"Okay, listen up, people. If the intel Ylena gave us is right, and we have plenty of reasons to believe it is, the situation is as follows. BlackDagger International, the world-famous security company and one of the largest PMCs to date, bank-rolled the Communist Party to organize a militia. Intercepted e-mails confirm transactions between Dagger's top brass and an individual hereby known as The Engineer. The purpose of this stirring of the situation is now clearly a play to increase pressure on the DoD to maintain the funding on their experimental Main Battle Tank which is slated for Congressional Reviewing the next month. Our friends at the top places have told the Agency that the project will most certainly be suspended or even canceled, and that probably made its way to Dagger's Board of Directors. If it's true, then they must have been pretty disgusted by it. Whatever the circumstances, these new anti-government militias were not only given money through international bank accounts, but were also given state-of-the-art-weaponry in limited supplies.

These inventories provide us with an insight on where to look for those weapons. They are being smuggled into neighboring countries via armed convoys. The exact same convoys that our eyes in the sky have been photographing going north. Ever since we gave the order to our operatives to be on the look-out for this equipment we've had hits on the black markets of every bad place in the world, from Pakistan to the Motherland, and all the way to Somalia and the sub-saharian Africa. Following the money-trail has given us SIGINT hits all around Asia and Europe, some of them from within drug-running organizations and others even from inside known slave-trade rings. This proves that BlackDagger is not only manipulating the political winds to its advantage but that they also have close ties with shady and illegal groups. It makes quite a case against them… for the Feds, or even the NSA. What matters to us is that we have our targets and new clues as to this Engineer's whereabouts. Our mission, at the moment, is to shut down the pipe of high-tech gear to the black market, and to do that we are gonna have to link up with Garuda Team. They are with OGA's Special Activities Division, under command of your CO, they are now in position to scout the AO and plan the ambush."

24 hours later

"How are we looking, Hyena?" Ghoul whispered, slowly positioning by his side on the tall grass. The dry pasture concealed them from the passing convoys of enemy vehicles, which had stuck to their schedules even after the successful operations of Reaper Squad.

"The convoy route and schedules appear to be unaltered. Next one is scheduled to be here in two hours, give or take. We can take down the patrols and pose as one to cover our explosive charge. We turn the first vehicles into make-shift barricades, Reaper maneuvers to their back, lays down suppressing fire while we keep the advantage of higher ground to pick-off the stragglers. Reaper is supposed to have a demo expert with them, so he'll rig the vehicles to burn"

"Roger, spread the word, and have Snape set up a link with Reaper, we need to strike ASAP or our window will close and we'll have to wait for the next convoy"

"Roger, on it"

Hyena slowly crawled back, avoiding any vegetation rustling, and kept himself in a low crouch while he went to each and every member of he team to put them up to speed on the battle-plan.

Viper and Reaper Team crawled over their bellies, nearing the top of the ridge-line. They reached the elevated terrain, lying still and keeping themselves out of sight from the direction of the target's arrival. Jester was the only figure moving, slightly lower from the hill-top to avoid giving away the rest of the squad, all the while he prepared a short-wave encrypted transmission to raise Garuda Team.

"Pipeline to Garuda is ready, boss" Jester whispered into his throat-mike.

"Roger. Garuda Actual, this is Reaper Lead. Come in, over."

"Garuda Actual here. We were standing-by on you guys, the party is about to start. Request your current position, over."

"We are... err... five-hundred meters at your... eleven-o-clock. Confirm that the cost is clear, over."

"Confirmed, the coast is clear, Reaper, I repeat, the coast is clear."

"Roger, flashing you a signal, stand by" as he grabs his flashlight and flashes three quick dots towards Garuda's general direction

"I see you, Reaper. You are spot-on. From you current position you can lay down suppressing fire on the back of the convoy and keep the enemy boxed-in. What do you have in the way of anti-vehicle, over?"

"Not much, we've got a couple of M72s with incendiary warheads and a SMAW with two spare HEAA rockets. Long story short: just enough firepower for the job at hand."

"More than we have, though. If shit hits the fan we are counting on you to get us through it."

"Not liking how that sounds, Garuda, tell me we didn't come here unprepared."

"I hope not, Reaper, but things can go tits up very easily in this line of work. Radio silence from now until contact. Garuda out"

"WILCO" Viper finally said, to an already dead line.

Time bled away as the already-low sun settled below the horizon. Two hours stretched into four, and then into five, and both teams were having significant doubts about the veracity of their intelligence sources.

"Boss, something is wrong" Whopper whispered all the way towards were Viper laid, looking towards the projected combat area. He was scanning the place, trying to make out anything, but he knew that, between the combined sight-lines of both teams and the real-time imaging of the field-drone that Garuda had deployed, it was nearly impossible that they had missed a vehicle convoy of such size.

"I know. Jester, patch me up through Garuda's comms. I'm not liking this one little bit."

"Roger, right on it."

A faint buzzing sound signaled the drone's low fly-by, the last one it was going to make until the next refueling.

"Garuda, Reaper. What the hell is going on? You said the convoys were regular on their schedules. This one is off by three hours, over."

"I am aware, Reaper Actual... Hold up. Eyes on the road, Reaper, there's a dust column.. And it's goddamn big..."

"Oh, shit... Of course its big, Garuda, I've got eyes on enemy armor, goddamit!" Viper gritted his teeth.

He was not wrong. The vehicle column was now escorted by four fully-armored M1A2 Abrams tanks. The behemoths, two at the front and two in the rear of the formation, moved as fast as their engines allowed them to, and their 120mm smooth-bore guns aimed just slightly up into the air. Viper once again muttered an insult, while the rest of the squad could only watch and wonder what to do next.

"Boss? What now?"

"Good question..."

Ghoul watched with growing dismay as the armored hulks inched their way forward.

The attacking teams lacked the proper firepower to ensure the upper hand, and the only real advantage they possessed was the element of surprise and elevation. Not good. He had to make a decision, and such a call would surely have great consequences on the upcoming assignments. Aborting now would mean that the economic pipeline of the enemy would still be running, and any future infrastructural attacks would be nothing but paper cuts to them. On the other hand, attacking now would be no guarantee of success, and their bodies on the international press would blow open the agency's involvement in the conflict...

"Abort mission. I repeat, abort mission! Let them pass and then regroup and retreat"

No one could believe what was happening. While they certainly understood the logic behind it (there's a line between the call of duty and an outright suicide mission, and they weren't about to cross it just because), it was not in their language to retreat or surrender on the first go.

"Say again, Garuda? The target is in position"

"We don't have enough firepower against that armor. Even only ONE miss from your SMAWS and we are in a tight spot as it is..."

"The mission parameters are clear, Garuda. If the objective is well within our capabilities our orders are to carry on"

"Yes, and this is not within our capabilities, Reaper. We are standing by, period!"

Viper just looked back at the enemy column, and he made his own decision.

"Jester, get me Rapier on the line. As the spook-in-chief he supersedes us all in authority"

"On it, Boss"

Rapier watched the thermal imaging from the UCAV on his Agency-issued laptop. He had known about the armored column just a bit earlier than the teams on the ground, and the radio-silence had made any communication with them near to impossible. Yet he was fully expecting the call.

"Rapier"

"This is Viper. Are you seeing this?"

"Affirmative. Not good. The firepower you've got is enough if you don't miss, but we all know too well how things get FUBAR in the heat of battle."

"Is there any air support you can give to us?"

"The UCAV has two Hellfire anti-tank missiles ready to fire. After that you are on your own. What do you recon?"

"Have the UCAV take out the front armor, we'll take care of the rear ones. Garuda is gonna be pissed."

"They don't call the shots in here, I do. Get it done, and get it done now. I'll deal with Ghoul later."

"Roger"

The line went dead, and the other three people in the room prepared to engage the enemy for the troops on the ground.

"Garuda, Reaper. Orders came through: we are attacking the convoy. Prepare to engage."

"Orders from whom? I gave the order to stand down!"

"From higher up. Either do your job or look for a new one, but this is happening right now"

"Roger" came the stiff response.

It started too fast, almost surreal. A low hiss, which quickly turned into a roar that culminated into one of the armored beasts blossoming into a ball of heated gas, while a jet of molten metal and fragmented armor was propelled into the tank's interior, killing the crew almost instantly. Had the tank been equipped with the same armor the American military outfitted in their own armor, maybe the crew would have had a better chance at survival. But these particular vehicles had no active or passive protection systems, and thus, they were open for the taking. But the UCAV only carried two missiles at a time.

The second Hellfire didn't trail too far, tearing the second Abrams apart, the severed turret landing in a heap by it's side. The smoldering husks blocked further access forward for the rest of the column, and the enemy knew it. They tried to back off, retreat the way they came, but the surviving armor in the back was too slow. Jonesy aimed the SMAW at the furthest tank, calculating for the tank's movement backwards. He triggered the launcher, activating the rocket's solid-state fuel cell and sending the High-Explosive, Anti-Armor warhead straight towards the point where the turret and the chassis met. The warhead exploded on contact, crippling the tank, while Jonesy reloaded the launcher with another single-use rocket canister. A volley of fire erupted from Garuda's position, well-aimed, controlled, semi-automatic fire that peppered the shocked convoy and pinned the down. The enemy combatants tried to mount up an insipid defense, but the combined fire from the attackers mowed most of them down right were they stood, while the few survivors scrambled for cover behind any rock they could find.

"Jonesy!" Viper shouted, trying to make himself heard over the deafening clatter of the squad's weapons.

"I know, sir!"

The second rocket was fired, streaking towards the last functioning tank. As it seemed to be straight on-target, the unthinkable happened. The warhead hit the armor in an oblique angle, but instead of detonating it ricocheted off the armor plating, careening aimlessly and harmlessly away from its intended objective.

"Shit! DUD! I repeat, DUD!" Jonesy yelled, as he reloaded the SMAW once more. Viper, with his 416, tried to give him as much covering fire as possible, driving back into cover anyone trying to fire at them, but it was a losing battle when most of the fire was coming from the surviving tank's machine guns.

"Scatter, now!" he had time to shout, and Reaper Squad moved away as fast as they could before an earth-shattering boom shook the position they had been occupying. The Abrams' smoking 120mm gun, aimed in their direction, told the story of how the crew refused to go the same way the other three had. Despite their bravest attempt, the third rocket sailed towards them and then impacted the front of their vehicle, obliterating the weakened armor and leaving the vehicle smoldering.

"Armor Is down! Hit 'em hard!" Ghoul relayed, and the intensity of the fire picked up until all that could be heard was the cycling of weapon mechanisms and all that could be seen where the streaks of tracer ammunition illuminating the sky.

"Clear the back-blast!" was heard, and a flash of light momentarily illuminated a crouching figure. This fourth missile was directed towards the surviving infantry, and ignited into a dense cloud of smoke and turned the area into an inferno. Viper had really hopped it wouldn't come to that.

So, that's it for now. As usual, any feedback and opinions in reviews will be appreciated.