'Missouri Fire' - Warning, MA 17+ -
 

FOR CHRISTA

He’d been away a bit too long for his own good, off fighting a war for a corrupt government against a country of people that simply wanted to be left alone; he’d seen a lot of death as of late, the honorable people dying before his eyes, the unhonorable being slaughtered by his own hands. It hardly mattered now. He’d received his orders to be cut for leave time, for 90 days of away from combat, after being in the thick of it for nearly five years. His laptop that he’d brought with him from the very beginning was still in the bottom of his bag, nearly lifeless with the battery time of 5 minutes every time he charged it, and sat alongside a small pile of cell phones he’d liberated from his enemies corpses. His rifle, broken down and packed away also sat in the duffel, with what little ammo that his government would allow him to take.

But his most prized possessions were the phone number and address inside of the laptop, the sword he’d gotten back from his storage locker, and the sidearm that was his father’s, the Delta Elite 10mm. The bus ride from the airport was boring, and boring, and boring. He’d fallen asleep several times, and woke to the sounds of flat tires being fixed and the clank of the gas tanks being refueled every once in a while. Some hitchhiker managed to bribe his way onboard, and once he got a good look at everyone aboard the Greyhound, he sat up front, behind the driver’s compartment. He didn’t say a word, but noted it before nodding off again. Finally, the last time he woke, he was in Missouri, at the largest bus station he’d ever seen.

Of course, he’d never seen very many bus stations. Walking off of the bus, his packed bag over one shoulder, he stepped off into a crowd, realizing that the hitchhiker was slowly following and attempting not to be noticed in the process. He brushed it aside again, and walked to the nearest Motel 8 with a slightly faster pace. Arriving at the front desk was easy, and so was slapping down 180 bucks for a room. Walking back and unlocking it, he slammed the door closed, dropped the bag, and unlocked it as well, pulling out a small brown knapsack and untying it, revealing a web-belt with the 10mm pistol holstered firmly inside, snug next to a five-pocket row of magazines for the custom handgun.

Strapping the belt to his waist and drawing the Colt, he slid in a fresh clip of 10 rounds, racked the slide, and waited in the darkness of the unlighted room. Right on time, the door burst open, and the hitchhiker stood there bearing a sawed-off pump action, firing into the pitch-black room several times before pausing and walking in. The first shot from the 10mm took the hitchhiker in the throat, gouging out a fist-sized chunk of the neck and spraying the wall behind with arterial flow as the 10mm slug punched through the poor bastard and streaked out into the parking lot beyond. The shot echoed inside the small room, but as he drug the corpse of the former hitchhiker inside, it was plainly obvious that if the string of 12ga. blasts didn’t draw any attention, that the slight cough of a magnum automatic pistol would hardly be noticed at all.

Slamming the door shut, he slid the all-purpose bolt into the locked position, and stared at the hitchhiker as he finally flopped for the last time, a gurgle and a sigh combined emitting from the blood-spattered gullet. Retrieving the sawn-off from the dead hitchhiker, he picked the rest of the pockets, finding a small supply of 12ga. shells, a wallet, a small 9mm concealed handgun, and a small slip of paper with his name on it. Cursing, he examined the paper closely, finding it to be torn free from some kind of ledger at the World Banc rep bank in Greater Downtown Missouri. The wallet was a leather-handmade, and had a picture of his beloved inside the picture sleeves. Adrenaline racing, he dropped everything, ran to the bag, and pulled the laptop out with several of the cheap phones, and dialed the computer onto the web using the cell phones, connecting to what message programs remained. He’d communicated with his beloved not more than a day ago, and she was eagerly waiting for him.

But now her end of the message program wouldn’t respond, and the e-mail left in the box was incomplete and improperly encrypted, with no message and just a subject line containing one letter: H. Tearing one phone free, he dialed the number on the memory as fast as possible, the line clicking as someone on the other end picked up.

“Hello?”

“Beloved! Is that you?!”

“Who the hell is this?!”

“This is McCain! Where the hell is my Imzadi!?”

“McCain… why would… I thought you took her!”

“No, I’m just arriving here today. What the hell do you mean ‘I took her’?”

“You showed up and she left with you, just this morning at 6:00.”

Shutting the phone off he stuffed it into a pocket and began packing. Whoever had taken his lover would pay. Closing the laptop and tossing it back into the bag, he holstered the 10mm after picking it up from the floor, and pulled out a large gray armored box, opening the combination lock and staring reverently at his M4 assault rifle. Assembling it as fast as possible, he locked on the silencer and loaded a mag of 25 rounds, strapping it to his back and fitting the remaining mags into the web pouches on the belt. Taking the small 9mm holster, pistol, and ammo from the dead hitchhiker, he strapped it into place on his torso, and rummaged through the wallet. A row of 1000-dollar bills sat inside, and he pocketed it, glancing at the driver’s ID, some poor fool from New Jersey.

Taking the 12ga shells and the sawn-off shotgun, he placed the weapon into the now nearly-empty duffel along with the shotshells. Hanging the duffel from one shoulder, he searched the corpse one last time. Finding a pair of car keys and another crumpled sheaf of paper, he found an address and phone number of someone nearby. Spitting on the corpse, he used the small remote on the key chain, and watched as a Ford in the parking lot yelped as the alarm deactivated. The car was an old Shelby Mustang GT in poor condition, but the trunk popped open easily, revealing a sight he didn’t expect. A large collection of weapons sat stuffed in the back alongside a young teenage girl tied up and gagged. Tears had stained her makeup, and her fishnet stockings were torn badly. She was bruised and battered pretty badly, but still alive.

Pulling out a small pocketknife, which the girl recoiled at, he cut the tape and ropes and pulled her out speaking calm tones. Letting her go, he watched as she turned to run, and on the spur of the moment, he yelled out to her, tossed the cell phone, and turned away, leaving her to her own devices. Tossing the duffel in, he emptied its contents into the trunk of the beat-up car and sorted out what was already there, glad to find a set of Kevlar for his chest, and a little disappointed to find the badges and decorations of a private detective in the back. Shaking his head, he fitted a private detective badge onto the Kevlar, grabbed a bootleg holster for the sawn-off 12ga., and pulled a sword from the duffel, a sheathed katana recovered during WW2 by his grandfather, a blade that dated back to the 6th century, but still as strong and razor-sharp as the day it was pulled from the forges and cooled, then honed.

Several stores of 9mm ammo and boxes of scattergun shells lay about, but he left them there, closing the trunk and entering the driver’s side, the laptop and remaining cell phones in his arms. Plugging the computer into the cigarette lighter, he started the old racecar and smiled as it growled to life, obviously in better shape than the exterior bodywork appeared to be. Grabbing another cell phone, he imputed the address and phone number from the sheaf of paper into a triangulation program, and found where the phone was registered to, and the false address marked on the registration. First would be the false address, a warehouse registered to a family from Colorado Springs. He accessed a map of Missouri, zoomed in on where he was, and sped off for the warehouse, anger flooding his vision.

The ride was uneventful and miserable, the AC broken and the radio on the fritz, but the miles passed by quickly enough for him, which wasn’t hardly fast enough. He could rely in the fact that where he was heading, people would pay, that the hope of finding his wife was great indeed. And arriving at the gravel lot outside the warehouse was almost relaxing for him, in a twisted sense, because he’d arrived where he would start finding his beloved. One way or another. Drawing the M4, he crept into the warehouse silently, careful to listen for sounds around him, and smiling as he recognized the echoes of people arguing. Moving through the shadows like the darkness itself, he finally found the source of the chatter, three men sitting around a makeshift firepit constructed of wrought iron and cinder blocks, each wearing the typical assortment of clothes a civilian would dress in, jeans, cowboy boots, brown leather jackets, possibly a sports cap or two. But the trio of men were in a heated argument, one bearded fool that was nearly 6’5” and burly as a rhino pushing the others around as they debated on why they hadn’t heard anything from the private eye they’d sent, cursing as they came up with possible scenarios.

Continued...
 

He didn’t care. The bulges under the leather jackets were obviously handguns, and he didn’t give them a chance in hell of using them, shooting out the kneecaps of the rhino-sized man first and popping the other two in their gunhands as they reached for weapons. All three lay on the floor moaning and groaning, bleeding and grasping oozing wounds. The taller bearded man tried to draw his weapon as he approached from the shadows, and killed the fool with a single tap to the forehead. The other two squirmed around and moaned, clearly shocked by the death of what appeared to be the toughest of the trio. But they made no move for the guns, and held onto their bleeding hands tightly.

He stopped just outside the glare of the bonfire in the makeshift pit, the light showing only his mouth and the gleam of the M4.

“Tell me where she is or you die.”

“Fuck you—“ He didn’t allow the rebuttal to finish, shooting the one that spoke in the shoulder once, and following with another to a kneecap. The man screamed bloody murder and rolled about on the filthy ground.

“One more chance.”

“I won’t say—“ Again he cut the bastard off with a single shot to his remaining kneecap, then blew the poor fool’s head off as well.

“You talk or you die. Slowly.” The one remaining didn’t argue, and began to spill the beans.

“Heard some big money was gonna be paid to whoever could stop this guy comin’ into town. Some shmuck from Jersey hired five of us. Came here and hired some ex-Marine guy too. Wanted to stop someone from meeting a woman here. I swear that’s all I know.”

“Good enough.” He shot the man in the face twice, feeling colder than ice, reloading the M4 and collecting the various .45 handguns from the three dead men, and taking all of the ammo between them. Several more wallets filled with cash, and a small notebook on the giant one with several names, 4 phone numbers, and several more addresses scribbled inside. Taking the weapons to the GT parked out front, he dumped the handguns and ammo inside, pocketed the notebook as he closed the trunk, and made his way back to the front seat. With a little more computer majik he soon had directions to all of the houses involved, and traced the numbers to a police station Downtown and a small security firm based on the coastline.

Heading towards the first address after the false phone registration, he knew he’d find the other private eye waiting for something. Things were far too complex for a simple kidnapping, and somehow he knew that the mention of a ‘shmuck from Jersey’ was an obvious pointer to someone he despised. Putting the old Mustang into gear, he floored the gas pedal and left the shoddy warehouse behind, raging aloud as he drove the car maddeningly fast, the blur of other cars passing by barely reaching his awareness. As soon as he hit the residential areas, he slowed until he came to the house that was marked by the outgoing phone call, pulling the car up into the yard and crumpling what was once a flower garden. Leaving the M4 in the back seat, he pulled the sawn-off free from the bootleg and loaded it up taking the small pouch he’d liberated from the former private eye at the motel, checking to make sure there was a decent supply of the shells handy before holstering the sawn-off again, attaching the pouch easily to the webbing on the pistol belt.

Leaving the car and closing the door, he approached the front door of the house, the motion-light turning on and a male glancing through the thin blinds on the front door, cursing as he looked out at the GT parked in his lawn and garden, the noises from inside muffled, clearing as the man emerged through the front door and began to yell various obscenities based around the fact that a Ford Mustang was parked where it obviously shouldn’t be. He gave the rant no real attention, pulling the sawn-off free with his left hand and levering it at the redhaired fool in the doorway, standing there in his bedclothes and robe with a dumbstruck expression on his face. The facial expression changed radically as he fired the sawn-off, blowing the right leg of the redhaired moron clean off and spattering the other with loose double-ought buckshot. The man screamed and collapsed backwards through the ajar door, frantically trying to close it as he approached; he batted the door aside like it wasn’t there and kicked the man square in the face as he lay on the floor.

Grasping a handful of red robe and flinging the wounded man inside, he smiled as the still-shocked man crunched through the thick hardwood table in front of the television, groaning like a wounded animal. He approached with the shotgun still leveled at the redhaired man, pumping the shotgun once and loading a fresh shell into the chamber. Pulling out the small notepad, he looked at the man deadly serious before questioning him.

“Describe all of these addresses and phone numbers, or say goodbye to your other leg.”

“I’ll do it man, I swear.” The man croaked as blood caked around the wounds on his face and mouth, stuttering and slurring slightly as he spoke. “The first is a party house. People go there for yay, dope, smack, whatever the flavor of the week is. The second is just a bordello, run by someone’s cousin. We keep the drugs there till the orders come from the party house. The third is an old restaurant that gets used for raves at night. The fourth and fifth are the private residences of some people that we get some other goods from. That’s all man.”

He showed the wounded man the addresses for the police station and the security firm.

“The pigs are getting a cut man. We sell, they import. We tell them everything. Some guy that came in from Jersey and hired some ex-military guy at the same time hired the security firm. Said he needed it for his house out here, and for his woman.”

He showed the picture of his soulmate to the redhaired man, holding back the flood of emotions that wanted to boil to the surface.

“She was the Jersey guy’s woman. Said he wanted to keep her safe from some lunatic… You wouldn’t happen to be that lunatic, would you?”

“Where. Is. She.”

“I don’t know, and the Jersey man made me promise not to tell you even if I did---“

He shoved the sawn-off into the man’s nostrils and pulled the trigger. Cleaning off the shotgun and reloading it, he stuffed it back into the bootleg holster and began to examine the dead man’s house, finding a Browning Hi-Power under the couch and a few boxes of jacketed rounds in the kitchen. In the computer lab sat a small safe, and after sufficient abuse, it cranked open to reveal another small .40 S&W revolver atop a pile of cash and a box of ammo. Taking all of it out to the trunk, he left it there, then tied a length of rope to the ceiling light, and hung the dead bastard there by his remaining foot, a warning to those that would come find the dead man later. Leaving the door ajar, he stepped out to the GT, started it up, and drove for the next destination, the ‘party house’ from the list he’d pulled from the dead men at the warehouse.

The drive was long and agonizing, the locations several miles apart from each other, even in a rather bustling town in Missouri he found it surprising for each of these places to be so distant from each other. But as he considered it, these people were already connected, already had this organization so deep that it was a basis for this ‘Man from Jersey’ to use it to his advantage. And somehow this Jersey man was connected to his beloved, his wife that he’d come home for, the only reason left in his life to live at all. As he hit the final block on the drive to the party house, he reflected that he’d make this Jersey boy sorry he’d ever messed with the likes of McCain.

Continued...
 

Pulling up to the outside of the ‘party house’ was an easy task. There were a few people on the lawn, but no one in particular that looked concerned at the sight of the GT. Stopping it right outside the house itself, he tossed the M4 into the back seat, and grabbed the trunk release, closing the driver’s door behind him and walking back around to the rear of the car, rummaging through for a few moments before finding what he needed: a small Mac10 9mm altered for fully auto, complete with a full mag and scraped off serial numbers. Making sure the sword was still slung tightly, he walked up to the front yard of the ghetto-style house party and sprayed a burst of ammo into the air, shredding several panels of aluminum siding on the uppermost portion of the house. Everyone came screaming out holding plastic cups, pipes, bags of drugs, and a few guys hauling out a keg with fleet feet.

Finally someone emerged from the front door holding a large-frame pump-action riot gun, and he sprayed the black-clothed man with nearly half of the mag on the small sub-machine gun, kicking the body into the doorway and liberating the pump-action, stepping inside with the shotgun in one hand and the half-spent Mac10 in the other, facing down a large white bald guy in similar black clothing, bearing what appeared to be a cut down Uzi in the process of being loaded. Firing the pump-action one-handed, he let the bald man have it directly in the torso, flinging him back into a large fishtank. It didn’t budge very much, stopping the momentum of the dying man. He pumped the shotgun and held both weapons at the ready again, stepping over the dead man and across the front of the fish tank, peering into the next room. Two skinny men in more black clothing and red bandanas hanging from back pockets were shoveling bags of pot and cocaine, and possibly ecstasy tabs into large black trash bags, and both died quickly as he sprayed the last of the 9mm rounds into the busy pair, both of them falling still, blood pooling onto thick white carpets and baggies of sticky smoke.

Dropping the Mac10, he grabbed the Uzi and cocked it, shoving it into one of the straps on the web belt, bringing the shotgun into a two-handed grip and moving into the room silently, music blaring from a stereo most likely three rooms away still, and searched the two homeboys, finding Glock model 90s loaded to the brim. Leaving them there, he moved on to the next doorway, a spray of high velocity rounds shredding part of the wall as he hit the floor, rolling into the room and firing the shotgun once at the offending blasts, the 12ga. buckshot striking home onto the neck and lower face of another burly black man wearing a set of torso Kevlar and bearing an AK. Whomever they were, they meant business, and clearly didn’t like the intrusion. This was displayed by the fact of two more men running in, both clearly Latino and spurting curses to the effect of various derogatory terms, both drawing custom Tec-9 sub-machine pistols and laying down a spray of fire that obliterated what little cover was left of the wall, forcing him to fall back to the other doorway as he racked and fired again, blasting another large hole in the wall for him to see through as he pumped and fired yet again, striking one in the right collarbone and tossing him back into the other.

Pumping and firing once more, he pumped again, hearing the shotgun rack on empty; evidently the others heard this as well, and two more white guys in the same black clothing, bearing black handkerchiefs hanging from the back pocket and sawn-off shotguns at the ready, inspiring the other gang-members to charge through the doorway as well, one still holding his arm and shoulder reverently. He drew the Uzi from the web-belt just as they came into the room, and sprayed down the group as quickly as possible, several shots striking the Kevlar and at least one slipping by to cause a flesh-wound on his lower side. But he didn’t let up until the Uzi finally clicked on empty, the four men slumped across the doorway and lying on the nearby couches. Leaving the empty shotgun and the spent Uzi where they lay, he grabbed a Tec-9 and the clip of ammo from the other, as well as the sawed-off double-barrel beauty from one of the black kerchief men, scavenging plenty of ammo and the other sawn-off shotgun that appeared to have been spray-painted all black.

The double-barrel scattergun fit into the bootleg holster nicely and the Tec-9 hung from the webbing as well, leaving the pump-action to use with it’s remaining four loaded shells. Approaching the rear of the house, he found the large AK on the floor, along with it’s double-magazine, and hung it next to the sword as he moved into the stereo room, beer cans, used condoms, clothing, and lots of ash trays lying about, a filthy room even for a large party. There sat a young black gentleman in a dress suit counting money and drugs in two suitcases. Four other men in the all-black clothing sat behind him, around the stereo, all bearing M3 ‘grease guns’, all pointed at him as he looked in. Without thinking a moment further, he emptied the sawn-off into the four men beyond, the guns falling to the carpet and the younger man unplugging his ears as the empty sawn-off fell to the floor. The man signaled to sit, and he did so, glaring ahead, sparing glances at the drugs and cash, at the fine suit, at the gold watch and the platinum chain in place of a formal black tie.

“So how can I help you?” The conversation was totally unreal in this situation, but it was taking place nonetheless, perturbing him.

“Tell me where she is and I’ll let you live.”

The black gentleman laughed as he stashed another row of cash into the suitcase, hands still sorting as he talked.

“So, you must be McCain. You know, someone has gone to awfully extreme measures for this. Someone must really hate you.”

“Answer the fucking question or you die right now.” He drew the double-barreled scattergun and leveled it at the man’s lap, one barrel touching the outer edge of the case being loaded with money.

The man laughed again.

“She’s dead. Been dead a whole day or two now, seeing as it’s 9 pm now. Probably burying her as we chit-chat.”

“What?!” He stood as this clicked home, the muzzles of the shotgun coming to rest on the cheekbone below the man’s right eye.

“Just business you know.” The man said it way too calmly. “She wouldn’t let the boy have her, and the Mac didn’t fool her, and she wouldn’t whore for ‘em, wouldn’t cooperate at all. So they killed her--“ He fired both barrels of the shotgun, bending forward and resting on the table, breathing heavy, tears in his eyes, blood pounding in his skull. She was all he’d lived for, and now she was gone. Gone. He reloaded the scattergun and stuck it to his chin. Would he meet her there? He doubted it. In all of life’s eternal irony, he would die and go to Hell for the blood on his hands, and never see her. She was his Angel Devil, his Yin and Yang, his Good and Bad. Now all that was left was his hate, his rage. He wiped the tears away, holstered the shotgun, and looked around the room, noticing the large handgun and ammo in the case with the drugs; tossing the massive .50AE pistol in with the cash, he closed the case, and dumped the drugs out onto the table, leaving the bastard dead on the chair with what was left of his skull.

Retrieving the all-black shotgun and the fallen M3 machine pistols, he systematically rummaged through the house, taking the weapons and ammo out to the GT, and taking the best of what pot was there, eager to dull the edge he was feeling, eager to shut out the repetition of the words that his wife was dead. It was night now, and he needed somewhere to stay, somewhere to plan the next moves, somewhere to be away from the pile of corpses he’d left behind already. Climbing back into the driver’s seat, he roared off to the nearest hotel, the cheapest he could find with a decent TV. As he showered, shaved, and smoked his way to peace once again, he could feel the anguish deep down at the thought that his woman was dead, his wife was gone, his lover was no more as the television’s news broadcast rambled onward about today’s happenings.

“Today a man was found in a Motel 8 room after the landlord reported a string of gunshots. Police arrived at the scene and prevented the press from entering but made a statement: ‘We’re still not sure what occurred here, but we have a U.S. Marine missing, and we’re plenty concerned.’ In similar news, three other men were found in an old building in the warehouse district of Downtown Missouri today, all three killed reportedly ‘execution-style’ in what may have been a mob-related hit. The men were reportedly corrupt policemen turned security guards and private investigators, fired from official positions after being pointed out in the LaRae cases surrounding a southern mafia-like organization that laundered drugs and money last month. The police have made no statement, other than that the killings seemed to be done with professional weapons and precision.

Continued...
 

“In further news, a local pedophile was found in his home this afternoon, hung from the ceiling. No details have been given on the way he died, but several off-duty statements and an official report indicated that the man was tied deeply into a large investment in a local security company, and had moved to Missouri in a neighborhood without children in an effort to prove he was reforming his ways. But in a related case, a young girl dialed the police indicating she’d been kidnapped. The statement she gave to police was that she was taken from her front yard several days ago, brought to this gentleman’s house, raped several times, beaten, and told she would become a slave. She was then ‘traded’ to another man in exchange for weapons and money, dressed like a streetwalker, bound and gagged, and stuffed in the trunk of a car she couldn’t identify. The victim, a twelve-year old girl, said she was rescued after she heard some shooting, and then a man gave her a phone and cut her free, describing the man as ‘completely different’ than the one she was supposedly enslaved to.

“And the last act of darkness for today, we hope, was a local crack house being shot up today, with one of our reporters being the first on the scene. June Udderly reports: ‘This evening a local house that was known for its depraved behavior and reported drug sales was literally shot to hell today by an as yet unidentified person. Nearly a dozen lives were taken as the person moved through the house, systematically killing all those inside. But, as one partygoer described, the man fired warning shots into the air to prevent those that were not involved from being harmed in the crossfire. The police Chief gave his statement on this case.’ ‘We don’t know who is responsible for the recent wave of violence to strike the great state of Missouri, but we do know that just because this person has killed so-called drug dealers and street thugs is no reason to allow it to take place. We will be investigating this case further.’

“’But according to statements from other sources, such as police officers that patrol the street and vendors of several of the older street stores in the area tell us that they were glad to see that the men that had ruined their neighborhoods finally got their just desserts this evening, regaling tales of how the men that occupied the home lived for nothing but bloodshed and profiting from others’ misery. This is June Udderly, for News9, reporting.’ Thanks June. In the case of the missing woman, a daughter of Mrs. Wilbanks has gone missing for nearly a day now. She phoned the police when a stranger called her asking for her daughter, and when Mrs. Wilbanks asked who had taken her daughter, the stranger hung up. So distraught, she called the police after trying to locate her daughter on her own, calling her daughter’s former boyfriend and attempting to contact a soldier by the name of Alexander McCain, a Staff Sergeant of the United States Marine Corps that was scheduled to arrive here in Missouri as of 10 AM. The Commandant of the Marine Corps has not responded to an inquiry, and the local Police are investigating both cases independently…”

He shut the television off as he paced naked through he small room, muttering under his breath, hardly able to keep himself calm. The 10mm pistol sat in the holster rig as it hung from the bedstand, the only weapon in the room with him. His clothes, a pair of combat fatigues and boots along with a plain black t-shirt, were hung in the bathroom, drying, as he washed the blood out of them earlier. But over and over, all his thoughts could rest on was his Imzadi, his love, taken from this life. Even as he laid down to rest, she haunted his dreams. But now there were no dreams, only emptiness and nightmares. He felt like his soul had fled his body, that he was a walking corpse and that he would be taking as many others to the Undertaker as he could before his grave was finally dug. Sleep was a commodity of the highest sort, however, and he knew he needed the rest.

Waking up the next morning at 0300 was a pleasure, as he knew his body, no matter how empty of spirit and devoid of soul, was fueled to fight again. Soon he would need to eat, but the activity would be meaningless to him now. Dressing in the same clothes, he made a careful sweep of the hotel room to make sure it was devoid of all but the most useless evidence, strapping the Colt back on his hips and tightening the laces on the boots once more before opening the hotel room door. A woman, Asian and damned good looking even in a common attendant’s uniform, held a large, full-sized Remington 78 riot gun at his belly; he barely had time to slam the door closed and skitter sideways as the shotgun fired, leaving a gaping hole in the hardwood door and spraying fragments of wood onto the carpet beyond, the double-ought buckshot ripping clean through the small kitchenette stove in the room and into the mini-bar next to the mini-fridge. Shoving the dresser in front of the door, he ripped the nearby lamp out of its socket and turned the room into near-darkness as he drew the 10mm pistol, a second shotgun blast tearing into the rear of the dresser through the lower portion of the door, but not budging the rather heavy piece of furniture.

Responding with his own fire, he emptied the mag into the area beyond the door and the wall next to it, hearing a gasp of painful surprise followed by a third shotgun blast that ripped larger holes in the wall than the 10mm could. Dropping the empty and loading in one smooth motion, he rolled to a low point behind the dresser and peered out into the hallway beyond, down the iron sights of the Delta Elite, finding his target slowly backing away while holding the large shotgun one-handed, weakly, with the other hand grasping her side. Taking careful aim, he finished her off with a clean headshot at twenty paces, holstering the piece and shoving the dresser aside as he ripped the ruined door open, rushing up carefully to her prone body and retrieving the Remington, loading the mag with a few of the remaining cartridges on the barrel rack, and pumping a new shell in the chamber. Slowly he made my way over to the staircase and peered down ward to the garage area 3 stories below. Two more in business suits and carrying Navy-issue MP5s stood at the door, but both conversed in foreign tongue and smoked what smelled to be cheap cigarettes, paying no attention.

He set the Remington down and crept to the edge while drawing the 10mm, aiming carefully again. The one on the left dropped in a single headshot, but the other jerked his weapon up to fire, and took three in the torso, but refused to quit, firing wildly until a fourth, fifth, and finally a sixth struck home, the last straight through the 10-ring on the poor fool’s heart. Gathering the fallen mags and reloading the Colt, he grabbed the Remington and scrambled down the stairs, barely stopping in order to take the military-style MP5s and the extra ammo, and exited out into the first floor of the garage, with two more men and a woman bearing a sword standing at a car twenty rows down from his. Moving like the wind, he ignored the gunfire and yelling behind him as he reached the GT, and the car right next to it provided fine cover, until the gas tank began leaking. Diving in, he grabbed the M4 from the back seat and stood up again, laying out the two bearing guns with single shots. He didn’t shoot the woman, instead, he tossed it into the GT and grabbed his grandfather’s blade, strapping it to his torso and stepping out in to the driving path, watching as the woman stepped over the fallen men with little regard for them. She was Asian as well, but there was something different about her. More confident, more sure, whatever; he drew the old blade and smiled as it sang out through the large garage under the cheapass hotel.

The woman seemed to be mildly surprised at either the tone of the blade, or merely its presence. But she carried no visible scabbard for the blade she carried, merely carried it with an air of effluence and grace, a stance his grandfather had taught him to be wary of. Holding it at the ready, he awaited her first attack. She seemed to pause, however, anticipating the next movement or the following strike, checking the edge on her sword casually before moving faster than he could anticipate himself, and barely had time to block her cuts and strikes as she moved; for a moment it seemed as though she had him, when he suddenly slashed her blade in twain, and followed up with a strike that cut through her cheeks and deeper, blood and what may have been brain matter sloughing away from the strike, the woman falling to the ground. Sheathing his grandfather’s blade, he left her lying there, ran over to the fallen males and gathered their M1 carbines, and ran back to the GT, tossing the carbines in the back seat and speeding out of the garage, running over the woman’s arm casually as he emerged out onto the street and sped off for the Bordello, marking it off on his small list.

Continued...
 

The hotel was close to the Bordello, a move he’d made on purpose and one that saved time. Parking on the sidewalk, to the annoyance of several pedestrians, he opened the trunk and pulled out the AK47 he’d taken from the ‘party house’, and all four of the M3 machine pistols after strapping the Kevlar vest back on, tucking the M3 ‘grease guns’ into the small 9mm shoulder rigs. The 9mm was essentially just a backup weapon, but he kept it holstered, never knowing when a decent firearm would come in handy. Checking the mag on the AK, he found it nearly full, as well as the second mag taped to it. As he closed the trunk on the GT, somebody, somewhere, screamed and yelled ‘call 911’, and he knew he’d have to make this quick. Approaching the Main entry, the gray-suited guard there spoke into a hand mike and drew his pistol, but before the guard could fire, he pulled the trigger on the AK and sent the guard to the ground, dead, with a 3-round burst. Tucking the fallen Sig-Sauer pistol into the web belt, he kept moving, kicking in the main door with a single solid strike, and firing at the guard just beyond with another 3-round burst, taking off his face. A woman inside screamed, followed by several others, and the whores began to flee from the fancy rooms down the embellished hall, all of them showing him odd glances as he walked through them, not stopping as a few of the customers began to flee as well. The first one that drew a weapon, however, was a blue-suited security guard that had his clothes on sloppily, as if he was supposed to be on duty and was here instead. He shot the guard in the throat, and took the 1911 .45 the man aimed at him.

Two more blue-suited guards joined yet another pair of grey-suits, all of them packing old S&W .38 Long revolvers, blasting the rather potent sub-magnum rounds at a steady rate. He returned fire by emptying the AK into them, the four men pitching back onto the stairwell from whence they walked down from. Not bothering to gather the aging revolvers and the rare ammo, he made his way up the staircase, loading the full mag into the AK and strapping it to his back, gazing around at the richly decorated bordello, almost sad that stray gunfire and direct damage had occurred when he started, but shrugged it off nonetheless as he arrived at the big office, pulling the heavy mahogany doors open on well-oiled hinges, revealing a lone man flanked by the grey-suits, sitting at a large, or rather enormous, desk and chair, the guards holding Tommy guns and the man in the chair flexing his hands over a huge .357 sitting on the desk. The man motioned him forward, so forward he went, a slight smirk of anger on his face. The man signaled to a chair, but he didn’t bother.

“What the hell do you want, coming into my Bordello and killing my men, and my customers?”

“What the hell did you think, that this Jersey-boy-fuckhead was going to get off easy for taking my wife and killing her?”

The man’s face paled.

“What my cousin does has no impact on me whatsoever.”

“Bullshit. The most important thing in the world is family. He’s taken mine away. Now I’m going to return the favor.”

“That’s not smart. That’s not business. If you have a problem with him, you deal with it. You take it up with him, not me. I only do business. I have nothing to do with his shit.”

“Fine. Tell me how to find him.”

“I wouldn’t know that. The man that does know that is either the Police Chief or the Head of his hired security firm. Either way, they have nothing to do with me.”

“Really? Even though they were some of your ‘customers’? As a matter of fact, those were the only one’s I killed.”

The man didn’t respond.

“Fair enough. I believe you. There’s just one thing I need you to do now.”

“Name it, as long as it means you will get the hell out of my Bordello.”

“I need you to leave a message for me. Something more than mere words can express.”

Drawing two of the M3 machine pistols, he swept the guns on full auto and mowed down both the guards and the man of the Bordello before any of them could respond, holstering the now-empty weapons and scooping up the .357 from the desk, scavenging a box of rounds and a speedloader from a desk drawer, and both Tommy guns from the fallen guards, along with the WW2 style ammo belts and 30 round stick mags. The picture behind the desk had a safe behind it, and after careful examination, he found a release switch on the desk, the safe opening to reveal more cash, a pound of cocaine, and a second .357 that matched the first, most likely an extra in case the cokehead lost one. Taking the .357 from inside and dumping the cash into a bag, he tossed the pound of coke into the dead man’s lap before leaving the Bordello and filling up the trunk again, driving off without the sounds of sirens, but also without the sight of civilians meandering around.

Continued... WARNING! GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS!
 

--- Due to several suggestions, I’m placing a warning right here. MA +17. If you don’t like graphic descriptions, skip the section ahead. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED ---

Considering the situation as he drove, he realized that both a Security Firm and a Police Station would be tough nuts to crack, and knew he needed some heavier firepower. Returning to the address list, he looked up the houses one of the dead men had pointed out as sources for ‘other goods’, finding them both within a block of each other. Stopping at the first, he looked out onto a dirt lawn leading up to a dead tree in front of an aging brown and tan house, kids toys lying about randomly. With only the 10mm, the 9mm, and the sword, he closed the door of the GT behind him and approached the front door, knocking with one hand on his hip. A fat ugly woman responded, and immediately began to hit on him as he questioned her for what ‘other goods’ she had at the house. Several times he had to refrain from killing her as she constantly referred to her body, showing her nasty teats and hairy, rotting bush, exposing herself to be drunk, as well as stupid. An older man, with tight curly hair and hands the size of ham hocks batted her aside with an empty bottle, and as she crawled back through the rather fancy house, the older male burped a question, leaving frothing liquor drooling down his flannel shirt. It was obvious the man wasn’t very interested, staring at the prone fat woman as she tried to cover herself up again and grabbed at the crotch twice. Finally he couldn’t watch it anymore and closed the door himself, sitting on the porch and listening to the two go at it inside, beating and fucking and acting like total drunks.

Finally the older male came out and burped another question, clearly not fully sober, and he asked him about ‘other goods’ and heavy ordinance, the man lead him around to the back through a barb-wired fence and several large doors, to his shop. But the sight of four or five young girls tied up in a pen and covered with dirt, urine, feces, beer, and possibly even semen, sent him over the wall. He drew the small 9mm and shot the old bastard in the head at extremely close range, spraying blood and brains all over a large workbench covered in C4 and homemade bomb goods. Taking the clothes from the old bastard, he opened the gate and cut the girls free, giving them the scraps of clothes to wear. Two were so young that they barely reacted, going to play silently in the sandbox in the back, the other two, however, were old enough to recognize what the old man did to them, and kicked his corpse repeatedly, before running over to a cabinet and pulling out a small video camera. Taking the tapes, he made sure to let them destroy the camera, as well as anything else they wanted. He would leave the tapes for the ‘police’ to watch. Gathering a nearby duffel, he left the girls to their own devices and began filling up the duffel with all he could carry.

But as he was about to leave, he heard the shatter of glass, a scream, a moan, and someone telling another to shut up. Dropping the bag carefully, he drew the 9mm again and followed the sounds to a basement, where an elderly woman had four young boys tied up in leather, a video camera, and a strap on. It looked like she was sodomizing the poor kids, and without hesitation, he blew her brains out as well, entering the darkened room and untying the boys, telling them to go out back with the other girls and wait for the police. Gathering more tapes, he made sure to leave all of them on the kitchen table. But something else was wrong as well. There were still screams in the house, a bad smell somewhere, and the sounds of animals scraping at doors. Back up the stairs, he could smell the stench getting stronger; opening a closet, a pile of dead cats and small dogs affronted his nostrils, and he gagged as he closed it again. Opening the next one, one living dog in a pile of twenty dead crawled out, and he closed the door again, letting the dog scamper over to the elderly woman’s corpse and chew on her for a while. The last cabinet held pieces of animals, along with several carcasses that seemed to have wounds inflicted from torture. Passing through the kitchen, he found the drunken woman on the floor, dead, her head caved in with a liquor bottle and her crotch ripped open by something. He didn’t examine it long.

Down a short hall, and opening the first door silently, he spotted a young male in his twenties filming infants in the bathtub playing, naked and soapy, with adult toys, vibrators, and dildos. He shot the man in the back of the head, the sound muffled by the closed room and the closeness of the shot. Taking the toys and the camera, he locked them into the cabinet, gathered the tapes, and took the kids out of the tub, draping towels over them. He would have to phone the cops soon, otherwise these kids would be neglected further, and it wouldn’t sit right with him. The room across the hall was small, but clearly visible was a young boy hanging by his wrists, with a dildo taped into his mouth and one forced into his buttocks. He let the boy down and let him recover on his own. The sights around here were starting to seriously disturb him. The next room ahead was just as shocking, a whole group of teenage boys molesting younger girls, the screams and sounds maddening. He began firing with the 9mm, and when it ran dry, he switched to the 10mm smoothly, killing the last rapist with a shot to the groin, and another to the face. The girls screamed as he untaped them and let them go, collecting more recording devices and reloading the 9mm handgun while holstering the 10mm again.

The room across the hall this time held another old drunk, a man, whipping the hell out of a group of what appeared to be boy scouts with a bullwhip and laughing as he sucked down a bottle of whiskey, approaching one of the boys with a stick as if to put it where the sun didn’t shine. He fired again, the 9mm slug removing much of the upper skull of the drunk, and saving the boy from further pain. Cutting them loose, he hoped the last room in the house wouldn’t be as bad. Instead, as he opened the door he found it to be just as bad. In one half, a tall redhaired woman slapped, stabbed, cut, and sodomized three young boys to ‘The Electric Slide’ and moaned to the small camera, while across the room another old man sat with a young group of boys, photographing them during penetration. This was intolerable, and he let them both know before they died, maiming both of them with several non-mortal shots before finishing them off for good. Soon he emerged from the rear door of the house, dozens of kids playing around and arguing over clothing, and as soon as he heard the distant whine of the sirens, he climbed into the GT, smiling as he recalled his message to the cops.

“Bring a mop and a bucket.”

--- That’s right, end of the ‘Really Graphic and Potentially Very Offensive’ Portion ---

Continued...
 

The next house was close enough to walk to, but he preferred not to move that slowly, and instead, pulled up into the driveway of the next house, pointing the 10mm at the first man as he emerged from the rather decrepit home of blue-and-white. He stepped up to the man carefully, and spoke in low tones.

“Don’t give me shit. I need hardware, and my car needs a bit of body and paint work. You do it, I pay you and let you live to boot. You screw around, you die, I take what I need, and leave here none the poorer.”

“I’ll do it.” He followed the man back into the house, and down to another basement, this time one ringed with an arsenal. As soon as he was in the weapon room, he allowed the man to start work on the GT, gazing at the M60 mounted on one wall, the row of LAWs on a shelf, and the massive Barret’s .50BMG sniper rifle. He gathered all he could and shifted it into the trunk of the GT as the man prepped the front end, careful to leave more cash than good he’d taken in order to keep the man’s mouth shut. After just an hour of work, the Shelby Mustang GT soon looked like the monster she was, silver with green racing paint. Pulling it away, he sped off for the next destination, the Security Firm’s Headquarters. The ride was better now with a working radio, but all the music did was remind him of his wife, of what he promised to her, of what had been ruined by some jealous fuck that was going to pay for his actions. Stopping outside of the Security firm, he pulled out the small brown knapsack, wrapped it around a pair of the homemade bombs, and walked in with his 10mm pistol visible on his belt and the PI badge on the Kevlar.

“Hello. Welcome to Security Firm. Firm Security for an unsecure future. How can I help you?” The attendant behind the desk seemed far too cheery.

“Yes. I’d like to speak to your firm’s Head of Operations.”

“He’s not in right now. He’s providing security for a party in the lower district. Would you like directions?”

“No thanks. Just tell him I asked for him.” With that said, he walked out quickly.

“But sir, you forgot to leave your name—“ The knapsack exploded, erasing the lower three floors of the building easily and forcing the remaining ten stories to collapse, and he considered whether or not it was wise to wedge a brick of C4 between the makeshift explosives, driving the GT away from the falling building as fast as possible, making a straight beeline through the city, for he already knew where the party was, and he was going to crash it like a brick through a window. Pulling into the shittier part of the residential areas here, he noted that the graffiti was everywhere, that tattoos were prominent, that 40 ounces was a way of life for some, that the smell of bud was thick in the air, the wafting smell of alcohol following along and burning his nostrils. Soon he’d be right at the party, already seeing folks gathering around music boxes and televisions on rickety porches.

The cars were double parked for the last block, the people around clearly gangbangers, street hoods, gang rivals, and plenty that fell under the category of ‘just plain mean’. But all showed the repaired GT little more than an awkward glance and a level of being invisible, all focused on partying, drugs, drinking, and the eventual sex as a result of over-consumption. Parking the car at the furthest spot from the restaurant, he pulled on a forest-green face-mask, covering his nose and mouth, and pulled on the plain black Marine duty cap to cover the rest, leaving the sawn-off on the passenger seat and taking only the 10mm and the smaller 9mm as he emerged from the car, pulling on a green flak jacket to cover the Kevlar and PI badge, as well as the 9mm in the shoulder holster and the 10mm on the hip holster.

Approaching a likely group, he signaled to one with a 1000-dollar bill, mentioning politely that he’d like to get some of the best dust-laced blunts the man could offer, and took the PCP-dusted babies from the man reverently, holding up one hand to signal that the man could keep the change. Breaking one in half and tucking the remnants away with the whole one, he located the small slit on the facemask and stuck the blunt in, puffing it alight with a small black-painted Zippo. It had been quite a while since he’d used drugs to his advantage in a potentially deadly situation, but the high-class shmo would calm his nerves, and the dust would make him nearly unstoppable if worse came to worse.

Following most of the crowd into the rave hall, he silently made his way into the back to the restaurant portion, still smoking the blunt as he emerged into a well-lit parlor of red crushed velvet and fine mahogany serving tables. A man sat with a group of ladies and a large bodyguard at the biggest of the tables, and he was about to make a beeline for it when an elderly gentleman in a fine server’s suit stopped him and politely mentioned that ravers were not allowed in the back. Unzipping the flak jacket and drawing the chrome-plated 9mm, he shoved the barrel of the small pistol into the older man’s right nostril, and spoke sharply in return, telling the old man to go back into the rave area with whoever else was left here, or they’d end up just as dead as the man in the finery would be.

The older man split like his hair was on fire, and he took it as a sign that the elder man was the only one currently in the establishment to serve the laughing bastard and his whores. Holstering the weapon but leaving the flak jacket wide open and unzipped, he approached the large table. The Man at the center of five women noticed him straight away and signaled to the bodyguard to deal with it; he drew the 10mm before the bodyguard could take a step forward, and blasted the man’s forehead of with a quick double-tap, aiming the Delta Elite at the Man as the women around him began to shriek.

“Get lost, ladies. Now.” They scattered at the sound of his voice, and the Man seemed visibly shaken.

“Funny, you don’t look like a Marine.”

“Har, hardy, fucking har har. You don’t look like the Head of a corrupt Security firm, but to each his own. Tell me where the Jersey-boy is.”

“Fuck you. Who the hell are you? Nobody. I ain’t tellin’ you jack.”

He shot the man in the foot through the table.

“Lucky shot. Next time I might accidentally shoot off your dick. Start talking.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are?! Fucking lunatic! Shot my foot—“

He shot him in the hand on the same side.

“Keep it up jackass! I can do this all night! Want to lose every body part before I bury your ass alive?! Fine! Arms, shoulders, knees and toes!”

He shot him in the knee on the same leg.

“Now fucking spill the beans. I’m not playing around.”

“Neither am I.” The man glanced ahead, a bit too firmly, a bit too confidently. He spun about and fired at the elder man, killing the poor fool with another 10-ring shot, the elderly man dropping the large double-barreled shotgun to the carpeted floor. The man attempted to make a move but he’d drawn the 9mm with the other hand, and held it to the man’s forehead, spitting on his face and forcing the man back across the table. Then he shot him in the other foot, followed by another in the other hand.

“Tell me prick. Next it’s your knees, then your elbows, then your shoulders. Then I’m out of extremities to shoot, and might have to blow your balls off one at a time. Now speak, bitch.”

“F-f-fine. I have the c-c-codes to the power and alarms, but only the Police Chief has his direct address. All of the men that protect his house stay confidential, and independent, live on the grounds. Seriously, there isn’t even a return address on the billing I receive! I swear.” The man scribbled the codes down painfully onto a small napkin, signaling which was for the power and which was for the alarms. “I swear, we protect anyone that can pay, it wasn’t personal, I swear!”

“I believe you.”

Continued...
 

He shot the man in the forehead, and collected the napkin with the codes. Picking up the small 9mm from the dead bodyguard and the larger coach gun from the dead elder, he took the Security Head’s wallet, removed all of the cash, and almost broke down crying when he saw a picture of his wife inside. Raging, he used the 9mm as a club and bashed in the skull of the dead man, realizing he’d ruined the chrome piece, but that the guard’s handgun would replace it nicely. Spitting one last time on the man’s corpse, he took the picture of his Imzadi out of the wallet and left it behind. Emerging out onto the rave floor, he noted that while the music was still on, all of the people were gone; instead, four men dressed in the security firm’s suits wearing riot armor faced him carrying full-sized M16 rifles. Doubling back, he ran into the restaurant area with the 12ga in his hands, hiding just beyond the outer doorway, in the dark. Two of the men emerged into the area, the closest to him breathing too loudly. Using the shotgun at point-blank range, he fired both barrels into the fancy headgear on the guard and grabbed the M16 as the body fell, grasping onto the pistol grip and squeezing the trigger hard, the weapon barking on full auto and punching a line of holes into the cheap riot armor, the last 5.56 round in the mag racing straight through the faceplate and shredding brain as it punched through the eye.

Pulling the clips free from the fallen guards, he let the empty M16 drop and retrieved the other, still with 15 rounds loaded to bear, and waited behind the table the man’s corpse occupied, keeping the rifle and himself low, out of sight. The next two came in, covering booth doorways, but both obviously nervous wrecks, shaking and moving uncertainly, so nervous that they jerked around at any sound. It was almost to easy for him to lever the barrel up between the arm and torso of the dead man near him and open fire accurately, killing one and striking the other in the helmet and shoving him off balance. He rose quickly, shoving the man’s body forward, and emptied the mag into the prone guard as he tried to recover. With all of them dead, he grabbed all of the ammo and both loaded rifles, leaving the empties behind and rushing out to the GT.

Popping the trunk, he dumped the hardware in, when he heard a sudden sound of shoes on gravel; without hesitating he drew the katana from it’s sheath and slashed out behind him, the blade jabbing deep into one last guard that must have waited outside. Yanking the blade free, he retrieved the last M16 and bunch of mags, closed the trunk, and sped off, leaving the guard to bleed to death in the street. Driving to the next hotel was hard, because tears kept getting in his eyes. He couldn’t stop seeing her, stop hearing her voice. None of what he was doing was helping him cope, but he could feel the rage inside feeding itself, the burning hatred building into a wildfire of planetary proportions, and that the hate needed the souls of the men that stole his spirit, his heart, his Imzadi. The hotel was still just as cheap, but this time the car was parked right out front, where he could see it through the window facing the street, and it gave him a bit more comfort. Or perhaps the katana, the Remington 78, and his 10mm/9mm pistols all being with him was a sign that things were getting worse. With the katana on the inside of the bathroom door, the 10mm and 9mm rigs on the bed stands, and the pump-action riot gun on the sink next to the tub, he risked showering, turning on the television to drown out everything, only it tore open his day even more.

“In what some are calling day two of the ‘Missouri Fire’, the morning kicked off with a few bangs today. Another hotel, this time Motel 78 outside of LoDo Missouri, called the police with reports of gunfire. Apparently, according to the press release from the police in charge of the investigation are stating that someone attacked a man in a hotel room today and died, and then five others apparently attacked the same man again. All of them were killed and pronounced dead on the scene. No names are being released. In similar news an unidentified white male walked into the only Bordello in the whole of Missouri in Downtown today and killed 12 men, including Tony McMichaels, a one time bar-owner that somehow managed to convince City Hall to allow him to build his bordello. The police allowed almost full access and coverage, including the news that they’ve discovered that part of the bordello was being used to launder cash and store drug caches, including what they say is Tony’s private habit stash of almost thirty pounds, which they found in a wall safe connected to a larger security system.

“Guns, drugs, cash, and even several hundred pieces of stolen artwork were recovered when the security system was finally cracked. In a bizarre twist, several of Security Firm’s employees were present and dead on the scene. Security Firm was the company that installed the Bordello’s systems. In good news that depresses us portion of the broadcast today, a child pornography ring was broken up today by a raid conducted by yet another unknown individual. Every single adult in the house that was supposedly guilty and involved were dead upon police arrival, and nearly 20 children were found in various stages of shock and abuse. Police report that they have videotape evidence of what occurred to the children, along with what may be some shots of the person that stopped the ring ‘dead’ in its tracks. The police also report that there are several people still alive involved on the tapes and that they will be processing warrants by the end of the night tonight.

“With so much of Security Firm Corp. in the news lately, and the incredible investment rush when they released their stock on the NYSE, one wouldn’t expect to hear this: the Security Firm Corporate Headquarters was destroyed today in an unknown explosion at approximately 7 pm. The Fire Investigators on the scene declared it arson in the first degree, but declined to say how many personnel or what branches of service workers were stationed at the building, instead releasing a statement from Security Firm Incorporated, based in the UK. ‘The attack on the Security Firm Headquarters today in the US is only an example of how the work that Security Firm does is important, and that we shall not stop for any threat, or any attack on the company. Within the month we shall rebuild the Headquarters on the same grounds, and start anew. In the meantime, the local firm in Missouri will use the local police station as the headquarters, and I see no reason why it shall not come to place. We will find the person or people that did this. But, we shall not release any figures, statistics, or values for those lost today. We will deal with such things internally.’

“The fire chief also added: ‘The decision by this company to make all investigations and recovery internal means that the state of Missouri will not hold the cost of stopping the fires or conducting the proper investigation as to why this occurred. The FBI and the CIA are both conferring with Security Firm Inc., and will head any investigations.’ More Security Firm news today in an attack on a local restaurant that was being used as a rave hall; at 9 pm, a man entered the rave club wearing a mask and jacket, and killed Mr. Steven Warrens, the Head Security Firm Operations Manager, and also killed his private bodyguard. The owner of the club, Dr. Harvey Warrens, age 70, was also killed, apparently shot in the heart in the same room as his son. Four men of Warrens’ Elite Security Unit were also killed, but police are not releasing any details. Rumors are that the four men were trained in the US Military before joining the Security Firm Corporation here in the US, yet were killed by someone using their own weapons against them. The police are still withholding details and refusing to confirm or deny the rumors.

“In the Wilbanks missing woman case, the daughter is still missing, now for the second day in a row. Police have begun to collaborate on the Wilbanks/McCain cases, because so many connections seem to lead from Staff Sergeant McCain to the daughter of Mrs. Wilbanks. The whereabouts of both individuals is still unknown, but some inside sources indicate that these cases may also be tied into the vigilante spree of criminal killings and the recent collapse of the Security Firm building which is affectionately being referred to as the ‘Missouri Fire’….

Continued...
 

Sleeping was an exercise now, and the food he’d eaten was bland and tasteless, nothing in comparison to feeding the flames of revenge, of punishment. Today was a big day, especially since he started it at 2 am, with four hours rest, sneaking into the Police station across the street from the hotel with the M4 and the Browning Hi-Power fitted with a decent silencer, carrying 200 pounds of explosive, along with four loaded M16s. The creeping in through the rear gate was especially tricky, to wait for the shift rotation and follow the returning guard inside without alerting him. It almost seemed ridiculous that he was doing this, sneaking into a police station wearing all black, walking directly behind an officer that didn’t know he were there. The hallways were getting too damned twisty, but as he recognized the Chief’s office, he left the officer to walk on, and closed the door behind him. Hiding one M16 under the coat hanging from the rear of the door, he hung two more onto the coat rack which was dominated by a large brown trench coat and several long sweaters. The last he stashed behind the bush in the far corner of the room, and noted that the window looked down directly onto the sidewalk below, not to mention the buildings across the street.

Accessing the Chief’s computer easily, hacking several passwords with a breeze, he programmed the lights to shut down in 5 minutes, and powered off the backup generator. Waiting patiently, he watched as the time ticked downwards, and when the lights all went out, he de-activated the computer, and wedged a small explosive to it’s backside before moving out, using a pair of NV goggles he’d liberated from the guy that sold him the major hardware to help him see as he planted every bomb he had, in every place he could think of. By 03:30 he was back in his hotel room, preparing the three LAW rocket tubes, the Barret’s .50BMG rifle, and the M60 by the window, setting up his holsters so that he was carrying enough firepower to wipe out a few city blocks. At 03:45, he began the arduous process of stashing certain weapons at street level, and throughout the first and second floors of the hotel. He only hoped he would be ready for the dawn, listening to the TV drone on and on, the sun rise in the sky unwaveringly, the police station coming to life, the Chief arriving in a large black sedan that pulled away, veered off and out of the Downtown district. Security looked tighter than it should have, but he paid it no mind, knowing that he had enough of what it would take.

As soon as the Chief walked further inside the station, he raised the first LAW and opened the window.

“Time to go.”

Firing the first rocket, it streaked down into the main entry hall and shattered most of the upper skylight glass as it slammed home on the main reception desk, the explosion blowing out the rest of the windows and killing at least thirteen men in the first blast. Glass fell, metal twisted, and the floor burned. He considered that the man he’d purchased them from might have modified the warheads a bit; far too late to consider such things, the first wave of expected defense rolled out. A line of patrol cars covered the front entry, and he could see now that the black sedan was making a return to retrieve the Chief. At the same moment, the man he’d hired for his special delivery shoved a cinder block onto the gas pedal of his little white cargo truck, which he’d loaded with about 60 pounds of thermite and C4 earlier, and dove from the cab. At the same moment the black sedan came through the circle and parked to retrieve the Chief, the truck slammed home and exploded, ripping the surrounding patrol cars apart and shattering nearly every window on the entire block, the thermite boring down through the sidewalk and street, melting through cop cars and the remnants of the truck, which had spread much of the thermite upon explosion, flinging the flaming mess across a huge radius.

Turning to the trusty old laptop, he engaged the first set of planted charges in the police station, and grinned as the lights went out, the sprinklers activated, the main generator exploded and the main power lines were blown to smithereens. Right on schedule, the second line of defense showed up, two fire trucks, a SWAT van, and a riot tank. Making the job easier was one of the firetrucks that pulled ahead a bit too far, and the thermite melted off the front wheels in a nasty flame and a loud BAM as the tires ceased to be, the front end of the rig falling into the hole as the engine revved on reverse. Using the second LAW on the SWAT Van, it exploded horrendously, the ammo and munitions stored inside exploding alongside the fuel tanks and what gas was in the engine. It touched off the fallen fire truck, which in turn touched off the remaining two police vehicles and the black sedan, all of which blew the last fire truck to pieces and flung the riot tank into the lower floors of the residence next door to the hotel. And the last LAW went to use on the approaching Police helicopter, which exploded in a fiery ball and crumpled to the roof, setting it alight with scattered streams of aviation fuel, igniting the remaining barrels of stored fuel on the helipad, resulting in a tower of smoke and flame. He smiled as the last resort of the police came into play: positioning snipers to pinpoint his location.

Using the Barret’s .50BMG to his advantage, he killed seven would-be snipers as they positioned themselves, the only real competition from a custom rifle shooter among the flames on the roof. Several of the high-velocity.30-06 rounds punched down into the room in response, but all it did was give him an idea of where the poor bastard was firing. With an incredible stroke of luck, he fired once at the position that his sniping enemy had most likely left, and managed to catch the bastard in the chest, the rifle falling to the pavement below and the body flung back into the fire atop the roof. Aiming down, he could see that the Chief was trying to escape by motorcade, four other cops surrounding him and attempting to move through the flaming mess. Firing the large rifle twice, he killed all four of the guards with a pair of 2-in-1 chest shots that tore them open like a stand of rotting gourds at a meat market and sprayed the Chief with their internals. The man squealed visibly and bolted back into the station. Leaving the large sniper rifle behind, he strapped on his various weapons, and hefted the M60, loaded with it’s own 200 round box magazine. Just in time, he heard the sounds of booted feet rushing up into the hotel, coming to his door. Even before they arrived he opened fire through the door and walls, hearing the groans of pain and the yelps of agony, the screams of death and the moans of reluctant advance through the hellish storm of lead. The big M60 kept pumping the rounds out, and he kept the trigger down, mowing through what he could barely see as a mob of the Security Firm goombas.

Right behind them was the Fast Response Team of the local SWAT unit, and they fell just as easily under the hail of .30-caliber fire, several dying quickly as they attempted a gung-ho charge. Taking cover didn’t save the rest, as the heavy machinegun rounds cut through the thin plaster walls like a hot knife through soft butter. All but the last had died once the M60 clicked on empty, and he had the M4 in his arms in an instant, moving in down the hall and spraying the last man standing with several well-aimed bursts before the SWAT member could respond with his own riot gun. He dropped the empty mag out of the M4, and moved down through the ruined hallway, dancing over corpses and trying not to slide in the blood, emerging at street level of the hotel. He could see now that the riot tank hadn’t been flung next door to the hotel, it had smashed through the main floor of the hotel itself, ruining the ambiance the room once had. A few men in gray suits tried to stop him once he emerged street level, but they all died quickly under the precise fire of the M4. In through the ruined main entryway he proceeded, following trails up to the Chief’s office. It was easy enough, with most of the force dead and the rest fleeing, and he found the Chief in the office, looking through the window out onto the sidewalk below.

“Hello, Cheify-boy. Seems you’ve been crooked lately.”

“I knew you were coming.”

“Then you should have known before you took my wife from me. Before you and this Jersey-fucker started this.”

“You can’t stop him. You won’t have her back.”

“Shut the fuck up. Get a pen and paper and write out the exact address, the exact phone number of where he is. Right fucking now. Make one peep and you’ll pay for it.”

He began to write, finished, and set the pen down.

“What makes you think you’ll leave here?”
.
“Leaving isn’t part of the question. Everyone has to die sometime.”

“Give it up McCain. Yeah, I know it’s you, all right. I never said shit because I wanted to give you the chance to walk the fuck away. Do you know how big this shit is!? Hell no! Mindless fuck. If some shithead punk kid wants a favor because he’s related to a Big Brother, we have to fulfill it for him. You got a problem with that? Take it up with the fuck that asked for it!”

“You all still don’t get my point, do you? You’re connected. You’re all his family, his mafia. He took my family from me, and now I’m going to take his. There are no Ifs And or Buts about it. He crossed the fucking line, and now you all have to pay for it. All of you.”

Continued...
 

“You can’t stop him fool. I should just shoot you myself—“ He shot the bastard in the chair as he tried to draw quickly sitting down. Picking up the chair and the Chief’s corpse, he rolled it out of the thick upper window with a smile, and picked up the sheet of paper with the directions to the Jersey-boy’s house, and grabbed the nearest M16 for the next wave, the approaching Ford POS cars in all black, the feds and the ATF fools. They began almost as if it was a negotiation, until he began sniping men with the M16 as they milled about, and finally they got the gist, and returned fire. Pulling out the laptop he’d carried in, he plugged it in, and activated the remaining charges, taking out the backup generators, the heating supply, the hot water heater, and the secondary boiler, which was located under the middle of the street. It exploded with great effect, flinging federal enforcement cars and men through the air and across the street, dozens falling limp, more moving and groaning as they held injuries ranging from broken arms and shattered legs to torn ligaments and floating ribs. He finished each of them off with the M16s stashed about the room, tossing each empty rifle out onto the sidewalk below, each empty M16 landing on the brainpan of the dead Chief and spattering gray matter across the pavement.

As the last empty clattered to the street, he set off the final charge in the main boiler, and grabbed his M4 as he tucked and rolled out of the open windowframe and fell to the ground below, using the former chief’s body as a cushion and bolting across the ruined street as the final explosive detonated. The station crumbled down into the basement below, clouds of dust and rock covering his movements as he gathered what he could and got into the GT, starting it up and speeding off down the empty street, the inferno blazing high into the sky behind him. But now he knew things were at their most serious. The next target was the home of an influential family in the area, the Robinson family. A group of people that invested money in the right places, the right people, a family that was evidently cousin to this ‘Jersey-boy’ that had taken his lover, that invested in the be-damned Security Firm Inc, that caused this to fall apart. He snarled and pushed the gas pedal down harder, each breath burning in his lungs. Pulling out the whole blunt, he lit it alight with the Zippo and hit hard on the dust and weed, the mask still in place, the military duty cap still firmly perched atop his head, the smell of blood and PCP and THC mingling together on the mask as the cherry glowed brighter.

He laughed maniacally as he realized the end was near, that the road was running out, that the boy would meet his maker for taking his Lover. The car was moving insanely fast, the blur was all of the movement now, the time passing by slowly and the world passing by quickly, only the smell of the blood among the others holding him close to reality. Finally he stopped at the house. He could identify it visibly, the address, the numbers, the color of the house, the intersection. The Chief had been quite helpful before he died. Changing his thoughts, he made sure the sword was ready to be drawn, the last two M3 machine pistols tucked in nicely, the smaller Sig-Sauer 9mm in the shoulder holster, the 10mm in the hip holster and the Browning in the webbing, the AK across his back with the sword, and the M4 in his arms, the double barrel sawn-off in the bootleg holster. The rest of the weapons he’d stashed and lost in the battle at the police station, but they mattered not anymore; he was ringed with enough weapons and ammo, with what little he hadn’t stashed still locked in the trunk of the GT. Somehow he knew this wasn’t the final finale, but he was close, and needed a few things as backup weapons, left them there and stepped up onto the porch of the large house, still puffing on the PCP-laced blunt, an eager smile on his face hidden by the cloth mask.

A man answered the door, but he had no idea who it was. Smashing the butt of the M4 into the man’s face, he knew this wasn’t the fool. Dragging the man inside, he held the weapon at the ready, shooting the man that stood at the other end of the kitchen table in the arm as he entered, the small pistol the next man held clattering to the marble floor. Rolling the unconscious bastard into the room, he signaled the older one to hit the floor, spinning around as he heard the squeak of tennis shoes on marble, pointing the M4 at the face of another man, possibly only 18 years old and barely a man, but reaching for a weapon nonetheless. Barking, he ordered all three to group together on the floor and tell him who else was there, recovering the small semi-auto handgun from the floor and reaching into the breadbox where the 18 year old was, pulling out an under-over sawn not so short, just enough to pass rifle length, loaded with rifled slugs. He stuffed the new weapons into the handy webbing and slung the M4, yelling throughout the house as the three men refused to respond.

“Whoever the Hell is in here, get in this fucking room or I execute all of them, one by one! NOW!”

Two women emerged, an older one and a younger, pregnant one, and they both sat at the table rather calmly. Too damned calmly. He drew the aged samurai sword easily, and both women recoiled for a moment.

“How do I find him?!”

“Find who?” The older woman spoke casually. Motioned with her hands weakly. Made no threatening moves, but wasn’t too scared at the sight of the blade.

“The one who took my wife from me. The Jersey-boy. Where the fuck is he?”

“We shall not speak to you.”

This pissed him off to no end.

“You! Old man! Get the fuck up! NOW!” The elder man approached slowly, still holding the wounded arm stiffly and grumbling softly. “Pick up the gun.” He set the small semi-auto the man once held down on the counter next to the breadbox.

The man looked confused but did so with the wounded arm, eager to shoot him. He slashed off the arm from the elbow down with the sword, a flash of steel and the offending limb plopping to the floor, the man screaming as he stumbled back, the pistol clattering free from the fallen forearm. Grabbing the pistol, he placed it back onto the counter, and turned back to the woman.

“Still want to play? You don’t fucking understand lady! Your little boy took my life from me, my whole family. And now I have his family. I’ll use it to get to him, and if you don’t talk, so God help me, I’ll dice your sorry asses up, PIECE BY PIECE, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!” He turned to the old man and yelled again. “Pick up the gun you sorry piece of shit! SHOOT ME!”

The man stumbled to his feet, crying and moaning and snot dribbling from his nose, blood staining his plain clothes and the agony marring his complexion with waves of pain and throbbing nerves, appearing rather lightheaded already. The man forced himself to an upright position, and grabbed the gun from the counter, aiming it at his face. He slashed off the arm all the way up to mid-bicep this time, the old man falling to stumps and knees in front of him.

“There’s a very slight chance you could save him, if you got him to a doctor in time. With the limbs or not. Still won’t talk?”

The woman shook her head no. The pregnant lady began to cry. The men on the floor looked horrified.

He decapitated the old man. As the head flopped to the floor, he puffed the still-long blunt to life, breathing deeply and snorting smoke through the mask, only his eyes visible, connecting with the pregnant woman. He looked at the ring on her finger, looked at the rings on the fingers of the two men on the floor.

“Who is your husband?” The woman cried harder. “WHO IS YOUR HUSBAND?”

The older of the two stood up.

“Get the fuck over here!” The man obeyed reluctantly, looking at the man on the floor with disgust before looking at him head-on. “Kneel.” The man obeyed again, but looked ready to grab the gun. “Unbutton my pants, bitch.” The man raised his hand, and then reached for the pistol. He lopped the hand off at the wrist and turned to the pregnant woman as the husband rolled across the ground. “Someone tell me where to find him.”

No one spoke. He approached the older woman and pulled her arm out, raising the katana. The younger boy spoke up.

“Mother, don’t tell him!”

He hacked off her hand at the wrist. The pregnant woman produced a cell phone and a pager, and told the rest.

“We page him with a code. He pages us back with the number. We call the number and get an answering machine that tells us the number he’s using.”

“THEN FUCKING GET BUSY. Or I’ll start with your hubby’s private parts. And darlin’ this blade don’t get dull.”

The woman began to dial the number. She received a page, wrote the number down, called it, and got the next number. Wrote it down and called it. Left a message to call back. Gave the phone to him. It took five minutes for the call to come back. The phone rang, and upon picking it up, he heard a familiar voice.

“Hello?”

“Hello jersey boy. Your mother has something she’d like to say to you.” He held the phone to her ear and hacked off the rest of her forearm. She screamed into the phone. “DO YOU GET ME, MOTHER FUCKER?! DO YOU UNDERSTAND NOW?! CALL ME BACK WHEN YOU UNDERSTAND!”