Revenge of the Average Man

    Many people, for some reason, expect war to have rules, a code of conduct.  At the very least, all the combatants expect only to have to focus their attention on one enemy but war zones are highly unpredictable and this is not always the case.
    The date was the 19th of January, the past two weeks the war had been continuing in roughly the same trend, occasionally a group of Para-militia would ambush a British patrol who were still trying to locate their base and a skirmish would occur.
    On this night, however, the trend broke.  It was late in the evening and a small Para-militia squad were holed up in a flat several stories up in an old building.  Four of them were relaxing in the living room, their helmets were off and they had been drinking.  One of their group was not with them; he was lying on the floor by a hole in the wall of the corridor outside with his eye pressed up against the scope of his sniper rifle.  He had his pale blue, almost grey, helmet on with the black veil attached.
    A soldier from inside the flat came out into the corridor and said to him, “What are you still doing out here?  You don’t have to be on guard duty you know.  We have this.”  He held up a type of hand-held scanner for the sniper to examine.  “This thing can detect their pulse beacons; it’ll tell us if anyone comes within a mile of us.”
    “You shouldn’t rely too much on that technology,” the sniper said.  “It’s not infallible and it doesn’t hurt to stay alert.  In the old days, soldiers only had their senses to rely on.”
    “Times move on,” he said.  “You should too, we’ll all be inside when you get bored and quit.”
    The Para-militia trooper went back inside to join his comrades and the sniper returned to monitoring the street he had a great view of, waiting for any English soldier he could shoot.
    At the same time this soldier remained on guard, a person was skulking around outside the building on the other side of the sniper purely by chance, but maybe not.  He was hunched over and moved quickly, darting from shadow to shadow.  For a brief few seconds he stepped out of the darkness, the longest amount of time he had been truly visible, to take a look around.
    It was a human male; he had human features, a certain style of hair, a specific type of face and particular manner of dress.  He wore all black, rather like Colin, he had dark trousers and a long black coat.
    This man wasn’t wearing a suit underneath that coat, however.  It was just a black shirt, nothing special, the only thing that really stood out about this man was the white of his collar.
    He was dressed as a priest.  In this holy man’s garb, he continued closer and closer to the back entrance of the building until he arrived at the old thin door that was only attached to the doorframe by rust.  The man wearing a priest’s clothes ripped the old door from its hinges, tossed it aside and entered.
    He didn’t even bother to see if the lift worked or not, he went straight for the stairs and bounded up them with a ferocious speed, yet his steps barely made a sound.  The rate of his ascension didn’t let up until he had reached his desired floor.
    From just standing in the hallway, he could tell that this was where he was meant to be, he could here the uproar of the Para-militia squad’s drunken laughing from the other end of the hall.  He swiftly bounded to the end of his corridor and peered round the corner, he could see the open door, which lead to the Para-militia and he could see a sniper lying down by a damaged part of the wall.
    Realising he didn’t need to rush, he carefully walked down the hall, the sniper’s attention was fully located at the end of his scope so he couldn’t see who was sneaking up in him.  Although, he may hear him so the man took every care not to make a sound.  He was within a few metres of him now, he was about to make a step that would bring him right behind the sniper.
    Then he stopped, he noticed where he was about to tread, there was a slightly raised floorboard underneath the carpet, he could definitely see the outline of a floorboard that wasn’t exactly where it should be.  He knew that it would probably squeak if he stepped on it, he looked up at the sniper, who had probably chosen this position for just that reason; he was more skilled than the man had expected.
    The man dressed as a priest hugged the wall and very slowly shimmied across, avoiding the floorboard, until he was directly behind the sniper.  As the soldier in front of him shifted his weight, the man behind him held his breath while he removed something small from his pocket wrapped in cloth.
    He very carefully removed the cloth and brandished the small kitchen knife it contained, the blade was no more than five inches long but it was very sharp.  Then the man put the cloth away, placed one put silently next to the man in front of him, leant forward carefully and cut the man’s throat very efficiently and very brutally.
    The sniper didn’t make much noise as the blood poured from his neck, his murderer held him face down, against the carpet, with his knee pressed firmly on his back until the muffled gurgling ceased.  The not-so-holy man removed the cloth from his pocket once more, used it to wipe his brow and then clean his knife, wrapped it up again and placed it back inside his coat pocket.
    Before moving on, he removed the side arm of the man he’d just killed, a small black pistol and looked over at the open door of the flat to see if anyone had heard him, they had not.
    There was no danger of anyone else hearing him, this man had scouted around this area a lot and there weren’t any other human beings for miles, this area of the city was completely deserted.  That was what made it so easy to recognise when a Para-militia group had taken up residence in the area.  The lights inside the flat were always on and sometimes the group could be heard from street level.
    He now sneaked up to the door and hid round the corner, listening to their loud and obnoxious banter.  As far as he could distinguish, there were four different voices speaking inside.
    “I don’t know why we stand for it,” the most spoken voice said, he surmised this man to be the leader of the group.  “Why the hell are we taking orders from a woman?  What does she know, if it wasn’t for her, I’d bet that we’d have won this war by now.”
    There was a general muttering of agreement, from the different sounds, the eavesdropper had evaluated where each man was in the room.  The leader’s voice was slightly quieter so he was the furthest away, probably by the far wall.  The other three were clustered round in the centre, most likely sitting on a variety of chairs and settees.
    “Well,” the deepest voice said.  “She’s not that bad.  She did come up with those great scanners that can track all the English; you have to admit that they make our lives easier.  We don‘t have to keep looking over our shoulders anymore.”
    “No she didn’t,” the leader said.  “Alistair made them all, she just took credit.”
    “She did say that we were going to get our own replica pulse beacons so that we wouldn’t keep getting cut down by those damn tanks anymore,” the one with the most slurred speech said.  The secret listener decided to wait for them to get a bit more drunk before he attacked, they would be easier to take down then and he might get some good information in the meantime.
    “That’s right, she did say that,” leader said.  “And where are they?  
    “We never got them,” slurred voice said.
    “She doesn’t deliver what she promises,” leader said.
    “And the food she gives us is rubbish,” laughing voice said.
    “She started the group,” deep voice said.  “We joined it so we have to follow her.”
    “Who says we have to?” leader said.  “If it’s for the good of the cause, then I think we have a responsibility as patriots to make sure that we have the best chance of winning this war.”
    “Who else then?” said the one that wouldn’t stop laughing.  “Who do you think should be our leader?”
    “Anyone of us could lead this army better than some girl,” leader said.  “We should pick someone from our group.”
    “What about Kenneth?” deep voice said.  “He’s actually seen some action before, he was in Iraq.”
    “He’s a good soldier but he’s not exactly a leader,” leader said.  “He’s even too uptight to have a drink with us!  Can you hear me Kenneth?  Kenneth?”  There was no response from the hallway.  “You see?  He’s even ignoring us now.”
    “Well,” slurred voice said.  “You’re the leader of this group.”
    “That’s a good idea,” leader said.  “I know I could do a better job than that stupid woman.”
    “So let’s do it,” laughing voice said.  “Why don’t we get rid of Aden?  Then we can run this organisation how we want to.”
    “Yeah,” leader said.  “I bet we could end this war given half the chance.  We’ve got some good ideas, let’s do it.  I don’t know about you guys but I’ve never been ordered around by a woman in my life and I think we shouldn’t take it anymore.”
    “Alright?”-deep voice said.  “I’m in.”
    “Me too,” slurred voice said.
    “So when?” deep voice said.
    “First thing in the morning,” leader said.  “Let’s go back to the base, wait until she’s alone, kidnap her and then we can just kill her in an alley somewhere and everyone will assume the English got her.  Then we come in with the good plans and before you know it we’ll be leading the militia, we’ll win the war and be heroes.”
    “Do you think we’ll be able to take her,” laughing man said.  “She’s kind of scary.”
    “All that shouting an aggression is just an act,” leader said.  “It’s to distract you, so you forget that in the end she’s just a woman, I don’t think she’ll even put up a fight.”
    Their phantom spy around the corner couldn’t take anymore of listening to this rubbish.  He had hoped that they would’ve mentioned where the base was but they were barely understandable in their drunken group trance.  He supposed he could’ve waited until they had fallen asleep but he wasn’t that patient.
    The man in priest’s clothing spun round and rushed inside the room, two were sitting in chairs facing the other way, one sat on a settee facing the doorway and his expression was one of fascination and amusement as he saw a priest burst into their flat.  Their leader was sitting against the far wall and he watched as this tall and menacing priest walked in and shot the man to his immediate right in the head and then the man on the settee in the chest, they both died instantly.
    As the assailant aimed his gun at the man in the chair on his left, he ducked and the shot missed.  Then the man kicked the chair into the priest’s stomach who doubled over as the wind was thoroughly knocked out of him.  The Para-militia soldier charged the priest and began to wrestle with him, pushing him against the wall and attempted to knock the gun from out of his hand.
    Instead, the pistol discharged a few times but no one was hit.  The priest punched him with his other hand and he fell to the floor, dragging the priest down with him.  They wrestled on the floor until the priest managed to position himself on top; there he brought the handle of the pistol down on his enemy’s face a few times until he was severely dazed.  The priest took in a few deep breaths and then casually blew the half-unconscious soldier’s brains out all over the bare wooden floor.
    The winner of the bout slowly got to his feet and rubbed his eyes with his left hand.  His glare then shot to the only other living human in the room, it was the leader of the group who had watched the slaughter without moving from his seat on the floor against the far wall.  The Para-militiaman stared with wide eyes and an open mouth at the darkly dressed figure in front of him.
    “Hello brother,” the priest said, there was no response.  “Humans are a strange species, don’t you think?  We live on the edge of the void.  We drink from the nothing everyday…and we wonder why we feel so empty.  There’s only one word for that.  Insanity.”
“Who are you?” the leader said.
    “Did you know that in ancient Native American cultures, women were considered the superior sex?” he continued, completely ignoring the man.  “This is because they have the ability to create life whereas men like you and I, we destroy it.  Now, the only thing I can create is a world without people like you.”
    At this point, he raised his pistol and pulled the trigger only for them both to hear the small disappointing sound of the gun whining that it was out of ammunition.
    “How embarrassing,” the priest said.  “I’m sorry about that, brother, you ought to die properly.”
    The man hadn’t flinched when the priest pulled the trigger, he was too petrified.  His rifle was propped up against the wall right next to him, easily within arm’s reach, but that’s where it stayed.  He didn’t bother trying to grab it, even when the grim figure in front of him discarded his pistol and removed a small kitchen knife from his pocket wrapped in a small piece of cloth.  His soon-to-be-victim just sat there, breathing heavily and waiting for the inevitable.
    The priest finished slowly unwrapping his knife, put the cloth away and walked ominously towards the man.  His foot steps on the bare wood sounded louder than anything the man had heard in his life and the last sight he would ever see was the glint of the knife as this priest drove it in.
    When he had thoroughly made certain that the leader of the group was dead, the priest looked around at his accomplishment, and was satisfied.  Near his foot was some sort of device, he bent down and picked it up.  Inspecting it, he deduced that it was the scanner they had spoken of earlier; he thought to himself that this gadget could prove useful in the future.  The man then began to search the rest of the flat for other helpful tools.
    In the corner of the room, there was a large black bag that had most likely once belonged to a member of the group; he approached with the intention of using it to carry the device in.  What he found already contained within the bag could probably be put to an even greater use than the scanner in his hand.  He recognised the equipment inside the bag as a form of powerful explosives.  He placed the scanner inside it, and then he went around the whole flat, collecting all the soldiers’ weapons and ammunition and also placing them in the bag, which he then zipped up and exited the flat, carrying the bag with him.
    On the way out he almost tripped over the body of the sniper, he spotted the blood stained rifle in his hands and picked it up.  He examined the weapon, smiled and left with it.