There was booming thunder and dark clouds, but no rain or the slightest chance of it. It wouldn’t have mattered though.
Come rain or shine, by the time the sun peeked over the horizon today, Naqib and certain members of his household would be no more.
Clad in his freshly made suit, Mason floated and melded into the dark night sky. He surveyed the household and held his suppressed pistol at his side, comparing the data heat sense fed him to the one provided on the target back at base.
According to the person who gave him the briefing—Joseph Shinkle from the DOD—satellite imaging from the past week had picked up a total of twenty three individuals in the compound.
More than half were fighters, but that didn’t matter to command. They wanted Naqib dead, anyone else caught in the crossfire, whether young, old, male, female, wasn’t important and he wouldn’t be in any trouble for their deaths.
They didn’t care if he simply burned the house to the ground, or if he went the slow and bloody route. They just wanted proof of death. It was morbid and worrying as hell, but Mason saw where they were coming from.
Clearly, the notion of a walking bomb terrified everyone. And he was here to put those fears to rest.
A quick glance at his watch confirmed that first light would appear in less than an hour. He stopped waiting and dove straight down, his body straight like a pencil.
There was a whoosh and a rise of dust that welcomed him on the ground. It didn’t go unnoticed by the armed men he hovered behind. They turned around, cigarettes hanging from their lips.
Three shots rang out in the span of a less than a second and he was moving again, leaving behind three corpses with bloody holes in their foreheads.
Still hovering above ground, he flew straight into the door of the ground floor, reducing it to a shower of splinters that didn’t bother nor hinder him in the slightest.
It was as if he was playing Battlefield again. The world slowed to a crawl with his sudden, unexpected breach, and he watched men and women in various states of shock react as if stuck in a mire.
More muffled gunshots rang out and he flew into the next room, clearing it out same as before and moving upstairs right after.
He came face to face with a woman in a hijab at the peak of the stairs. She froze in shock, her open mouthed scream reduced to nothing by a gentle smack that knocked her into the wall and dropped her in a heap.
A repeat of what happened on the first floor ensued. Invulnerability made things hilariously easy. He flew through booby traps, breached rooms and entered lines of fire without a care and left as the only survivor.
Finally, only three active heat signatures remained.
He ignored the smallest one and rushed into the room with the largest two. Same as always, he barreled through the doors and immediately felt multiple projectiles ping off his back alongside a desperate, continuous scream.
He didn’t even look at the source, he just raised his pistol in its direction and fired three shots before giving his full attention to the reason all this was happening in the first place.
When pained grunts and the thump of something heavy against the floor echoed throughout the room, Naqib took his widened eyes off the corner Mason fired into as his expression twisted into something vengeful.
The terrorist’s insides began to light up and he began to shout.
In a split second, Mason holstered his pistol and crossed the distance between them, grabbing a hold of Naqib’s head. He noticed the sudden light of terror in the supe terrorist’s eyes, but he twisted anyway.
CRACK
Head nearly hanging off his body, Naqib fell like a puppet with its strings cut. The light in his body dimmed and Mason looked around, suddenly self conscious.
To take the edge off, he turned his wrist over and confirmed he was way ahead of schedule.
‘Next is… proof of death.’
He took the mission phone of his belt and held it over the body, lights flashing as he snapped multiple pictures from different angles, especially catching Naqib’s face and his wide open eyes.
After command received and reviewed the proof, they gave him the okay to return. He confirmed he was on way but before actually flying off into the sunset, he grabbed Naqib.
Once he was far away enough from the house or anything really, he tossed the body into a random spot on the dry, rocky plains and blasted a stream of fire at it.
From top to bottom, blue flames crawled over and burned according to his will. And his will was to erase all biological evidence of Naqib’s existence, so the flames did just that.
He’d long stopped shooting more of the flames, but the ones already burning intensified as his chi flowed into them. Under his tight control, the heat ate away at the body at a visible rate.
‘Damn. Should’ve thought this through.’ His arm came up and covered his nose.
Burning flesh… it was like nothing he’d ever experienced, yet it also confirmed something he’d had in the back of his mind ever since he became a walking flamethrower.
Fire powers were off limits when it came to combat. Unless it was the only way out of an absolutely desperate situation, burning people alive was a no go.
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As an avid fan of Ghost Recon Wildlands, being deployed to the country he roamed all over in a game obviously didn’t get past Mason.
After cleaning up Naqib’s hideout in Al Zabadani, the brass let him rest for a few hours before shipping him off to Argentina. Of course, he didn’t need this rest but they didn’t know that.
And neither did the few soldiers who dropped hints the size of anvils on his head. Military women were just as freaky as the rumors purported.
He did refuse all the advances but the sheer normalcy attached to the brazenness attached to them and the debauchery he noticed on base reminded him of something his sister uncovered some time ago.
At some point in his former life, the idea to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps crossed his mind and he voiced it. He and Maya knew of the old man’s opinion on the matter, but she did her own research to further convince him off that path.
There were a good number of reasons which ultimately got her point across, but Mason wasn’t sure how she thought telling a young boy he’d potentially get access to a large number of sexual partners would go.
Despite this, the not so fun fact about women in the military reporting higher STD infection rates definitely stuck with him. He’d spent less than six hours on base and he could definitely see why.
No wonder many branches of the military referred to themselves as dogs.
Anyway, after landing in Argentina, he followed the instructions passed on to him and hitched ride after ride till he finally crossed the Bolivian border and met up with the C.I.A. case officer, Sharon Kelsey.
She wasn’t alone. No, she didn’t have a ghost team with her, much to Mason’s disappointment, just a regular looking Spanish dude who definitely wasn’t that—regular—by virtue of him being in this car with them.
“Carlos, this is Nomad. Nomad, Carlos Escalante.”
Mason, hair dyed brown and wearing a pair of shades, nodded to the rearview mirror. Carlos briefly took his eyes off the road to nod back.
“Nice to meet you amigo. I hear you’re our miracle worker.”
“Miracles? What gives you that impression?”
“Come on. My superiors ask you Americanos for help and they send only you? No way. It’s two things. You’re here because they didn’t take us seriously or they trust you enough to leave it in your hands.”
Trust? Mason almost laughed.
“And who said I’m the only one?”
Carlos’ cheerful demeanor fell and he gripped the steering wheel tighter. He looked to his right at the blonde case officer who’d stayed silent the whole time.
“Wh–Whoa. That gave me chills. Hahaha. Kelsey. I like your guy.”
“Great. How long till we arrive?”
“Not long. Evading those pendejos is delicate work eh.”
Those pendejos as Carlos said were the sicarios responsible for the random spots of blood on the dirt streets, the corpses hanging from poles, and the burning tires clearly wrapped around people.
Naqib was the only person he’d burnt with his flames, yet the scent of roasting human flesh was seared into his mind now. He’d recognize it anywhere.
Normally, he would have gotten angry at the gory sights. Some of the hanging corpses were clearly children. However, after what he did in Syria and seeing more dead people than he ever had at a single time, a numbness had settled into his soul.
This was the world's true face. In the back of his mind, he knew it, everybody did. However getting live, in-your-face confirmation was a whole different ball game. There was nothing else to do but grudgingly accept it and strengthen his determination to play his little part in countering the chaos.
“You okay back there?” Kelsey asked.
‘Surprise surprise. I thought you didn’t care.’
“Does such a word exist in this place?”
“Depends. If you’re a sicario, then this is Tuesday.”
“Si. Those monsters have given themselves over to the devil.”
“If you’re on the side of anyone with a fucking soul, then this is hell, and you want nothing more than some alone time with the guy at the top. A simple sit down with a side of power tools and a hollow point.”
“Can’t wait to start.” Mason mumbled and went back to counting the number of dead bodies.
“Eighty seven, eighty eight…’
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.
Their base of operations turned out to be a manor hidden deep in the mountains.
The journey there was long, allowing Mason to take in the sights that reminded him so much of the game. He questioned the validity of his own mind and reality but only for a moment, doing an inner facepalm when he exercised a little more brain power.
Wildlands was a massive open world game that spanned a whole country. The developers might have not copied it plot by plot, but they certainly took heavy inspiration from the real thing.
And they were pretty faithful, because it had been mountains upon mountains, dense forests, small population pockets that fluctuated in development level, clay roads, and minibuses galore all the way to this hidden nest.
Well, for the rest of the ride Carlos used some offroads that no one else seemed to know about but that’s besides everything.
Inside the massive basement of the house, which had to have been built into the mountain, Mason met the third member of their little anti cartel force, Ripcord.
The guy looked like the real deal. He was exactly what you’d expect from a gruff, special forces veteran guy. He and Mason shook hands after Kelsey introduced them.
“Nice… to meet you.” Mason wasn’t feeling particularly cheerful at the moment, though Ripcord seemed to understand.
“That bad huh.”
“Sorry.” Mason shut his eyes and shook his head. “It’s not you, its…”
“The lineup of bodies you caught on your way here.”
“You too?”
“Received the welcoming tour. Though with how much time has passed, I’d say you got the worst of it.” He patted Mason on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. Getting those bastards is why we’re here.”
“Uh, my friends. Senorita Kelsey says it’s time.”
Rip turned around and started walking, urging Mason to follow.
“Time for what?” Mason asked.
“To get you up to speed. Come on.”
They were led by Carlos into a situation room, the walls on the left right covered by crime boards with papers and strings. The wall in front of them had been painted white, letting the image from the projector stand out on the blank, prepared canvas.
It stood out even more when the lights went off, and both Mason and Rip looked towards the source to find Carlos backing away from the switch.
“Gentlemen.” Kelsey started. “If I may have your attention.”
She definitely got it when the projected image changed to the stills of three separate men lined up in a row. Rip pulled a chair and sat down while Mason stayed on his feet and crossed both arms over his chest.
“Here’s the situation as of now. These men you see are the jefes of the three remaining cartels in Bolivia. In just two weeks, they have cannibalized their small time competition and are in the middle of duking it out for the seat at the top. Intel shows however, that the war is a sham.”
Kelsey clicked her remote and two of the jefes fell out, leaving the one in the middle to be magnified. He also happened to be the youngest looking one.
“Rey de Azul.”
“The king in blue.” Mason translated.
“Correct. He’s the leader of Las Sombras, and we have reason to believe he and his gang of murder hobos are the ones behind everything.” She clicked her remote again and didn’t stop. “What you see is what Las Sombras looked like nine months ago and the remains of smaller cartels they eradicated out of nowhere to become what they are today. We believe that somewhere within that period, the cartel obtained the formula for Temp V and used it to grow to their current position and solidify it.”
Rip voiced the obvious problem with that. “Bull. We would’ve seen something. Criminals with superpowers? They’d never be able to hide that shit.”
Mason agreed with Rip. The time period she put forward was way before Vought juiced up the crazies, and way before he woke up here.
“Well, unluckily for us, Rey de Azul’s ambition is matched by his intelligence. He somehow managed to keep the existence of Temp V secret. We don’t have anything concrete, but we can guess what he did. He probably found a few men he trusted enough, gave them the V and sent them off. One to each cartel. Two, at most.
Once the enemies are down, the rest of his people move in and take over. Easy peasy. Here’s the kicker. He doesn’t do it again. Ever. Instead of biting more, the past few months has just been consolidation over consolidation, recruiting, training and fortifying defenses.”
“So he’s smart.” Rip huffed. “I hate smart criminals.”
“Join the club. He almost played the entire C.I.A. for fools. How do you think we look missing something like this?”
“You said they were consolidating.” Mason, who’d been quiet this whole time, spoke up. “What does that mean?”
Kelsey’s expression did the impossible and grew even colder as she clicked her remote. The image changed to a tattoo covered sicario in gold chains standing over some bloodied and beaten guy. This wasn’t the weirdest thing about him.
No, it was the syringe stuck in his neck, his thumb on the plunger and the pale blue substance being injected.
“That is, Temp V. Las Sombras is a major source of it and we have confirmed that they’re the suppliers of a few other groups we have eyes on.”
“They’re selling it?” Rip asked. “How much?”
“25K a pop.”
Silence took over as the dim reality sunk in.