The mission escalated enough were Rainbow came to little autonomy during the duration of the mission, at least that's what Agent Foster declared when he learned of the several dead on the field, including one of Rainbow's newer operatives. As per orders of Six and his own powers, he set an emergency meeting in the HQ for Berkeley, with all Rainbow operatives inside. He was in charge, for now.
"What happened yesterday was a fuck up," he put bluntly. "Not only did one operator die, news is now swarming the campus about a triple homicide just outside their school doors."
"Just tell the news it was gang dispute, that should cause them to back off for a bit." Echo replied casually.
"Regardless of what we tell them," Foster put his hands down on the table, "the school is on a security binge, means we can't just walk in like before. The only good news we have so far is the location of the meeting thanks to your colleagues not getting caught."
"Right, about that. Who exactly is Professor Bowen?" IQ raised her hand casually. "I searched all over the school registry and—"
"Professor Bowen is an alias," Foster replied."His true identity is unknown, but we suspect he may have been a former student of Berkeley."
Foster turned to a board full of photos and connections of previous White Mask activity and attacks. He pointed to a photo to a man, long styled hair with a bushy beard that screamed the 70's fashion of a counterculture college kid.
"Cortez, explain who this man is."
"Got it sir," Cortez nodded."We have a theory that former student, activist, and hippie poster child Albert Powell is Alfred Bowen. During the beginning and end of the Vietnam war he spent his time protesting and detesting the conflict through rallies and his student newspaper called the People's Revolt."
He then switched to an older Polaroid photo of homemade bombs, covered by a dark basement roof. "At the end of the conflict he planned an armed revolt with a now dead student Marxist political group. They made homemade bombs and were raided after a tip told the FBI about their attack."
"And Albert was caught?" Caveira asked.
"No, he wasn't. He managed to escape and leave the country," Cortez pointed out. "It was believed that he left to Cuba."
Foster took over again. "Emphasis on 'believed', Cortez. It has come to our intention that he's always been in the United States, living under a new name in Oregon."
The crowd looked around. It was strange for a criminal to remain in the US, especially when the crime was on a political or terroristic level. Isaac pondered on how he was able to supply himself, if he kept himself out of harm's way.
Pulse spoke up. "Do you still think they're related to the White Masks in any way? The people who attacked us were wearing them, and it was a decent enough ambush that I'm sure these kids wouldn't know how to do."
"I'm starting to believe that the White Masks are involved," Foster admitted. "We don't know what Powell's true intentions are. And if he did receive weapons from Boleslav as your intel suggests, then we have to act as soon as possible."
"That's all we need to hear," Thatcher announces. "IQ, Echo, Mute: attend the meeting and find out what this Professor Bowen preaches on about. Cav and X-ray, interrogate those bastards that attacked us, I imagine that they're easy to make them squeal."
"On it old man," Mute joked. The three assigned to the meeting stood up and began to walk out the room, heading off to the doorway.
"Cortez, go with the Bowen meeting. Reed, head to the interrogation room."
"Yes sir."
"Understood."
The group divided up and began to leave the debriefing room and into their new objectives. Thatcher turned away as the rest began to scatter about, leaving him and Foster to themselves. "Have we gotten any news from Mexico at all?"
Thatcher shook his head. "Last time contact was made was a mission update on our side. Ash told us they were moving in on a location but it cut out after that."
"That is not good," Foster muttered.
"I know it isn't." He scowls. Thatcher wished he still had more control as he usually did, he was not use to the feeling of being told what to do. Rainbow hasn't had a casualty in years, so it's been a while since the protocol was practice.
"Look," Foster began. "I understand that losing a team member isn't great for anyone, even if you didn't know him well, but it means that it's getting riskier and you need the assistance. You can't do everything lonewolf."
Thatcher looked up at Foster. The agent was right, the missions stakes went higher as time passed.
"Once we get a location for Bowen, we're moving in and shutting this down." Thatcher slipped out the planning room, leaving Foster to himself. He chuckled, looking at the picture of Bowen on the board next to the young photo of Powell.
He snipped off the photo and shook it gently in his hand. It was time to make a call.
The ambushed winced at every feint punch and motion they would make. Caveira got a rise out of it, seeing how much he cower under a false fist. X-ray simply stood back in the corner, letting the Brazilian have her fun. Caveira finally went through with a real punch into the young woman's nose. Not hard enough to break, but hard enough to know she can break it if she feels like it.
"Please let me go, I promise I won't ever do anything else like this again!"
"A promise isn't anything desgraçado," Caveira said, circling around her like a vulture. "I want results."
"I-I didn't know that any of you would get hurt, they said they wanted to capture you."
Caveira gave a dark chuckle. "Tell that to the man you help killed."
The girl sobbed. She covered her face as broken words emerged with sudden breaths and cracks. "I just—"
"Just what?" Caveira leaned in close.
"I just wanted to help out the people. Bowen was so charismatic and smart, he told us who the real enemy is, and what to do to stop them."
"Bowen?" X-ray uncrossed his arms and walked up to her view. "As in Professor Alfred Bowen?"
A sudden realization came over her face. She just blurted out the name of a suspect. "N-no, I meant—"
"Tell Thatch that Bowen is now a confirmed member of the People's Liberation Militia."
"It's Army…" she whispered under her breath.
"You're really not good at being quite, are you?" Caveira eyed the woman. She covered her face again, realizing she just confirmed again the intel they need.
"We knew it was Army," X-ray smiled. "Thanks for confirming."
"Now," Caveira kneels behind the restrained woman, her knife coming into view. "Let's learn some more secrets."
The dark blade carefully twisted and nicked the edges of the girls fingers on the table, a harbinger of what's to come. A devious smile came into Caveira's face when she saw the girl's reaction to her knife tricks. X-ray frowned, this woman seriously needed a deep psychiatric evaluation.
"Cav, I think that's enough."
The Brazilian woman stopped her tricks and stared intensely at X-ray, before giving a disappointed frown and leaving the girl alone. Caveira backed away from her, crossing her arms in silence.
X-ray pulled close to the girl and sat down on the table, toying with his fingers. "What's your name, ma'am?"
"I-it's Evelyn."
"Evelyn, I had a friend named that once." X-ray gave a calm smile. "So Evelyn, life was easy growing up right?"
The question made her stare at X-ray quizzically, especially with Caveira, who raised an eyebrow as well.
"I guess so," Evelyn replied sheepishly. "Both of my parents were around, and I did—"
"You did well in school, never really picked on kids or were shy, huh?"
"Yeah…"
"Because if you were good, people will like you. And when you're a kid, that meant cool stuff you can get. I think I can understand what you're coming from now."
"T-that's not why I was—"
"Let me finish." His voice was rough and authoritative, something that took even Caveira by surprise. She never really heard him talk outside his usual polite demeanor.
"You were like that as a kid for selfish reasons that eventually became," X-ray gesticulated, "altruistic and good-hearted. You never worried about money or having the lights shut off or not having food in the fridge."
"I didn't…"
"You didn't, but you knew other kids near you lived like that. They couldn't wear the new clothes or only ate whenever they found money. They were treated badly in life and you never thought it was fair that you lived so comfortably while they meandered through paycheck," X-ray leaned in. "Isn't that right?"
Evelyn swallowed her emotions. "Yes, that's right."
"So college comes around and someone says that all that can be fixed, if only we could make everyone equal."
"There's a system that makes everyone equal, it was—
"Communism, more specifically anarchy-based Marxism as told by Professor Bowen, correct?"
She nodded, tears started to stream her face gently. "Everyone is equal under the state, and every man cares for everyone else and vice versa."
"There'll be resistance to that dangerous idealism, because the rich capitalists don't want to lose their money."
"Y-yes…"
"So he tells you we need to take action now, or else the revolution dies."
She let out a choked cry. "We needed to start the spark."
"And that's why you and your friends discovered us, and decided to ambush us under Bowen. And that's why one of our own is dead, and why your friends are dead."
She brushed back a strand of red hair, her face scrunching up from a sudden sob.
"I never knew that it would come to this." She admitted. "Professor Bowen always said in order for revolution to begin, there must be fighting but I didn't want to fight."
X-ray crosses his arms. He just needed to squeeze in more until he got what he wanted.
"Bowen isn't a good strategist, isn't he?"
"I don't know," she sniffles. "He said he was in the military during the 60's. He taught us how to use guns. He calls himself Commander Che all the time, and it rubbed off on us."
X-ray's victory showed in a smile. He got up from the table and let his hand rubbed the girl's shoulder comfortably, attempting to ease whatever tension she had. She simply sniffled in response, her eyes red from crying. "Thank you for talking Evelyn."
She didn't say anything back. Caveira smirked at the display, heading out the door behind her. Soon two guards came in the room and grabbed the girl from her chair, urging her outside. She complied with no resistance.
"That was some questioning," Cav said. "Could've gone faster if you let me do my thing."
"Appearances Taina," X-ray simply uttered. "It wouldn't look good if she started to miss nails under our care."
"I wasn't gonna do anything with her nails, just her fingers."
X-ray shot a look at her, before scoffing and shaking his head. There was a moment of silence, but it ended when X-ray spoke up.
"The girl reminds me of an old friend."
"Who?"
"Her name's Hillary."
"Not gonna specify on how she reminded you of this Hillary?"
X-ray gave a small chuckle. "I'll tell you later, when we become besties and trade friendship bracelets."
She rolled her eyes, leaving the interrogation room to just himself. Hillary kept popping up in his mind, like short bursts of lights of a distant memory. And yet, it felt as if he barely saw her yesterday. This worried him the most, Hillary's seemingly tight hold on his mind.
He sighed and tried to forget about the whole thing, looking around the interrogation room for something to occupy him. Maybe some mindless sitting will do him some good.
X-ray pulled the chair out of the room and enjoyed the silence it had to offer.
The day before...
"Any time we had is now gone," Ash stated. "I just received word that one of our operators, John Nilsson, just died in a shootout with the PLA. We need to confirm the location of our targets and advance."
Hushed whispers ran through the crowd, with little frowns sprinkled in. Losing an operator was evidence of a harder trial.
"Mateo and Carmen have a lead on our targets, so I'll let them take the floor." She stepped aside, the two Mexican taking her spot.
"I am Carmen Villegas, and this is Mateo Ruiz Gutierrez. I work with GOPES, while Mateo is an unofficial leader in the Militia Movement. We are all you have so far for help."
"Can we trust a yokel who just picked up a gun?" James asked unequivocally.
"I'm not a yokel. I was in Marine Force Recon until I retired and came here."
"And why would you come here?"
Mateo shrugged. "They needed help, it was getting bad down here."
"Anyways," Carmen interjected. "Our sources tell us that the Cartel who sold the weapons to the Americans usually frequent this club during the night."
A slender finger pointed at the front of a club, seemingly innocent with patrons entering in and out of the building. "In the basement, the local Cartel operates fluidly. The basement leads to a large empty sewer pipe, they enter the sewage system, and smuggle whatever they need through the pipes."
"Just to think I'm gonna be stepping in my own morning ritual." James chuckled. "So how do you suppose we enter through the building, guns blazing or discreetly?"
Carmen was about to answer when she was suddenly pushed aside by Shuhrat, seeing a metal ball being tossed in through the balcony. "Grenade!"
The crowd began to duck to cover as Alexsandr grabbed the grenade and tossed it out the balcony door. It exploded soon after, gunfire following form the street below. Everyone laid on the floor, Miles slowly crawling towards his duffel bag, getting out the beige and red ballistic panels.
The gunfire stopped soon after. Miles jumped from the floor and quickly placed his barricade over the left balcony window and securing it tightly with his nail gun. "Barricade set! We got some cover."
The people on the left side of the room cautiously got up as the began to grab their weapons and load them. Shuhrat grabbed a drown and threw it out the other open window, being met with another round of gunfire. It narrowly scraped the drone before it crashed roughly on the street. He peered it around an old car to see that there was four assailants, already blasting through the entrance.
"I got four hostiles entering the building through the lobby."
"Understood everyone gear up, we're moving out now!"
Everyone began to crawl around for their vests and armor, wrapping them tightly around their chests. Mateo grabbed his Galil ACE and began to load a mag in. He turned towards another operator besides him, Craig Jenson.
"Does this type of thing happen often?" He said, putting on his ballistic vest. Craig just laughed heartily as his response.
"You fucking bet!"
Alexsandr seemed rather calm about this. He stowed away to his baggage and shifted through it almost absentmindedly. Eliza looked on befuddled, quickly loading a magazine in her pistol. "What in God's name are you doing this time Alexsandr?"
"Relax Eliza," he calmly said, grabbing his DP-28 out from the duffel bag. He quickly ripped off the ballistic shield on the rail of the gun, tossing to the side.
"You're gonna get shot without that thing!" Eliza called out. Elena simply scowled at the broken piece of shielding that now laid on the floor, picking up the piece.
"I'm not putting that back on your gun you capullo."
"Don't worry about it Elena," Alexsandr pulled the gun into his arms, cocking the large drum magazine into readiness. "Everyone else get ready, it's time to get serious!"
A/N: Will Tachanka save the day? Find out next time!
A chapter shorter than average, but besides that nothing really new here, so I don't got much to say. Leave a review and tell me what you think!
Also, check out my poll on my profile, I'll be closing it by Saturday so tell me your answers!
-Mister Bombastic