Red Cell by Marcinko Richard

Author:Marcinko, Richard [Marcinko, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

WE LANDED AT LOS ALAMITOS NAVAL AIR STATION AS THE SUN slipped beyond the horizon, putting everybody in the dark—both literally and figuratively. Nasty, Duck Foot, and Cherry slipped into a cab and headed for Long Beach Airport to rent three cars with their false IDs and driver’s licenses. By 2000, we were unlocked, unloaded, and on our way to Huntington Beach to check into a motel and—more importantly—to hit the bar at Casa Italia.

I’d already decided to wait until morning before calling the NCC (that’s the Navy Command Center to you civilians out there) back at the Pentagon to inform them where I was and what I was doing. Between the weekend, the UNODIR, and Murphy’s Law, I figured I’d be able to string my little game out for somewhere between three to five days. That, incidentally, is about the same length of time it took a War Department telex to make its way from a yeoman’s outbox to the telegraph operator back in December 1941. The telex in question was to alert the fleet at Pearl Harbor that a Japanese attack was imminent. That should make you all feel real confident about the Navy’s ability to react to a crisis, right?

Mike Regan was sitting at the bar when we walked in at about 2100. He grinned and started to get up as I came through the door. But, happy as I was to see him, I waved him off. There was something more important to do first than say hello to an ex-SEAL—there was a woman to kiss. So, I strode behind the bar, swept Mama Mascalzone off her feet, and planted a big wet one on her lips.

Mama cuffed my ears. Whaaap! “So, Meesta Dick Marcinko—you back in town, huh?” Whaaap! She hit me again and laughed with joy. “Finally you come to pay your respects to Mama, huh?” Whaaap-whaaap! “Nice to see you after so long.”

Tears in my eyes—she packs a real wallop for someone sixty-five years old who must weigh all of eighty-five pounds soaking wet—I set all four feet ten of her down and formally kissed the back of her hand. “Mille grazie, Mama. I always like to come back here.” I rubbed my face. “It feels like home when you hit me like that.”

Whaaap! “I know.” She reached up and chinned herself on my cheeks. “You still a good-looking boy, Richard.” She grinned slyly. “It was probably all that jail time. You meet any Sicilians in there?”

“You bet—a capo named Paulie. He looked like your son Anthony.”

“Like Anthony? Then he must have had an organo a foot long.” Mama laughed. I loved the way she laughed. None of your tee-hee’s or polite ha-ha’s for Mama. Inside her tiny frame were Ethel Merman’s lungs. Mama guffawed—she’d throw her head back, open her mouth, and roar unselfconsciously. She wiped her eyes, adjusted her black dress, and looked over the kids from Red Cell.

“New batch of sailors, huh?”

“You know me—I wear ’em out. Like women.”

“Well,

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