Proportionate Response

by Dave Buschi

  “Nah,” Marks said. “That wasn’t the way you did it. Was it? You probably wanted her to see. So let’s do it that way, I’m a stickler for details. Tell me where, Vlad.”

  “Please,” Vlad said.

  “Oh good. Please. Is that what she said? And what was your answer?” He moved the blowtorch lower, towards the man’s arm. “Tell me, Vlad, or I’m just going to start doing it everywhere.”

  He was two inches away. One inch. Off to the side Marks could see Lip cringing. Lip didn’t have the stomach for this. He could take it to the edge, but he always stopped. Not Marks. Marks could go over that edge. He didn’t do it often, but he knew darkness, knew the pull of it. And right now that pull was very strong.

  “Don’t test me, Vlad.”

  Vlad nodded, his head going up and down. “I’ll speak. Ask me questions.”

  Marks drew the flame away.

  “Do you like little girls?”

  “Yes,” the man blubbered.

  This was where liberals yelled coercion. People will say anything when tortured or put under duress. There was truth in that statement and for the most part they were correct.

  That’s why Marks put little weight in torture. He knew it didn’t work. You needed to know information before questioning someone. It was like a lie detector test. Thing was worthless unless there was a set of test questions to establish a baseline. What is your name? How old are you? Where do you live?

  Marks was establishing his baseline.

  “How old are you?” Marks said.

  “Forty-seven.”

  That was correct.

  “When did you join the Gol’yanovskaya?”

  Vlad paused, weighing the question. But he was done. Defeat, acceptance. It was all over his face. “Many years… twenty or more years now.”

  Also correct.

  And so it went. Marks eventually got to the real questions.

  “Why was a hit contracted on the woman in the Starbucks?”

  Vlad frowned. He was being tested. That’s what his eyes said. “Hit? No. We were to take her.”

  Marks shook his head. He recalled the men shooting indiscriminately with their UMPs. That didn’t fit with Vlad’s answer. “You lie.”

  “No… no.”

  Truth. Marks held back. The man was speaking truth.

  “Okay… where were you to take her?”

  “I was just driver.”

  “But you know?”

  Vlad nodded. He closed his eyes. “They will kill me.”

  Marks crouched down. He moved closer so that his lips were inches from Vlad’s ear. He kept his voice low. It was always much more effective that way. “Vlad, maybe I wasn’t clear. My apologies, I should have explained this better in the beginning. You are already dead. These questions will open one of two doors for you. You answer them truthfully, tell me everything, and you will go peacefully, no more pain. If you don’t answer them, or lie to me, then there is the other door. You do not want that door. Do you understand?”

  Vlad absorbed it.

  Marks didn’t look at Lip. He didn’t need to. Lip was onboard. He didn’t like it and he wouldn’t help with all of it. There were limits to what Lip would and wouldn’t do. Marks didn’t fault him for it. He hated this too.

  He knew the day of reckoning would come. One day. He just hoped that God would understand. Marks often weighed what was at stake. With terrorists, it was not a difficult decision for him. There was the life of the terrorist and then on the other side there were the lives of one hundred or more innocents. Women, children, men. Those people would be burned, maimed, blown up, or killed by the terrorist unless Marks got the information he needed.

  In this situation, it was the same. Vlad was evil. He was part of an evil organization. That organization did bad things, evil things, and they were operating on American soil against Americans. That made Vlad a terrorist. Not a good career choice for him. Because that meant he had information and Marks intended to get that information, every last bit of information, by any means necessary.

  “They will kill you, you know,” Vlad said. He was beaten, but he still had fight in him. He said those words with bile and venom. “They will find you. You cannot hide from them.”

  “You mean The Brotherhood?” Marks said.

  Vlad nodded his head. “Yes.” But then he shook it. “No.” He laughed; a grim macabre sight with his bruised, bloody face.

  “Is this riddles now, Vlad? I don’t like riddles.”

  “The Bratva will cut you up. They will kill you, but not before they have fun with you. What you do is nothing compared to what they will do to you. I will be avenged.”

  “I don’t think so, Vlad. And frankly, you seem to be going on tangents here. I don’t like tangents.”

  “They will kill you. You are dead. Everyone you know is dead.”

  “We all die Vlad. You’re not telling me anything new here. Let’s step back. Them? Tell me about them.”

  “You are dead,” Vlad said. He closed his eyes.

  For a moment, Marks was afraid Vlad was embracing the other door as a final act of defiance. Marks reached for the blowtorch. Vlad opened his eyes and saw the motion. A decision seemed to click on his face.

  “I don’t know,” Vlad said. “I don’t know who they are. They work with boss only.”

  “Who is the boss?”

  No answer. Marks fired up the blowtorch.

  “Vor v zakone,” Vlad said.

  Marks knew the term. Thief in law. It was a term given to those of the highest rank in the Russian world of organized crime.

  “Name?” Marks said. “I want his name.”

  “Rudnitsky.”

  “Full name?”

  “Pavel Rudnitsky.”

  “That’s his real name?”

  “Yes, yes.” More nodding of the head.

  “Where is Rudnitsky?”

  34

  THEY got everything he had. Vlad was a ludi, not even a vor. Ludi was the lowest soldier in the hierarchy system of the Gol’yanovskaya. Vlad’s information came with very large gaps, but it was enough.

  Lip used the laptop to verify certain things. He pulled up a site that had aerial footage. It was like Google Earth, Flash Earth and all those other satellite imagery sites, except the site Lip accessed had much more updated footage. It was just a few hours old. Lip zoomed in to the address.

  Marks asked Vlad to describe the place with details. Lip verified with a nod or a shake of his head. Only once did he shake his head.

  “No, no, you misunderstand,” Vlad said. He explained again, described what he’d tried to describe. Only he did a better job the next time.

  Lip nodded.

  “Tell me about security,” Marks said.

  Vlad answered. It was spotty and only gave a partial picture. Marks asked follow-up questions. Dogs? Cameras? Infrared? Tell me how many men. Tell me what happens there. Tell me how and when it works. Tell me what role you play...

  Marks kept with the questions. Drilling Vlad. Relentless.

  Vlad answered them, as best he could. Sometimes crying, sometimes cursing when Marks picked up the blowtorch. He learned to answer questions quickly. No delays.

  They got everything he had. It was incomplete, just a sketch, but the details provided were pure evil. It was uglier and more horrible than Marks could have imagined. He thought about his rule. The door thing. One door leads to a peaceful end.

  He considered breaking that rule. He’d never broken that rule. Not once. He was true to his word. Always.

  But this time…?

  Lip looked at him. His face was grave. He knew Marks was in the abyss, clawing to get out…

  “Hey,” Lip said. “Let’s take a walk.”

  35

  FIVE hundred miles away, another scene was playing out.

  A girl in her early teens was practicing with her baton in her lit driveway. It was late in the evening. The girl had only a few minutes left before she had to go back inside. Her
mother had told her she could practice for an hour and that hour was almost up.

  Her mother was strict. She was a working mom and rules in her world were meant to be followed. The daughter looked at her brightly colored watch. Just enough time for a few more twirls. She tossed the baton high in the air.

  She didn’t see the van. It pulled up behind her, into the tongue of the driveway. It stopped abruptly. Its side door was already open. A man jumped out and grabbed her before she could catch her falling baton. As the baton bounced on the ground, he swung her around and shoved her in the van. She was too surprised to even shout out.

  The man went in after her and the van sped away. The door was rolled shut as the van went down the residential street. The man that grabbed the girl told her to be quiet. If she spoke she would be killed.

  He then proceeded to tie her up. When that was done he left her in the back, in the cargo hold. He went back up to the passenger seat.

  The driver nodded. No words were exchanged. The two men were old hats at this. Cigarettes were lit. Davidoff cigarettes. Their routine after a successful grab.

  They had a long drive ahead of them, several states to cross, one time zone to go through. They’d drive all night, make it there at dawn. Maybe a little earlier, if they just did gas breaks.

  But they would stop. They always did. Usually for coffee.

  Sometimes for other things. They had a girl in the back after all.

  36

  THE air was damp. Marks could feel the wetness, like the darkness, clinging to him. In the country it was always that way. At night. In fields like this.

  They walked from the barn, sticking to the road. Lip didn’t talk, they just walked back towards the house. As they got closer and crested the hill, the house peeled in view.

  It was lit up. Homey looking. A nice domestic scene. Marion and Snooks and James were in there.

  Marks and Lip stopped. They stood there, staring at the house. Taking it in.

  “Okay?” Lip said.

  Marks nodded.

  They turned together and walked back towards the barn.

  “Don’t worry,” Lip said. “We’re going to stop them. I’m with you all the way. We have what we need.”

  “We do, don’t we?”

  “Yes, we do.”

  37

  VLAD hadn’t moved. Based on the condition of the tape, he hadn’t even tried. That told the measure of the man. He’d quit. Something that would never happen with a Marine. Marks didn’t know the meaning of quit.

  Good guys don’t quit. That’s why they were going to win. And guys like Vlad were going to lose. They could dish it, but they couldn’t take it.

  LIP put the duffel bag back in the car.

  “I’ll turn it around,” Lip said. He got in the car and started it up. He pulled out slowly, did a three-point maneuver, and eased back into the barn in Reverse. He stopped a few paces from Vlad. The trunk clicked. Lip didn’t get out of the car.

  Marks walked over to Vlad and used the knife to cut away the tape binding him to the post.

  “What is happening?” Vlad said.

  Marks pulled Vlad away from the post. He took hold of Vlad’s head with both hands. The man had a muscular neck, but it didn’t matter. With a violent corkscrew twist Marks snapped Vlad’s neck.

  The man slumped. Marks waited for about thirty seconds and checked for a pulse. Finding none, he dragged the man’s limp body to the trunk. He used the knife to remove the tape around the wrists and ankles. That done he picked him up and dumped him in, along with the wads of tape.

  There was no joy in the act. It was necessary. Taking the man to the authorities would accomplish nothing. The man to them would be named Jiri Dvorak, an American citizen with a clean record. There would be no evidence to tie him to the shootout at the Starbucks. No evidence of anything, except as being a victim. Tortured by Marks and Lip.

  He would walk. A murderer, child molester, rapist, monster. He’d be back on the streets and that simply was not an option.

  THERE was more work to do. Drudgery, but also necessary. Clean up.

  This time Lip helped. They stopped near the newer barn where the pigs were. They were in a big pen behind the barn, about forty of them. All mature, good sized pigs. The smell was atrocious.

  They stripped Vlad. Everything from him was put in a pile. Lip and Marks put their own clothes in the car. Wearing just their skivvies, they put on slop boots that they found in the barn. With considerable effort they managed to dump Vlad into the middle of the pen.

  The pigs went to work. They were not discriminating. Veggies or meat, it made no difference. They’d even eat their own. They were just like some humans in that respect. Just like people like Vlad.

  The pile of clothes and wads of tape were burned. More foul smells. Duct tape smells terrible when burned. They put away the slop boots and used the hose on themselves. Then they hosed the trunk.

  They were wet. It was cold, miserable work. It took time. They used a Wet Vac from the barn to get the water from the trunk. They hosed the trunk down and vacuumed up again. There would still be remnants of DNA if it was ever put under the microscope, but there would be no body. Marks checked on the pigs’ progress.

  Vlad was almost gone.

  “THIS sucks,” Lip said; understatement of the day.

  They put their clothes back on and went back in the car.

  TWENTY minutes later, they were on the paved road.

  Marks reached back and got Lip’s laptop. He turned it on and with a few instructions from Lip brought up the aerial footage that Lip had been looking at earlier.

  “ETA?” Marks said.

  Lip looked at his watch. “We’ll be there in two hours.”

  38

  THE man entered the room with some hesitation. Even with good news nothing was assured.

  “Yes?” Rudnitsky said.

  The man walked forward into the darkness.

  “Number twenty-nine has paid.”

  Rudnitsky tapped his laptop. The numbers and changing inventory could run together. He used the pictures as reminders. With a few clicks, he brought up twenty-nine. It was a picture of a young girl. The redhead. He’d sent her video off just two days ago.

  “The cherry top,” Rudnitsky said.

  “Da. The money was picked up.”

  “Seventy-five hundred?”

  That was the fee. $7,500. Fees varied. It depended on the means of the family. In this case, there was no mother. The father was in the US illegally and was working without papers.

  Rule number one. Always target those that won’t go to the police.

  “Da. It was all there.”

  “The father?”

  “Taken care of. Done well.”

  “Good, we have a buyer for her.” He checked the designation. “Comfort girl. Tomorrow, first thing, get her ready for shipment.”

  The man nodded and left the room.

  Rudnitsky took a moment to look at the picture again. He read the details on the father. He was originally from Belovo, Russia. A fellow countryman… and a peasant. An easy mark. The man was working as a janitor. The seventy-five hundred was double what the man had in his bank account. That was usually the metric. He liked to make them scrounge for the rest. Somehow they always managed to find the money.

  He was pleased. A double dip, a quick flip. Now that was good business.

  The cherry top luckily took after the mother. Was pretty. Worth more than seventy-five hundred. In fact, the buyer was quite anxious and had even upped their offer to prevent further bidding.

  It was a good way to end the day. Rudnitsky closed down his laptop. It was a little before midnight. Still early.

  Perhaps he would pay a visit to the cages. Give his congratulations to the cherry top. Let her know she would have a new home soon. A new daddy.

  That would cheer her up.

  39

  “PULL off after the exit,” Marks said.

  “What about cops?” Lip said
. “Last thing we need. Not our car… duffel bags. Could be hard to explain.”

  Lip had a point. The road they were on wasn’t busy, but it was busy enough.

  “Just for a moment,” Marks said. “I need to verify.”

  They passed the exit and Lip slowed the car. He pulled off onto the shoulder. He came to a stop about fifty yards past the exit.

  Marks hopped out and went up a steep embankment. In short order, he’d crested it. He kept low, offering a minimum profile. It was just as he suspected, it provided a great view, spread out just as he’d imagined. In the car he’d studied the aerial shots on Lip’s laptop. He’d pulled up topography info, as well. This area was part rural, part industrial. It fed I-270.

  I-270 was a trucking corridor, sometimes referred to as the “TechWay” because of the range of businesses that utilized it. Mostly biotech businesses, manufacturing plants, technology companies, and other businesses located outside the Beltway. Marks had familiarized himself with everything within a ten mile radius.

  The buildings he was looking down upon were more of the industrial variety: low-slung warehouses and two and three story buildings. There were gravel lots and razor wire on top of the ubiquitous chain-link fences. Some pole lights. Most of them dark. Lighting was poor to bad.

  That suited Marks perfectly. Lots of darks spots and shadows. Plenty of opportunities for concealment close to the target.

  The outer edge of the target was over two hundred yards away, across a feeder road that ran parallel to the highway. Whole property was about twenty acres. It was just as Vlad had described, and identical to the aerial shots. Inside a perimeter fence were two warehouses and a clumping of buildings. A few lights appeared to be on. There were several parked vehicles. The feeder road in front of the compound led to the exit they’d passed. There was an on- and off-ramp. One of which curled under a bridge.