While I'm standing here waiting for the bullet to make a pit stop in my parietal lobe, I should probably assess how I reached this eventuality. It seems as though the small revolver that has fired the round, surely an illegal piece, is of the homemade variety. As such, and due in part to the short barrel, the round is currently dancing towards me at an apparent snails pace, tumbling and twisting in an irregular fashion. I should thank the man who made it, perhaps, as the slow and steady trajectory of the deadly lump is giving me enough time to collect my thoughts on what has led up to this moment.
It started simple enough, growing up in a middle class family, a little awkward due to the dissonance in my own body, but otherwise fine. A little bit of marksmanship and Krav Maga here, some camping and survival training there, and a healthy sprinkling of construction and manufacturing training throughout. This led to a relatively peaceful, though still a little awkward, high school experience, after which I joined up for the service, choosing the Army as the middle ground between all of the different branches. The Marines was a bit too much of a cult, the Air Force was a bit too individualistic, but the Army seemed just right. I enlisted 91F with an Airborne identifier, which made it much easier later to pass through selections to 18B and then 18C when the need arose. On the up side this made me incredibly versatile within the community, but on the downside I now had to associate with the JSOC community. After being passed around multiple different units in multiple different branches, I gained a reputation for being unbelievably awkward and unable to act, though incredibly smart and fast on the draw. This further relegated me away from the public position or any roles dealing with plainclothes operations (aside from security details, of course)and more towards situations that needed a bit of my "special touch". This then led to a reputation within the international community, in which I was designated as a specialist in my field.
Being a specialist in your field sounds good until you realize that your government both is capable of and is willing to lend you out to other governments to either be embedded in a task force or instruct others in your craft. As an individual who specialized in mixing metal and meat together in the most efficient way possible, I was loaned out more than a few times to instruct and advise. However, all good things must come to an end. Experts are meant to be used, and the comfortable days of travel and comped vacations in exotic destinations such as Somalia and Kosovo passed to lead way to more active endeavors.
Drug interdiction, high stakes hostage rescue, securing or eliminating HVTs, one after another. No breaks, no vacation, no fun. But there was hope, we were reaching the end of our bout OCONUS, and I was about to ETS out. It got down to the fine 48 and while I was packing the call came in. A journalist team with sensitive intel had been taken hostage by an isolated terror cell, demanding all sorts of ridiculous things in exchange for their release. Our job was to secure the individuals before the cell learned that they were sitting on a veritable gold mine of data. This shouldn't have been a hard mission, but it never goes well when you need it to the most.
We moved to the target AO from the safe house via domestic vehicles, in this case beat up hatchbacks. We set up comms and grounded gear a few blocks away from the AO, ensuring that we had yet to be detected. Our target was a small complex in the middle of fields full of tall grass, consisting of a gate house, an administrative building, and a multipurpose building. The grass, having been allowed to thrive after the region was abandoned years ago due to civil unrest, swayed gently in the cool night breeze, making for good concealment while surrounding and moving up on the target. The gate house was first, the sentries were dropped by a simultaneous shot from Jones and I, not making a sound as Aster and Corvo had been in wait to catch them when they fell. We continued our inward sweep, taking out two more sentries sitting in dry rotted plastic chairs by a small campfire. Alec and Nova left them there to lightly bake, with the rest of the team preparing to breach their respective buildings as planned. Yes, everything was still according to plan.
Our intel suggested that the bulk of the hostages were in the multipurpose building, though the hostile presence would be roughly equal in both areas. Jones and I stacked up on the door to the admin building along with Townsend and Marsh while the others prepared to breach the multipurpose room. I retained my long gun on my carrier and brought out my pick set from the admin pouch on my chest. I quietly manipulated the lock with the tools, progressively feeling each pin catch on the edge of the tumbler. After no more than 25 seconds the lock was silently opened, and we prepared to breach. I gave the signal to Corvo and his group and received confirmation that they were ready on their side. I left the count to Jones and took point. After roughly ten seconds Jones tapped me on the shoulder as Townsend quietly opened the door for me, allowing me to go in gun up.
