Rescued?! Who the Hell Wants to Be Rescued?

He came too blearily. This was worse than before. Before he had at least been on his feet, he had at least been mobile. His memory may have been completely fractured but at least there was clarity. Now he just felt groggy, vision blurred, and a throbbing ache at the back of his head. Slowly his senses were coming back, although faded and distant with out real reception. Strangely though, above all else he recognized the bitter taste of gun oil.

Like a flash bulb shattering a dark room his mind caught up, painfully. The voice, the sound of footsteps, the second and third man. Bearded faces. A heavy blackjack, stars...

Voices. He opened his eyes and immediately regretted the decision. A dimly glowing bare bulb hanging from its fraying cord cast long gloomy shadows over the rusting surfaces of the factory floor. He willed his eyes to focus, his mind reeling, torn between slipping back to the safety of unconsciousness or making an effort to determine where he was. He was alone, he hoped. Left and right glances, the fog slowly lifting. Hollow and distance clanks could be heard, the sound of forlorn machinery groaning against age. He was shackled to a metal chair that was strangely bolted to the floor beneath him. "Ok," He said aloud. "Now what?"

As if to answer, thick Russian voices grew closer but strangely muffled. The loud clank of pins sliding and the creak of heavy hinges brought his attention directly to the wall in front of him. As his vision cleared and adjusted for the lack of light he could make out the steel barrier, like a giant bulk head, riveted to girders with a single heavy door. From his rusting gate poured an equal pale gloom to the one above his head, three men stepped out, the same three from before. Two took places at his left and right, their shear bulk made so much more predominant by their heavy winter clothing. The man on his left smiled a crooked, gaping smile, his leather like face drawing to fine lines around his eyes, a long scar running from his forehead parallel to his nose and vanishing in his thick beard. The one on the right was no better only balding, with his scars displayed on across his tattooed hands. What ever was amusing his friend on the other side, he didn't share in the sentiment. No smile graced his lips, only a hard scowl and look of menace flickering behind his eyes. His mouth a razor slit of what could only be furry. In either case, Lefty or Righty as he quickly decided to call them -no formal introduction seemed to be coming- the message was crystal clear. No, they were definitely not here to serve coffee or provide aide. No, they were probably not going to take the shackles off. No, asking wouldn't help much either. Goons, in any language or country are that very thing, goons. Their purpose was intimidation, which was working, or the providers of pain, judging by Righty here, the latter. They simply were not to be reasoned or fucked with.

The scrape of another chair being dropped in front of him refocused his attention to the last man. Thinner than the others, but still as heavily dressed and bearded as Lefty, he plopped down, the back of the chair facing his prisoner. Crossing his arms and leaning forward his removed a pair Ray Bans from his face, his cold hard brown eyes scanning his subject. A smile parted across his perfect teeth.

"Did you really think, honestly, that you could hide even this far away?" His accent a perfect mid-western English. American, couldn't be anything else.

Panic and fear instantly paralyzed him. He didn't have a clue who this man was, or why he was strapped to a immobile chair, or what any of the three wanted but his mind had finally shifted into gear and grasped the situation. No, it was something more that had triggered such a state of shock. That voice, rustic and gruff, resonating want and motive set off a string of alarms in his head. He didn't know how or why, he certainly didn't recognize the man’s face, but the voice was a piercing stiletto that drove home to the fiber of his soul. He recognized it instantly and that recognition meant pain and fear. Sweat began to cross his forehead, his arms and hands becoming slippery.

"You've caused us a great deal of trouble you know. Chasing you across dust bowls and tourist traps back home is one thing, but tracking your ass across half of Europe and in then on to this frigid place, that is altogether a different game isn't it?" He leaned back from the chair, holding a grip on the top, staring at his captive as if debating in his mind the appropriate punishment. "A game you've not played before. Perhaps you're learning faster than thought. Still though, it always ends the same doesn't it?"

He stood and pushed his face closer to his captive, the smell of vodka and frustration on his breath.

"I always win, don't I? No matter what information you grab, no matter where you go, no matter how many others lives you risk, or throw away, I always find you in the end... don't I?"

Ray Bans stepped back and flipped the chair around. Sitting loudly down he sighed, almost disappointingly. Clicking his teeth, he nodded to his assistants. A crashing blow from the left came down directly across his jaw. Explosive waves of pain coursed through his face and down his arms. Before he could rally from the first, another landed squarely from the right. The coppery taste of crimson began to mix with the still lingering flavor of gun oil. Again the left right combination came. Once just didn’t seem to be enough. Ray Ban waved a finger, his companions stepped back, but not outside of reach. A message could still be delivered at command. Ray Ban pulled from his jacket pocket the staged photos and falsified id.

"Interesting name you picked for yourself. Ivan. Can you even ready Cyrillic? Did you pick this to spite me or did you even know what they typed?" He tossed the id at his captives’ feet.
"Great shots by the way, didn't realize you were such the war hero. Is the tank in the back ground real or some paper mache joke?" Another flick of the wrist, the photos tossed next to the id. "What am I to do with you?"

The sweat still trickled down his back and arms, despite the cold air around him. He could feel it gathering around his wrists where the shackles clasped the U shaped rings. He was still petrified, gripped completely in fear and shock but somewhere in the furthest recesses of his mind, those not knocked silly from his new best friends, a plan subconsciously started taking action. Without commanding them to do so, he felt his wrist slowly, impossibly start to turn. Ray Bans stood and waved is hands, both index fingers coming to a point. Lefty and Righty gripped their captive, roughly one holding his shoulders, the other holding his head. From his waist, Ray Bad produced a silver pistol, an old 1911 automatic and shoved the barrel to his captive’s lips pressing them to his front teeth. He fought at first but a twist of the shoulder from his tormentors momentarily opened his mouth in a cry of grief. These giants who were so adamant about his lack of mobility must have easily pulled tree stumps by hand in a past life. His shoulder aching however became less important than the weapon now boring its way to his esophagus, the source of the familiar taste now found.

Ray Ban smiled ear to ear, his thumb drawing back the hammer of the silver weapon, it's pearl gripes gleaming. Mechanically it clicked, past the half cocked position, ever so slowly down to full and locked. It wouldn't take any effort at this point. An easy squeeze on the trigger, tripping the sear, would release the hammer, striking the firing pin, igniting the primer, burning the powder and pouring the conical hollow slug down the short barrel into the cavity of his skull, his eyes were wide, a strange mix of panic and odd acceptance of his fate.

"You are very, very lucky you know." Ray Ban spoke the words calmly, flatly as if delivering a eulogy.

He pulled the trigger.
The click was almost deafening.
"Somebody still wants you alive."