Echo Platoon by Richard Marcinko, John Weisman Page A
Authors: Richard Marcinko, John Weisman
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for reasons that will go unexplained right now, I forgot the two basic rules of flashbangery outlined above.
The DefTec No. 25 has a one-point-five-second fuse. But I was so wrapped up with getting me and my guys down into the unit below and swarming the nasties, that I didn’t toss it in at an angle, and I didn’t wait until it went off to make entry.
Not me. Not Dickie. Not tonight. I simply droppedthe fucking thing down the hole, then jumped after it into the darkness below. Well, not right quite. I guess I waited about seven-eighths of a second to make my descent. Because the fucking flashbang went off in all its 1.8 million candlepower and 188 decibel glory as I was about four feet off the deck, in midair, falling directly atop the goddam thing.
The concussion blew me off course by about six feet. My umpteenth generation, state-of-the-art lightweight, all-season, wide-angle night-vision goggles skewed, dropped, and fell away on their retaining lanyard, I crashed into a wall, tumbled to the deck, and landed in a goddam heap, my right leg wrapped behind my shoulder like some fucking diagram in a book of esoteric Tantric positions, blinded and deafened by my own Roguish hand. All I saw were spots. All I heard was ringing.
Which, of course, is when one of the tangos decided that I was having too much fun and it was his job to add a note of solemnity to my evening’s labors.
I didn’t hear the shots (I was still too deafened), but I was finally able to pick out the muzzle flash of whatever the fuck he was shooting at me through the green and white spots in front of my eyes. Let me say that I am not overly fond of CQC, or close-quarters combat. It is dangerous and precarious work. If you are careless, you, the hostages, and your own men will die. But as the SpecWar commandment dictates, I didn’t have to like it—I just had to fucking do it. In CQC, you neutralize the most immediate threat first. In my case, that would be the aforementioned asshole, who was shooting at me from a distance of less than three yards. I rolled right, kept going (you NEVER want to stop moving in situations like this one), jarred my leg loose from behind myneck, and wasted no time trying to sight-acquire-return-the-fire in the direction of the muzzle flashes. 14
Off to my left, another DefTec exploded, its concussion literally lifting me off the deck. By luck, I averted my eyes as it went off and didn’t get caught by the flash. My target wasn’t so lucky. The fucking thing caught him unaware. He whirled—I saw the silhouette as he turned—and I was able to stitch him with three two-round bursts. He went down.
I crawled over to him and made sure he was who I thought he was. Then I finished him off with a pair of quick shots to the head.
You say that sounds brutal? Fuck you—I didn’t want him coming back to haunt me once I thought I’d finished with him.
Millisecond by millisecond I was regaining my faculties. I set my goggles back where they belonged, pulled the night vision’s straps around my head, and yanked ’em tight. Now I could see. I started yelling for the hostages to get down-down-down. You don’t want them popping their heads up and getting shot.
Behind me, Randy and Nigel had begun to clear the great room. Their firing was suppressed. But I could hear ’em shouting, “Get down get down get down.”
By the time Boomerang and I linked up and galumphed toward the short, L-shaped corridor leading to the eight bunk rooms and the back doorway, Nigel had shouted, “Clear-clear-clear!” on the radio and I knew the great room was secure.
No time to waste. I kicked the door in. Or tried to. It was a hollow door, remember? So I kicked—and buried my right leg, up to the knee, in eighth-inch plywood.
Fuck. Shit. Doom on Dickie. To hell with it—I just punched through the fucking door, ripped it off its hinges, and shook it loose. Not an instant to spare, I cut the pie of the short side of the L, swung my MP5 up,
The DefTec No. 25 has a one-point-five-second fuse. But I was so wrapped up with getting me and my guys down into the unit below and swarming the nasties, that I didn’t toss it in at an angle, and I didn’t wait until it went off to make entry.
Not me. Not Dickie. Not tonight. I simply droppedthe fucking thing down the hole, then jumped after it into the darkness below. Well, not right quite. I guess I waited about seven-eighths of a second to make my descent. Because the fucking flashbang went off in all its 1.8 million candlepower and 188 decibel glory as I was about four feet off the deck, in midair, falling directly atop the goddam thing.
The concussion blew me off course by about six feet. My umpteenth generation, state-of-the-art lightweight, all-season, wide-angle night-vision goggles skewed, dropped, and fell away on their retaining lanyard, I crashed into a wall, tumbled to the deck, and landed in a goddam heap, my right leg wrapped behind my shoulder like some fucking diagram in a book of esoteric Tantric positions, blinded and deafened by my own Roguish hand. All I saw were spots. All I heard was ringing.
Which, of course, is when one of the tangos decided that I was having too much fun and it was his job to add a note of solemnity to my evening’s labors.
I didn’t hear the shots (I was still too deafened), but I was finally able to pick out the muzzle flash of whatever the fuck he was shooting at me through the green and white spots in front of my eyes. Let me say that I am not overly fond of CQC, or close-quarters combat. It is dangerous and precarious work. If you are careless, you, the hostages, and your own men will die. But as the SpecWar commandment dictates, I didn’t have to like it—I just had to fucking do it. In CQC, you neutralize the most immediate threat first. In my case, that would be the aforementioned asshole, who was shooting at me from a distance of less than three yards. I rolled right, kept going (you NEVER want to stop moving in situations like this one), jarred my leg loose from behind myneck, and wasted no time trying to sight-acquire-return-the-fire in the direction of the muzzle flashes. 14
Off to my left, another DefTec exploded, its concussion literally lifting me off the deck. By luck, I averted my eyes as it went off and didn’t get caught by the flash. My target wasn’t so lucky. The fucking thing caught him unaware. He whirled—I saw the silhouette as he turned—and I was able to stitch him with three two-round bursts. He went down.
I crawled over to him and made sure he was who I thought he was. Then I finished him off with a pair of quick shots to the head.
You say that sounds brutal? Fuck you—I didn’t want him coming back to haunt me once I thought I’d finished with him.
Millisecond by millisecond I was regaining my faculties. I set my goggles back where they belonged, pulled the night vision’s straps around my head, and yanked ’em tight. Now I could see. I started yelling for the hostages to get down-down-down. You don’t want them popping their heads up and getting shot.
Behind me, Randy and Nigel had begun to clear the great room. Their firing was suppressed. But I could hear ’em shouting, “Get down get down get down.”
By the time Boomerang and I linked up and galumphed toward the short, L-shaped corridor leading to the eight bunk rooms and the back doorway, Nigel had shouted, “Clear-clear-clear!” on the radio and I knew the great room was secure.
No time to waste. I kicked the door in. Or tried to. It was a hollow door, remember? So I kicked—and buried my right leg, up to the knee, in eighth-inch plywood.
Fuck. Shit. Doom on Dickie. To hell with it—I just punched through the fucking door, ripped it off its hinges, and shook it loose. Not an instant to spare, I cut the pie of the short side of the L, swung my MP5 up,
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