RUSTY | frank castle

SEVEN

Bang. 

It was that easy. 

They always pleaded helplessly, but they also always ended up dead. They deserved it. 

Rusty had hit an underground strip club where the most powerful drug dealers bought and sold their stuff. They supposedly had heavy men working for them. 

Not true. They had big-looking men armed with simple handguns that didn't even know how to punch properly. It was quite entertaining, on Rusty's behalf. Though, she's growing quite bored of drug-related criminals. They're probably her main targets because they are the easiest to find. 

Either way, they don't say anything. Or maybe the don't know anything. Both are frustrating for Rusty. The only thing they did mention, though, was the name Turk.

Her arms were a little sore and her body bruised because that bunch of men had thrown her around last night, but she sipped on her coffee that was stored in a to-go paper cup. She bought it that morning as the weather was warm enough to stay outdoors. She thought it'd be a good idea for the dogs to properly stretch their legs and run about in the park, rather than walk with her all day. 

She and her large dogs entered the park, immediately smelling the freshly cut grass. She saw the emptiness of the patch of nature, but did not complain. Rusty liked to be by herself. She always had been.

She sat on a bench and took out a notebook and a pen. She opened her phone and looked at the map she took a photo of yesterday. She noted down the things she found most important, and titled the page 'TURK'.

•••

"Someone from your unit risked their lives filming this, Frank." David said. The video from Kandahar was there, on the screen. Frank was angered by even the mention of Orange himself, so seeing the video on the screen in front of the Lieberman was bound to make his breaths heavy. "Somebody knew that this was wrong and they wanted to do something about it." 

Using the pen, David turned on the video again. Frank walked to the screen at the sound of Ahmad pleading. "Please. . . I'm not a terrorist. I have a family. Ch-children."

Frank walked closer to the screen, his eyebrows furrowing as he stood in front of the recorded video. Orange spoke in Pashto to Ahmad, who stammered and cried. Frank looked at the placing of the camera in the room, and realised who risked to record the interrogation. 

"It was Gunner." He said. David looked at him, though his face didn't give away his thoughts. As he sat down, Frank said, "Gunner Henderson. He's wearing the camera."

David paused the video. "Tell me about him."

"Look, I didn't know him before Cerberus. It's the way these things worked. We were just cherry-picked from the elite teams, you know?" Frank explained, "He's from Kentucky. Bible guy, liked to quote scripture. Hell of a soldier."

David scratched his head, probably uninterested. Though, he listened. Any info on the guy was useful to him. 

Frank stayed quite for a few seconds, thinking back to Operation Cerberus and the time Gunner had sat, emotionless after the one mission where the Major lost his arm. That was not a good night. "He knew what we were doing was wrong. I know that."

"If he knew what they were doing, maybe he knows who Agent Orange is."

  •••  

"Goddammit." Rusty muttered to herself as she threw her gun on the old brown leather couch in her living room. She slumped down next to it and Fender soon joined her.

The dogs had stayed behind while Rusty had gone out. She found the man known as Turk, though he sold and told nothing useful. She pulled her laptop onto her lap and opened it, the blue-light screen quickly responding. She opened the folder on her computer that required a code; she typed it in and the only thing stored in the computer's only protected folder opened up.

The video.

She clicked it, and it started playing. Rusty wanted to look away, but she played it. It was on a loop. She saw Orange, she saw Frank, she saw herself and her two dogs in front of the staircase. They sat either side of her, Lexi on her left and Fender on her right. 

She tried to remember who was there from the camera's placing. She frowned at the first name that popped into her head. Henderson. 

"Gunner." She whispered. 

Fender whined lightly when he heard the gunshot on the tape. Rusty slapped the piece of tech closed and ran her hand over her mouth, then her curly, fiery-brown hair. 

  •••  

"Why'd you do it, man?" Frank asked Gunner, "Why'd you make the tape?"

Gunner exhaled sharply as he remembered, "There was this kid on base. . . Young kid, 19, maybe. He lent me his knife 'cause I dropped mine somewhere. Knife's a sacred thing, Frank."

He looked away from Frank, at the forest, or maybe into nothing. "Anyways, this. . . kid got killed and I went down to the mortuary to give him his knife back, pay my respects." He paused, hesitating on whether to say the next bit of information. "Uh. . . Rusty came with me."

Frank frowned at that. She never told him about this, and she told him everything. Rusty told her poster boy everything. 

"Then we saw him." Gunner said simply, "They had the boy opened up. They was putting bags of drugs into his body. Rusty couldn't look, but I . . . I couldn't look away. They treated him like he was nothing. Like, just an empty carcass. Him and all the rest of them in there."

Frank pushed the thought of Rusty to the back of his mind, and asked, "Who was it, Gunner? Who was in the room?"

"It was the colonel, Bennett. . . the one who ran the mortuary. Him and Orange." He stammered a bit, "I didn't know who was in on it, I didn't know who to trust."

Gunner Henderson's words were interrupted when the whirring sound of a helicopter became detectable to the two. 

"They with you?" The archer asked.

"Shit, no."

  •••  

It was a little while later, when Rusty had gotten comfortable on the cool couch with Fender on top of her and Lexi on the floor, that the silence of the nebulous night was interrupted by a phone ringing. 

The muffled tune of Nirvana's 'Heart-Shaped Box' ran out and stopped Fender's light snoring. Lexi quickly lifted her head at the noise, but relaxed when she realised it was just Rusty's phone. 

The woman dug around the couch and managed to grab the phone from under her back. There was no number; it just read 'UNKNOWN'.

She answered the call and put it to her ear. Rusty pushed Fender off her body, who grumbled slightly as he was comfortable and warm. The woman propped her elbows on her knees, and tilted her head slightly as she listened on to the white noise. 

". . . Frank needs your help."