CHAPTER 33
Finn touched down in Dhaka 16 hours later and he rubbed sleep out of his eyes as he stepped off the plane. He had slept the entire duration of the flight as he knew he probably wouldn't once he began the mission. Half an hour later, Finn was through the airport and as he stepped out into the hot, humid Bangladesh air, he knew that his mission had officially begun…
Before leaving, Finn had gotten into contact with Lieutenant Brandt, who was very little help at all. Because Finn technically wasn't deployed for active duty by the Army, his mission would be an independent one. However, what Brandt could do was make sure that if Finn was arrested by U.S. troops at any point, they would know that he was one of them and not an enemy assassin. Not too bad, but not too helpful either. The more helpful part was Finn getting into contact with all of his old contacts to alert them of his presence. The U.S. government had various assets in the area and Finn needed to utilise every single one of them to even stand a miniscule chance of surviving. However, the most valuable alliance he made was one with a man who he didn't think was even still alive and he hoped he would never see again…
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Amir Asif walked up to the penthouse bar of his mansion compound, where his second in command - a Russian man named Avi Viggo - was waiting, a drink in his hand.
"Asif." Viggo greeted him.
"What's up?" Asif asked, shaking his number 2's hand.
"They've agreed to your terms. But it's not like you gave them much of a choice, right? Congratulations. That's business in Pakistan conquered!"
Asif didn't respond. His face was deathly pale. He had just been given horrific news.
"Sir? You okay?" Viggo asked.
"Have you seen my son?" Asif asked. At that moment, as if on cue, the door swung open and Khalid Asif stepped out onto the penthouse. The two men nodded at him.
"How was your trip, kid?" Viggo asked. Although Khalid was 19 years old, they still called him 'kid' as a term of both endearment and a way to show their power.
"Fine." He replied, gruffly. Asif poured another drink and strided over to his son, handing him a glass and scowling at him. Suddenly, Asif grabbed his son and punched him as hard as he could in the stomach. Khalid groaned and retched saliva and bile onto the floor.
"Clean it up." Asif snapped. Viggo looked pretty uncomfortable at this point.
"Should I go?" he asked.
"STAY, GOD DAMN IT!" Asif bellowed. Viggo nodded and blended into the shadows as Asif approached Khalid. Khalid tried to stumble to his feet.
"What did I do?" Khalid stammered.
"You fucked up." Asif growled. Asif roughly yanked his son to his feet and grabbed him by the collar.
"I did what you asked? I got the money." Khalid cried.
"I'm not talking about Atlantic City, you fucktard." Asif spat.
"What then?"
"You mean the girl? Bitch had it coming. She humiliated us! She had to pay!" Khalid shouted.
Asif once again threw a fist, this time at his son's jaw, sending the young adult flying backwards.
"It's not what you did, son, that angers me so. It's who you did it to." He growled. Khalid's face furrowed in confusion.
"Who? The fucking nobody teenager? She made us a laughing stock!"
Asif took a deep breath and kicked his son, who was already on the ground. Khalid cried out in pain.
"That fucking nobody's boyfriend… is Finn Hudson." Asif muttered. He took a long swig from his drink before continuing. "He used to be an associate of the United States Army. They called him Baba Yaga."
"The boogyman?" Khalid asked, confused.
"Well, Finn wasn't exactly the boogeyman. He was the man you sent to kill the fucking boogyman." Asif replied. "Finn is a man of focus. Commitment. Sheer will. Something you know very little about. I once saw him kill three of our men… with a pencil. With a fucking pencil! The job was just a summer job for Finn and despite the country's begging, he didn't want to sign a full-time enlistment. Over a woman of course. So they made a deal with him. They gave him an impossible task. A job no one could have pulled off. It was to rescue the girl we captured."
Asif poured himself another drink and looked at the expression of horror growing on his son's face as the younger man realised what he had done. He continued...
"The bodies he buried that month brought our organisation to the brink of death. And then, my son, a few weeks after his best friend commits suicide, you try to kill his fucking girlfriend."
"Father, I can make this right!" Khalid exclaimed, confidently, standing up to his father. Asif had to chuckle at this.
"Oh? Is that so? How's that?" He asked.
"By finishing what I started." Khalid growled. Asif slammed his hand down on the table.
"DID YOU HEAR A FUCKING WORD I SAID?!" Asif bellowed, before continuing in a much quieter tone. "Finn will come for you. And you will do nothing, because you can do nothing. So get the fuck out of my sight!"
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Later that night, Finn had broken into an abandoned house in the roughest part of Dhaka. He was assembling his weapons and preparing for the mission when, suddenly, his house landline started ringing. Finn walked over to it and answered it.
"Hello." He growled.
"Hello, Finn." Asif's voice greeted him. "I heard about your girlfriend. I'm sorry. That was not my organisation's doing. I guess it was just bad fucking luck that caused our paths to cross once again."
"What do you want?" Finn snapped.
"Finn, let us not resort to our basic instincts and handle this like civilised men, and move on fr…"
Finn slammed the phone back into the receiver cradle, hanging up furiously. Asif sighed and looked out from his terrace onto the streets of Bangladesh below.
"What did he say?" Viggo asked.
"Enough." Asif replied. Viggo sighed and put his head in his hands.
"Oh God." He murmured. Asif turned to him.
"Task your crew." Asif demanded. Viggo nodded.
"How many men?" He asked. Asif clenched his jaw.
"How many do you have…"
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As Finn lay in his sofa bed in the house that night, he didn't sleep. He knew that he needed to be on constant lookout. Given that Asif had called the landline phone, he knew that Asif's crew knew exactly where he was and probably would come after him. Sure enough, at around 3 in the morning, Finn heard faint footsteps outside. He leapt to his feet, grabbing his gun and tiptoeing to a vantage point. From there, he walked as numerous men crept into his house, guns raised in their hands. Finn gritted his teeth. Here we go. As the men approached the stairwell, Finn leapt out and fired his weapon, using his near-perfect accuracy to take out the men around him. Two by the kitchen… gone. Two on the balcony… gone. Four in the living room… gone. Before any of these men could fire a clear shot at him, a bullet was buried in their skulls. Finn took out the men, one by one, until he had eventually taken out twelve men by his count and the room went silent. After making sure each and every man was dead and that there was nobody hiding, Finn relaxed slightly. It was then that he took in all of the bodies around him and he instantly knew what needed to be done…
Finn walked back up to the bedroom and over to the landline, dialling the number of an extremely valuable asset. They answered immediately.
"This is Hudson. Yes, Finn Hudson, that's right." He said into the phone. "I'd like to make a dinner reservation for 12 people…"
Twenty minutes later, a car pulled up and there was a knock on the door. Finn opened it to see Fernando Sucre, the man who had driven the escape helicopter during the mission over the summer. Sucre was now a full-time asset in Bangladesh - he wasn't deployed, but he was an emergency reserve to any U.S. troops operating in the area. With him, Sucre had a couple of other men.
"Good to see you, Finn."
"Sucre." Finn replied, gruffly.
"You look good." Sucre remarked. "And here I'd feared you left all this behind…"
With that, the group of men walked into the house and for the next twenty minutes, Finn stood by and watched as the bodies were lifted from the house and piled into a van. The whole house was thoroughly scrubbed, leaving no evidence of the bloodbath behind. Once they were all ready to go, Finn turned to Sucre.
"Will I be hearing from you any time soon?" Sucre asked.
"Goodbye, Sucre."
"Until we meet again…" Sucre said before driving away.
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"Of course he did." Asif muttered. It was the next morning and Viggo had just informed him about what happened the night before. "Put a contract out on Finn Hudson."
"How much?" Viggo asked.
"2 million. Lure the wolf with the hen. Put yourself in the red circle and wait."
"For what?" Viggo asked.
"For Finn Hudson of course."
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Five hours later, Asif was sitting opposite the most feared assassin he had at his disposal: an American ex-military assassin named Jack Daniels. It was the same Jack Daniels who had betrayed Finn a year prior, and the same man who Finn thought was dead. He was very much alive though, a huge scar on his lower abdomen from the bullet wound but otherwise unharmed.
"To what do I owe this visit?" Jack asked.
"I have a job for you." Asif explained. Jack raised an eyebrow.
"And I've got a phone." Jack replied, rolling his eyes.
"I want to offer you this face to face, seeing as how you might find this… personal. Would you kill Finn Hudson for two million dollars."
Jack took a swig of his whiskey. Finn Hudson. A name he hadn't heard in almost a year. The name of the man who caused him to be nearly killed and then also disgraced by the Army for making a choice that any self-respecting human being would make. That man ruined his life.
"After all, you were close." Asif remarked.
"Is the contract exclusive?" Jack growled.
"No. It's open. There's a time restraint. It has to be handled quickly."
"Consider it done." Jack growled. Asif nodded and stood up, shaking the man's hand.
"Thank you, my friend. I knew I could trust you."