Preface, Thursday Night, 13Oct

Damn dust.  It permeated everything. His eyes, ears, nose, and clothes.  Finding its way into every crack and crevice.  Clouds of it rose off of him as he stepped back from the top of the railcar, slapping at his pants and jacket with his gloves.  Goddamn dust.  Hell of a way to make a living he acknowledged for the millionth time.  Timmy blew his nose with a faded red bandanna, checked to ensure his harness was hooked up to the safety line and moved to the edge of the loading platform.

“THAT IS NOT a fucking zip line asshole!” Joel shouted through the closed window of the loading dock office. 

Timmy acknowledged Joel’s reprimand with his middle finger, puckered his lips, blew him a kiss and then jumped.  The spool on his safety harness buzzed as it played out cable, slowly lowering him to the ground.  Not as much fun as a zip line, but it pissed Joel off and that in itself made it worthwhile.  Timmy chuckled at the thought.  He unbuckled his harness which, free of his weight, rewound itself 20’ back up to the safety line where it would be waiting when he returned from his impromptu break. 

Joel cracked the office door just as Timmy reached the exit. “Don’t be gone long!  They’ll catch you one of these times.  And I’m not covering for you again…  Asshole!” 

Timmy acknowledged the comment with a wave, and kept walking to the door.  He stepped outside and was greeted by a pristine North Dakota sky.  It was clear and cold, a perfect mid-October evening.  The half-moon was shining brightly.  Venus and Mars were both visible just above the horizon, as were thousands of stars in the cloudless night.  No light pollution in the boonies to ruin the view.  Well, not much anyways.  Just an ethereal glow from the plant. 

As soon as he was outside the door, Timmy pulled out his phone and switched it off of airplane mode.  Several message notifications appeared.  The first was a text from Kahri.  ‘Hey Timmy, I’m planning on hitting the gym early tomorrow and then I’ll be over to clean.  If you’re going hunting in the morning, please leave the key under the front mat.’  Timmy smiled and his loins ached.  As much as he loved hunting with his dogs, he wouldn’t be doing any hunting tomorrow morning.  ‘Cleaning days,’ which happened only once, sometimes twice a month, were something to look forward to.  The second text was a ‘sexy time’ Bitmoji from Kahri.  He marveled at the resemblance.  Damn she was hot.  His loins stirred again.  The third text, was also from Kahri.  ‘I’ll likely start in the shower.’  Timmy had a full-blown hard-on now. He sent a simple ‘Thanks.’ and irreverently prayed that Kahri’s husband would be kept busy at the base all morning.  Timmy deleted the thread, pocketed his phone and walked up the tracks, his well-worn steel-toed boots crunching with every step on the railbed.  He walked as quickly as his hard-on allowed.  Joel would cover for him if need be, but Timmy didn’t want to put him in that situation.  Joel was a good guy.  A bit bossy and a rule follower, but a good guy. 

Timmy ambled down the center of the tracks, trying to hit every other tie with each step.  It was quieter that way.  Absentmindedly he thought about Kahri’s text as he reached in and felt the cool metal flask sitting snug in his jacket pocket.  He’d be tired, but not too tired.  Never too tired when Kahri was ready for some action.  He grinned and shook his head.  She was always ready.  Like a fucking rabbit.  Fortunately, she wasn’t always available.  If she was, he’d never get out to hunt.

Working 11pm to 7am for six days in a row most every week this time of year wasn’t the schedule most people wanted, but it was perfect for him.  Just like loading rail cars with cattle feed.  It wasn’t the kind of job many people wanted, but it fit his lifestyle.  It paid the bills and left plenty of time for chasing birds in the fall.  Get home, load up the dogs and head out to hunt.  Not every morning, but most this time of year.  Grab some sleep after hunting and then back to work.  Not a lifestyle conducive to relationships or marriage, but both were overrated anyways.  ‘Dogs don’t ditch or divorce you.’  he reassured himself.  Although the thought of coming home to Kahri every morning was somewhat appealing.  He smiled briefly, but that would necessitate a ‘real job.’  Maybe he should’ve become a veterinarian like his grandfather had all but demanded.  Timmy recoiled at the thought.  ‘Nope.  Too much school.  Too many people.  Not enough time to hunt.’ And then there were the fucking cats.  And the loud-mouthed, ankle-nipper dogs.  And the idiots who owned trash like that.  No, he wasn’t built for that kind of bullshit and the daily drama of being a vet.  The pay would be a hell of a lot better, but there was much more to life than money as Tippy always said.  He shook his head indignantly.  What she ever saw in his grandfather he couldn’t fathom.  The old bastard could fuck the fuck off.  Timmy had zero interest in becoming a vet, and less in serving his country like his twin sister and the three generations of their family before.  He was quite content with a simpler, safer life.  Plus, being a big disappointment to his grandfather was almost cathartic after all the old bastard’s criticism he’d endured over the years.

Timmy stumbled and almost fell as the torn leather toe of his left boot hooked a wayward railroad spike.  ‘Dammit.  Pay attention Timmy!’  he cursed silently.  Even though he needed to get back asap he slowed his gait slightly.  Face planting on the tracks would be a shit show.  In addition to messing up his face and busting some teeth he’d get in trouble at work.  And so would Joel.  More importantly he’d miss his long overdue rendezvous with Kahri.  Nothing like reminiscing about his self-appointed role as the black sheep of the family to addle your mind.  Timmy shook his head again, slightly bewildered.  He couldn’t remember ever using the word ‘addle’ before.  ‘Must be a Wordle flashback.’  he decided.  Timmy walked purposefully and more normally now that his erection had subsided.  He was closing in on his destination.  It was just ahead, in the shadow of the tanker cars.  ‘Hmmm.  Are those eyes?’ Timmy mused as he caught a glance of something that turned and fled before he got a good look.  He hoped so as he pulled the metal flask from his left jacket pocket.  Cola and liquid fly bait.  Mixed into a can of cat food it made a deadly little snack for the feral cats that prowled the fields around the plant.  Sure, they killed a lot of mice, and mice could create a shit-ton of issues when they got in the plant and chewed the electrical wires, but they also killed a lot of birds.  Pheasants, huns, sharpies and prairie chickens.  Maybe that’s why he hadn’t seen many prairie chickens the past few years.  “All vermin must die” his grandfather’s voice echoed in his head.   At least that one thing they agreed on.

Five thousand two hundred and forty-seven feet away Colonel ‘Double D’ Davison sat in the bed of a late model black Dodge Ram^® pickup.  Not quite a mile, but damn close.  Close enough for government work, not that he was working for the government tonight.  No, tonight he was on his own.  No orders, no spotter, no backup.  This was destined to be a solo mission from the time he planned it.  If anything went wrong he was toast.  He knew it, but didn’t give a damn.  Some things you had to do yourself.  And this mission was well worth the risk.  Muscular and lean the 175-pound Colonel was otherwise unremarkable.  There was nothing about his physical attributes that would stand out in a crowd.  Unless he purposefully made eye contact.  His steel blue eyes could instantly transmit fear and trepidation into the souls of all but the toughest men on the planet.  Even some of them weren’t immune to his icy cold stare.  Tonight that talent was on the back burner, however.  Tonight he needed to stay off the radar which was why he was dressed completely in black.  Black jeans, black flannel shirt, black balaclava and black boots.  His ID and phone were back in his personal vehicle which was parked at the office.  Not that he thought there was a chance in hell he would be seen, much less caught, but ‘best leave nothing to chance.’  For his entire career he had exhorted that adage to his teams with the passion and the fury of an evangelical preacher.  Almost every one of them thought he was crazy until they drew a mission with more downside risk than they could wrap their heads around.  Then they understood why he so diligently planned and then gamed and re-gamed every mission, no matter how simple it might seem.  There weren’t many missions that didn’t go sideways to some degree once the first shots were fired. 

Shortly after dark the Colonel had exited the nearest hard top road and then driven North on a bumpy, rutted ‘Minimum Maintenance’ road to his current location.  He had parked the pickup on the side of the dirt road and waited impatiently in the cab, too adrenaline-pumped to nap.  Shortly after midnight Davison had climbed out the sun roof and into the bed of the pickup so he wouldn’t leave any footprints.  There would be nothing to tie him to this long-awaited event.  The black Dodge^® was more of a shooting platform than a sniper’s hide, but that’s all he needed tonight.  Davison shifted his body ever so slightly to the left to obtain a better sight picture.  Never a big fan of Ram^® trucks, he had to admit this one was perfect for the mission.  The built-in, lockable toolboxes on each side of the bed were ideal for hiding, stowing and transporting weapons.  And, with the padded rifle case atop the wide siderail, it made for a perfect shooting platform.  The rifle was a standard sniper’s weapon.  Well almost.  The .50 caliber Barrett^® semi-automatic rifle had been customized, the Krieger barrel extending the effective range of the rifle to almost 2,500 yards.  The optics on the 6×24 power Vortex scope were designed for daylight sniping, but the light provided by the plant and the moon were more than sufficient for making tonight’s shot count.  Even though he would likely only fire one shot, the magazine was loaded with five additional rounds of 662 grain armor piercing incendiary ammunition.  No plan was foolproof, and the target needed to be taken out tonight.  He wouldn’t get a second chance.

Almost a mile away Timmy was gleefully gathering up the evidence of a prior eradication effort.  Three victims so far.  A scrawny grey female, a black tom and a tawny orange female with mange.  Two of the carcasses were partially eaten by their brethren, or maybe a coyote.  Vermin.  They were all scavengers.  The ‘yotes also deserved to die, but they weren’t as eager to eat the poisoned cat food as the fucking cats.  And coyotes only bred once a year.  Unlike the damn cats who could pump out dozens of hungry kittens year after year.  Not these cats though.  Timmy felt good as he walked between the tracks carrying the dead cats by their tails.  Like he had accomplished something.  Saving all those poor birds.  Saving them so he and his dogs could hunt them at a later date. 

Timmy approached the tankers, planning on pitching each carcass onto a loading platform.  The cars on the outbound tracks were full of ethanol and ready for shipment.  Those on the inbound tracks were empty.  No one paid any attention to the outbound tankers once they had been filled, and the railcars took the evidence far away.  And, the cylindrical black railcars on each set of tracks screened him completely from the light cast by the plant and from the lights on the storage tank.  Or so he thought.  There was a narrow window of visibility in the gap created by the couplers that connected the tankers.  Timmy swung the little grey female by her tail and chucked her upward.  The muffled thump let him know he had hit the loading platform.  He chuckled inwardly.  ‘Just like playing corn hole at the M&M.’  He walked toward the next tanker, which was sitting directly adjacent to the massive ethanol storage tank, switching the tawny female to his right hand as he passed through the gap between the tankers.

At that precise moment Davison was slowly exhaling and steadily squeezing the Barrett’s trigger, the soft glow of the red crosshairs steady on the melon-sized target.  ‘Aim small, miss small.’ The oft-quoted line from the movie The Patriot echoed silently in his head.  Once his index finger reached 2.5 pounds of pressure the trigger mechanism released.  The big semi-automatic rifle barked, the flash suppresser minimizing both the muzzle flash and the recoil.  Timmy Black’s world instantly went dark.  ‘This might be another shot heard round the world’ Davison reflected jubilantly. 

Half a world away Tracy Black’s eyes snapped open and she bolted upright in her cot.  Something was wrong.  Very wrong.  She could feel it in the very core of her being.  ‘Timmy Black, what the fuck have you done now?!?’