Chapter One
Ruthlessness
Personified/Supply Meets Demand
TIME: 1946 HOURS
DATE: 13 MAY 1988
LOCATION: Undisclosed
"This guy is pathetic, Earl. I mean...were the pickings that slim?" the man grumbled, his eyes transfixed on a
nearby monitor.
His oily, slicked black hair was ruffled in the back, a tiny coif curled
into a perfect semi-hook. His tie hung loose from his unbuttoned collar as he
reached to wipe the building perspiration from his forehead. He paused briefly before
turning to the older man standing only a few feet away, waiting impatiently for
a response to his rather curt query.
The older man was concentrating on a separate monitor that displayed a
similar scene as the other, but from a slightly altered angle. He nonchalantly
brushed a tiny spec of lint off his right shirt sleeve and adjusted his glasses
before bothering to reply. His thick, wavy hair was grayed at the temples; his meticulously
groomed mustache pitch-black by comparison, giving it the look of a fuzzy black
caterpillar lying beneath his rather prominent nose. "Calm yourself, Aaron. My god,
you're the highest-strung young man I have ever met. Nothing to go catatonic over, my boy. The clock at
the bottom of the screen is reading a bit over twelve minutes, is it not?"
The younger man glanced back over his shoulder at the monitor he'd been screening, his face frozen in a sour scowl.
"Twelve minutes, forty-three seconds, but damn it, Earl."
Leaning back in the comfort of the padded leather chair he had sunken into,
the older man waived him off with a hand displaying a bulky, pear shaped diamond
ring on the index finger and a wrist sporting a Gold Rolex watch "Three more
minutes of footage is all we need, Aaron. We can pad the rest of the tape with additional
footage from past skirmishes. You know, kind of a 'greatest kills 'snippet. Sit,
Aaron. Drink some bottled water and by all means lay
off of the caffeine for a bit."
Grunting his displeasure, Aaron Kyle sidestepped over to the chair
fronting his monitor and plopped down with a huff. He was going to have someone's
ass from the hiring department later that afternoon, no doubt,
and it wouldn't be the first time.
This was the third straight 'dud' they had thrown to the wolf in the past
five matches. They were either going to have to find more suitable combatants, or
begin to consider placing some sort of handicap on Dr. Ruthless out there.
Aaron tired of shifting through old footage to pad the product, and knew eventually
the audience would feel the same about purchasing inferior entertainment. They were
a fickle bunch, as most of their ilk were, and would quickly grow bored and
find new, increasingly perverted ways to spend their seemingly endless supply
of capitol.
Aaron sipped his warming bottled water and observed the man on the
screen crouch and walk behind a row of lined metal barrels. As the man's head
slowly scanned a darkened alley to his immediate left, Aaron could see the fear
in the subject's spastic, darting eyes. Jesus, soon as Parks finds
this guy, he's buttered toast. Hell, I believe I'd have a better chance of walking away intact than this clown.
The subject remained crouched between what had been two one-floor barracks
buildings from back in the days when the base was fully manned. The two-foot long
machete he held in his left hand shook visibly and Aaron couldn't
help but smirk after shooting the older man a dismayed glare.
"The son of a bitch is going to piss his combat
fatigues, Earl. Wasn't this guy a Green Beret in another life?"
Earl Barron didn't respond for a full thirty
seconds, an annoying trait that frustrated Aaron to no end. He realized and
accepted the entire project as being the old man's offspring right from the
beginning, and that the twenty million that had been spent to renovate the
ramshackle base had come from Barren's deep pockets--but being subjected to playing
second banana to anyone was something he could
not, and would not, ever grow accustomed to.
"One more minute, Aaron. And yes, he did possess all the necessary credentials.
Military training...no family to speak of. He simply desired the magical
payday. Wanted to become the next in line to the throne, as so many of them do."
Scratching a light growth of stubble on his otherwise flawless, smooth face,
Aaron Kyle scoffed. "Next in line for a body bag's more like it. Parks is gonna
hand him his liver on a plate."
Earl Barron nodded in silent agreement, his mind already locked on the matter
of business at hand, such as number of VHS tapes (the majority) to produce as
opposed to Beta (a definite minority), and exactly how much to charge for each since
production values had been on the increase of late.
***
His bladder threatening to release its content s with each frantic
movement, Bobby Kane wished with every fiber of his existence that he hadn't taken the double-hit of speed an hour earlier. In
Grenada, Puerto Rico, and countless other stressful, wartime scenarios, he'd found the practice of popping a beanie or two actually settled
his mind and honed his senses.
This time, however, with a cool million dollars on the line, as well as
opportunities for larger paychecks in the near future,
it was having the reverse effect. Every wind-blown leaf or piece of loose gravel
that fell underneath his steel-toed boots caused him to leap back like a spooked
grade-schooler. That, coupled with the primal fear he felt for his opposition,
a man he had been told was responsible for over sixty deaths via hand-to-hand
combat, was causing his hands and legs to tremor uncontrollably.
It was a feeling he wasn't used to, nor a
damned bit comfortable with, especially
under the present circumstances.
Kane wasn't a physically imposing man by any means.
At first glance, one might even label him a bit scrawny in appearance. He was
six-two but only carried one-hundred seventy-five pounds on a tightly muscled,
immaculately toned body.
His face was gaunt; his complexion as pasty as dried dap. He wore bushy eyebrows,
thick-framed glasses and a constant expression of grim
weariness. Many times he had used these less-than-intimidating features against
his opponent with undeniable success.
Troubled by violent outbursts as a child and juvenile, he had been trained
as a weapons expert by the Army , and took to it like he'd
been born and bred to the expertise that had come so naturally.
Sliding his way forward between two of the empty steel barrels, he
cursed himself for wasting the limited ammo he'd been allowed.
Three lousy shots from a .38 hadn't exactly been his
count or weapon of choice, but then again, he
hadn't been given one . He'd told himself before the
dance had ever started not to waste them, since he would only have the blade and
billy club left in a woefully limited arsenal.
Regardless of his own self-warnings, he had fired all three rounds at
his large but shockingly swift quarry just moments after the klaxon horn had sounded
to initiate the skirmish . The first two rounds had ricocheted harmlessly off of the paved roadway just inches from his target's
scrambling boots, the third whistling off the side of a stone building just as
his opponent had leapt and then rolled behind its eastern-most wall.
Kane cursed silently under his breath while scanning the rooftops of the
buildings he'd slithered between. He felt his neck
muscles begin to cramp from both the twisting movement and
also the unbearable stress sweeping over him like a viral infection.
Big SOB has got to be strong as an ox.
Biceps the size of an anaconda's midsection. Fists like twin goddamned
wrecking balls. (inhales deeply) I've got to keep my cool
when he comes out of hiding. Use the blade like I've been
trained to do. Can't let him get those meat-hooks on
me. That's the main thing.
Less than two dozen feet away, a thick shadow paused, its barrel-shaped chest
as still as the surrounding structure it occupied. Eyes that burned with a night
vision not in-bred but trained as such remained glued to its prey's ever-shifting
line of sight. A thick-handled yet sleekly designed machete lay propped against
its left leg, held ever-so gently and without a touch of anxiety.
Although his prey was relatively small in stature, at least frame wise,
the man knew through experience not to take anything for granted. He recalled a
bar fight in Manila with an individual a foot shorter and at least sixty pounds
lighter than himself. A broken rib, separated shoulder and full-blown
concussion later, a hard, painful lesson in underestimation had been duly noted for future reference.
It would have been no problem to simply step out and spear his opponent with
a quick toss aimed at the midsection or upper chest, especially from the
relatively short distance between them. He had once split a man's skull from thirty
yards with a similar toss and weapon, the velocity of the toss thrown with such
force that the victim barely had time to blink before his head had exploded in
bone-splintered fragments.
Such routine action wasn't to be allowed, however.
The suits desired hand-to-hand combat if at all possible.
Long distance disposals were frowned upon by their buyers, who supposedly paid
a king 's ransom for each new episode. The filthy rich were nothing if not bored
to tears by anything other than extreme excesses. He'd
heard that each cassette went for as much as two grand a copy, and that they were
producing up to one hundred thousand per episode, not counting
the overseas markets.
Small wonder the suits could afford his extravagant services, bowing to
each new request, no matter how ridiculous, as if doing nothing more than
tipping a loyal servant.
Peeking around the side of the concrete wall, a metal light pole positioned
at the front of the building that shielded his presence even further, he
watched the smaller man shuffle forward to the last of the barrels he'd been using as cover.
The man's head whirled about constantly, scanning all sides like a
lighthouse beam into stormy waters, grasping the club in his right hand and the
combat knife in his left. Both weapons shook visibly, and were awkwardly
positioned, as if he was a complete novice in how to use either.
The smallest of smiles cracked the larger man's grim visage. He was
equally elated and sickened by the lack of quality competition in recent matches.
Still, better them than him, regardless of the ease in which the deed was done.
Waiting for the man to break for an opening between the barracks
buildings and a stretch of grassy flatlands which led to a vacant hanger across
the way, Mason Parks lingered without a hint of apprehension.
The breezeless, dead air was unable to provide the slightest hint as to
his quarry's whereabouts. Bobby Kane prepped his unsteady gait for a mad sprint
towards the open hanger a few hundred feet ahead. He'd
come to such a tactical decision due to two distinct points; he felt like a
sitting duck with a target pasted between his shoulder blades out in the open, and there was a damn good chance that if his opponent wasn't
already using the building as a hiding place, he could utilize its spacious
darkness to rethink a suitable plan of attack.
Besides, at the moment he found himself scared shitless,
and understood that such men could literally smell fear in an opponent.
Sucking in a lungful of the humid night air, he shoved himself forward
in a sprawling lurch, leaving clouds of dust and flying clods of dirt swirling like
swamp mist in his path.
Kane hadn't run thirty feet when his left ear detected
a series of heavy thumping noises. By the time he attempted a duck and roll an
instant later, leaving him in a classic crouched fighting stance, he found
himself staring at a field of matted grass patted down by his own boot prints. The
only sounds present were that of his own harsh breathing, his pulse pounding frantically.
"W-what the? I know I heard somet-- " he whispered through gritted
teeth, the knife and club held up on each side of his sweat-soaked face as if
he were attempting to assist a plane in landing on an invisible runway. He rose
to his feet, blowing out a lengthy sigh of relief before casually swinging
about towards the hanger.
The machete blade entered his throat just below the Adams apple, penetrating
with such force that the wooden handle ended where the perfectly horizontal
wound began.
Parks had pursued him with the quickness of an Olympic sprinter,
carefully tracing the other man's steps through the dust and adjoining grass
that led to the hanger . He'd been less than two feet away when Kane had performed
the pitifully predictable roll. Parks had leaped completely over the man's spinning
frame, landing on his feet after a single bounce atop the shag-carpet thick
grass surface.
He had positioned the machete for the strike a mere millisecond before
the other man had turned. Despite the complete incursion of the blade through the
man's throat, Parks had actually held back to some extent
on the torque of his jab in case the man somehow found a way to slip the blow,
thereby leaving himself off-balance and open for a counter-attack.
The tip of Kane's boots hardly scraped the ground as he hung semi-airborne
from the inserted weapon like a prize fish being displayed from an open pier. His
body shook in a series of death spasms, simultaneously defecating and urinating
into his camouflaged pants.
Sneering in disgust, Parks jerked the weapon free in a single
lightning-quick movement, allowing the body to fall backward as a gush of
crimson flew forward in a wide spray.
Leaning down after all movements had apparently ceased, Parks gripped
the man roughly by the hair and lifted his upper body forward until it appeared
the man was attempting an impromptu yoga movement, his legs splayed out to form
a perfect 'V' shape.
Raising the machete shoulder length high with his free hand, Parks
paused for dramatic effect before lashing the blade across the man's exposed,
bloodied neck.
He held the detached head into the air for a few moments, his bare arm
firmly flexed and as thick as an average man's thigh.
Walking back towards the East Side of the base camp, Parks permitted the
grotesque trophy to swing freely at his side.
Certain the hidden cameras had obtained ample useable footage, he let Kane's
detached skull drop into the grass like a discarded melon shell. "Shit's
getting too easy," he mumbled in a deep, humorless tone that sounded as if
croaked through a voice box hindered by waves of static.
***
Switching off the monitor, Aaron Kyle strolled stiffly over to where
Earl Barron sat deep in thought, and was barely able to refrain from giggling
in sarcastic glee. "Not exactly Oscar material in the 'warrior snuff-film'
category, boss, and I thought the previous bout was
crap. But by comparison to this travesty, it was the Gone with the Wind of the series. Only some seriously fantastic
padding scenes are going to save us from intense bitching and moaning from certain
clients who expect a superior product."
With an expression of complete tranquility, Earl Barron inhaled deeply
from the unfiltered cigarette he'd lit just moments after
his own monitor's screen had gone blank. "Nonsense, Aaron. I will agree it ended
quite swiftly and without benefit of an actual tussle, but did you see the move
our eliminator made to set up the kill? That poor bastard
never even knew he was there. I have never seen a man that large be capable of
such speed and agility. Professional athletes pale in
comparison. He's almost...bionic."
Aaron didn't respond, just sat for a moment nodding
his head in disbelief at the older man's overly casual demeanor before he rose
to depart the tiny viewing room. "I'll get with the tech nerds about the editing
process as soon as we debrief Chuckles there and get him prepared for
departure," he said somewhat depressingly.
Whirling around in the bulky chair, Barron spoke sternly, his right
eyebrow arched as his right hand arose in a halting gesture. "Aaron, I must
tell you that your pessimistic attitude is growing increasingly tiresome. Do
our enterprise a favor by not spreading such poisonous opinions amongst the
work force."
Kyle stiffened as he reached for the door handle, only speaking as the
door was gradually closing behind him. "Whatever you say, Chief."
Sitting in relative silence in the dimly lit room, Earl Barron began to
compute numbers in his head. Numbers that held dollars signs at the lead.
He glanced at his Rolex before putting out his smoke in a nearby
ashtray.
Aaron Kyle was fast becoming more of a liability than an asset, he deduced.
He felt a twinge of sorrow at what he realized might have to be done to resolve
the problem in the near future.
***
The chopper landed on the long-abandoned but recently refurbished pad
one hour later. The three-man team that greeted Mason Parks was disgustingly familiar
to him in both their bland facial expressions and mechanical body movements.
Parks had peeled off the blood-stained
T-shirt and grass-stained parachute pants from the taping and now
sported a black tee and jeans, a thin blue jacket covering the former. As was standard
operating procedure, he carried nothing off the post with him since he'd carried nothing on. He had showered off the light sweat
and spatters of blood from his body, his scent no longer of battle but of cheap
cologne as he stood stoically, allowing the warm air from the chopper blades to
pelt him as if completing the purging process.
Mr. Smiley, as he liked to call the man leading the trio towards him--
all three walking in step like a robotic version of the 'Three Stooges'-- was easily
the one that grated on his nerves the most. The man wore a frozen smirk on his
thin, pale face, his lanky form suggesting someone who had been raised on bread
and water since birth. He was a tall man, at least six-four, although his knees
barely bent when he took the long, gliding strides that covered more ground than
they probably should have.
The remaining two individuals were your standard muscle-for-hire thugs,
each equipped with matching beer guts and sour dispositions.
As Mr. Smiley ever-so-gently placed the vinyl-smelling, Velcro encased
blindfold over Parks' eyes, the aroma of the man's foul-smelling breath overwhelmed
all others. It never ceased to amaze Parks how the air leaving a human's mouth could
literally stink like a freshly deposited turd. "Been brushin'
your teeth with dog shit again, Smiley?" Parks bellowed in
order to be heard over the chopper.
As was the norm, no response was forthcoming. In fact, in the fourteen months
that he had been making the mysterious flight from the post's hidden locale to
his ranch in Conquest and vice versa, not a single word had ever been spoken within
the confines of the chopper. "Ever hear of Scope? Aqua-Fresh?
Lighter fluid maybe? Ya might also try flossing every five years or so while
you 're at it, old buddy. Helps to keep the flies from landing on your tongue
when ya sleep."
He was led slowly to the waiting bird, half-expecting to be shoved into
the swirling blades instead of beneath them.
Attempting to time the flight was a waste, since he realized from past trips
that each time the duration was substantially different, no doubt made purposely
so. The suits were nothing if not cautious about keeping the exact location of
the post top secret.
Parks' massively thick frame was given all the room it needed to stretch
out once inside, and he spent the flight both breaking down the most recent
battle, and mentally prepping for the next.
As per normal, he was dropped off in a paved clearing approximately
fifty yards from the backdoor of his ranch house. The suits had provided the
one-story brick; complete with two bedrooms; full gym with sauna; specially
designed 'combat readiness room' and two-car garage.
The black Pontiac Firebird had come with the house; the brand-spanking
new, glossily waxed Chevy Z28 was a fairly new
addition to the growing list of perks he enjoyed as reward for being the best
in his particular field.
No doubt about it, it was good to be King.
Damn good.
"Great job if you can get it" was Mason Parks' catch phrase when
questioned about his 'line of work' by strangers, although that particular query didn't surface very often due to the fact
that travels away from the ranch were becoming increasingly infrequent.
Parks had discovered over the past year that there wasn't
anything he desired or needed that couldn't be obtained with nothing more than
a polite (or otherwise) request (ditto, a demand ).
The ranch itself was located twelve miles from the insignificantly placed,
desolate and scantily populated township of Conquest, New Mexico, surrounded by
a seemingly endless desert landscape; sandy dry hills sprinkled with cacti,
ancient boulders and hideously deformed shrubbery that gave the area the look
of a landscape ravaged by nuclear weapons testing.
Parks didn't mind the lack of a picturesque, panoramic
view. In fact, the only semblance of peace he had found in a life filled with constant images of
violent death and dismemberment were the week to two week-long sabbaticals spent
in and around the ranch between hunts. This was how he defined them--hunts. Not contests or matches; nor bouts or brawls He hunted
and he exterminated, plain and simple. Cut and dry.
It was the single task Mason Parks had been placed on God's green earth
to accomplish, a fact he not only accepted and embraced as his personal,
undeniable fate, but had also learned to savor as the victories mounted; relishing
in both the act itself and the inevitable aftermath, wherein he would bathe
himself in the carnal 'spoils' of his chosen trade.
After Mr. Smiley had removed and retrieved the blinding apparatus, Parks
shot him a playful wink and placed his scarred right hand on the much leaner
man's shoulder.
"See ya next month, Grins. Inform Mr. X of my displeasure with his staff's
choice of opposition of late, will ya?"
The man turned away from him without response, his gait like that of the
walking dead. He was about to re-board the chopper, ducking down comically as he
walked underneath the swirling, howling blades, just as Parks cupped his hands and
bellowed one parting salutation.
"Hey Smiley! Next time you bring the beer and I'll bring the Listerine!"
The unmarked, yellow striped chopper sailed off into the gusting desert
winds moments later, leaving Parks standing at the edge of the landing site,
waving like a maniac with both arms, his lips stretched in maniacal, animated
glee.
"Screw you too, ya creepy bastard," he whispered through a wide, mocking
smirk while using one scarred finger to massage the bushy, dark brown Fu Manchu
mustache he was cultivating.
Empty handed, he waltzed towards the fully furnished abode, secretly
wondering how long such extravagancies would be tolerated until someone in
upper management decided a new, fresher face was called for in the cut-throat
world of bootleg combat snuff films.
The notion didn't exactly worry him, at least
not in the sense that he felt even the slightest twinge of fear, but the
thought of being systematically discarded like a worn-out combat boot by some pencil-pushing
geek sitting behind a desk made his blood pressure rise to the point of
impending implosion.
In Mason Parks' less-than-humble opinion, the one and only way he should
lose his position as the primary eradicator in their little underground video gold
mine was by dying at the hands of the opposition. He realized there was probably
a subtle yet growing concern at the top that certain deep pocketed clients would
begin to think the battles were staged, thus new meat would have to be brought in
to inject a renewed interest. If sales waned, he alone would be held accountable.
Tossing his clothes haphazardly onto the king sized waterbed that
fronted a large screen TV and a ten-thousand dollar stereo/entertainment center
in the home's spacious main bedroom, Parks scooped a cellular phone from a
nearby dresser and began to casually dial.
"Level one priority. Password is 'seventy -eight cold. 'Gotcha..."
As he waited, standing naked except for the semi-white socks adorning
his size twelve feet, Parks hummed an old rock tune he believed to have been
sung by Bad Company. Feel like Making Love it
had been called.
His smile beamed as the other party came on the line, restlessly rubbing
the prickly short hair that adorned his rotund skull.
"Yes, my location is cleared. I would like to place an order, my good man.
Alright, I believe I feel like a little Mexican tonight..."