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“In recent decades, statistics around child abuse have gotten worse, as a 2030 study by the US Department of Health and Human Services found that nine children die of child abuse-related injuries every day—an almost two-fold increase from 2010 when a similar report found that five children were being abused to death every day. So that begs the question—what has changed?”
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—Excerpt of text circulated by the charity All In Against Child Abuse.
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Rico had been on a lot of operations in his lifetime. First for the military. Then for Daedalus. Then—after their betrayal, after their corruption, after all of their lies, had all been made painfully clear to him—for the Crimson Blades. But this, well…this was different. It was a necessary objective to achieve, if Daedalus, and others like Daedalus, were going to be brought to justice, if their blight was going to be stopped at all, let alone stopped cold—and it needed to be stopped cold, dead in its tracks. But that didn’t make it seem any less uncomfortable for the old warfighter.
The computer lab—which doubled as a briefing room—was barren, except for one metal, rectangular, grey table in the center of the room, and some longer tables against the walls that held computers and monitors. There were chairs at the tables that lined the walls, but none at the central table. Chad had said that he believed that this would keep the operatives more alert, and more attentive, during the briefings, therefore ensuring better outcomes. There were six operatives around the table—the computer specialists, and other technical specialists, had cleared out of the computer lab in question, which doubled as a briefing room because of the limited amount of space in the safe house. Officially speaking, the safe house was a corporately owned group of warehouses. Its code name, Old Mill was, as such, deliberately misguiding. This warehouse had been entirely reconfigured, along with an annex to this warehouse, and the other warehouses rented by a Crimson Blades’ shell company on the premises. As for this warehouse, in a manner very much similar to the others, various interior walls and rooms had been added along the sides of the warehouse, although most—about three-fifths—of the main warehouse floor, had been deliberately left open. The computer lab was one of six computer labs in that particular building, three of which doubled as briefing rooms, and only four of which were ever full. Mostly, the extra computer labs were intended to better allow for need-to-know information to be better compartmentalized—in other words, known only by those who absolutely needed that data to do their jobs. There were other briefing rooms, but—for whatever reason—Chad had wanted to use one of the computer labs. Knowing the mission, probably to avoid occupying a purpose-designated briefing room. Using a spare computer lab might be less visible to uninvolved field operatives, and therefore, might be less likely to have the operation ruined by an information leak. Besides, some of the other operatives might find the operation…unnerving. To Rico, holding this briefing in a computer lab made sense.
All the operatives had code number designations, which they could choose to use—or not use—instead of names off duty, but which were always used over comms, and while on a mission, to prevent the ambushing of off-duty operatives. Chad only knew two of the other operatives by name, but he knew all their code designations. They were Squad 141, so Rico was 141-Bravo, Grant was 141-Charlie, and Chad was Eagle-17, with Eagle being the code designation for a Crimson Blade Commandant, who was in charge of all operations in a specific area. Typically the Commandant commanded multiple cells of Crimson Blades. The different cells typically didn’t interact, unless a cell took catastrophic casualties, or there was an objective that required simultaneous and coordinated actions by several different cells. The other operatives, whose names Rico did not know—they had opted to keep that to themselves—were 141-Delta, 141-Echo, and 141-Foxtrot, although Foxtrot was sometimes abbreviated to FT in the field. Most code designations were first come, first serve, except for the Alpha and Bravo designations—Alpha designations were reserved for squad leaders, and Bravo for squad seconds, who served as the squad leader’s second in command, and were designated to lead the squad temporarily if the squad leader was wounded or killed—at least, until the squad leader recovered (assuming the squad leader was still alive), or was replaced. Sometimes they were replaced by promoting the squad second, and sometimes a deceased squad leader was replaced by transferring a new leader into a squad. In this case, 141-Alpha was KIA—Killed In Action—on their last assignment, after which the remaining members of Direct Action Squad 141 had—upon returning with his body—been thoroughly debriefed, and given an abnormally large amount of precious downtime. That is until the squad had been summoned to the makeshift briefing room, and personally briefed by Chad.
Chad was a little on the tall side, at around five feet, eleven inches tall, with short brown hair—kept in a buzz cut by Chad—and calculating blue eyes, a perfect fit for Chad’s calculating mind. In the past, knowing that someone with the position of Commandant was able to make such mental calculations had always been reassuring to Rico. Chad was also very pale, although Rico didn’t know why.
“So we’re all clear on the plan? We go in, then we use the Substance Twenty-Three-Alpha—which your squad already seized from Daedalus on your last mission—to render the class unconscious, after which we seize the target, and haul ass. Any questions?”
Grant, who was a short man, with short cropped black hair, callous green eyes, and something about him that made Rico very uneasy—although Rico wasn’t sure what exactly it was about Grant that put Rico into such an ill-at-ease state—raised his hand. Grant had a rather cold personality, even for the standards of the Crimson Blades. Rico wasn’t sure whether he found Grant merely tolerable, or downright contemptible. Either way, Chad nodded to Grant.
“Why not render the whole school unconscious? Why only the class that the target’s in,” Grant asked.
Chad replied, “Good question, Grant. Personally, if it were up to me, I’d actually do that. Thing is, if we dosed the entire premises, we wouldn’t have enough to reverse engineer the compound and would be left unable to make more. Besides, that decision was made above my pay grade. The top brass of High Command wants us reverse engineering everything we can from that Daedalus lab.”
Rico’s ears practically perked up when Chad said the top brass of High Command. High Command was those coordinating and orchestrating the Crimson Blade’s overall strategy and was to the Crimson Blades what the Executive Branch was to the Federal Government. The Commandants were from High Command, but were the third lowest ranking members of High Command, followed by; the Commandant’s Executive Officer—or in other words, the Commandant’s second in command—who held the rank of Vice Commandant; and the Deputy Vice Commandant, who was the Commandant's third in command, and would become an acting Executive Officer if the Vice Commandant was killed, or otherwise became unavailable, until it was decided whether or not the Deputy Vice Commandant should be promoted to Vice Commandant. If whoever ran High Command promoted him or her, then a new Deputy Vice Commandant would be transferred in, and if he or she was not promoted, then a new Vice Commandant would be transferred in.
Most of these Commandants, Vice Commandants, and Deputy Vice Commandants, were either former Cell Commanders—Crimson Blade officer’s who commanded a single cell of the Crimson Blades—or people who none of the operatives within the Field Division—or, their cell of the Field Division—had heard of before. That being said, while Rico had worked and fought alongside operatives from other cells of the Crimson Blades before, he had only done so on a handful of occasions, and all Crimson Blades within the Field Division were forbidden to reveal any of their own identities, base locations, or overall personnel strengths—among other tidbits of confidential information—to members of other cells. That way, if the other cell’s operatives were captured, and gave up information on the Crimson Blades, they could only compromise the one cell that they were a part of, instead of the whole network of cells. There were some exceptions, such as—for example—an exception allowing troop strengths to be revealed if a cell took catastrophic casualties, and the Cell Commander, or a member of High Command, needed to request assistance for that cell from other cells.
The reason for the Commandant having two direct subordinates instead of having only one Executive Officer for a second in command, without a third in command, was due to the highly secretive nature of the Crimson Blade’s High Command. In any given Crimson Blades cell, the Cell Commander would receive all Operational Orders, Fragmentation Orders, new regulations, and any amendments to preexisting regulations, in addition to the suspension or rescinding of any voided or suspend regulations, as ordered by High Command, exclusively through the Commandant, who served as a representative of High Command. If the Commandant was dead, or otherwise unavailable, they’d get such information from either the Commandant’s second or third in command. To avoid compromising High Command, which could compromise all cells of the Crimson Blades network, not one member outside of High Command actually knew how High Command operated; where they operated from; who they were; how many of them there were; or even how to contact any of them, with the sole exception of knowing how to contact the particular Commandant, Vice Commandant, and Deputy Vice Commandant, assigned to their cell, of course. And even then, while they could contact the Commandant, it was up to the Commandant whether or not anyone in the cells of field operatives that they presided over actually knew their names or faces. Anyway, the Commandant effectively had two executive officers, so that—even if two of the three representatives from High Command were killed—the Cell Commander would be able to get orders, intelligence, missions, and coordinated assistance, as needed, from High Command, and could still pass along information to High Command.
The majority of the Crimson Blades had no idea who was in charge of High Command—only those inside of High Command knew that—but all Crimson Blades had agreed to the stated list of overall objectives High Command had mandated, and were free to leave the Crimson Blades as they wished, so long as they did so between assignments, and not during the middle of a mission or an operation. The former would get them out of the organization alive—the latter would have them shot as a deserter. To conclude the data on High Command, nobody was allowed to reveal the existence of High Command to anyone until after they’d been fully recruited into the Crimson Blades, trained up, and completed their first three missions.
Grant asked Chad, “I take it that High Command’s playing the long game, sir? With Substance Twenty-Three-Alpha, I mean.”
“Exactly,” Chad answered, before turning to Rico, and asking, “You’ve been awfully quiet, Rico. Something on your mind?”
“I just…it feels off. This op, I mean,” Rico told him.
“What? You think it’s an ambush of some sort,” Chad inquired, concerned.
“No, sir. I’m just not used to having a school in my line of fire,” Rico replied honestly.
“Relax, Rico—we’ll only use lethal force as a last resort. You know, if fired upon, or to prevent the target’s escape. Besides, the plan works because the enemy will think she’ll be killed if the bastard doesn’t comply, not because we’d actually kill her—we won’t,” Chad reassured him.
Feeling adequately reassured by Chad’s words, Rico nodded.
“If you want, we could take you off the op,” Chad offered, hastily adding, “You know, if you’re not comfortable with it.”
“I think I’ll decline that offer, sir,” Rico stated.
Chad simply nodded his recognition of that, but let a slight smile crack his clean-shaven face upon hearing the words.
Grant simply looked at Rico, and asked, “How’d a company man like you end up with us, Rico? Assuming you don’t mind me asking, that is.”
Chad stated, “Back off, Grant. We were almost all company men, once.”
Shaking his head, Rico replied, “No sir, it’s fine. Besides I’d rather answer it now—and have it done with—as opposed to having questions about my loyalty hanging in the air.”
Another shaky breath passed through Rico’s lips, as he prepared to reveal the painful reason he’d joined up with the Crimson Blades.
“You probably wouldn’t imagine it now, but I was once a family man. Had three kids—triplets. A son, and two daughters. All three of them became doctors, like their mother. After the cancer in her spine took her from us, our kids…they were all I had left. Just like their mother, all three of them joined Doctors Without Borders. They went to Africa, wanting to help others. Once, I had actually tried to become a physician, only to wash out of medical school, and join the Army, and then Daedalus, to pay off the Medical School debts from my failure. Where all I could do with flesh was kill it, they could mend it, they could heal people. I remember being so immensely proud of them. Then, one day, I got a phone call. It was from an American ambassador, stationed in the country where my children were volunteering. Gunmen had stormed the hospital where they had been working—among other hospitals in the area—shooting, stabbing, beating, burning, and hanging, to death anyone that they could find. According to security cameras, and those that survived, my daughters were shot trying to evacuate patients, while my son, despite being completely unarmed, and completely untrained when it came to combat, tried to resist, to defend several patients too weak to be evacuated. They didn’t have the decency to make his death quick. They beat him, tied him up, burned him to death, and then they hung his body from a ceiling fan by a noose,” Rico explained.
Even Grant, whom Chad knew to possess a rather cold personality, remarked, “Jesus…”
Rico continued, “Afterwards, the US military deployed assets to protect volunteers in the area, and to hunt down the terrorists responsible, but the local governments knew that—regardless of how many Americans died—eventually, our politicians would pull our troops out, and they’d be at the whims of the enemy again…like the Afghan people, the Kurds, or our allies massacred before them by the Kemer Rouge and Viet Kong. So they hired Daedalus to go in and kill the enemy, all the enemy, to leave no stone unturned. Afterward, I found things…things I was not supposed to find. Namely, evidence that the Daedalus Board of Directors, all the top brass at the company, knew that the attack on those thirty-one hospitals would happen months beforehand, but let it happen, knowing that the desperate locals would pay tenfold the normal price for Daedalus operators. Who else would they turn to? Daedalus had already become the dominant PMC company in Africa by that point, gaining a near monopoly in the region’s market for military contractors. I tried to expose this, but Daedalus quickly destroyed the evidence and transferred company money to my personal bank account of their own accord—before promptly firing me, and blacklisting me, for the alleged embezzlement, which they framed me for! They let my children die! Daedalus took everything from me! And I look forward to returning the favor.”
After Rico had finished talking, the room was frozen in silence, until Chad said, “I don’t know whether my brother is dead or alive…I do know that Daedalus disappeared him for knowing too much—for trying to expose their atrocities…together, we will repay them the fucking favor, Rico.”
Turning to face the rest of the room, Chad asked them, “Any other questions?”
Raising his hand, Grant asked—albeit, only after Chad nodded in recognition at him, “When are we getting a new squad leader, sir?”
“For now, you’re not, Grant. I’m leading this mission personally. For a member of High Command like me, I know that’s abnormal, but some ops are just that important. Does anyone else have a question?”
Everyone in the room shook their heads.
“Then load up! We’re moving out now,” Chad ordered.
They simultaneously stood up, and came to the military-style position of attention, before they all replied at once, with the same answer, “Sir, yes, sir.”
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The van was rather cold. Rico watched the others as they all pulled on their gas masks. Meanwhile, Rico did the same, pulling on his own gas mask.
“Hey, five minutes to target,” Chad said, the Vocal Disguise Unit in his gas mask altering his voice, to hide his identity.
Chad’s mask was a prototype, and nobody else wanted to risk being stuck with a substandard gas mask, even if that mask offered an extra layer of anonymity. Upon hearing Chad’s words, Rico found himself taking one last look at a well-creased, often carried, photo printout. It was a copy of a photo from a family vacation in Paris that he, his wife, and his three kids, had taken as a form of celebration after the trio of youths had graduated from medical school. In this photo, they stood on a hotel balcony, in the middle of the day, with the Eiffel Tower looming in the background. Rico’s family were all smiling, happy in that photo, oblivious to the death and suffering that fate had in store for them. Rico folded the well-worn paper, and slipped it into his pocket, as he felt the vehicle come to a stop.
“We’re in! Go! Go! Go!,” the driver—141-Foxtrot—yelled, prompting the rest of them to swing open the van’s rear doors, before the five Crimson Blades, including Rico, Chad, and Grant—all covered head to toe in body armor—poured out of the white utility van, into the parking lot, gas masks on and guns raised.
141-Foxtrot stayed behind to ensure that they could make good their escape immediately upon seizing their target. Running between cars and various other vehicles, the five forced entry into the target building by smashing some glass on a set of double doors with a rifle butt. These doors were metal frames with large glass panels in the center of the metal. The glass shattered, and Grant reached in, unlocking the doors, then opening them, before the five Crimson Blades ran through the now open doors, glass crunching beneath their boots.
“Everyone, we are going into lockdown. This is not a drill. I repeat this is not a drill.” The voice Rico heard saying that over the intercom was likely the principal. To say he sounded stressed would have been a massive understatement. Then again, the man had ample reason to be stressed. Rico sure didn’t blame him.
At this point, a lone woman in a police officer’s uniform ran around the corner, and towards the Crimson Blades, pistol in hand. Rico was willing to bet that she’d somehow alerted the man on the intercom.
She seemed to realize, all too late, that she should have stopped at the corner down the hallway, and grabbed cover, given that she began to backtrack towards the corner at the other end of the hallway—by sprinting in a backward manner, so as not to turn her back to the Crimson Blades—her pistol drawn and aimed at the Crimson Blades, while she yelled, “Freeze! Drop your weapons! Now! Ha—.”
She was cut off as Grant fired a three-round burst of full metal jacket ammunition from his M16 assault rifle, and she fired her pistol, which Rico recognized as a Glock 22—the same type of sidearm Rico had holstered on his right hip. Her shot struck Grant’s shoulder pad, knocking Grant’s back against the wall. Grant’s burst of three rounds struck her in the neck. Blood billowed from the wound as the police officer’s back hit the floor, and her sidearm spiraled across the floor tiles.
Rico immediately went to Grant, attempting to get a better look at where the bullet hit him, as Chad demanded of Grant, in that mechanically altered voice, “One-Four-One-Charlie, where are you hit?”
Grant stood back up, shoving off Chad and Rico’s attempts to help him, stating, “Relax, damn it! The body armor held. The mission, we need to focus on the mission!”
Chad nodded, and proceeded to help Grant up, as Rico rushed toward the cop who was convulsing, blood billowing from the wound to her neck, while blood oozed from her mouth and nostrils. Reaching for the Combat Trauma kit strapped to his left thigh, Rico began to unzip it, instinctively—and fully—intending to render medical aid to the police officer. In that instant, Rico thanked his lucky stars that he was ambidextrous. Then another gunshot rang out, and blood splattered all over Rico.
Looking up, Rico saw Grant standing there, still training the iron sights of his M16 on the forehead of the cop’s cadaver—or, more specifically, the crater now in her forehead.
Even through a gas mask, Rico’s dull stare did not escape Grant’s notice, as Grant stated, “What One-Four-One-Bravo? We’ve got a mission, and someone got in the way. I dealt with it. That simple.”
Rico suddenly felt a massive urge to scream at Grant, but immediately thought better of it, given the possible consequences of doing so.
Chad looked at Rico, saying, “An unfortunate necessity, that was. One-Four-One-Bravo, we need you back on task.”
“Yes sir,” Rico replied reflexively before he—with one hand—slid the eyelids of the fallen police officer shut, then stood up, and hoisted his rifle aloft.
Running down the hallway, the five Crimson Blades climbed a set of stairs on the other end of the hallway, then ran down a second-story hallway, at which point they stopped when Chad called out, “Hey! That computer lab! That’s the one,” and pointed to one of the doors that lined one side of the second story hallway.
In a fluid, well-trained series of movements, two Crimson Blades took cover and dropped to one knee, rifles aimed down either side of the hallway, taking cover between sections of lockers along the walls, in the alcoves where the doors to the classrooms, or computer labs, stood. These alcoves were made deeper by the lockers lining the sections of the walls that spanned the space between the doors. That being said, they did not intend to hold those positions for long. They all knew that a prolonged engagement would not benefit them here, and they also knew mission success depended upon extreme speed. Emergency responses in this part of town were actually relatively quick, and the cyber unit of the Crimson Blades couldn’t delay the call being put out to law enforcement from the school about their presence by more than thirty minutes at best, before someone, somewhere, would get through, or otherwise realize something was up.
Rico moved to cover Grant, as Grant placed a small breaching charge on the target door.
“Stand back,” Grant said, prompting Chad, Grant, and Rico, to move to the other side of the hall, as the timer attached to the plastic explosives of the breaching charge—what looked like a mess of wires and clay, with a timer stuck onto it—counted down. Most breaching charges didn’t look like that, but—then again, most breaching charges were designed to knock a door fully down or to blow it apart—whereas this charge simply aimed to blow a hole into the door which was big enough to slip a gas canister through.
With a sizable bang, a one-foot by one-foot hole was blown into the door. Pulling a tear gas-style canister from his belt, Grant pulled the pin and tossed it through the hole in the door as it began spewing substance 23-Alpha, a yellow gas. The sounds of coughing emanated from the classroom, before falling silent within fractions of a minute.
A man in a tuxedo ran toward the Crimson Blades, looking as though he were about to tackle Rico. Rico quickly realized that he was, and saw 141-Echo take aim. Wanting to avoid another innocent casualty, Rico proceeded to break cover, and deliberately run into 141-Echo’s line of fire—more than enough civilians had died during this operation already. Doing this, Rico promptly lashed out with a savage kick to the back of the man’s right knee, yet he was being careful to avoid the kneecap—Rico didn’t want to cripple the man in the tuxedo, but merely to stop his attack. The blow landed in the intended area, and the Tuxedo Man collapsed to the ground, while Rico aimed his rifle at the man’s head.
Much to Rico’s surprise, the man’s eye’s did not go wide with fear, but stayed an icy sort of calm, as the man muttered, “Damn it…I have to protect my students…” Rico could hear the struggle to maintain some sort of composure in the Tuxedo Man’s voice.
Rico, desperately trying to intimidate the man—for the other man’s sake—growled in the most menacing voice he could muster, “Sir, I don’t want to kill you. So please, don’t make me.”
It sounded to Rico both menacing and very desperate, but it was a Hail Mary. If it didn’t work, Rico figured Chad would order this man killed, and that insubordination would mean Rico’s death.
Taking three steps back as he lowered his rifle, Rico said, in the same growling, yet desperately pleading, voice, “You have ten seconds to run before I follow my orders to shoot anyone who interferes. Get running.”
Please, Rico’s thoughts silently begged, don’t make me have to end you.
The Tuxedo Man replied, “Kill me if you want. I won’t abandon my students.”
Rico once again leveled his riffle with the man’s head, knowing that he’d have to end this man’s life, but seemed to freeze, as though the ice-cold blood running in his veins had turned to lead, concrete, or steel rebar. Rico couldn’t bring himself to gun down such an admirable man in cold blood. This man was a teacher who—despite being completely unarmed and being actively held under a loaded gun—was still trying to protect his students. The previous killings Rico had perpetrated—on and off the battlefield—had all either terrorist scum, some other type of scum, other armed enemy combatants who’d been actively trying to kill Rico and his fellow troops, or legitimate self-defense, but this was none of the above—the teacher was unarmed, neither scum nor a hostile combatant and nothing about this was self-defense. Rico’s mind raced faster than it had ever gone before, a million miles a second, desperately trying to find some way to justify what he was about to do. The only applicable excuse Rico could find was orders are orders, but Rico himself didn’t buy it, as he’d disobeyed unlawful orders before he’d joined the Crimson Blades.
A gunshot rang out from somewhere behind Rico to his right—his five o’clock if he had to guess.
Rico turned, to find 141-Echo standing there, 141-Echo’s rifle still aimed at the tuxedo-clad corpse Rico now found himself standing over, before 141-Echo spoke out, sounding furious, “One-Four-One-Bravo, what the hell? Freezing up like that will get us all killed, and you know this, damn it! Do you have a death wish? Eagle-Seventeen and One-Four-One-Foxtrot already made entry while you were fucking around! Pull your head out of your ass and shift it, sir!”
Suddenly, Rico felt pissed off, retorting, “I am your direct superior, One-Four-One-Echo, and you will show me the respect I am due.”
141-Echo replied, in a much more even tone, “Apologies, sir. I’ve just…never seen you freeze up like that before, sir. We need to shift it now, or they might be forced to leave us, sir.”
That thought hadn’t even occurred to Rico.
“You’re right, Echo. Let’s shift it,” Rico stated, trying desperately to hide the turmoil of upset within himself from his colleague, to keep it out of his own voice.
The two ran back the way they came, finding the target door had already been forced open, and that the students and an adult—presumably a teacher or faculty member of some sort—were slumped across the ground, both underneath and around rows of desks lined with computers, like puppets with their strings cut, as the Crimson Blades ran past. That said, there was no blood pooling beneath them—they must have been unconscious. Eventually, the pair made it to the van, and climbed in, with Rico finding himself surprisingly ungrateful that they hadn’t been left behind. Two innocent people had died, and that didn’t sit well with Rico, as he and 141-Echo shut the rear doors of the van behind themselves.
Rico felt the van begin to move at high speed as their squad mate drove them back to the safe house. As this happened, Rico looked to where the teenage brunette lay, zip-cuffed at the wrists and ankles, with a gag in her mouth, on the floor of the van, unconscious. As he looked at this girl, Jessica Wilcox, all Rico could think about were Rico’s own children, their bodies rotting in their graves. Rico was an agnostic—in his opinion, a god, or some other sort of divinity, and the existence of an afterlife, could neither be proven nor disproven. Rico found himself wondering if his wife and kids were looking down on him from…whatever came after death. Assuming that there was something after death. This girl they’d taken looked so much like Rico’s daughters, to such a point that seeing her on the ground, zip cuffed and lain down like a piece of luggage, physically hurt, like a painful tightness in his chest. During the ride back to base, Rico felt an intense shame at what they’d done and wondered—assuming his family could see him—what his family was thinking. If they could, of course, still think, given that they were dead. In his guilt, Rico felt a whirlwind of silent questions bubbling within him, which now—with a person to his target, a child behind the name, term, and photo—he could no longer ignore.
What are we doing? We’re supposed to be fighting evil like Daedalus, not sinking to their level! All the other crimes we committed were necessary, but this? How’s this necessary? We set out to fight corruption! How is this not corruption, or evil of some other sort? What the fuck did we just do? How did we become this? How are we still better than the enemy? My family would be ashamed! We oughta let her go! I oughta…I oughta…
Rico physically shook his head, and shook it hard, trying to shake the thoughts away. To disobey an order would mean that the murderous wraith of the Crimson Blades, professional killers every bit as highly skilled and well-trained as him, would end him. And she was to be kept as a prisoner. His orders were clear. To free her would be suicidal for both of them.
“You okay, One-Four-One-Bravo?”
Chad’s question startled Rico back to situational awareness.
“Sorry, Eagle-Seventeen. Seems I got a bad migraine. Once we’re back at base, do you mind if I take something for it,” Rico lied.
“Go ahead, do that, and lay down for a few hours. Then report back to me. One-Four-One-Delta, stick with him ‘till he’s resting in the barracks. I’ll see to it personally that you two don’t get in any trouble for submitting late after-action reports, and that goes for both of you,” Chad told them.
“Sir, yes, sir,” 141-Delta replied, prompting Rico to briefly wonder if they suspected him of betrayal, while Rico gave the same verbal reply as 141-Delta. Much to his surprise, Rico found that he cared slightly less than he would have before this operation.94Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJou0EHKyo0
and then Add to home screen.