t handle proactively.
Besides, I had more important things to do than worry about blame or political correctness. I wanted to know who these tango assholes were, where they’d come from, and most important, who’d put ’em into play. Multi-part operations like this one do not just happen. They are always a component part of a much larger and more complicated series of events.
Someone was developing an intricate, elaborate, and multilayered scenario here: a plan that had Spec-War Ivans (remember the blond corpse on the awl rig) and fundamentalist Iranians running joint terrorist ops. That fact alone could have serious national security implications for the United States. And me? I wanted to know who was involved, and where it was all going to end up. I’d need Ashley’s help, too. When I took her aside and asked directly, she’d said she’d do whatever she could. But we couldn’t communicate directly. Not without the ambassador finding out.
I thought about it. “You know an Air Farce bird colonel at DIA named Mercaldi?”
“Tony? Sure. He was my rabbi at spy school.”
Good news. We could go through Merc. Ashley’s head bobbed in the affirmative. “Works for me.”
And so, we left three of Araz’s Azeri gruntz at the airfield to watch the bodies, and six more to block the entrances of the service road. Then the rest of us climbed back onto those abominable Russkie trucks, and headed back to Baku.
4
I T WAS JUST ABOUT 1600 WHEN A RAZ LED US INTO THE cool marble lobby of the Grand Europe Hotel, which was on the dusty airport road a couple of kliks northeast of Baku’s old city. By then we were all beyond ripe. And any pretext of saving my clandestine mission got tossed completely out the window as we trooped through the thick glass doors. Why? Because as I recced the lobby I realized we’d walked into the middle of a fucking spy convention.
Over there—near port side—a pair of Turkish/ Georgian/Azeri/who-could-tell Mafiyosi muscle, pistol bulges under the armpits of their plaid zoot suit jackets, stood next to the souvenir kiosk, talking on cellular phones. Three stooges in boxy, ill-fitting KGB-model double-breasted suits tried to look inconspicuous, as if that was possible when they were jammed side by side on a single couch, legs crossed in triplicate, all reading identical newspapers. A local gumshoe idled by the reception desk looking like a bad imitation of Bogart, a maize-papered cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth. A Georgian pimp, hair slicked back like a 1930s flamenco dancer, herded half a dozen whores d’combat toward theneon sign entrance to the hotel bar which, according to the sign in the window, poured draft Bass Ale and served Cajun fried chicken.
So much for the multicultural local color. Then there were the half dozen spooks of various types scattered through the place, watching one another and everyone else. How did I know they were spooks? I knew because I’ve been in the business for a long, long time, and one develops a keen sense of whom is who. They had a certain look to them. They sent out vibes. Signals. So far as I was concerned, it was as if they’d had beacons implanted. I saw their reactions as we came through the doors, and I just knew that within half an hour, our arrival would be duly noted, logged, and registered with a dozen government agencies in a dozen countries, over a dozen time zones.
The spooks weren’t the only ones putting out signals. I saw the expressions on the desk clerks’ faces as we came through the door. One prim woman, hair in a tight bun, nose wrinkled in distaste, her
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