Chapter I

Haze was of thick mist from where I see it, sitting on one side of the bed with a phone beside my ear at 3 in the morning. The reverberation of the busy buzz in the office covers the voice of the caller similar to the white powdered touch atop a custard-filled doughnut when served cold and right at the usual spot, two blocks away from the office, but at this time of night, I would've preferred not this call nor the doughnut but a good night sleep.

"Captain, This is from Central Intelligence, Command requests you here for briefing within 15 minutes A.S.A.P" A familiar---certainly familiar voice, perfectly calm yet urgent as all Central Intelligence are trained to speak during dangerous events. The call ended with a *beep* and as soon as I heard that beep my vision started to blur and my body felt gravity itself. 

Even though with the given scenario I still can't bring myself to sleep, rest, a word that is seemingly hard to believe in. "15 minutes---A.S.A.P"  bullshit, words that didn't slide through my mouth due to the fact that I only got 4 hours of sleep out of 48 hours in total.

I changed into my military uniform as quickly as having my teeth brushed. Driving in the cold sweet night, the breeze ushers me calm as if nothing in the world is ever wrong nor bad, the orange glow of street lights heavily drowns all of my problems away. 

The rumbling call of people around the office reminded me of everything wrong in this world as if the feeling from the night drive that I had earlier disappeared in an instant. I headed straight for the hangar at the other side of the department, surely they must've conducted the briefing there. 

The people were constant, in a hurry I suppose? urgent maybe? but no, I can sense that they're somehow troubled. The busy thumping of footsteps crowds the whole department, now tension surely made its way into me, the feeling of roots slowly making way deeper and deeper into the ground taking energy---taking life. The roots of tension now takes hold of me as if I  was a new addition in its hundred of other more hostages. 

The open-air takes everything away the busy and bliss were all gone upon entering the hangar, the sensation similar to a late-night drive pulled me out of the tension that rooted me below ground. Now airplanes, mechanical equipments, and other more employees liters in the background. "Captain. nice of you to finally join us." 

A middle-aged woman with clear blue eyes, pulled back hair, and dressed in a suit looking sharp and proper as all agent should be, but she does it exceptionally well. Command was eager, nothing good surely would come out from this briefing, I could already tell.

"First thing's first, As always I will be your eyes from above, and this ladies and gentlemen will be your commander operating the mission." Command pointed at me arriving last from the briefing in full certainty, but I surely wasn't, I was filled with nothing but shock and uncertainty. She added, "Captain Rio here will be your commanding officer," she looked back at me after scanning the reaction of the other 3 soldiers sitting in front of us. 

"Central Intelligence wants an extraction a simple rescue mission, in and out, before the sun rises we want those 5 civilians out of Rebel hands. Lieutenant Reins, Xiao, and Schneider will be under your command captain. The location of this operation is at Green Grove in Finland, the extraction team will be waiting via chopper within an hour and a half." An Asian man sitting in the middle raised his hand captivating everyone's attention related to the briefing. 

"Why not let the local intelligence at Finland to handle the situation?" Command shot him a gaze, a gaze so certain that even you, deep down knowing you're right would be baffled and left to question yourself. 

"Because two of those five civilians that were caught by the rebels is the daughter of a high influenced politician in our country, Amy Dolorez, age 18, and the other is her cousin a young man at the age of 22, name Carlos Dolorez. The other three are locals from the residence of Finland. And that Lieutenant Xiao is why Central Intelligence gave the four of you this very important task. Any more questions? no? good. The plane leaves at five." 

Command left but not after giving me three folders containing a name and a picture. My fingers scanned through the folders searching only for critical background information about my new team. 

"let's see. Lt. Isaac Reins, apparently he's Russian, and considered to be one of the best blacklist agents, handy. Lt. Eric Xiao, he's Mongolian, looks like he's got a knack for being a field agent. Lastly Lt. Schneider, a German huh, seems like Command built me an international team here, but something's off about him, nothing here shows that he's significantly special or an expert at something, also his records are blacked including his first name."

A towering structure of a man with a thick beard was the first to head at the plane directly after the briefing, looks to me that our Russian friend here is eager to finish this as fast as it could. Xiao on the other hand still sitting looking more relaxed than any of the team smokes a little before departing, he better kiss his cigar goodbye. A very tall slim man was left alone on his chair at the right, he continues to clean his guns with a handkerchief while giving me a skeptical look. That's Schneider I suppose. 

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3:20 am

We were quietly strapped in the plane with bags of parachute, the turbulence from the plane prevents me from catching a doze, what am I thinking, hoping to catch a nap while on the job, HA!, hell of a captain if you ask me. 

The red light that envelopes everything inside the cargo plane turned green changing the mood and the atmosphere itself, similar to a stoplight after red turning green but this was no stoplight, if it was, it would be an indicator of a man's life, a death toll.

Everyone plugged their earpiece on for us to communicate especially when we're apart from each other and for Command to communicate with us regarding the situation. "Captain this is Command you're good to go." I unbuckled my seatbelt and pushed down the button opening the hatch for us to depart from. 

"Ladies, we are personally handpicked for this operation, which means intelligence really had it in for us." I cocked my rifle and prepped up my gear including the flares for signaling the extraction was a success. "Simple in and out, let's get this over with shall we?"

Being the last to jump off it was as almost as my body didn't want to, more or less it hesitated but I couldn't, I just couldn't, so I jumped, willingly giving up everything on a leap of fate. "What a drag..." the sharp whisk of the wind points a point-blank gun range at me forcing me awake during the descend