Marcus Rainn sat on the cold tile floor with his back against the wall of the men’s bathroom, just outside the third and fourth stalls, and wiped his face with the back of his hand, the zippo lighter carefully pressed between his fingers. The lights flickered as the still warm blood from his broken nose dripped from his hand to the floor. An unlit cigar was in the other hand. Dead Russians lay across the floor.

With a flick of his bloody wrist the old zippo lighter with an embossed shield of the legendary green beret unit—his green beret unit—crackled and a small orange flame ignited with a soft glow to cast a shadow across his face.

Rainn stared at the man hunched over the toilet bowl in the stall in front of him and closed the lighter, extinguishing the flame. Then with another flick of his wrist, lit it again.

This time he used the bright orange flame to toast the end of the cigar he held in the other hand.

The bathroom was dim, partly because during the scuffle he killed the lights for a tactical advantage, and partly because he had used the broken lightbulbs as weapons.

Broken glass sprawled across the floor amongst blood, debris, and the dead Russians. Everything from toilet paper rolls to pistol shell casings littered the broken tile floor like a minefield. Blood ran in streams mixed with water from the leaking sinks. The mirrors shattered in spiderweb patterns, and tile along the walls caved in from both Rainn’s head and the Russian he threw against it.

It had been one hell of a fight. His head pounded like a bass drum because of it.

The toasted end of the cigar turned from burnt jet-black to a white-hot glowing inferno of deep reds as he rotated it in his fingers. A hint of leather with toasted toffee lingered into the air. Rainn closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose, inhaling in those notes of leather and toffee in appreciation, then spoke to the room for the first time since the fight began.

“You know what the problem is with you Russians?” He asked aloud to no answer. The man hunched over the toilet just groaned and struggled to turn his head in his direction. Concussion, no doubt. Fractured wrist, broken pelvis, multiple broken ribs. A real work over.

Rainn didn’t care. He left him alive. Let him live. And he would live, if he told Rainn what he wanted to hear.

Rainn continued. “The problem is you Russians are loyal. Loyal to a fault.” Rainn chuckled to himself and puffed on the cigar again. “You think your precious mother-Russia is going to save you. She won’t. She never will. You are dispensable, like all the others before you—like your comrades here,” he said and looked around.

“And…you…Ameri…Ameri…cans?” The Russian man groaned.

Rainn rose to his feet and entered the stall, cigar in hand. He took a long drag, and the end glowed a burning bright amber that illuminated the dark confines of the stall.

“The difference between us is that we Americans know our precious government isn’t coming for us. We are dispensable and are willing to die not for a corrupt government, but for the freedoms of our citizens. Loyalty only goes so far, comrade.”

The man tried to move but could only groan, and only offered Rainn a muted moan, so Rainn knelt to a knee and put his free hand on the man’s face, pinning it against the broken toilet seat.

“Now I ask you again, do you know where Target 74 is? Where is Abigail Stevens?”

The Russian man’s eyes darted around in a panic. He offered no answer.

“No need to be tough. Today you will either tell me what I need to hear, or die. Don’t bite your tongue, nobody is coming for you,” he paused a beat, “So just tell me, and I’ll make it quick.”

“Plea…se…please. I know…I know… nothing.”

Rainn frowned and held the lit end of the cigar to the man’s eye, close enough he could feel the heat but not close enough to burn him. The man shook as Rainn pinned his head down against the cold porcelain of the toilet rim.

“How ‘bout now?”

“No! Plea…se… please. I know…I know nothing!” The Russian pleaded. Rainn could feel the man’s heart rate elevate through his palm, so he pressed down harder, the flicked ash from the end of the cigar, sure to keep the end lit but also the bright red amber in sight.

“Fine. Have it your way…” Rainn said then he pressed the hot end of the cigar into the Russian’s eye. The man shuttered and let out a stomach-churning groan. The smell of burning eyeballs was a distinct smell Rainn was never going to forget. The Russian slumped down from the toilet rim after he blacked out, so Rainn left.

Outside the facility on the grassy greenspace was a Mi-8 Russian transport helicopter. Its twin turbine engines still roared with life as it waited patiently for its occupants. Rainn beat through the exit doors and headed straight towards the helicopter, shouldering a Russian RPG-7. The pilot’s face was alarmed and frantic at the sight. His eyes as white as snow and as big as basketballs.

The pilot didn’t even have time to react. A smoke stream of gray mist shot towards the front glass of the helicopter with a rocket propelled warhead on a string, just seconds later the machine burned in a heap of twisted metal, black smoke, and a raging fire.

Beyond the burning helicopter was a snow-capped cliff that led down to a road, and that road led to a thirty-minute drive back into Ukraine from Belarus.

Rainn had tracked down a team of Russians who had traveled into Belarus with his target—former DIA operative Abigail Stevens—and held her captive through their trek into Ukraine. Intel told him the Russians were moving her constantly to avoid detection, and that her final place of imprisonment was a small town the Russians had taken over just inside the Ukraine border. And he was going to get her, no matter the cost or body count.

After hiking down the cliff Rainn entered a small Jeep with a fully loaded AK-47 in the passenger seat and put it in drive. Snaking through the small icy road Rainn drove the thirty minutes to the border and passed through with ease, as Ukrainian forces were so depleted from the Russian conflict that they couldn’t even man the borders anymore.

An hour later he was pulling up to a small, abandoned town equipped with two Russian tanks at its outskirts. Rainn didn’t slow down when he approached. The tanks were nothing to be concerned with. Drones from Ukrainian forces had disabled them, and kamikaze style attacks kept Russian forces from peering out in the open.

Nobody was going to man those tanks. He drove right through.

Inside town was an abandoned warehouse barricaded by chained fencing and razor wire, with cameras protruding from every angle on every corner. Being seen didn’t matter. In fact, he wanted to be seen.

The Jeep came to a halt and Rainn exited, opened the back hatch, and shouldered another RPG and aimed it at the front door of the building. With one trigger pull the front door blew off it’s hinges and Rainn peered through the smoke and stepped inside, the AK-47 from the passenger seat up to his shoulder, his eyes over top of the iron sights.

Two men rose to their feet in a coughing fit, and then those two men fell to the floor with barks from the AK-47. He didn’t have time to talk and wasn’t looking for answers. He was just looking for her.

Rainn paused as thumps from the ceiling above signaled more targets were grouping together to fend him off. They’d need more than a few hands to slow him down.

Rainn pulled a pack of C4 with extreme adhesives from his pack and tossed a few up towards the ceiling where they landed with a soft thud. Two more were attached to the pillars supporting that ceiling, and Rainn positioned himself at the far end of the building by the staircase that led up to the second floor.

Peering up the stairs, Rainn shot out his warning. “Otpusti devuscu you te budes zhit.” Release the girl and you will live.

Nobody answered.

“Have it your way,” he mumbled out loud and pressed the red button on the detonator in his hand. The building shook with a violence and the ceiling came crashing down in front of him, with a dozen men all falling to their deaths. Some were lucky and only had major injuries, but Rainn quickly put them out of their misery with head shots for each.

The last man laid underneath a pile of rubble, screaming about broken legs with two metal bars protruding from his abdomen.

“Skazhite, tovarishch, gde devushka?” he asked. Tell me, comrade, where is the girl?

The man pointed down and pleaded for help.

“Podval?” Rainn asked. The basement?

The Russian soldier nodded his head to confirm. Rainn put a bullet in it.

The dusty stairs hadn’t been frequented in years, and Rainn could see the remains of old footprints leading down toward the lower level from recent visitors. Step by step he descended, his eyes down the iron sights of the AK-47 as he cleared the corners and stepped down the second flight after the turn and faced a wide-open door.

Weak lighting lit up a small room on the lowest level, with only a chair silhouetted by a yellow amber from the ceiling above. In the chair sat a body, slumped over, their back towards him. Rainn approached, cautiously looking around the room. It was a female, just as he’d hoped. Blonde hair ran down the back of her black jacket. Rainn pulled the silver tape from her mouth and lifted her chin up to meet her eyes. She looked back and took a deep breath.

“Took you long enough, Marcus,” she groaned.

“Sorry. Got stuck in traffic,” Rainn replied, matching her sarcasm. Rainn and Abigail went back years, back to their days at The Farm, the infamous CIA training sight for intelligence operatives across a host of three-letter government agencies. At the time they met, Rainn was an instructor. Abigail was a student.

Now he was the rescue. She was the captive.

Rainn cut the ropes from her wrists and legs and then buttoned up her shirt as she stretched rope-burned wrists. Rainn guessed she had been in that chair a week given her matted hair and discolored clothing.

“You good?” Rainn asked. Abigail nodded and rose to her feet on weak knees. “Good, we got to move. Backup is probably already on the way.”

“Have any more explosives?”

Rainn nodded. “I do,” and handed over his backpack. Abigail pulled several from the bag as they ascended the stairs, Rainn first as he cleared every angle over the top of the AK, and Abigail behind him preparing explosives.

When they got to the top of the stairs they found an empty room, save for the dead bodies and rubble from the collapsed ceiling. Outside Rainn and Abigail split up and took off down the road. Rainn took the jeep he’d confiscated, and Abigail drove an abandoned Russian troop truck. Two miles later they pulled over and shot up the Russian truck, then placed an explosive on it. Together they entered the Jeep and departed again, stopping just down the road to keep an eye out.

Minutes later backup came hurling down the road. Abigail pressed the detonator from the safety of the Jeep right as the convoy of Russians passed the shot-up troop truck. The explosion rocked the Jeep, peppering it with dirt and snow. But the convoy of Russians was neutralized.

At least, for now.

Rainn drove down the road towards Kyiv. From here they would both need to lay low, but Abigail had no plans of sitting still. At least, not behind closed doors.

“Do you know why they took me?” Abigail asked.

Rainn nodded. Abigail, like him, had been on the outside looking in from her intelligence agency. She with the DIA, and he with the CIA. But it wasn’t for lack of effort. The two of them knew truths that couldn’t stay hidden forever. Truths that would expose far too many. Russians did cheap work, especially with all the dirty money floating around Ukraine. It was easy for a group of US Senators to wire money through corrupt organizations and fund a mission to capture a US Citizen, especially if it was also a US Intelligence asset.

Abigail looked over to Rainn and asked for his cell. She took it when he handed it over and opened the internet browser, typed in a few commands, and seconds later was on an encrypted black-market website. She logged in with her credentials, then showed it to Rainn. He smiled a devilish grin.

Abigail returned with an equally satisfied grin and pressed the green button on the screen that said ARM.

Seconds later, halfway across the world, the lights went out in Washington, D.C. at the Capitol Building. Then so did the internet. Then all connected power. Then cell phones directly targeting members of Congress, their staff, and their spouses. The capitol region was completely in the dark, just like she had been not even an hour ago.

She was once powerless in a basement surrounded by Russians hired by her own government to make her talk before they killed her. Now Congress was powerless in the house that the people built.

The rebellion had only just begun.