He heard it. The gritty, quick sound as it drew across the strip of flint. He smelled it. Smelled the sulfur burn. But he couldn’t see it. At least not more than a dim orange momentary glow to the blackness behind the blindfold. In that moment his heart raced, he had to admit. That match could have been just lit to see him or to light a fag, but it could also have been to torch the place. And him with it. It would have been the smart thing to do. It would have been what he would have done. But 30 passing seconds told him it wasn’t what this man had done. After 30 seconds another similar smell started wafting over. A cigarette after all. Tinged with menthol. He could tell it was coming from his left. He could tell by the strength of the scent that it was coming from no more than 7 feet away. He could also tell that it would be his captors last, but that wasn’t from the strength of the smell or the direction it was wafting. No, he could tell that by the strength of the smell of his rage and the way his bloodlust was wafting toward this FUCK. The last word he had yelled out loud, involuntarily. He could hear the man jump a little at the sudden outburst. And that little jump told him all he needed to know. This man was not the man who would finally stop Jack Grabber. With a sudden lunge forward and an even louder yell he burst the chains at his chest, ankles and wrists and – not even stoping to take off his blindfold – reached out with complete surety, grabbed some hair at either side of his captors head and pulled each side out and back savagely in a rear fly arc, the motion ending with him standing (still blindfolded) in a crucifix-like pose with one half of his captors facial skin in either hand. He shoved the pieces in his pockets and removed his blindfold. The body stood there a moment with it’s fleshless face still smoking the menthol cig. A woman. He looked her up and down. “Nice tits” he grumbled, “but I’d put a bag over that face”. She fell, lifeless and insulted, to the ground.

Grabber always worked alone, except when he didn’t. Samir Gadott was 97% ex-Republican Guard and 100% vigilante. He left Kuwait in 1999 at the turn of the century to escape prosecution. He was wrongfully accused of raping and sharking a Korean female police guard stationed in Iraq. To this day he claims his innocence, and, afterall, Jack Grabber was the only one with the exonerating evidence, he just didn’t know it yet. This shiticane of torrid happenstances and habidashery created an almost unholy alliance between the two. One: a full-blooded American patriot and ex-Army Ranger with all the trimmings; the other: a full-blooded expatriate on the wrong side of the hemisphere with a penchant for trouble and urinating outdoors. Together: the ultimate odd couple.

An expression midway between anxiety and pleasure played on Samir Gadott’s lips. Grabber glanced at him then looked away. What are you thinking about? He asked. Gadott snapped back to attention. Said he was thinking about that rape charge that still loomed over his head from his Republican Guard days back in Kuwait. Said he was innocent, that it was entirely consensual. He said that a lot. Grabber just looked at him for a moment and replied that he hadn’t asked. And it was true; the truth didn’t matter much to Grabber. You don’t worry about a woman’s momentary discomfort when you’ve seen men get split in half with rocket propelled grenades right in front of your eyes. Hell, you don’t worry about their discomfort when you have split men in half with your own damn hands right in front of your own damn eyes. And plus, their tight military outfits… Grabber let his thoughts trail off and glanced back at Gadott who was lost in thought again, gently thrusting his hips back and forth and making panting noises. Grabber wondered what he was thinking about.

“When you know you’re gonna die, there’s only one thought that you face: “I’m not gonna die!” Of course I couldn’t say this with a gun in my mouth and my hands bound to my feet with zip-ties, so I showed him instead. I didn’t know exactly where I was, all I could make out were repair kits for some kind of truck, piles of gravel, holes in the floor and fresh Concrete. The sonuvabitch with the 11-inch steel colt in my mouth turned his head just for a second; I knew this was my only chance. I bit down hard on the gun and yanked it out of his hand with my mouth. I could hear the crunching of my incisors on the barrel, but I didn’t care, it was either that or a dirt nap…and I wasn’t tired. Shocked the dark man reached for the gun I had whipped across the floor. As he lunged forward he stepped in a hole in the floor, it was dark, we were blind as bats in whatever this place was. Just my luck, he goes down about mid-thigh. I roll over to the repair kit and there’s razor wire and all sorts of things to help me on my way. I used the razor wire to cut through zip-ties. It didn’t take long, but then again every minute felt like a second. I grabbed the gun and spit out a tooth. I raised the hand cannon and shoved in the mouth of the dark man in the floor. Through his gun-muffled voice, I could barely make out what he said, “Jack Grabber.” I spit out a glob of blood, “Always have been, and always will be.”

    It was noon, and the center-most part of this large area of jungle still smoldered.  The chest-high grass and thin, looping trees had just been through 7 straight hours of landscaping by high powered, 21st century artillery.  Uncharacteristically, at this moment Grabber realized he never got to enjoy a quiet moment with a pristine jungle forrest.  His “moments with nature”, if he even had any, always had to come at times like this: when the smells of gunpowder, blood, piss and fear were still in the air… the last earthly remnants of whoever it was that had just crossed his path.  Grabber took all of this in with a gigantic inhale, and turned around to find the worshipping gaze of thousands of indigenous eyes, all joyous in their new found freedom and also silently pleading for their hero to stay and lead them.  But Jack Grabber isn’t a leader.  He much prefers landscaping.

    “Fuck these guys,” was the last real thought he had before making his move.  Sure, he kept on thinking, but it wasn’t anything that could be expressed in words.  A man can realistically only devise how to disable 6 men by himself, 7 tops, depending on their alignment.  Grabber knew beforehand how to take out the first 11 of these bastards, but after that it would be all improvisation.  At this point things would be totally out of his control, just the way he liked them.  The 4 or 5 bullets he’ll have inevitably acquired wouldn’t mean squat, he’d barely notice them.  It was what to do about the 12th, 13th, 14th, and so on.  But you can’t think about them.  Well, maybe you can, but it’s just, “Fuck these guys.“