Proportionate Response
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THE men approached the farm from the woods. They had parked a good distance from the site. They were all heavily armed. Twelve men and Rudnitsky made thirteen.
Rudnitsky would have preferred having more men, but this is what his crew amounted to now. He’d lost twenty. These men were good, but he didn’t have Monster, or some of his best men. Those men were dead.
No matter, though. These twelve would be enough. They were all killers. And they were hungry to enact vengeance upon those who’d killed their brethren.
The plan was to secure the marks first. Once that was done, the rats and necessary devices would be retrieved from the vehicles, and then they would go to work. Lipkin and Markston would be left for last.
They would suffer the most.
Rudnitsky would do the honors himself.
They moved across the field. The darkness cloaked them. No moon was visible.
Ahead was the lit farmhouse. Three vehicles were parked in front. Two pick-up trucks and an old Jeep.
Rudnitsky saw movement inside the house. It was a woman. Just her silhouette behind the gauzy curtains. She looked big.
It was a good thing they’d brought plenty of rats.
Lots of meat tonight. It was going to be a regular feast. Rudnitsky let slip a predatory smile.
146
MARKS smoothly glassed the scene with his night vision binos.
“Baker’s dozen,” Marks said.
He put the binos down. He was already in prone position. He picked up his weapon and soon was holding center mass on the leader. His night scope made the night look like day. He was using special armor-piercing supersonic rounds. No need for head shots. Not with these babies.
“You take back five, I’ll pick up the rest,” Marks said.
Several paces away was Lip. He had Alice, his favorite sniper rifle. Man was belly down, legs spread in his own unique shooting stance. It was an unorthodox prone position, but it worked for him.
They were situated on high ground. Nothing in front of them to obscure the targets.
“Like shooting fish in a barrel,” Lip whispered.
They went to work.
147
RUDNITSKY heard the first crack. It was a strange sound, and it broke the stillness. The cracks came in rapid succession.
Crack, crack… crack, crack… crack, crack…
Five men in front of him fell. It happened in less than two seconds. The men were moving across the field, and suddenly they dropped. Each in quick succession.
Sniper!
The other seven stopped moving.
Crack, crack…
Two more went down.
Rudnitsky dropped to the ground. He scurried on his belly, hearing more cracks. His ears made the distinction—there were two snipers shooting!
He had been in the rear, and was still close to the tree line. He crawled as fast as he could back towards it. The grass was wet with dew. At first he thought it was blood and fear gripped him, but he realized it wasn’t blood. He hadn’t been hit. He would have felt it.
No. He was alive. And he intended to stay alive.
He crawled over the ground, using his hands and knees, hearing more cracks. Grimly, he realized they had walked into a trap. His head wasn’t concentrating on that fact, however. It was focused on staying alive.
He reached the tree line. He didn’t get up at first; he waited till he was deep within its cover. When he was, he rose and ran.
RUDNITSKY reached the closest vehicle; the one with the rats. Again, he was cheating death. He heard the remaining cracks as he got in the car. The last of his men, no doubt, falling on the field.
The key was already in the ignition. He went to turn it and suddenly something rapped on his window. Rudnitsky turned and looked.
A man whose face was painted black was pointing a pistol at him.
148
“HELLO Rudy,” Marks said. “I see you got our email.”
The man had a face that would scare children. His left ear was just a mass of marbled scar tissue.
“And I see you also brought the rats,” Marks said. “You can leave ‘em. We won’t be needing them.”
149
RUDNITSKY licked the blood from his lip. “Big man, I see. There’s nothing you can do to me that hasn’t already been done.”
The man with the black face paint nodded. “Maybe.”
Rudnitsky appraised his surroundings. He was in some barn; a newer one. They’d tied him up. Smacked him around a little.
They wanted his laptop.
Why? Didn’t matter. But if they wanted it, they weren’t getting it. Rudnitsky was not weak. He’d never broken and many better men had tried.
The chunky one, who he recognized from the photo as being Lipkin, brought out a syringe. Rudnitsky winced as the long needle was jammed into his neck. He felt the warm surge of something going into his bloodstream.
“Truth serum?” Rudnitsky sneered. “Is that the best you can do?”
Lipkin and Markston just watched him.
Rudnitsky felt a tingling. It began first in his chest and then traveled throughout his body. He could feel it reach his outer extremities, fingers, toes...
It wasn’t painful. If anything it was soothing… and warm.
Rudnitsky smiled. His mind was lucid. This was nothing.
He’d had truth serum before and beaten it. He’d beat this. He was going to die he knew, but they wouldn’t have the pleasure of seeing him break. Or making him talk.
The men stayed looking at him. The big man, Markston, checked his watch and nodded to Lipkin. The two approached and cut the binds from his feet and wrists. They then proceeded to take his clothes off. Rudnitsky tried to move, but realized he couldn’t. Whatever they had given him had done something to him? He was paralyzed.
The men finished taking his clothes off. One of them took hold of his feet and the other took hold of him under the arms. They picked him up and lugged him towards some type of pen. He saw a gate, a fence.
What were they doing?
Rudnitsky could see. He could hear. His mind was fine. But he couldn’t move.
The men opened the gate, and walked him inside the pen, and closed the gate. They lugged him some more, then dropped him. Rudnitsky heard the sound of himself hitting the mud.
The side of his face was flush against the mud; not that he could feel anything, but the view he had told him so. He heard a sound coming from behind him. It was a snorting, snuffling sound.
What was that?
Then hooves came into view. Hooves of pigs. They began to cluster around him.
150
Silver Spring, MD
Five weeks later / Election night
MARKS cracked another Pabst. It was their beer of choice for this event. Red and blue label. Fitting colors.
They did this every four years. It was tradition. This would make their fourth time running. Not a bad stretch of time. They were tied up, and this was the game breaker. Lip had the tally on the coffee table. He’d scrawled it on a piece of paper.
Lip 2. Marks 2.
The results of the last four elections.
Lip won the first with the ’96 presidential election. Marks tied it up in 2000 with Bush, and took the lead in ‘04. And then Lip had scrambled in ’08 with Obama. Got lucky.
2 to 2.
Tonight there’d be a definitive winner. Bragging rights for four years. It was also the way they figured who’d pick up the tab for the next twelve-pack of Pabst, which would be bought four years from now.
“You feeling lucky?” Marks said.
“Always.” Lip took a drag on his Pabst.
They were in Marks’s crib. Marks had home court advantage. 42 inch screen. Plasma. Nice picture.
Plasma sucks, Lip said. Burns in. You need to upgrade.
TV worked fine. No way was Marks spending a grand just to get the same thing he had right now. They watched the results come in. Red states, blue states popul
ating the screen.
“I forgot to tell you, Johnny Two-cakes and Marion invited us for dinner again at their new place,” Lip said, taking another pull.
Marks looked up. “Really? When?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“What did you tell ‘em?”
“Said we’d be there as long as he cooked something other than tuna steaks.”
Marks took a pull. “Good. I’m getting tired of those. By the way, what’s up with Brit? Said she called you?”
“Yeah.”
“What about?”
“She’s getting a divorce.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah. Kind of weird. Don’t know what to make of it.”
“Did you tell her about the kids—the college funds you set up?”
Do right Lip. Man had set up college funds for the kids they saved. Used Rudy’s funds. Had managed to hack into every one of the man’s accounts. Took every dime.
“Nah,” Lip said. “Oh look at that… I took Massachusetts.”
“Weenie state.”
The newscaster on the screen paused and adjusted their mike. More breaking news. Stuff was actually starting to get old. All of it coming from China.
The newscaster didn’t miss the opportunity to make a salient point, tying these proceedings with something happening half a world away.
Democracy in motion… 1.4 billion… freedom…
“And the Nobel Peace Prize goes to Leonard Markston!” Lip said.
Marks smirked and got up. “Another beer?”
“Hold on,” Lip said.
“What?”
“Listen.”
One interesting development, the newscaster said. Sources tell us that a young woman is leading the movement. She’s anonymous and goes by the name Ivona Tinkle. It’s her call sign… excuse me… her Internet handle. Seems she’s quite the Internet sensation. There’s another moniker being bandied about to label her: Ms. Freedom.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is dedicated to those below:
For my wife and boys.
For my mom.
For my readers: Lauren Fritzer, Jennifer Gallagher, Jeff Mixson, Chris Robison, Jeff Robison, and Jeff Wilson. Thank you for your time and input. Your comments picked me up, challenged me, and made me motivated to get this out there. You guys rock.
Lastly, I want to thank you for reading this book. Thanks for giving this indie writer a shot. I hope you liked PROPORTIONATE RESPONSE, and I hope you want to see more of Marks and Lip.
Till then.
All the best,
Dave