Chương 101: Chapter 100: The Spark (03/03/1991)

DATE: Sunday, March 3, 1991 LOCATION: Bravo Company Barracks | Fort Benning, GA LOCAL TIME: 02: 00 AM EST (11: 00 PM PST) I was three thousand miles away, sitting on the cold tile of the Bravo Company latrine with a can of Brasso and a scrubbing pad. I was pulling weekend fire-guard duty. But my mind was in Lake View Terrace, California. Before I had boarded the Greyhound for Basic Training a year ago, I had handed Richard Marcinko a sealed dossier with a very specific date, time, and address.

The 1987 Hyundai Excel is a terrible car, I had written in the brief. It has a 1. 5-liter Mitsubishi engine that produces 68 horsepower on a good day. Tonight, however, it is the most dangerous machine on earth. I checked my watch. 02: 00 AM in Georgia meant it was 11: 00 PM in Los Angeles. Right now, Marcinko was parked in the deep shadows of an oak tree two houses down from a quiet suburban party. He didn't know why I wanted the car disabled.

I hadn't told him about the impending high-speed chase, the California Highway Patrol, or the baton barrage that would be filmed by a plumber on a balcony. I hadn't told him about the fifty-three dead, or the billion dollars in fire and property damage that would tear the social fabric of Los Angeles apart for a decade. I had just told him: Physics. Kinetic energy requires ignition. Take away the spark, Dick. But don't cut the wires. It can't look like sabotage. It has to look like bad luck.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. I scrubbed a brass fixture on the sink, imagining the Rogue Warrior slipping out of his unmarked Crown Victoria. He wouldn't crawl; he would glide across the wet grass with the absolute, terrifying silence of a Tier 1 operator. He would pop the hood release and catch the latch before it could make a sound. He would pull the rubber boots off the number one and number three spark plugs.

He wouldn't use a rock and a screwdriver like a street kid; he would use a specialized, spring-loaded steel punch to cleanly fracture the white ceramic insulators of the plugs, before replacing the rubber boots perfectly. To the naked eye, the wires would look intact. But physics is unforgiving. When the ignition coil sent 20, 000 volts down that wire, the current would take the path of least resistance.

Instead of jumping the gap at the electrode to ignite the fuel, the spark would arc through the cracked ceramic directly to the grounded engine block. Short circuit. No spark. No combustion. I wiped the Brasso off the sink, my eyes glued to my watch. 03: 30 AM EST. In Los Angeles, Rodney King was stumbling out of the house. He was getting into the driver's seat. He was turning the key. Whir-whir-whir-whir. The starter motor would spin, but the engine wouldn't catch.

He would pump the gas pedal, flooding the cylinders until unburnt fuel detonated in the hot exhaust manifold with a loud POP. The battery would drag. The engine would die. The alcohol would make him heavy and tired. The adrenaline of the impending drive would be replaced by the crushing, mundane frustration of mechanical failure. He would pull the keys out, curse the car, and stumble back inside to sleep it off. George Holliday would sleep through the night.

The CHP cruiser patrolling the 210 freeway would write a few speeding tickets and go home. Latasha Harlins was still dead, and the racial tension in the city was still a powder keg, but the match... the match had been permanently doused. Down by my ankle, hidden inside the leather of my combat boot, my modified encrypted pager vibrated once. I pulled it out. A single, alphanumeric text line glowed on the green LED screen: SPARK DEAD. PATTERN BROKEN. - RM I let out a slow, quiet breath. It was just a broken car.

A minor inconvenience for three guys on a Saturday night. But I knew what it really was. It was the most expensive repair job in history, and Marcinko had just fixed it for free. I slipped the pager back into my boot, picked up my scrubbing pad, and went back to cleaning the latrine.