So Zulu and I are sitting in the back of the van on Friday morning in China Town thinking that this has got to be the most retarded mission that we've ever been on. Like, c'mon, this chick is selling fuckin' Faberge eggs? And the thing is, she's good at it. She's made $43,000 while we've been sweating our balls off in the back of the van for a day and a half. [Oh, and by the way, Z may make fun of my G-strang, but it's not as if he isn't sitting there balls-ass naked, so don't even start...]
Anyway we're sitting there listening to her banter with some closet homo when all of a sudden the light bulb comes on over my head. I turned to Zulu and said, "So while we're listening to this crap, where are we about as far from as possible?" And without saying anything we just looked at each other and knew. So I pulled on my clothes, grabbed a crappy windbreaker from underneath the passenger seat, sheathed a 6" blade, and announced, "I'm robbing the place."
As strange as that may seem, "robbing the place", is actually a common term in the business. The idea is that if you go in on an operative as a common thug with a violent streak that they'll be forced to play their hand.
I pulled a stocking over my head as I dashed up the stairs to her residence and kicked in the door. She was curled up on the couch talking to the latest schmuck and I brandished my blade while shouting, "Give me the fuckin' eggs!"
The shock of my entrance and my waiting for a read of her mood left a rather uncomfortable silence in the air, and just before I thought it had gone on too long, she shrieked. With that, I turned towards the large egg off on a table in the corner.
It was a large, glorious thing, and what immediately drew me towards it was the fabulous sheen it had, which afforded me a view over my shoulder as I approached it. This polish, I knew, would allow me to see with advance warning any strike that this potentially deadly assassin might level upon me.
But none came. As I approached the egg, in its reflection I could actually see her soil the couch. And without even laying my hands on the treasure, I turned, bowed to her, and exited.
I jumped in the back of the van and shouted to Z to hit the gas. He called back that we were heading to the theater district to get the chutes from a safe house there, and then would be on to Teterboro. Despite making the combined drive in an amazing 43 minutes, the time passed interminably for us.
Given all the TSA bullshit, our conduct at the airport could potentially be the most difficult part of our plan. Zulu's associations with P. Diddy had afforded him the opportunity to ride on Diddy's new Global Express, and Z had done his best in those interactions to get to know the pilots and the FBO crew at Teterboro. He's a master of the social interaction, and had managed to create an aura of more association with the plane than any casual passenger should have deserved. At any rate, as we drove to the safe-house he called ahead and convinced them to have the jet fueled up and be waiting for Diddy's imminent arrival.
Arriving at the airport we sweet talked the ramp crew and drove our van right out to the waiting plane, saying that we were getting the plane ready for Diddy, and then proceeded to load our gear as inconspicuously as possible. As I stayed to finish up, Zulu went in to the pilot's lounge and convinced a jet pilot to come out to check out the plane. Once inside we knocked him out and locked him in the lav. We then hopped behind the controls and within minutes were wheels up and headed southeast.
We were burning a lot of time to get where we were going, but we were executing as well as we could with the resources at hand. Still, it was scheduled to be a four-day stakeout, so chances were reasonably good that we'd arrive in the middle of whatever was happening.
As we neared our destination we prepared our gear and started looking at maps to decide on where specifically we were headed. Zulu had read all the intel and had narrowed the region down to about a 300 square-mile swath that was mostly in Pakistan but included some of Afghanistan. I then studied the region with my Special Forces trained eye, and picked our insertion point. With chutes on and weapons loaded we opened the bathroom door and let the pilot out.
I must say, when Zulu and I are fully outfitted for battle, we cut as impressive and menacing a figure as any men alive, and for the second time in 17 hours someone soiled themselves in fear of me. Z and I decided not to embarrass the guy, though, and took no notice as we shoved him at gunpoint towards the locked cabin.
"Listen carefully," I said, "In ninety seconds a small explosive on the other side of that door will blow and let you inside. The plane is trimmed out and on autopilot, and the baggage door is open. Close it, as we'll be gone by then, and plot a course for Kuala Lumpur. We've cleared the airspace for you. Refuel there and take the plane back to New Jersey. We'll square up with Diddy later." With that we turned and headed down into the baggage compartment.
The roar of the wind was deafening, but we held on and waited for the countdown to finish on our watches. When the displays turned all zeroes we were out the back of the plane and plummeting towards the Khyber Pass. We waited until the last possible moment to pull our chutes, so as to minimize our time as easy targets, and set down moments later on the rocky mountainside.
Despite our precise execution, we were still spotted as we dropped in, and were forced into an impromptu gun battle, which we handled swiftly. Their fire also alerted us to the cave we were looking for, and we made quick time over to its entrance, dispatching of the guards and slipping our way inside.
Likely you've got a picture in your mind of what one of these Al Qaeda caves looks like. And probably you're thinking crappy cave-man shit. You'd be dead wrong though. These things are about as opulent as anything you'd see on MTV Cribs. Zulu and I were sneaking down the corridors past plasma TV's, designer furniture, and a kitchen outfitted with the latest Viking ranges and Sub-Zero refrigerators. We're talking pimp here.
At any rate, as we reached the deepest bowels of the structure, we could hear the conversation going on in the chambers beyond a pair of intricately carved doors. "PAGES! PAGES!" shouted the slightly drawling western accented English, "Whatever, it doesn't matter, we just need something to happen to get us over the Foley thing."
Zulu and I kicked open the door, and with four quick rounds from each from our XM8's we were the only living men left in the presence of Osama bin Laden and Dick Cheney.
All the color drained from Cheney's toad-like face, and for the third time in 24 hours someone soiled themselves to look at me. His thin lips started to move, but no sound came out.
Zulu and I fixed our steely gazes on the two most evil men in the world. We'd seen some pretty hard characters over the years, but never two like this.
As Cheney attempted to emit what one could only assume would be a croak, I strode across the room and delivered a rifle butt to the his head, knocking him unconscious. I reached down to pick him up and threw him over my shoulder. Bin Laden and I then locked eyes, and after a moment
of mutual contemplation he nodded his head to me, and I did the same in return. The acknowledgement between us was more than just an appraisal; it was an admission that while this minor chapter had come to pass that the story was yet to be concluded on another day.
Zulu and I exited to Cheney's waiting Blackhawk and took him back to Kabul.
A lot of our conservative readers are going to wonder why we didn't kill bin Laden that day, while many of our liberal readers will wonder why we didn't kill Cheney, and then there are the independents, who will wonder why we didn't kill them both. What all those groups don't understand is that there is a fourth path, the apolitical path. Some people will come across this fourth way and go mad, others will find God, and then there are people like Zulu and I who will take the fourth path as far as it will go, and find the truth.