Compensatory, Summary Justice!

Note to the reader:

This story is a bit of a departure for me. It is mainly in the first person and it is not at all erotic. This is a "revenge" and/or "Justice" story. It is entirely fictional and everyone is over eighteen (not that it makes a difference in this particular story). If you are after a sexy or super descriptive, violent, story this is not it.

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I have some basic hang ups that have been with me for most of my life. If I see someone picking on a person who is not able to defend themselves, I get angry! If they are doing it to purposely do damage I tend to want to remove their ability to ever do it again. Some people on the far left liberal fringe might call me a psychopath or a sociopath; I just see myself as someone who wants to see justice done. I have watched the courts let out vicious thugs just because they could get good lawyers and intimidate witnesses. I have seen rabid fundamentalists bomb a church simply because they didn't like anyone to hold different ideas than they had. I've seen the results of "honor killings" done because an adult child decided to think for themselves. I've seen women killed because they tried to get an education. Thank God that these last items were seen in the middle East and not at home in America.

I retired from the Marines after twenty five years of service. I was colonel James Bradley with the recon Marines. They are the best of the best. They compare well with Navy Seals and are just as tough and smart.

I retired sooner than I would have preferred. My younger brother had been murdered leaving his wife, Sharon, to try to run his business. They had a small restaurant that had been in a nice part of town until just a few years back. It was now in a section of the city that was well on its way to being classed as part of the decaying inner city. She could never get an adequate price selling the place. After all, most sane people avoided that area. There were some old folks who had lived in that neighborhood for their entire lives. It was for those people that Sharon decided to hang in there and run the business.

There were the typical inner city problems. Drive by shootings, prostitution and drugs of all types. The worst of the problems was the local gang. Miserable, cowardly, scum that couldn't even read their name if it was written in cursive. But, they enjoyed terrorizing innocent people. They had even terrorized all the other gangs. Nobody dared to encroach upon their turf.

With my sister-in-law, Sharon's, permission I moved into their guest room. The apartment was located above Sharon's restaurant. The building was owned by Sharon.

I decided to invest some money in her building. Most of the exterior was brick. The windows, however, were the weak spot. It would be all too easy to shoot through the glass or throw a molotov cocktail through the glass. It took me three weeks to get the work done. I had it done at night by some old friends. Both exterior and interior video surveillance systems were added. The recorder was located in a hidden safe. The door frames were replaced with heavy duty metal frames that were sunk into the reinforced concrete floor. There were sheets of four inch polycarbonate plastic inside all windows. The glass in each of the windows was replaced with a one inch sheet of polycarbonate. Between the sheets of polycarbonate was what appeared to be a heavy duty set of venetian blinds. They were especially heavy duty. The support straps were kevlar and the alloy steel slats were a quarter inch thick. Obviously, they were driven by a geared down electric motor. With the careful placement of curtains it was almost impossible to notice the extra thickness unless you noted the offset in reflections. The front door was replaced with a steel door that was bullet proof unless you decided to use a heavy machine gun to hit it. The back side of the counter and the wall between the kitchen and dining area was reinforced. You could set a grenade off in the kitchen and nobody would be hurt by flying debris in the dining area. The place didn't look much different, unless you really took a really good look at it.

I took a job in the restaurant as a fill in cook, waiter, and cashier. I let my hair grow out to look more like a civilian haircut and I grew a beard. I no longer looked like ex-military. I just looked like an older middle aged guy with a low level job. One of the first things we did, after the remodeling, was to send pamphlets to the local police precinct. We advertised that we offered specials for members, or ex-members, of the force who hadn't been kicked out of the force for cause. We offered them meals that were ten percent over our cost. (We had to make something because the cook, utilities, and taxes had to be paid.) After a few weeks we started to have quite a few police in our dining area off and on during our business hours. The fact that police cars could be seen parked out front of the building helped advertise that this was not a good place to act out! Little did they know how bad it was for acting out.

Sharon had confided in me that she, and the police, were relatively certain who had set up the hit that killed my brother. However, there were no living witnesses. Someone had entered the restaurant shot him and then walked out. Under our Aprons, we started wearing body armor that was good for up to .45 cal ammunition. I didn't carry a pistol, but I kept a loaded twelve gauge shotgun behind the counter. It was loaded with "00 buckshot". That means that there are about nine lead balls of about 0.3" in diameter in each shell. At close range it is almost as effective as a claymore mine as far as the person in front of the barrel is concerned. Under my apron I carried my K-Bar knife. I had used it extensively in the field. In fact, most of my kills were with the knife. After all, I needed silence and a knife is a very silent tool if you know how to use it; and early on I had taught lots of Marines how to use it.

For the first few months we had no trouble. One day, when there were no police cars out front, a couple of the local thugs came in and asked me if we had local insurance that would prevent our establishment from having gang related damage. I indicated that we were sort of self-insured. They didn't understand that term so I said that we would take care of the place ourselves. I did, however, ask them what they thought good insurance would look like. They indicated that for a "mere" two hundred dollars a week they could guarantee that there would be no unpleasant problems. I indicated that I didn't foresee any problems of that nature.

The larger of the two thugs was over six feet in height and probably weighed in at two hundred fifty to three hundred pounds. He asked what I would do if someone his size tried to mug me. My response was that it would not be the first time that someone had tried to threaten me, but in general if someone threatened me they didn't do it a second time.

He walked over and took a swing at me. I dodged the blow and gave him a kick to the solar plexus. When he finally got up off the floor he charged me and tried to hit me again. You could hear his bones break from in the kitchen. His arm bent about half-way between his wrist and elbow. I informed his buddy that his friend appeared to have hurt his arm and probably should see a doctor. There was a lot of cursing and they left. I knew that we would hear of their displeasure.

Around supper time one of the local police detectives, Sergeant James, took me aside and indicated that the grapevine indicated that some people had decided that something had to be done about me. He looked worried. I indicated that things might not look it, but they were under control. He asked me about drive by shootings. I told him that we were safe unless they were using an RPG or a fifty caliber machine gun. He gave me a funny look, shook his head, and walked away. He did seem to be looking very carefully at our windows and door. As he was leaving he gave me a "thumbs up" and a grin. He had seen what we had prepared.

It was just about closing time when we suddenly had half a dozen punks milling around on the public sidewalk outside the restaurant. I hit the electronic lock and all the exterior doors were sealed. With the sound of the heavy click the thugs tried to enter the building. I pointed to the time and hit the switch for the "closed" sign. They tried to push in the door but it didn't budge. One of them pulled a pistol and fired at the door lock. He had watched too much television. The hardened steel lock face caused the bullet to bounce back and hit him in the abdomen. I called 911 and the police traveled the three blocks between the precinct building and our building in a record time. When they arrived, only the kid with the bullet in his gut was laying there. The others had fled.

I unlocked the door and invited the police to come in and look at the surveillance tape. When they were done looking they arrested the wounded kid for illegal weapons charges, firing a weapon within the city limits, and attempted property damage. The damage to the door was a smear of copper and lead on the steel face of the front door lock.

The video was good enough in quality to allow the other five hoods to be identified. Since my surveillance system recorded sound as well as picture you could hear the other punks urging the wounded kid to shoot the lock out. I agreed to press charges. The other five would be accessories before the fact. Because a firearm was used in the crime a different set of sentencing guidelines applied. The kids would not be happy.

I worked hard at really getting to know Detective James. He seemed to be honest and very sharp.

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Things were pretty quiet for about a week after the six punks were arrested and arraigned. My helpful police customers, especially Detective James warned me that the word on the street was that the gang's leadership was very concerned and would probably try to even the score. The arrest of the six punks without the gang leadership doing anything made the leaders look weak. Weak looking leaders do not fare too well in that bottom feeding portion of society. I kept my ears open and my police customers also kept their eyes and ears open. There was an indication that the building might be attacked in the next day or so. The gang was not overly smart, surprise surprise. They thought that the police nine millimeter Beretta was a good pistol. To a certain extent they tried to standardize on the nine millimeter cartridge. Too bad for them that it was no match for the protections we had put in place.

We assumed that they would try to hit us very early in the morning, before we opened up for business; or very late in the evening when we were closing for the night. They would know that we wouldn't have police there, as customers, at those times. My bet was that they would try a drive-by assault using nine millimeter and possibly shotgun fire. I re-aimed two of my rooftop video cameras so that passing cars would be in excellent focus. To make sure that the pictures would be clean I had installed infrared flood lamps. At night all you could see was a dull red hint of light. That was due to the wavelength of light being centered between eight hundred and nine hundred nanometers. The human eye wasn't at all good beyond about seven hundred fifty.

After making our preparations we had to wait another four days before the gang acted. They slowly drove past the building watching us count the receipts for the day, and cleaning the floors, tables, and counter. When they passed the second time they briefly stopped, with their windows down, and fired a large number of rounds at us. The nine millimeter slugs didn't even make it through the first inch of polycarbonate that formed the outer "glass windows". There were pock marks in the surface, but no cracks penetrated the material to the other side. The car took off in a hurry when they saw that we were sitting there looking at them.

The police had the forensics people over. They retrieved over thirty five slugs from the outer windows. As soon as they were done I had the places where the bullets had hit filled in with a plastic compound that would bond to the polycarbonate and prevent it from cracking if more bullets came that way.

The video of the car and the people sitting at the open windows that faced the building was exceptionally good. The identity of the shooters was very clear even to the casual observer. Those punks were arrested for attempted murder, aggravated assault with a weapon, and various weapons charges. They would be spending a long time in jail. The gang's leadership was not going to like this one little bit. They were going to like some other things even less.

I decided to upgrade Sharon's car. Her car was a typical mid-sized sedan. I talked with some old marine friends and bought a used vehicle from Uncle Sam. The vehicle was a military grade HumVee. I had my friends work it over so that it was essentially an armored car. It would stand up well against 30-06 armor piercing ammunition. The tires were replaced with "run flat" tires. It was an impressive machine. I had it repainted my favorite color, flat black.

One other consideration was communications. I purchased a pair of encrypted two-way radios. I left one of them, with a plug in power supply, with the local precinct's desk sergeant. The other went in the HumVee.

During this time period I was asking various policemen what they knew about the local gang. It seemed that in our area that this gang had pushed all other gangs "off their turf". Over the next few weeks I had put together a sort of criminal organization chart. I had names and some addresses.

It was time to call in some favors. I contacted a friend in the Defense Intelligence Agency and asked him to quietly get me everything he could on the people on my chart. Within six weeks I had known addresses, clean mug shots, and background on all of the leaders of the gang. Most gang members are much like sheep. If you take away the shepherd and any assistants, the rest of the people don't have the "smarts" to run the organization. It was a typical top down control with no ladder available to move up in rank. It was time to start my psychological pressure on the leadership.

I decided to trust Detective James. I invited him to join us after he got off work for a meal and a discussion of possible interest. He was intrigued by the mention of a discussion and accepted my offer. During the meal, upstairs in our apartment, I gave him a copy of my org chart. He was stunned! I had details that none of the police were aware of. I even had brief psychological profiles of most of the leadership.

He wanted to know how I had put the chart together and what I was planning on doing. I started out by identifying myself and where I had spent the last twenty-five years. I also told him that I had friends in the intelligence community who had been very helpful. Lastly, and off the record, I told him my general plan. I was going to poison the relationships between the leaders and let them take their own gang apart without any help from me, other than letters. He left with a copy of my chart and a grin on his face.

My means of communication was the US Postal Service. I started by sending simple one page letters to each of those on the top two levels of leaders below the overall boss. However, I didn't include the head of the gang. I didn't say much. But each recipient of a letter got a brief dossier of himself and a question regarding how much could he trust the other members of the gang since they had passed on so much information on him in particular. Each letter was ended with a cartoon figure of a cat.

I assumed, correctly as it turned out, that none of the upper leadership truly trusted the other members. They didn't get where they were by being nice and playing by the rules. The funny part was that they didn't know the rules of the game I was playing at all. I let them stew about the first letters for about a week before the second batch was turned loose. This time the letter gave the detailed background of one of the other members. The question was asked if they had any idea who would know all of this information. Obviously the head of the gang and his two top lieutenants didn't get the second letter. This letter also had the drawn picture of the cat.

All that I needed now was a trigger event. Somewhere along the line somebody would mess up at which point the third letters would be sent out asking if they knew who set the guy up. The dismantling of the gang would be carried out by the gang itself. They would not be offering understanding and forgiveness to anyone that they thought was slowly removing rivals. From here on in letters would only go to some of the leadership. This is where the fun began. Now, all that had to be done was sit back and watch the destruction.

Over the next few weeks three of the top seven members of the gang had been murdered. In all cases the police suspected that they had been gunned down by their fellow members. During this time Detective Jones kept in close contact with me. I showed him what letters had gone out, and to who. He was enjoying the fact that the gang was providing long overdue justice to their own members. It was a satisfying feeling, knowing that the justice being handed out was fitting for their crimes and would provide proof of crimes against the remaining leaders. He just didn't yet understand that the last steps would involve a gentle push from me.

I prepared my final letter. It was directed to the head of the gang. It was a simple warning. It indicated that someone was making a move to replace the leadership and that he needed to watch his back and not trust even old friends. The note also indicated that the writer didn't know how the hit was to be done. It could be anything from poison to a bomb. The head of the gang was being told that he was on his own. This letter also ended with the drawing of a cat.

After all the deaths among his lieutenants the boss knew that the danger was great. He could only assume that the killer had to be one of his own close associates. He didn't get to be boss by being a nice guy. If his remaining lieutenants were dead he could replace them, in time. If he didn't kill them, they were going to kill him. That was unacceptable. He issued an invitation to dinner to his two remaining lieutenants.

His lieutenants knew that a dinner invitation was completely out of character for their boss. They nervously got together to discuss what had been happening. They came up with the tentative answer that maybe it was their boss who was cleaning house and that the dinner invitation was to get them together so that he could kill them as well. With that understanding, they decided to agree to dinner, but pick a public place to eat. What better place than a restaurant filled with cops. They were sure that their boss wouldn't be able to do anything there. As it turned out, and as I had hoped, it was our restaurant that they decided to use.

It was about two thirty in the afternoon when the two remaining lieutenants entered our establishment. I acted as the waiter to see what they would like. They indicated that they would just start with coffee and Danish. They indicated that they expected a third man to arrive in about twenty minutes. When I went for the coffee I had Sharon call detective James. He was told that things would be coming to a head in the next half hour. It was suggested that maybe several of the detectives should come to the restaurant for a mid afternoon snack and coffee (on the house of course).

The boss showed up ten minutes sooner than his lieutenants had expected. He had hoped to be there before his lieutenants. I went to the table and asked what they would like to order. They decided on the chicken fried steak dinner. I had three especially prepared plates for them. Each of the plates had been made with a cartoon character of a cat. This was the same cartoon that had been used on the bottom of the letters. The food covered the drawings. I served them their meals and returned to behind the counter. I was near the shotgun and my full front apron stuck out a bit more than usual due to the heavy duty armor I was wearing.