By the time I got to my destination, I had forced myself to put Steph out of my mind. This job was going to be absolutely horrendous, and I needed to have a clear head going into it. I left my personal belongings with a trusted friend at the base we deployed from for a couple of reasons. One, I didn't want to tempt myself and try to contact her and two, if something happened to me and I was captured, I didn't want her information to fall into their hands. Steph caused enough problems on her own, most of the time unintentionally, and I didn't want to add to it for her.

I had been told that this could be over within a few weeks, or if it all went to shit, it could go on for months, if not years. I was hoping for a few weeks with a satisfying ending for me and my group of men. The objective of the mission was clear, find the target and take him out. Sounds easy, right? It all depended on the Intel we were about to receive.

After the briefing, I met up with my men. We came up with the main plan, a back-up plan, a back-up to the back-up plan and the final, run for your life, plan. Anything past the first back-up plan usually did not end well for anyone involved. Thankfully I've never had to use the run for your life plan and hoped to not have to for this job. We checked our gear and headed in to eat and rest. We were leaving at sundown that night.

Once I ate, checked my gear again, I laid down on my bunk. I closed my eyes and all I could see was Steph. I replayed our last night together over and over in my mind. I swear I could still feel her next to me. I got up and pulled out a small notebook from my bag. I always bring a few with me to have to pass notes between the guys if needed, but this one, I was going to use as a journal of sorts. I decided to write my thoughts down each day and if something did happen to me, it would be given to Tank and he would make sure Steph got it. I wrote in it for a few minutes, making the first page a note of instructions what to do with it in the event of my death and then wrote down my thoughts from today's travels and meetings. I made sure not to give away any information that could be used against my group of men, but wanted to provide Steph enough information to know what I'd been doing and how much I'd been thinking about her. I never called her by name in the notebook, but she would know I was writing about her.

I put the notebook back into my bag and when shuffling it to the bottom of the bag, I found the bottle of her shower gel. I opened it up just to smell it. Steph always steals my shower gel and I've never called her out for it. Now, after sitting here in the middle of hell, smelling a bottle of shower gel, I understand. I understand why she takes it and uses it so she can smell me. Good thing for her when I took her bottle, I left her a bottle of mine. If she would finally decide to work for RangeMan, she would have an endless supply of it, courtesy of Ella. I felt my self finally falling asleep, with a smile on my face at the memory of our last night and the bottle of shower gel in my hand.

I woke a few hours later and put the bottle back into my bag. Hopefully the rest of the guys don't see a bottle of strawberry shower gel in my stuff. I'd never hear the end of it from them. I've never been on a mission when I've left someone at home that I loved so much. Most of the guys I work with are not married or even have serious relationships because of the danger of this work and that there was a chance that they wouldn't return home. This was going to be my last mission and I prayed I'd come home sitting in a seat on the plane and not in a box in the cargo hold of the plane.

We loaded into a small plane and took off. The pilot circled the jump site and opened the door. One by one, we jumped and parachuted into what was still hopefully a safe zone. Once we landed, we all scrambled to pack out chutes away and soon all had a weapon out and ready to go. One of the men pulled out a compass and we set off, with him in the lead, a group in the middle and I brought up the rear, watching behind us as we crept along in the dark. We had about a ten mile walk ahead of us and we wanted to reach our target's location before sunrise. Once we got settled with the location in sight, we'd bunker down for the day, watching the routines of those around our target and figure out what we were going to do.

We settled in about a mile from the target's last know location. Pulling out a pair of binoculars, I was able to zero in on the front of the building. Two guards outside in front of the door, not moving and it seemed, not really paying attention to their surroundings. I watched for an hour before I noticed any sign of life from inside. The front door opened and two other men came out and traded places with the two already outside. We watched for another couple hours and realized it was only these four men and no one else at the front of the building. A couple of the guys circled around to the other side of the building, still staying about a mile away. The communicated back after a couple hours that it was the same rotation in the back. Two standing outside and two to replace every hour. They determined that we were dealing with a total of six men. We decided to wait and see how the night went and if the routine changed. If it stayed the same, it would be easy to get past the six guards. We took turns sleeping and when it was my turn, I wrote a quick note in my journal before I stretched out for a bit of sleep.

The night went by quietly. It seemed like there were still only the six men and we were able to determine where in the building someone was by which windows had lights burning. We talked quietly as a team and decided to watch for a few more days. There wasn't any activity in the area around us other than this one building. All of the other buildings seem abandoned as we saw no other people or activity. I hope this meant that we would get the job done quickly and get the hell out of here.