Echo Platoon by Richard Marcinko, John Weisman Read Free Book Online Page A

bottle it up. You get your ass and your partner’s ass over here double-time. We’ll all hit ’em from the back end at once.”
    Randy came back right on cue: “Aye, aye, Skipper.”
    I shut my radio down, and silent-signaled Boomerang, Duck Foot, and Nod to do the same. Boomerang looked over at me quizzically. His expression told me that he had no fucking idea what I was thinking. All he knew was that we were about to enter what’s known in the trade as a fatal funnel, and that the bad guys were waiting for us inside.
    Indeed, the tangos were following the same course of action I would have taken myself if I’d been them: set the agenda for the attacking team. Make ’em come to you the way you want them to come to you. And then you ambush ’em with great violence, and kill ’em all.
    They were trying to fuck me. Well, I’ve been fucked by the best, and lemme tell you I have learned my own fucking bag of tricks.
    Here’s what I knew. According to the plans faxed from CenTex headquarters, the modular living quarters had been constructed from two double-wide trailer units—that is, four separate sections covered by a single roof. The trailer that contained the dorm rooms formed the shaft of an irregular capital T; thecommon living area was the top of the T , except that the trailers had been set so that one side of the top T was longer than the other.
    The vertical shaft of the T comprised eight double-bunk rooms, four to a side, all sharing a common corridor. At the bottom end of the corridor was the outside door. At the top, or interior, end of the bunkhouse unit were two bathrooms, one on each side of the corridor. The bunk area was separated from the common room by a short L-shaped passageway, and a hollow-panel door.
    The common room itself was wide open. The front entry was a hatch on the far right-hand side of the modular unit as you faced it. The front door opened directly into the galley, which had two long picnic tables and four benches, and a corner kitchen—a four-burner electric stove, a big double-size restaurant quality fridge, a food-prep area, and a microwave. The pantry—what there was of one—was a stowage area above the stove and food-prep area, and a series of deep cabinets below.
    To the left of the galley was the big living-room area. That’s where they kept the big-screen TV, with the theater-quality sound system, DVD and videocassette decks, and the rig’s extensive library of girlie magazines. Creature comforts are important to people who work on oil rigs. Above the galley area was a huge air-conditioning unit, with a spider’s web of insulated ducts that ran the cooled air into the living area, the sleeping quarters, and the heads.
    Now, the keep-it-simple-stupid way to take this place down, according to the book, was this: we’d hit the front and back doors simultaneously, and swarm both living and sleeping areas, catching the bad guys in between.
    But it was obvious that these assholes had read the same book we’d been using. That’s why they’d been so fucking obvious about booby-trapping the front door.
    Why? Because they thus ensured that we’d make our assault through the back entrance. Where, of course, they’d be waiting for us.
    Not all of ’em. We had eight tangos to deal with. Two had been neutralized. That left six. For argument’s sake, let’s say that one man is a free-floater, who’s roaming the rig. That left five. At a minimum, they’d have one or two with the hostages, so that he/they could start killing them quickly. That left three or four. Of those, they’d probably set one guy in the common room. He’d be the backup just in case Mister Murphy screwed with the booby traps and they didn’t work. He’d probably have grenades and maybe even explosives. The others would set up in ambush positions so they’d have a free-fire zone as we hit the back door.
    Whoa. Let’s stop right here, and take the time to war-game this scenario, as it has been