Chapter 15 - Market Forces

Finne had frozen in shear panic and disorientation. Balancing awkwardly while bound at his ankles with his wrists strapped together behind his back he was near shock. The last several seconds had gone from worst case scenario to ... he didn't know what. Hooded in complete darkness in the middle of what he knew to be nowhere, Finne had begun to be lifted by his belt and underarms toward the sound of the roaring shredder.

Then suddnely, a series of sounds had changed everything and taken him to a higher level of distress. First, three distinct but near identical "SPIT" sounds pierced the air over Finne's right shoulder. Each "SPIT" was followed by a sound that Finne knew but had never heard so closely before. Splater and gurgles to his right, left, and directly behind him. From behind, Finne felt a spray of warm, slimy, liquid mass impact his right side from his shoulder blade to his ear. Finne was let go by all of the hands that had previously been thrusting him towards the wood chipper. Finne knew the gurgling to be the sound of massive arterial gunshot wounds and suspected that at least three of the four men that he had encountered were now dead or dying... likely from a sniper's rifle or a silenced side-arm.

Finne's instinct was to dive for the ground, but the last sounds he heard had locked his joints and sent his body stiff. "BAM..BAM..BAM.." exploded three feet in front and below him. Finne sensed the violent noise was coming from his waist level. These were definitely gunshots and Finne was sure they were directed at him. Nowhere seemed to be safe. He had frozen in shock.

"SPIT..SPIT.." Silence.

Finne's life passed before his eyes. In an instant he visualized his parents, siblings, friends, his memories of a privliged upbringing, boarding school, country clubs, ivy league dinner societies, and his social prowess amongst the DC power scene. His mind was in a state of absolute chaos. His body had gone limp and in his fleating moments before unconciousness, he thought "Am I dead?".