Now that the school year has come to an end and I have to focus on being an adult (yawn) I have another chapter for you all to enjoy! Please leave me a review if you have a moment! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Chapter Three

The mission had begun as it was expected to go. It didn't require the same number of people as the ones that Barney normally caught wind of, and that suited him just fine. There had been room for only one more person anyway, someone who could rival Yang in their ability to remain hidden, get in, get out and shoot a gun with accuracy. Bonaparte had brought him a number of different people who would could handle the job with ease, many of them older and more experienced hires who might have given him grief over taking orders. But when that last application had crossed the desk, he knew immediately who to hire. It didn't make a lick of sense to him as to why it had to be that one, but they were hired nonetheless.

"Three minutes!"

From his place behind the wheel Trench looked back at the two members of his team and immediately realized that they were just as tuned into the job as he was. Yang was already suiting up and re-adjusting the way that his gun sat on his shoulder. Valdez on the other hand was ready, with one hand on the weapon and one hand holding to the top of the truck to stay upright.

A wildcard, that was what Bonaparte had said when throwing the resume at him. It seemed that both of them had come across the name before, but there weren't too many instances where Valdez had worked with a team of any kind. There wasn't really anyone to call up for a reference, but the resume provided almost all of the information they could possibly need. Unlike most of the other ones that came into Bonaparte's possession, this one shared a little more detail. Not enough to expose clients and targets necessarily, but detail enough to make Trench smirk when he read it. And that didn't happen too often anymore.

"Two minutes!"

Their destination was fast approaching, and he knew that time was of the essence with this mission. The target travelled with only a small personal guard according to the information that they had received, which was part of the reason that his team of three was all that was needed. But he was going to be in the area for only a short window of time and they would need to act quickly if they were to pick him up and return him to the United States to face charges on war crimes among other things. Apparently this guy was some kind of ghost, for he seemed to appear and disappear so quickly that not even the CIA were able to get a read on him. "The Warden," they called him.

"One minute!"

Valdez turned and looked over at Yang. "Is he always this nervous?"

Yang just shrugged his shoulders.

The two shifted their bodies until they were standing side by side, each holding onto some part of the truck's back end to keep from falling over. The terrain that they were driving over wasn't exactly the smoothest pavement in the world, and so the two were constantly bending their knees and shifting their weight as they were jostled all over the place. In less than a minute they would drop out of the back of the truck and the mission would be underway.

Just a typical day to them.

As soon as they felt the truck lurch to a stop they both leapt from the back and hurried to conceal their bodies behind the nearest pieces of building that they could find, weapons at the ready. According to their source, The Warden would be somewhere within the ground floor of the building, likely the back lobby, to deal with his client. They would have exactly ten minutes to make their way inside and take down any extra threats before they escorted The Warden back to the truck and toward the airport. It seemed like a simple enough mission, one that they had repeated countless times in the past. And as long as they didn't beat him up to badly in the process of loading his sorry ass into the truck, they'd be paid before the end of the day.

"Target is inside," came Trench's voice through the ear-coms.

Trench would be their decoy if it came down to that. He'd positioned himself somewhere behind the two of them in case he was needed before they made their escape, but Yang and Valdez were fairly confident that they would be able to handle the assault on their own. It wasn't their first rodeo, and much to Trench's surprise the two of them had seemed rather comfortable together despite knowing nothing about one another. It was an unspoken trust between the two professionals that they would have each other's backs while they were inside attempting to do their job. Though truth be told, Trench didn't know that the pair had exchanged more than a dozen words since their initial meeting.

"Four men total," came Yang's voice.

"This should be easy then," chimed Valdez.

Together they started to creep their way forward, hidden behind the rocks and various debris that the terrain provided as cover. Each step was quick against the gravel ground to make as little noise as possible. They didn't want to risk alerting their target to their presence before they were ready to strike. The entire plan rested on the fact that they had the element of surprise on their side and the ability to quickly take out his small guard.

"Ready?"

"Ready."

The two of them then split up and circled either side of the building, their eyes locked on the movements of their target. The Warden still seemed to be preoccupied with the discussion he was currently having with his client, not at all concerned about the fact that there were three people outside who were anxious to take him down and return him to American soil. Within seconds they had moved so far that the two couldn't see one another anymore, but both still had a clear view of the target that they were after.

Or so they thought.

Kneeling down into a steady position outside of the building, Valdez looked through the scope on top of the gun and breathed deeply. "Yang, you ready? I've got the target in sight."

But as Yang knelt down to prepare for his own part of the assault, someone moved within the group and a fifth party became visible from behind a wall. A memory was triggered in the instant that they appeared, causing the man to recall a person from the not-too-distant past who had caused quite a bit of grief. It didn't make any sense though, he thought. They had been hired to take out "The Warden," not –

Only when he saw the snap of his gaze turned in Yang's direction and the wicked grin appear on his lips did Yang finally come to understand. "It's a trap!"

"What?!"

Yang picked himself up off of the ground and turned as quickly as he could, running full speed back in the direction of where he knew that Trench would be waiting. They had to make it back to the truck. They had to get the hell out of there before –

But he was too late. He could hear Valdez and Trench both yelling in his ear, but the sounds of gunfire dominated as half a dozen men started to spray bullets in his direction, forcing the Asian to take cover behind a nearby rock. There were too many of them to tell where exactly they were coming from without going one by one, and he wasn't sure that he had that kind of time. They were laying it down heavy in their assault, pinning him a little too well for his liking.

"Get to the truck!"

"Trench, we're pinned down! I've got half a dozen on my ass!"

Valdez seemed to be in a similar situation, and that was more than enough for Yang to believe that this whole thing had been laid out just to trap them. The instant he saw that face he knew…he knew that they were in trouble. A brief lull in the firing gave him the opportunity to hurry forward and hide behind another chunk of rock, but the spray was still there, narrowly missing him on his way. For a second he ducked out of sight, but in the next instant he was up and answering with his own steady fire at those who opposed him before he swiftly ducked back down again to avoid being hit. And so he repeated the process. Run, fire, duck.

One man was taken down almost immediately, while a second took a few more shots before he joined the first in a bloody heap on the ground. Two down, four to go.

"Trench!"

Valdez was still yelling in his ear piece, the sounds of gunfire accompanying each spoken word. It didn't sound like either one of them was currently sitting in a good situation, but just based on the urgency of tone, Yang had to guess that he was doing a little better. Up her went and fired another dozen or so rounds until he could advance to the next spot and again analyze his situation. Damn was he angry though. To think that they had been lured into this trap…it made Yang's teeth grit together. As soon as they got out of this he was going to call Bonaparte himself and demand to know how the hell this sort of thing had come across his desk without his knowledge.

Trench started into the conversation as well. "Yang, on your six!"

The Asian turned his head around and saw the approach of the truck, bolting immediately in the same direction from which he had just come. The distance wasn't all that great, but with his shorter legs and the continuing spray of bullets that followed him as he ran, Yang wished that Trench had managed to make it a little closer to him. But at least the back of the truck was open for him to jump into, which provided much better cover than the rock formations outside. It took only a few seconds for him to get to his feet again and duck his head out the back to fire at the people he had missed earlier on, and Trench was rather quick to step on the accelerator again as soon as he heard the thump of Yang's body as he dove into the back of the truck.

"Valdez, we're on our way!"

"Get out of here now!"

Yang was surprised to hear those words. "Where are you?"

"Forget about me and go! You might have a chance if you get the hell out of here now!"

"We're not leaving without you," Trench argued.

"The hell you're not! They've got me – AHH!"

It didn't take a genius to know what had happened then, and even as Trench continued to yell for some kind of response, Yang knew what to expect. Even though cries on the other end told them that Valdez was still alive, there was no doubt that a bullet had lodged itself into the skin of their comrade. Their third member was down, and had made it perfectly clear that things on the other side were even worse than they had been for Yang. They had no choice but to do as they were told. Whether Trench liked it or not, they would need to leave without the newest member of their team.

Scrambling into the front of the truck, Yang placed himself in the passenger seat and looked about him as the gun fire was left behind, taking note of the scowl that Trench wore on his face. He understood the bigger man's reluctance to leave without Valdez, but Yang also knew that they both had a bad feeling about the encounter that they had just escaped. Neither of them needed to speak a word in order to know that the feeling was mutual though. There was something darker and much more sinister going on around them, but they had no way of reaching anyone else who might have been involved.

At this point their concern was with reaching their old acquaintance and giving him the heads up. But the first thing they needed to do was get back to their plane so that they could radio back home and get ahold of another contact who might also find this tidbit of information interesting.

"We've just landed in a shit storm," Trench grumbled, checking his mirror to make sure that they weren't being followed.

"You can say that again."