John Lawson still remembered the scream he heard from his girlfriends room when he went to visit her that night. He walked in throwing back the door and caught a glimpse of her pained eyes just before she fell to the knife of the phoenix connexion terrorist who killed her.
John was a now a member of the world renowned sas and had foiled many terrorist plots with his team. His best friend Alex Kennedy had joined around the same time as him and they were both members of the alpha team. Alex was a sniper and John was in the front line assault.
That morning Alex had come to John's desk and thrown a formal looking piece of paper at him and he caught it.
"What's this all about?" he asked his friend. There were two years between them in age, Alex the younger one.
"They found the bastards that killed your girlfriend mate. Were going in." Alex replied grimly.
John had blonde hair and brown eyes which flared up whenever he heard anything of the phoenix connexion.
Alex was different by far as his father Angus left when he was 12 and his mother died giving birth to his little sister whom he looked after but she died at the age of 8. Alex hated the number 8. His hair was black and his eyes were green and he always looked madly depressed, like he was going to kill himself.
They walked slowly together to the armoury. John grabbed his M4A1 and 4 magazines. He also took a usp and silencers for both his weapons. He looked over at Alex who picked a scout off the shelf and a desert eagle and holstered it. He grabbed two high explosive grenades and attached them to his belt. He finished off by taking a helmet off the shelf which you could always tell was his as it had the words "God decides when men should die and there is nothing they can do to stop it" written in blue writing.
"Ready?" He asked across the room.
"Not quite." John replied taking a grenade he had saved for this day for three years with "revenge" written on it in red.
"Okay lets go."
They met with Anthony, Greg, Michael, Simon and Joey who were also geared up.
"Greg how many are there?" Alex asked as Greg had the info on the mission.
"Intel predicts about 25 Kennedy" Greg replied.
"Where's the commander?" Simon asked.
"Right here" Commander Gustov replied in his strong Russian accent.
At the briefing…
"All right boys" Gustov started "Alex, head to the tree outside and try to pick off the guards and myself, John and Simon will head in through the gate and flank left. Michael will cover Alex from the ground, try and find decent cover. Greg, Joey and Anthony, follow us and flank right.
"Yes sir!" they all replied.
"Okay to the choppers!"
When they arrived John watched Alex and Michael run towards the tree and then followed Gustov and Simon through the gate.
Suddenly he heard Ak47 fire and Gustov fell to the ground riddled with bullet holes.
"Take cover everyone!" John yelled through his radio trying to pull Gustov into cover as he was still breathing.
"Affirmative" he heard only 5 voices saying into radios.
He looked over and saw Greg down on one knee trying to stop Joey's many bullet holes bleeding. He looked into the tree and saw Alex firing his scout at the Phoenix connexion members blowing one of their heads off.
He unhooked the pin of his "revenge" grenade and threw it. He heard a terrorist crying out in pain and he allowed himself a small smile.
"Taking fire, need assistance!" He heard an urgent voice calling into a radio.
He realized too late it was Michael who fell wounded onto the tree. He saw Alex sliding down the tree and administering bandages to his comrade's body. He extended the signal of his radio and shouted into it "Base need backup now!"
"Affirmative he heard a voice saying "A squad will be there shortly"
He heard a cry of pain and looked over and saw Alex holding onto Michaels wrist checking the pulse……….He looked at John and shook his head slowly and sadly.
Michael was dead.
Alex threw both his grenades at the terrorists and killed four. Getting the idea everyone took out grenades and threw them until only five were left of the terrorists.
Then the unthinkable happened…Alex was shot twice by a sniper and fell down dead.
With tears in his eyes John fired mad bursts at the enemy until they were all dead. Sadly though his best friend in the world was dead. He stalked over and picked up Alex's helmet, read it and looked into the sky and said quietly "Why god, why now?