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The Ruka subcontracted the kidnapping to a group of ex-CIA agents who’d honed their skills as part of the “extra-ordinary rendition” campaign during Bush’s poorly-conceived “war on terror”. They’d snatched a lot of innocent people then, but that had been a problem with the management, not the front-line staff. These guys were quite professional. Moreover, they were---from the Ruka’s point of view---totally expendable.
The snatch team had been on standby for a couple days before the Ruka called them in. They drove to the naturalized park where Bookchin was taking a long walk.
Mikhi wasn’t a very fast walker, but he did like to ramble around and be in nature once in a while. He had some cheap binoculars and he liked to look at birds and other wildlife. He didn’t have a car, which meant that he couldn’t get very far away from home. But luckily he only lived a mile or so from a river with extensive “naturalized” parks on both sides. A surprising amount of wildlife lived there. He’d seen osprey, mink, deer, beavers, muskrats, lots of different types of song birds, and, waterfowl. Once he’d even seen a bobcat! He’d found that viewing wildlife was more a case of being observant and where to look than how far someone got from civilization.
The “snatch team” split up into four groups of two each. One got ahead of Bookchin on the trail with another behind. One stayed at the removal van. They kept an eye on the traffic in the parking area and were ready to receive the target and one of the teams for removal. The last was in the same parking lot. The leader and a driver were there to monitor the communications, give direction, step in to help if necessary, and, give a ride to the other team now stalking Bookchin. Everyone was wearing two-way communications gear, but they were under strict orders to not use it unless necessary. The park wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t tremendously busy either. It was heavily wooded, so it would be possible to isolate the target for the snatch. They had decided to quickly grab their target when he was no longer visible to anyone else---even if for a moment---and drag him off trail where he could be quickly sedated and carried out to the van. They had an agreed cover story that their “friend” was diabetic, going into a coma, and, they were taking him to the hospital for treatment.
Mikhi stopped on the trail waiting to see if some birds would show up on old hulk of a tree down by the river. Last time he’d been out he saw a red-headed wood pecker on it. Then he saw a younger couple walk up from around the bend behind him with two off-leash dogs ranging in the woods on either side. The woman was very tall, slim, with fiery red hair. She was slightly past middle age and very handsome. The man next to her was shorter, about the same age, had short iron-grey hair, and something of a pot gut. The two dogs appeared to be a black German shepherd and a Rottweiler. Bookchin wasn’t too impressed. The damn “dog people” annoyed him---the dogs scare off the wildlife and the odd one had socialization problems that make them aggressive. At least these dogs looked well-trained.
The couple and their dogs passed him and went around a corner, leaving him to his thoughts. At that point a couple men appeared from behind him. They seemed to be looking directly at him as he approached---almost as if they wanted to say something. At that point the two dogs burst out of the undergrowth and threw themselves at the men. They both had a brief look of terror, then reached into their pockets for some reason but---too late. The dogs had their arms in their jaws and shook the men the same way a cat does a rat.
At that point the couple came back down the trail and called out: “Carbon come!” “Nic come!” At that point the dogs let go and ran to their owners. The two men quickly gave up any thought of reaching for weapons and warned their back-up about the situation. He advised an abort and told the other group on the trail to go to the scene and offer help in order to see what was going on. The woman and man quieted their dogs and walked slowly towards Mikhi and the two other men.
A minute later two men came around another bend further up the trail, saw the bleeding men, the couple, and, Mikhi. One of them played the part of being a “good Samaritan”. “What’s going on? Are you guys OK?”
“Do we look OK? These dogs attacked us totally without warning or reason. We’re bleeding! Would you help us get to the hospital? We’re going to need stitches and we’re in no state to drive.”
Bookchin then piped up. “I’ve got a cell phone. I can call 911.”
“Oh no, there’s no need for that. But if you could give us a ride, it’d be appreciated.”
Mikhi responded. “Sorry, I don’t own a car or even have a driver’s license. I can’t help.”
The couple with the dogs had ordered the animals to sit down and wait. They then walked up close to the two new people and said: “We’re so sorry. We don’t know what got into them. Is there anything we can do?” Mikhi noticed that both of them put their hands into the pockets of their jackets.
At that point the team leader in the second van made an executive decision. “This is going sideways fast and I’m not entirely sure that this is a coincidence. It’s time for you to kill the dogs, witnesses, snatch Bookchin, and, get out of here before the police arrive. I’m authorizing maximum force.”
At that point the radio connection between the four teams dissolved into static. But enough had been said for the four mercenaries to start to pull out their concealed weapons. The man and woman each instantly uttered a brief command: “Nic kill.” “Carbon kill.” Mikhi was horrified to see how quickly the first two men were knocked onto the ground and had their throats crushed by the two large dogs. They were like lightning!
Without even looking at the dogs, the man and woman instantly stepped forward even closer to the men that they were talking to and pulled their hands out of their pockets. They both had something like a switchblade knife in their hands! With a fluid motion that showed absolutely no wasted energy, the blades flicked out of two handles at the same time and then went directly into the two men’s necks just below the jawline. They both gushed out bright red blood onto the fronts of the man and woman. Then they fell down like wet sacks of concrete.
The man and woman grabbed the men under their armpits and dragged them off the trail to the side and scooped leaves over their bodies. After this was done with the first two, the grey-haired man turned to Mikhi while the red-haired woman started on the second pair. He told Bookchin. “I think you’d better walk down the trail that way a bit and wait at the park bench. Nic and Carbon will go with you for protection in case any more of these twerps show up. A friend of yours will come to pick you up and take you home. We have to do some tidying up here and it’s best that you remain within reach instead of wandering off in a state of shock.”
At that point the woman had finished with one of the bodies. They both they stood up tall, pointed at Bookchin and spoke to the dogs: “Nic protect!”, “Carbon protect!” The dogs got up, walked over to Mikhi and waited for him to start off down the trail. At this point the grey-haired man started moving the last corpse and the red-haired woman took off her jacket---it was reversible---and put it on inside out, hiding the blood spatter. She took some wet wipes out and cleaned off her face and hands.
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Mikhi was at the bench for about 20 minutes. The dogs waited at his feet all this time, quiet but extremely vigilant. When Ian showed up they instantly got to their feet and padded down the trail back to where Mikhi had left the couple. Ian led Bookchin to his car, at which point they drove over to a fast food restaurant for some coffee and something to eat. Mikhi found a big cheese burger and a small coffee in front of him. Ian said “Eat this. With a full stomach your blood won’t all stay in your head. That will help you calm down. I’d have gotten you a tea instead of coffee, but all they have here is that iced nonsense---yuck.”
Bookchin was surprised and appalled that he wasn’t even in shock. He was just hyper-aware of his surroundings. He mentioned this to Ian who said “Yeah. I get that. It’s the adrenaline rush. You’ll probably have a hard time getting to sleep tonight. I’d recommend getting baked on cannabis and watching a comedy on Netflix.”
He went on “I’ll tell you what happened and why. Those four guys were trying to kidnap and torture you to find out who the Elders are.”
“Were they members of the Ruka?”
“No, the Ruka rarely gets their hands dirty directly. Instead, they hire subcontractors. We apologize for getting caught flat-footed like that. We generally try to avoid violence, but sometimes it happens. Ong Kata is getting very desperate to find out who we are, and he’s paying the Ruka to do risky stuff.”
“The experts decided that we’d protect you by making a very scary display of force. By now the bodies have disappeared and the site has been totally cleaned up. We jammed the communications of the group just before things got violent, so all the surviving members of the snatch team know is that four of their people went to grab you, had a problem with some dogs, and, then disappeared without a trace.”
“Intelligence agencies generally have a very low tolerance for ambiguity. Ultimately they’re bullies who try to make sure that nothing at all is left to chance. That’s how people survive in the world of spooks. As contractors, the Ruka probably didn’t tell them anything about the Old Ones and just said that you are an individual that they wanted snatched and delivered at a specific place at a specific time. The Ruka would either interrogate you themselves or hire another contractor to do it for them. That way they limit the chances of things coming back on them.”
“We’ve just created a major embarrassment for the Ruka because it now looks like they didn’t warn their contractors about what they were really asking them to do. This will make it harder for them to get hired help---which will both increase their operating expenses and discourage the ‘best’ people from working for them. This fits into our long-term strategic counter-move against Kata.”
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