Man Hunting 32 - The Enemy

Rebecca did as she was told and went to a small pizza place she liked to frequent. She waited for some time and had a Coca Cola and eyed up the cook. She was starting to get agitated as Tori was increasingly late. Rebecca got suspicious and texted her but got no response. She finally felt something must be wrong and grabbed her things and left.

She walked a few buildings over and from an alley sprang two dark figures. The pulled a bag over her head and she felt a rubber cord wrap around her neck. She screamed and tried to struggle.

“Shut up!” She heard a woman’s voice and felt the cord tighten.

“Who are you?” Rebecca demanded but could barely speak.

A van pulled up and Rebecca’s attackers shoved her inside. She attempted to struggle but felt more people in the van grab her and tie her hands behind her. One of them took her gun and another held her to the floor as the vehicle sped away.

A few minutes later the van came to a stop and Rebecca felt hands carefully sit her up and against the cold wall of the van. She felt there were more people than she expected in the van but did not say anything. She heard the engine turn off and then felt someone pull her mask off.

“Don’t say anything.” A female voice told her.

Rebecca was surprised to see several people in the back of the van with her. She was surprised by the fact they were all women. Even more surprising to her was Lin and Tori seated silently next to her, their hands similarly bound.

“What the fuck?” Rebecca asked involuntarily.

“Shut up!” One of the women hissed.

Rebecca, Tori, and Lin stared at the women as they disembarked the vehicle. There were four of them and they wore tight black outfits and were clearly heavily armed and capable. The searched around the van and gathered up anything that could be used as a weapon and put it in the front seat.

“Very well, let’s go.” One of the women ordered.

“I know you.” Lin’s voice was cold and low as the three worked their way to their feet.

“Yea, you do.” One of the women replied.

“How?” Tori asked.

“She was my would-be customer the other day.”

“I knew it. You’re going to kill women?” Tori demanded.

“Just get out here.” Another woman demanded.

The three were out of the vehicle and standing in the twilight under and expressway overpass.

“Who are you and what do you want?” Tori demanded.

“Until about two hours ago we thought we were your competition. And right now what I want is to be able to cut those ropes off and talk.” A different woman spoke and two of the others flanked Tori with assault rifles pointed at her.

“You must really think we’re dangerous.” Rebecca commented trying to play innocent.

“They know. We don’t hurt women.” Tori admonished.

One of the women cut the three loose and let them massage their wrists and get comfortable.

“Not a very nice way to introduce yourselves.” Lin put her hands on her hips.

“My name is Julia if it matters. Sounds like your girl is going to be fine.”

“Did you have something to do with that?” Tori grew angry.

“Of course not, but now your organization and ours have a common problem.” The lead woman replied.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Tori lied.

“Go get him.” The leader rolled her eyes and spoke to two of her cohorts.

The women went to a rusty old car on the side of the road and pried the trunk open. They pulled a bound man out of the trunk and forced him to his feet. He was blindfolded and naked. He staggered forward disoriented by the blindfold. They brought him close to the group and pulled the blindfold off.

“Mother fucker!” Tori raged.

“What the fuck? Are you crazy kidnapping me?” The man replied with a combination of fear and anger.  

“Who’s this?” Rebecca asked.

“She must be new.” The Julia glared at Rebecca.

“New enough. And this fuck here is Tom, and he’s a detective we keep very very close at hand. And we were actually going to be talking to him next. But someone beat us to him.” Tori’s voice was low and sinister.

“I don’t know what the fuck you stupid cunts are talking about.” Tom protested and was hit in the stomach with the butt of a rifle and dropped to the ground gasping.

“Does he have something to do with Amy?” Lin asked.

“Do you Tom?” Julia asked him and he simply glared back.

“The whole thing was a set up. That dumb fuck we were torturing was a plant. And this piece of shit was the one who gave us the tip.” Tori stepped close to him and he looked toward the ground.

“So he set us up. And he was trying to get Amy killed.” Tori kicked him in the groin and he screamed and fell to the side.

“We need to get that other guy right away then!” Lin turned toward Julia.

“Already caught, cell phone full of text messages with a group. Whole plan nice and laid out.”

“I had nothing to do with Amy. I had no idea that was what they were going to do.” Tom begged.

“We have his phone?” Tori asked.

“Yep, just need his fingerprint to unlock it. Already know what we will find.” Julia replied.

“So Tom?” Tori stood over him kicked him in the ribs.

“Fuck! Please, I didn’t know.”

“They had the whole plan ready to go. Even he doesn’t know why, do you?”

“What? No, of course not.” Tom tried to get to his feet.

“Two guys approached you right? Asked you for a uniform and offered you what?”

“Freedom! From you fucking bitches!” Tom shouted and spat on Julia.

Julia hit him in the face hard and he staggered backward. Rebecca had grown used to the drug addicted men reacting oddly to stress but still was surprised to see him start to get an erection.

“What are we going to do with him?” Tori asked Julia.

“I know what I want to do.” Julia handed Tori a large knife.

“Shouldn’t we get the rest of the story?” She looked at Tom who was quivering with fear despite his defiance.

“We know more than he does now. He’s just a middle man.”

“Good, we’ll talk in a minute.”

“No! No!” Tom begged as Tori stalked up to him with the knife held in a combat grip.

Tom turned and ran as fast as he could. Tori looked at one of the other armed women and she levelled her rifle and fired a single shot. It hit Tom behind his left knee and he screamed out in pain as he fell to the ground.

The man made futile efforts to slink away but his bound hands made impossible to escape with his crippled leg. He gasped with exertion and pain as Tori calmly approached. She straddled him from behind and pinned him to the ground. She cut the roped on his hands and he immediately attempted to push himself up but he was too injured to resist her ability to control him.

“Just fucking do it you fucking…”

She raised the knife high over her head and held it with both hands. She brought it down and plunged it through his spine and the back of his neck. He never had a chance to say his last impotent words of defiance. Tori held the knife in him to make sure he was finished and then pulled it out and returned to the others.

“Thanks.” She handed the knife to Julia.

“So, we all have a big problem.” Julia poured water from a bottle on the blade and cleaned it.

“Getting hunted by the police?” Lin asked.

“Nah, they’ll take forever to put this one together.”

“Well, we just killed another cop a few hours ago. So, they might take it seriously.” Tori shrugged.

“Not to worry. Go get his phone.” Julia ordered one of her women.

“If you say so, what the fuck is this about?”

“We work for your competitors. At least we did. Some of our girls set you up real nice. The Russians want you all dead, and they’re not doing real well in the fight either so they want a win bad.”

“What do you mean not doing well?” Rebecca asked.

“She means they’re losing a lot of guys and not getting any of us. Right?” Tori answered.

“Mostly yea, things aren’t completely going your way and the shit storm is getting bigger. But anyway, our bosses realized your product was much better than ours so they wanted us to start taking your guys out. We just couldn’t figure out how you were doing it. We finally narrowed it down to something in the testicles, so we took a few samples. And we tested something that has proven nice and fatal to men.”

“So how does this affect us? You won right?” Tori’s tone was dark but calm.

“Yea, maybe. Except now the men are organizing and fighting back. And not just the Russians. All of them. And the people bankrolling this don’t like it.”

“I thought you said this was like a government or military thing?” Rebecca interrupted.

“It is, and now this war we started gave them all cold feet. They basically have what they want, so they’re going to try and get rid of us too. To prevent anything coming to light.” Julia was very agitated.

“So everyone is trying to get rid of us now? We’re fucked.” Tori scowled.

“Maybe, but I have an idea.” Julia leaned back against the van and eyed the others up.

“A way out?” Lin asked.

“No, a war. On them.”

“The men? You want a war on men?” Tori scoffed.

“Isn’t that what we all want? But I mean a body count. We are capable, resourceful, and most importantly nobody really knows who we are.”

“And what will that get us?”

“Hopefully a truce.”

“How do you expect us to do this?” Lin asked.

“We need to get out of the states. At least for now. Head to Asia, shut down the Russians…”

“Oh fuck you! This is such a set up! You want our help killing your competitors.” Rebecca jumped in.

“We could kill you now and pin everything on you. That won’t save us. We need to dig in and make them realize they can’t win.” Julia was exasperated.

“What do you want us to do?” Tori had regrouped her emotions.

“We have resources still. Body count. Show us you can do what we need. That you can take on a lot of guys and take them out without getting caught or killed. It’s going to get ugly, expect some highly trained men coming for you.”

“So start taking out the men we have worked so hard to snare? This sounds like a one sided deal.” Tori rebutted.

“I will give you a full listing of all of our clients. Every man should be considered suspect. I’d start taking out targets of opportunity. They’ll organize against you and then you can destroy them in groups.”

“You think they’ll just let that happen?” Lin was shaking her head.

“They’re men honey. They’re primitive, impulsive, and arrogant and they are easily led to their doom by pretty women. You know how to do it.” Julia smiled.

“Fine, we can work this out later. You’ll give us what we need when we need it?”

“Your bosses are being approached too, they know it’s the only way out. We saw this coming. Talk to them. One kill a week minimum each. And one each for your pleasure girls too, not just you enforcers.”

“Wait, those girls don’t have the ability to do that even if they wanted to. They’ll screw up and get us all in trouble.” Tori was angry again.

“I know. They only need to do it once, but we need them to prove their loyalty. That’s how we work. Help them out. And remember the guys will go after them too.”

“Fine, but that’s fucked up.” Tori was visibly furious.

“Every man is suspect. Expect ambushes. How you do it is up to you. I know I’d rather be killing Russian cartel members in a country that doesn’t like them anyway then be arrested for multiple homicides in the States. So do what you’re told and we will take care of the rest.”

“And we just trust you?” Rebecca was pacing.

“You’re still alive aren’t you? And you of all people. We wanted to recruit you right away, I would think this would be a dream come true for you.” Julia smiled at her.

“Oh, I’ll do it. I just want to get as many as possible before they get me.” Rebecca growled.

“Enough, tell me when and where you want to meet to get our comms and resources linked up.” Tori interrupted.

“I’ll find you tomorrow. And don’t stress about this guy. He set up the whole fucking thing including cleaning up the scene where your friend got hurt. This will look like a gang hit by the time we are done.” Julia and the other two started to enter the van.

“Umm, we took out another cop earlier. That’s probably not going to work.” Rebecca told her.

“Yea, we know. Clean work. They’ll be off the scent for a long time. I just wouldn’t pull any shit local for right now. Want a ride? It’s a long walk.” Julia motioned to the rear of the van and the women all piled in.