*You kill the Wolf by trapping what it needs*
(College, Humor, Mature Male, Young Woman, Warrior)
(Thanks Jons for editing and Talonwolf for the idea)
(This short story is grimmer than usual and will blend into the mainstream story after Chapter 32)
(This is one of a series of short stories in the CCSC Universe told from a non-Zane perspective. I welcome suggestions. There is no actual sex in this one, sorry)
*
(Bryan)
When people think of security contractors they see big firms like Blackwater or Sampson International -- legions of burly armed men blowing away terrorist all in the name of saving Uncle Sam a few bucks. I wasn't the biggest bad ass with the highest body count, or part of one of those "special" teams -- those guys who committing murder in places where the local government is scared to death of the people who employ them.
Nope, I quickly fell into my calling -- protective security. What that translates over as is I took a small group of dedicated individuals into places were you daddy, your uncle and your crazy cousin Weasel-Head go out and kidnap people because the want a new X-box or a saddle blanket for their llama.
I am not kidding you; yes there are large, professionally organized gangs whose sole purpose was to make companies and rich families' cash in the kidnapping insurance policies. The thing is, you put five armed professionals on someone and these jackals skulk off for leaner pastures. It is simply good business.
Likewise the world has more than its share of vicious psychopaths too -- that translates over as drug cartels and mercenaries. If you send mercs after somebody, expect some serious collateral damage. If the some drug trafficker sends in the goons, expect serious collateral damage. Why would ever expect them to be different from one another?
That is why you hire personal security; not to shoot the bad guys but to make the dangerous, smart bad guys not attack in the first place. After those scumbags depart the field, you have to deal with the amateurs. The capacity for anyone to pick up a dozen AK's and an RPG or two is frightening.
People want to sue Smith and Wesson. Screw that and make a difference; sue the military apparatuses of the PRC, USA and Russia. I have had people shoot at me with S&W's and Remington's but I've lost count of the 7.62mm's and 5.56mm's that have zipped past my head. Yahoos' (amateurs) biggest problem is that they are cowardly idiots.
Seriously, if you had a work ethic, you wouldn't be shooting at someone you didn't know and who didn't want to know you. You would also have more than a plan than 'they drive by and we shoot'. I can count the number of guys who would stand out in the open, trying to clear a gun jam -- seven as I recall. It felt like murder every time. I'd also not hesitate to do it seventy more times because I was right and they were evil, backstabbing thieves.
Fuck their poverty; they were trying to take the lives of me and the only family that ever mattered to me. I did it because me and my people; we had a work ethic. Mercenaries swill -- protective security drinks bottled water. We never stop learning, training and working but we are never glamorous. In fact screaming 'shoot me and get your paycheck' is plain stupid.
Now, I was trained by some pretty hardcore fuckers but they were neighbor flamboyant or from the warrior-elite. My Close Combat guy was this ugly ass ex-IDF (Israeli Defense Force). He loved me so much he let me call him a Jew bastard. I liked him so much I learned Hebrew then Arabic. They day I walked and called him a 'Jew-bastard' in Arabic he threw me through the window. Had we not been on the third floor it wouldn't have hurt too badly.
It turned out he'd been captured and tortured by the PLO (Palestinian terrorists from long ago folks). They couldn't break him so they covered him in gasoline and set him on fire then danced around, calling him a Jew bastard in Arabic as he screamed. He apologized to me a few hours later and I gratefully accepted. Since I was still lying on a hospital bed, it seemed like the prudent course of action. He told me to hurry up and get better because I looked like a ghost. He used Yiddish though so it came out as Wraith. It is the little things that you end up treasuring the most.
I hated the fact that I was on a contract when he died and that I missed his funeral. Me, and some of the guys, made it up to him. A few years later we took his granddaughter, her husband and their daughter to the Wailing Wall...just in case. I had told the Israeli Consulate what we were doing. I'm not sure what my instructor had done but we didn't get hassled by Israeli security once.
Was Jacob the Israeli someone special? Nope. As far as we knew he wasn't even an ex-paratrooper, but he had this silent resolved that he imparted. There had been a time or two when I was shot or stabbed and the very thought of the pinprick I was experiencing versus being set on fire kept me going. Blackwater doesn't teach that.
I was trained in the police-work side of thing -- do yourself a favor and at least touch base with the local law enforcement -- by a one-armed retired Federal Marshal; hardly super-cop. Don't give them your itinerary but let them know you are in town. Our marksmanship was learned at a shooting range; I think the guy was an off-duty Sheriff's Deputy -- no one special.
They were all like me -- my team. Damn, I trained two of the five guys I worked with. Not everyone had the luxury of being 'trained-up' like me, but my instructors had giving me the foundation and in a few years I had the best team anywhere on the globe. I thought that is why Sampson International chose us. I was wrong; they chose us because they thought they could kill us.
I lost two of my boys out of the gate and I lost my third when they were supposed to get us out.
We kept our guy alive until my last man; he was shot through his vest, back to front, killing our principle as well. It was one hell of a sniper who took that shot. When I find her I'll tell her that...as I am crucifying her with her own bullets.
Her team damn near killed me too. Apparently they thought I was dead like the rest of my team. I went after the architect of my demise; not the guy on the file's head. I knew this went all to the top, so that's who I killed. Had he used actual protective services he would be alive today, but he must have thought it was macho-cool to have his security detail made up of a 'special team'.
It was fucking amateur hour. Come on now; getting from the building to the street-side vehicle is prime assassination territory. Had I not been so furious I would have been insulted. As it was I killed the bastard, reducing his head to a bloody pulp and I'm hardly master assassin material. I was a bit surprised to get out alive. In fact, I hadn't planned on it.
What saved me was that rule about protective details and local law enforcement. In a major US metropolitan area, when the police see a well-dressed middle-aged white guy being chased down a semi-crowded street by two plain-clothed guys (one white/one black) wielding MP-5's, who do you think the cops engage?
I dumped my car in Trenton NJ then caught a bus to Charleston WV, pawned my few remaining valuables for camping gear and made my way down the Appalachian Trail. I was careful and varied my path and struggled to figure out what the hell had gone wrong in my life. Now that all my family was dead (my ex-wife doesn't count) and I had achieved my revenge...what was I going to do next?
(Genesis Oppenheimer)
Then one day I saw two girls in camo sneaking through the woods playing sniper. They were hardly professional but they didn't suck either. A little hanging around taught me the times they came out so I could watch them...then I found myself taking private notes on how I would train them...fix their quirks and polish their skills. One day, the spotter turned around and looked right at me. I had let myself get stupidly close. For 20 seconds she stared then she rolled back and finished her role as spotter and then the pair left. She also left one and a half candy bars behind.
The following session she carefully looked for me but didn't find me. Still, she left five energy bars wrapped in rubber bands. The following lesson, I studied that pairs' pattern, figured out where they were going and where they would set up then put a rock with a note on it covered with leaves in the spot I determined she'd lie down.
She did settle there, felt the rock rubbing her thigh but she didn't move it in order to maintain her position. When they were ready to move, she looked around, appearing amused to NOT see me. She pocketed the rock without reading the note then said, "Dabney, let's find another spot. I think we are getting predictable."
She had this little smile they shared as she moved away. I have done a good deed, I thought. He almost missed the glint as he moved off. She had left an inverted candy wrapper and, for all their faults, this group never left trash. The girl had even sneaked her planting the note passed him, she'd been so quick. Going over to get it was wrong too. I waited forty-five minutes.
If nothing had happened, I would have left. Everything happened. Squirrels scampered, birds called out and bugs crawled, making small crunching noises underneath the forest floor. This told him that the girls had gone and if there was a professional sniper team out there, they were the best FBI team I'd ever encountered. If they were mercenaries...I'd skin them alive on general principle. I'd seen too much of their handwork out on the job to feel any other way.
My essence screamed at me - that Core that saw the world in percentages and angles of attack and evasion - but I found myself doing a belly crawl over and get the wrapper. I didn't stop my cautious withdrawal until I was 100 meters away and put several large boulders at my back.
Tn_TbSt_8p
It was a horribly juvenile code. I almost laughed, imagining her going over option after option to creating something others couldn't decipher: Tonight Table-Stones 8pm. At least it didn't ask to meet me at the local McDonald's at noon. I gave the ghost of a laugh and set my feet on the trail leading far, far away from here.
How the hell I ended up hovering behind her prone hiding spot that looked down on the Table Stones at 7:50, I couldn't rationalize.
"Coming here alone," I whispered into her ear. The girl nearly jumped out of her skin. "Coming here alone and taking up the second most obvious vantage point exhibits far less smarts than you usually show. What do I call you?"
"Genesis Oppenheimer," she whispered back. She still hadn't turned around. "What do you call you?" That was a question I should have already had a lie prepared for, but I didn't.
"Bryan...Raithe," I said; "Genesis; as in the band?"
"No silly - Genesis as in the first book of the Bible. My parents wanted lots of kids. I've never heard of a band named Genesis but I bet they rock out for Christ, don't they?"
'First things first; what kinds of parents name their kids after a book in the Bible. For that matter, how many books are there in the Bible? How ambitious where her parents? The only Oppenheimer I know built the first atomic bombs. And what's up with the rock out for Christ? What does that even mean?' then 'Oh God, I must be twice this girl's age. What am I even doing here?'
My eyes wondered down the woman once more, but this time as a male of the species, not just a professional guardian, trained to spot and classify threats while keeping my charge under constant surveillance because you would be surprised some of the stupid ship people do when you are trying to save their lives.
