The Specialist #10: Beirut Retaliation

The Specialist #10: Beirut Retaliation, by John Cutter
August, 1985  Signet Books

The penultimate volume of The Specialist unfortunately loses all the oddball touches John Shirley imbued the previous ones with; Beirut Retaliation is for the most part a standard “terrorist of the week” yarn that would’ve been at home in the Gold Eagle line of books. Previous installments featured such pulpy aspects as Jack “The Specialist” Sullivan gaining super strength and even killing subway trolls with throwing stars, but this one doesn’t feature any of that, and in fact comes off as pretty dispirited. Maybe Shirley knew the writing was on the wall for the series and just phoned this one in.

It’s about three months after the previous volume and when we reconnect with Sullivan he’s on a flight to Beirut. For the past few months he’s headed up Project Scalpel, a Defense Department initiative that’s been created to revenge terrorist attacks on the US. Sullivan we’re told has never taken a contract from the US government, or any government, but in this case he has made an exception; over 200 Marines were killed by radical Islamic terrorists in Beirut three months ago, and Sullivan’s burning with the desire to dish out bloody payback. Shirley saves us the trouble of reading all the red tape and planning Sullivan’s had to go through to get here, doling out chunks of backstory in various flashbacks.

I’m probably the only men’s adventure reader in history who kept wondering, “Yeah, but what about that little girl Sullivan adopted in the last volume?” Shirley does bother to fill us in on that, eventually, in another of those flashbacks – a flashback in which he almost perfunctorily dispenses with that other series mainstay, Sullivan’s hardcore shenanigans with his latest girlfriend. This is Bonnie, who lives in Manhattan and I believe first appeared in the second volume, but I was too lazy in my review back then to note the name of the main female character in it. I think it was Bonnie. Anyway, she’s now becoming more of Sullivan’s “main woman,” to the point that our hero’s afraid he’s falling in love. In the flashback he visits Bonnie, who is the official guardian of little Melinda, who as we’ll recall Sullivan rescued in the previous volume.

Sullivan’s brought the little girl a Cabbage Patch Doll (which cost him eighty bucks!!), finally having gotten away from the busy prepping of Project Scalpel in DC, but Melinda’s in school. However Bonnie’s there, which makes for the prime opportunity for some “afternoon delight.” While previous volumes have featured (intentionally) comedic purple prose, this one’s basically over and done with in a few sentences, though we do get this memorable line: “[Sullivan] pumped and pounded like an M110 self-propelled howitzer.” Surprisingly, this will be it so far as Sullivan’s sexual activities go – save that is for a surprise bang late in the novel (which happens to be one of those precious few “oddball” moments). 

But all this was in the past; we meet Sullivan while he’s flying in to Beirut…and then a PLO terrorist tries to hijack the plane. In the incident depicted on the cover by artist Mel Crair, Sullivan’s able to bullshit his way into the cockpit, where he almost casually disposes of the terrorists. But he’s undercover, the secrecy of Project Scalpel of prime importance, so the nebbish businessman who was seated beside Sullivan is given credit for foiling the hijacking. This is a subplot Shirley later plays out, when the businessman – made famous by the media for his “heroic” actions – becomes a target of terrorists and Sullivan has to go to the rescue.

Sullivan’s hand-picked team for the Beirut retaliation features series staples Merlin and Rolff, commandoes who have helped Sullivan in previous exploits but who have now, for plot contrivances, gotten soft: Merlin’s “hooked” on marijuana and Rolff drinks all day. Then there’s Rialto Block, a tough black vet Sullivan fought with in ‘Nam; Sullivan’s recruiting of Block for Project Scalpel features an interminable flashback of Sullivan going into the “black Mafia” of Washington, DC and finding Block, who now acts as a mob enforcer. And finally there’s slackjawed yokel Boots Wilson, a southern racist who hates Block, and vice versa. And heading up Project Scalpel is military moron Colonel Mitchell, whose prime motivation is covering his own ass and ensuring that he keeps Sullivan in check. He’s also the one who insisted that Boots Wilson be part of the commando team.

In other words the team’s a mess, and Sullivan, who is particularly driven this time, blows a fuse when he sees what a shitty state they’re in. We take an unwanted detour into military fiction as Sullivan puts the team through hellish boot camp, pushing them into a self-sustaining unit. This does lead to one of the oddball touches that we took for granted in previous books: Boots, who takes off from the team after a grueling hike through the desert, runs afoul of “desert bandits.” Clearly inspired by the Sand People of Star Wars, they wear masked turbans and ride in Jeeps that have skulls on them. This leads to the best action scene in the book, as Sullivan and the others come to the rescue in armed dune buggies, climaxing with a gory sequence of Boots beating one of the bandits to death with his bare fists.

But otherwise Beirut Retaliation lacks the dark humor of the previous books, and just comes off like any other men’s adventure novel from the ‘80s. Even the villains are sadly typical: the Holy Warriors of Islam, who are known for using self-explosive devices to wipe out people, places, and things. And again we get a sad reminder of the progressive movement of radical Islam: Sullivan has to explain to his comrades that these particular terrorists don’t care about their own lives, and indeed look forward to martyring themselves if it means they can wipe out a bunch of innocents. They’re led by the mysterious Hassan the Red, so named because he wears a red turban; he claims to get his orders directly from Allah, and only informs his underlings of their latest target days before the attack will be scheduled. Hence, Sullivan and team know another attack is coming, they just don’t know where or when.

The bit with the nebbish businessman who took credit for the airplane rescue is another fun moment; he’s being kept in a bakery, and Sullivan and Moshe (a Mossad agent Sullivan’s worked with before) stagger in, pretending to be lepers. This part features Sullivan rushing through flames and fooling the superstitious terrorists into thinking he’s a demon from hell. Later in the book Sullivan looms over another captured terrorist, one that’s been drugged so that his body feels nothing, and pretends to be a ghost. Oh and the best bit of all is a random, eleventh hour sequence in which Sullivan takes the virginity of a pretty female terrorist they capture; when Moshe says no torture will make the girl talk, Sullivan says he has another idea in mind. Unfortunately brief, this sequence is on the level of other craziness in previous books: “[Sullivan] suddenly thrust deep within her once again and ground his dick into her sore, bloodied twat.” Good grief! But she’s game for it: “Having tasted a real man, she was a junkie for Sullivan.”

Otherwise too much of Beirut Retaliation is padding, with Sullivan and team going around Beirut and trying to get a lead on Hassan the Red’s plans. The climax involves them chasing after a four-man suicide party that’s planning to wipe out a US Navy ship in Alexandria, Egypt. The climax sees some dire repercussions for some of Sullivan’s team (spoiler alert – it’s none of the recurring characters), and even worse Hassan the Red escapes into Iran. The novel ends with Sullivan vowing to chase into Iran and wipe him out, government be damned. Sadly this means the next novel will continue with this bland Gold Eagle vibe – and even more sadly, the next volume would be the last. 

Bonus factoid: Each volume of The Specialist has featured a “next volume preview” sort of thing, excerpting a few pages of the next installment. We’re told in this one that the next volume will be titled “Iran Retaliation,” but the actual published title was American Vengeance. I’m curious if this sheering away of the pulp aspect and going for more of a blasé, generic “Muslim terrorist of the week” angle was due to the publisher…maybe sales were dwindling and they figured just aping Gold Eagle might help. If so, the plan failed.