Chapter 4 - The Recon Gathering
I didn't drive home. I drove to a small, unassuming auto body repair shop situated on the industrial outskirts of the city.
The sign out front read Vance & Sons Auto, but the man who owned it had nothing to do with Victor Vance. His name was Gunny Frank "Bull" Jenkins—a former Master Gunnery Sergeant who had served as my lead assistant instructor at Quantico for six years before retiring to run his father's garage.
The shop lights were still on. Inside, the heavy bass of country music played over a stereo while Bull stood under a lifted Ford F-250, wiping grease off his massive, tattooed forearms.
"We're closed, pal," Bull called out without looking up.
"Even for a Chief Instructor, Gunny?" I asked.
Bull froze. He wiped his hands on a shop rag, stepped out from under the truck, and looked at me. His graying beard and barrel chest made him look like a silverback gorilla in navy coveralls.
"Top?" Bull’s jaw dropped. "What the hell are you doing here at eleven o'clock at night?"
Then he looked at my face. He saw the cold, hollow look in my eyes—the look I only got when we were prepping a company of Raiders for a dark drop into enemy territory.
"Who do we need to kill?" Bull asked, dropping the rag immediately.
In five minutes, I told him everything. About Marcy’s bruises, the ER room, Dustin, the gym, and Victor Vance’s ultimatum at Pier 14.
Bull didn't curse. He didn't yell. He simply walked over to the back of the shop, pulled a heavy steel key from his pocket, and unlocked a reinforced steel door leading into a secure storage room.
Inside were four large, green Pelican hard-cases.
"You think Vance is going to meet you man-to-man, Top?" Bull asked, popping the heavy latches on the first case. Inside lay three black tactical vests, radio headsets, night-vision monoculars, and heavy-duty zip-tie restraints. "That bastard hasn't fought fair a day in his life. He's going to have six snipers on the crane towers and a dozen shooters in the shadows."
"I know," I said, reaching into the second case and pulling out a pair of reinforced Kevlar tactical gloves. "That's why I'm not going alone."
Bull picked up his phone. "Give me ten minutes. I'm calling 'The Trinity.'"
"The Trinity" was the nickname we had given three former MARSOC Raiders who had retired in the local tri-state area: Miller, Jackson, and Ramirez. They were men I had personally certified in advanced close-quarters battle (CQB) and urban warfare. Men who had cleared rooms in Ramadi and hunted high-value targets in the mountains of Afghanistan.
By 11:35 p.m., three dark pickup trucks pulled into the alley behind Bull’s shop.
Three men stepped out into the dim light. They didn't wear uniforms; they wore jeans, dark hoodies, and baseball caps. But their posture, their alert eyes constantly sweeping the perimeter, and the quiet precision of their movements marked them instantly.
"Top," Jackson said, giving me a firm, knuckle-cracking handshake. "Gunny told us about Marcy."
"She's twenty-two, boys," I said, looking at the four men standing around me in the garage. "She's my little girl. And a mob boss thinks he can use his syndicate to hurt my family."
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Ramirez pulled a tactical folding knife from his pocket, snapping the blade open with a crisp click. "We clearing Pier 14, Chief?"
"We aren't going there to start a war," I said, pulling a laminated map of the port district onto the hood of a car. "We're going there to execute a surgical strike. Vance thinks he's setting a trap for an old, retired carpenter. We are going to show him what happens when he invites a Marine Raider team to his playground."
