Proportionate Response

by Dave Buschi

  He had a full view inside; could see everything. He oriented on the next target. His weapon pivoted. Totally steady in his hands, one smooth seamless motion. He fixed the man’s head clean in his iron sights. Right in the circle. The trigger was squeezed simultaneously. The man’s forehead took the round. The back of his head was blown outwards. Skull fragments, pulpy brain matter, and pink mist blew back at subsonic speeds.

  CRAACK! Splattt! Instant Pollock painting on the wall. The man dropped as the first target—the man in the red Speedos—hit the ground.

  Spent round ejected. First spent round was hitting and spinning on the floor. Thick carbine stench filled the air. Like snorting straight gunpowder. Buzz hit his brain like a freight train.

  Sound waves were echoing as the muzzle flashes and sonic signatures went to town in the concrete space. One thousand, one hundred and twenty-six feet per second; hitting the walls and bouncing every other direction, all at the same time. The waves augmenting each other; their force reaching his ears like a rolling tsunami.

  The last two targets started to react, but they were too late. Too slow. Marks already had the third man clean in his sights. Trigger depressed. The round hit him directly in the chest. Dead center, on his sternum. It smashed through that and stopped his heart cold. The man slammed backwards into the wall.

  The fourth man, to the left, near the cages, was halfway turned. His eyes looked at Marks. Fear, surprise, and anger all in one look. Two black eyes, austere cruel-looking face, high angled cheekbones, lips thin enough to cut glass. Dead ringer for a young Putin.

  The sound of the three discharged rounds were echoing in the space. They were loud, just like he knew they would be; his ears were ringing like bells. The man in front of him looked disoriented.

  “Don’t even think it,” Marks said; his own voice sounded strange. He keyed the sights directly on the man’s chest and advanced.

  “You move and you join your friends,” Marks said. “Understand?”

  His own voice seemed to echo, like he was hearing it underwater. The man in front of him didn’t say a word. His hands were at his sides.

  “Two seconds to respond,” Marks said. “Then I pull the trigger. One…”

  “I understand,” the man said. Heavy accent.

  Marks took in the scene. The man he’d just hit in the chest was on the floor, slumped against the wall. A crimson stain was spreading across his shirt. Other two men were missing the backs of their heads. They’d fallen in grotesque heaps. Blood, thick and viscous, was pooling on the concrete.

  Marks heard sobbing. It was coming from the girl who was on all fours. She’d barely moved at all. She was completely naked. There were other noises, more crying. Those sounds were coming from the cages. From the others. The kids. Just teens by the look of them. All unclothed, curled up or squatting. Three of them had their hands pressed over their ears. One was trembling, another two were crying, a fourth had her lips moving as if she were praying.

  This was fucked up.

  The cages were similar to the kind you’d find at the dog pound—where they housed the big dogs. They were too small for the kids to stand upright. The cages lined one wall, and were from floor to ceiling. Above the large cages were smaller ones, as you’d have for smaller dogs. All the cages were numbered. Four of the cages on the lower level were filled. Each with a kid.

  He saw a boy with a drawn face; dark circles around his eyes. On the floor—in front of that cage—was a girl that was tied up; the one that the two men had presumably just carried from the van.

  “Are there other kids?” Marks said.

  The cruel-faced man in front of him didn’t answer.

  “One…” Marks said.

  “What do you mean?” the man said.

  “Are there other kids? In the other buildings?” Marks said.

  Man seemed to think for a moment. Weighing an answer.

  “Da,” he said, his black eyes flicking away.

  He’d looked to the left. Facial expression was all wrong. Man was lying. No way to know for sure, though, and there just wasn’t time. Time had already started to collapse, compressing on itself. Things were racing now, accelerating like his adrenaline.

  “Get to the wall,” Marks said, feeling like he needed air. It was as if the dead men with their last dying breath had sucked up the last of the oxygen in a vindictive final act of vengeance.

  “What do you want?” the man said.

  “Get to the fucking wall!”

  The man stepped forward with fear and coldness in his eyes. The fear part was easy. Man knew he was going to die. The coldness, however, was disconcerting; it was almost as if Death was already touching the man, reaching out with his cold bony hands.

  The man took five steps towards the wall and began to falter. Marks had a clean shot. Give the Devil the finger for me, you fuckin’ bastard. He squeezed the trigger.

  Muzzle flash. Spent round ejected. Simultaneously, the side of the man’s head caved in. Inverse, disproportionate reaction on the other side. Like an exploding cantaloupe. Man dropped sideways, right near the Speedo trash.

  The shot echoed terribly. There was a heavy carbine stench from the expended rounds. More sobs. More crying.

  Easy part was done. Now came the hard part. Marks took his hands from his gun and let the strap hold it up. He slowly raised his hands. He knew right now he must make a frightening sight. His face was painted black. He’d just killed four people. Their blood was still pooling on the floor. His ears were ringing. He knew the kids were dealing with it too. Hopefully their eardrums had survived.

  “It’s okay,” Marks said. “I’m here to get you guys out.”

  57

  CATCHING his breath, Lip turned the key in the ignition and started the car. Sixteen minutes. An eternity of time.

  It had taken him five minutes to scamper down the hill, run the hundred and fifty some odd yards, and reach the car. He’d hustled. Double time. He wasn’t cut out for this. He sucked in another breath, practically wheezing.

  He tapped his ear mike. “Meat, click if you hear.”

  Nothing. Shit. Something had happened to him. Lip just prayed he wasn’t too late.

  He pulled the car out, gravel spurting, and turned onto the road. He had the lights on and windows up. Took him less than a minute to reach the property. He slowed, turned and came to a stop at the gate.

  This better work.

  He rolled the window down. There was the voice box for the intercom system. First thing he’d done when he’d hacked into the system that ran the infrared cameras was look for peripherals, other systems. All they’d had was a wireless intercom system. Real basic one. An older unit, not much different than a baby monitor. All he had to do was tune to the right frequency, something one of his devices had found in seconds.

  When the van had arrived and the guy had pushed the button and spoken into the intercom, Lip had heard every word. The guy had spoken Russian.

  Rasskazhí éto komú-nibúd drugómu.

  Loosely translated: “tell it to someone who cares”. Whatever that was supposed to mean? Had to be a code… a password for admission. Like “open sesame”.

  These guys were running a Mickey Mouse operation. Didn’t synch at all with the sophistication he’d seen with the federal databases being hacked into and altered. A wireless intercom system? No way to secure it. Anybody within a quarter mile could hear what was being said. Maybe that was why they were using code.

  Here’s hoping it was a code. Lip reached out and tapped the button. He spoke in the gruffest voice he could muster, trying to sound like Vlad.

  “Rasskazhí éto komú-nibúd drugómu.”

  He knew they had to recognize the car. Vlad’s car. He also knew that this kind of intercom garbled voices somewhat. Hopefully it would be enough.

  He waited, counting the seconds…

  The gate made a sound and started to roll out of the way. Lip took a deep breath. One down. He tapped the button to roll his
window back up. He waited till the gate was fully open and drove onto the property.

  He headed towards the building with the guard. Saw him ahead, thirty yards away. Lip drove right up to where the man was standing, slowed and came to a stop. He didn’t roll his window down.

  The guard stood there, trying to see through the dark-tinted windows. With the bad lighting, Lip was all but hidden. Only thing the man was seeing was his own reflection.

  Tough looking fucker. Cut from the same cloth as Vlad, except this guy had hair.

  Lip gripped the pistol in his lap. A round was already loaded in the chamber.

  Here goes nothing.

  Lip opened his door.

  58

  LIP stepped out. The guard’s face went from boredom to surprise.

  Lip thrust the pistol forward with his left hand, barrel pointing directly at the guy’s bulldog-looking countenance. “Zatnís’!” Lip said.

  The guard scowled. He made no movement. He appraised the weapon with no fear.

  “You are very foolish,” the guy said to Lip in Russian.

  The guy was almost a foot taller than Lip. The lats on him were enormous. Easy money this guy was a powerlifter. Lip could see the guy gauging the situation; looking Lip over. The man’s face betrayed his thoughts.

  No surprise what the guy was thinking. Lip wasn’t the intimidating type. His short stature, cherubic face, and ample girth evoked more a vision of Santa Claus than The Enforcer. It had always been that way. For the majority of Lip’s life people had typecast him, written him off in the ‘physical’ department.

  Tool. Geek. Four eyes. He’d fit the bill. During his grade school years, he’d dealt with his share of bullies. They loved him. Easy target. Losing his lunch money every day was just part of his routine.

  Back in those days, Lip was a terrible athlete. Presidential Fitness week used to make him cringe. Running the fifty yard dash, the six hundred, the shuttle run, how many sit-ups he could do in sixty seconds... all that stuff was a nightmare.

  Most things physical and it seemed he was terrible at it. He preferred fiddling around with his Commodore 64 in his bedroom, playing Dungeon & Dragons with the chess team, or teaching himself another obscure language to add to his growing list. That changed some in the seventh grade.

  They were doing baseball. PE class. Lip usually sat out and took an F for those sorts of things. He didn’t know what possessed him on that particular day, but for some reason he decided to give it a try.

  First time: “Fattie coming to the mound”. Years later, that morphed into a different chant, “Lip, Lip, Lip!”

  He couldn’t round the bases to save his life. Forget about fielding. But one thing Lip could do was hit the ball. Hit it something fierce.

  Later, in high school, his batting coach labeled Lip’s talent. It was called hand speed. Lip had it. He could hit ninety mile an hour fastballs from the pitching machine as a sophomore. With some weight work in the gym, Lip’s portly frame had turned from flab to almost beefy. He never got quick with the feet—that was a lost cause—but it didn’t matter. His batting skills and high SAT scores had gotten him a scholarship to several top-tier student/athlete schools. That’s how he met Marks. It was in the athlete dorms. Marks was in his room doing some funky karate-looking stuff. Taekwondo.

  Not long after that, Lip gave that a go. He liked that too. Hand speed thing. It was just something that came naturally for him. Kind of like the language thing.

  THE guard looked at Lip’s pistol, then eyed Lip again. Fat boy in chunky glasses.

  Lip made a subtle move. He let the pistol drift two inches to the left. It wasn’t in the guy’s face anymore. “Koncháy bazaar,” Lip said. He turned his head slightly like he was looking for others.

  Guy took the bait. His arm shot up and grabbed for Lip’s weapon. Lip moved in. His pistol was in his left hand. One minor detail: Lip was a natural righty, not a lefty.

  As his left hand and pistol swung out of the way, his right hand came up with a vicious strike to the guy’s throat. It was the one spot on the guy not insulated and protected with slabs of muscle. The result was that it snapped the guy’s trachea instantly. Eight pounds per square inch of force was all it took, and Lip’s rapid motion was a heck of a lot more than that.

  Guy gasped. The trachea was the windpipe. His airway was compromised. Vocal cords were done; they were inside the trachea, just under the cricoid cartilage, and Lip had just snapped them both like a dry turkey bone.

  The guy stumbled back. His hands shot up to his throat. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe.

  It wasn’t fun to look at. Guy’s face went crimson, then blue. Fifteen seconds after that, the guy fell.

  Lip looked around. He got no satisfaction, no joy from the act. He just knew in this situation it was necessary. Absolutely imperative. He couldn’t take the risk this guy might alert his compatriots. His partner’s life was at stake. So was a girl’s. And according to Vlad, there were others. More kids.

  He went back in the car and popped the trunk. He couldn’t leave the guy out here, and there was no place to hide him. Lip grabbed him by the feet. Guy was already dead. He dragged him to the trunk, and then searched the guy. The guy had a Glock under his shirt, tucked in his pants. He also had a wallet. Lip took both.

  The weapon was for his collection and the ID was for later—to run down a hunch, see if the man had a purged record, just like Vlad. Lip had a theory and needed to see if it penciled.

  With considerable effort, not to mention risking a double hernia, Lip got the guy inside the trunk and closed the lid. He didn’t slam it, not wanting the noise. It clicked and he had to press down for the latch to catch. He got back in the car and shut the door. He palmed the gear knob and put the car in Reverse.

  He rolled back slowly, about thirty yards, stopped and took a breath. He palmed the knob again and put the car in Drive.

  Let’s do this.

  He tapped the gas and the long hood, stygian black, headed towards the warehouses.

  59

  MARKS bent down to check on the girl. She was no longer on all fours, but was huddled in a ball, arms around herself. He looked in her eyes and tried to get her to see him. “Are you okay?”

  She didn’t seem to hear him.

  “Are you okay?” he said again.

  Her eyes were wet and glistening. She nodded mutely.

  He rose and examined the cages. They each had padlocks. Big ones.

  He needed some keys. He went to the last man he shot and found some first go. Guy had a string of them in his pocket. Each key was labeled with a number. Marks found the corresponding keys for the four cages that were occupied. He moved from cage to cage, until all four doors were unlocked and open.

  The girl that was tied up, he helped last. She was terrified, but seemed to understand that Marks didn’t intend to hurt her. “I’m just going to get these off. I’ll be careful.” He had to use his knife. They’d used a coarse rope on her and tied her binds tight. It had left deep red indentations on her wrists and ankles.

  As he cut through the rope, the kids from the cages started to come out, one by one. They were looking at Marks fearfully.

  “It’s okay,” Marks said. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to get you home.”

  The scene was heart-wrenching. Frail and innocent, none of them looked like they’d slept or eaten for days. There was one boy and five girls. Two of the girls didn’t look older than twelve or thirteen. The other four were a little older; fully developed teenagers. They had cuts and abrasions on their naked bodies. Some were badly bruised.

  He needed to get them clothed. Outside the door, in the corridor, he’d seen a pile. Presumably the kids had been made to strip before they were put in the cages.

  “Your clothes are just outside the door,” Marks said.

  He walked out to show them. The pile of clothes and shoes were against the wall. It was a large pile. The kids mutely walked towards the clothes and began t
o retrieve shirts, pants, dresses, underwear, shoes…

  Marks turned his head. He held back a wave of rising emotions. He realized that the pile of clothes and shoes was larger than this group of kids.

  “Thank you,” one of the girls said.

  “Gracias senor.”

  “Vsë puchkóm.”

  Marks nodded, not understanding some of what they said. “Do all of you speak English?”

  One by one, the kids nodded.

  “I’m going to get you home,” Marks said. “But first, this is what we need to do.”

  He told them the plan.

  60

  THE kids listened. Marks needed to secure the area up there. Make sure he could get them away safely.

  “There are others, and they’re armed,” he said.

  He would take care of them and then come back.

  “I’m not leaving you. It may take me some time, but I promise I’ll be back. This place works both ways. That big door—that looks like a bank vault—is going to keep you safe now. They can’t get down here. Wait for me. And I will make it safe for you up there.”

  He thought of what the man had said about there being other kids. He was probably lying, but if Marks was wrong… if there were others?

  “Are there other kids being held elsewhere?”

  The kids looked at him vacantly. They didn’t know. Marks looked at his watch. Time was working against him and them. He’d been down here too long. Too much could be happening up there.

  Marks was thinking of the big door. With it locked it would keep them safe—keep people out. But if he wasn’t careful, it could also ensure another future for these kids. Not a bright future and not a hopeful one. Instead of rescuing these kids, he’d be securing their tomb.

  Not gonna happen. No way.

  “Alright kids, we’re gonna move now. Keep behind me.”