Chapter 5 Hunting Grounds

the bald eagle swooped over the horizon where the city was in ruins, many construction equipment, and the 90th Engineering Corps are clearing up the debris. Lieutenant Deacon chucks the halfway cigar to the ground because he can't finish the darn stick, both ate their rations while the others are clearing up the mess that the Ghost left

"shit Zane, where did you get this cigar? from the King's room upstairs?" Deacon asked

"Yeah, I tried it earlier but I forgot that I'm not into smoking, so I stopped" Zane replied

"Next time, stick to the cigarettes. these assholes cost a fortune and it could kill you faster than a whole pack and don't forget that you had a lung transplant taken months ago" Deacon added,

"understood but for the last time, I don't smoke," Zane said back

"fair said then" Deacon replied while puffing the cigar

"hey! is Zane McBride here? somebody needs him right now and it's urgent!" the recruit said while panting

"here I am, what does he want right now?" Zane said while chugging down a bottled water

"he has a mission for you and your buddies, you need to take out their main man, General Jamison Whittaker, he's the mastermind of the invasion" the recruit added

"Keira, tell the pack to get ready, we're going to a hunt today"

Keira called the fellow assassins while he's replacing the assault rifle for the MX4 and the AWP sniper rifle in exchange for the Shpagin-41. the assassins climbed and jumped their way to their location, General Jamison Whittaker. the public enemy number one and the main man of the invasion of Basswood City, he's looking over his foiled plan to take over the city but the main port is wasn't claimed yet. each regiment and battalions are getting ready for their next assault as given orders by the former Prime Minister and his right-hand

"Sir! we have bad news! KNAF reclaimed the Royal Palace and the Capitol! what should we do sir?" the sub-commander asked the General

"hmm, we should hold our last stand, we can't disappoint Viceroy Roiland about it. if it fails, let's try another spot. maybe on Ruby Hill, they were stationed there also in Amethyst Cove and Sapphire Grove, so they won't meddling with us from now on! tell the troops to get ready" Whittaker replied

the sub-commander was taken down in front of the General and he pressed the alarm button to warn the others about the attempted assassination. the whole port area is in full alert while the Keepers are sweeping them down like a lawnmower at high speed, Zane was granted permission to call an airstrike with Barracuda Gunships, the situation from above is taken care of as the gunships aimed at the infantry units. each of every unfortunate enemy soldiers is flying from the explosions and heavy firing from the opposing side, one of the assassins disabled the alarm and Zane came inside to the office and he was surprised that their target faked his death while Keira pointed a dinghy that was off the horizon and Zane isn't going to let him escape, a dinghy was left unattended and he's going to chase him with it while two APC's arrived on the port, Lieutenant Deacon pulled out his binoculars to see what the assassin is doing

"Hey, Zane! are you going to keep him up?" Deacon asked him on the radio

"He faked his death, he used his sub-commander to take the bullet" Zane replied

"come back here! it's pointless to keep him up" Deacon ordered him

"but!-" Zane replied

"that's an order! head back to the port this instant!" Deacon barked on the radio

Zane took a left turn and went back to the port while Whittaker successfully escaped from the KNAF Zane was ranked up from Private to Staff Sergeant due to his excellence in combat and bravery, the chase against Whittaker would begin after General Joseph Styles, the current General of the Phantom Regiment, give him a spec-ops mission in South East Asia along with the fellow soldiers in his unit and the Keepers. reconnaissance troopers reported that Whittaker is having a time off in his villa in Vietnam with a fake name to avoid the heat against the KNAF or the UN. the Ghosts are planning for their next attack on the mentioned cities as Zane blurted out during their mission debrief in Vietnam, some of his recruits are trained there and the forest area in South East Asia, even in South America and Africa to cover their trail against them. it's been a month since he escaped, this time he ain't going nowhere

"I see why they use the forest area to avoid UN and the KNAF to snuff them out, satellite imagines can't see clearly due to trees that covered the area, all thanks to their local law that forbids to cut down trees without a permit that become successful in Asia as illegal logging was a problem a few years ago," Zane said

"we're going inside the forest, we'll have the KNSF and the Vietnamese military on the go after you reached Vietnam, it's the risk if you enter the forest in there" Joseph purposed

"two of them are Staff Sergeant Danh  Ly and 2nd Lieutenant Hanh Tran of the 320th Infantry Division from Tay Nguyen Corps while the KNSF is Master Sergeant Chandler Lee and Sam Seabury, Staff Sergeant Zane McBride and Lieutenant Jacob Deacon would represent the 170th Phantoms Regiment. this mission can end Viceroy Roiland and his tyrannic plans to destroy the world if it fails. we can improve it once again and it will never happen again"

"Understood, we'll take down General Whittaker and finish the job"

"Don't disappoint me Zane or you'll regret it after you came back" Joseph said while shaking hands

the mission was commenced three weeks later and the Strike Team has arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam. The capital city was recovered after a monstrous typhoon that struck during the Battle of Basswood City, during that time, the Royal Family donated 500,000 alz for the typhoon effort or 4.5 Million Vietnamese Dong, an ample amount for the typhoon effort. the said operators seem to be busy for a while and they were escorted by the military police to their hotel, thirty minutes later, the said operators arrived in the hotel lobby due to attended matters and preparation 

"So, you're from the KNAF? I heard Basswood is under rehabilitation, kinda like us after the typhoon, I'm Staff Sergeant Danh Ly, or call me Danny, from the 320th Infantry Division of Tay Nguyen Corps" the Vietnamese greeted the foreign operators

"Good to meet you Danny, Staff Sergeant Zane McBride, from the 170th Phantoms Regiment and this is Lieutenant Jacob Deacon"

"Good to see you, Lieutenant Deacon, I'm 2nd Lieutenant Hanh Tran or Hannah, and welcome to Vietnam." the Lieutenant also greeted

"a little greeting party, hurrah and let's get to the mission"

"You're right, the mission. I've got General Joseph's memo with Colonel Nguyen. and He's agreed to take down General Whittaker, he used his sub-commander as his human shield? Such a pathetic coward" Danny said in a serious tone

"Yeah, is the equipment ready to go? I've brought mine along to the trip"

"Really? What is it then?"

"I'll show you and you'll gonna love it"

Zane pulled out a grey gun case, took off the latches, and show its contents. the Vietnamese are flabbergasted to see the Katana and the cloaked daggers that were once owned by his father, Hannah poked the leather arm brand while Zane activated the blade mechanism. even Sam and Chandler are staggered by the deadliest weapon from the Keepers, wondering how did he smuggle it from TSA, eventually he has a permit to carry a bladed weapon

"Wow, is that the hidden blade from Assassins Creed?"

"Kinda but the blades are"

"Who made this? That looks so real! Even the Katana!"

"Okay, these guys are made out of pure Vibranium, I know it's a myth but the metal is real, it was handed out for Generations from the Keepers"

"Keepers? Like House Keepers?"

"No, kinda like the Brotherhood but we take down crime and maintain order, kinda like secret police without corruption nor the Templars" Zane explained it all

"In that case, we're going to have ourselves a really good time, haven't we?" Hannah asked them all

"that's a yes then, the mission preparation would start in the next three hours but for now, let's have a tour here in Ho Chin Minh"

the tour of the city lasted for an hour of thirty until Colonel Nguyen drop by and greeted the foreign operatives and later mobilized into the jungles, in a quest of General Whittaker's Villa or Jerald Winston according to his fake passport was later found, not far from their extraction point. the forest pretty much had the Vietnam War vibes due to raining weather and mosquito inbound, luckily they were trained by the Philippine Marines months ago and it's like the real thing

"here we are, the General's Mansion. let's see if he still remember us from back home" Deacon said

"yeah, send his ass back to Basswood for what he did" Danny added

"we'll see about that" Zane smirked

the operatives entered the bushiest forest of Vietnam for a hunt of General Whittaker, some of his guards were noted that Zane McBride and his cronies are here to get his head, he's paranoid about his safety after the attempted assassination plot back home and it's going to happen today in his villa, he was enjoying his cigar in his panic room that he added up for security reasons while the place has the local mercenaries and Ghost Army soldiers that were armed with high caliber guns with extreme training while the villa is like Fort Knox, it has a top-notch security system, fool-proof doors, bulletproof glass windows, and the walls are filled with Wall Fillers that made the bullets worthless during combat, except for anti-material bullets. if only they brought with them during the trip.

the operatives cut off the power supply while Hannah is picking the lock, they've used suppressed weapons for this mission while Zane went up first to find the panic room, a silenced Glock-17 pistol, and his cloaked daggers are the only things that he got along with the FN P90. he found the panic room but he can't get inside somehow, a faint smell of the tobacco smoke can be smelled on the vent shaft, unfortunately, it's small enough to fit him in. thanks to his seventh sense, he could break in the code of the door. the said General took his life with a loaded revolver to the head, but there's something more crucial than finding the enemy general in Asia he has something stored to his computer and later downloaded by the assassin and left the room

"he's dead, the General's dead," Zane said on the radio

"already? is it mission fail?" Chandler questioned him

"no, there's something more than General Whittaker, the panic room is on the third floor on the right"

the Alpha Team reunited on the third floor while Zane is downloading the files on the computer, one of the files has the tag name "Cloning Plot", according to it, they're running out of soldiers due to heavy casualties on the recent Battle of Basswood City, they decided to use the DNA sample of the deceased soldiers, from friendly to foe and start the cloning process, they have shown some trial and error as imminent chaos after the clones were completed, they hired a renowned scientist named David Parker and Kim Yoon Bae but the Korean scientist didn't take the deal, they've decided to take him by force and they aren't going to do that, Seabury called up General Styles about the files and they are prepared for their trip back to Basswood and discussed it later on

they have to get out of here as the local militia are coming back from their training exercises, everything is done as Chandler planted the explosive before leaving the villa with a helicopter. the militia didn't know the building was about to blow up until they heard a beep that they would never forget, much concrete debris fell in the air while the unfortunate are also flying with their body parts and guts all over the place, lighting up the place like a firecracker on Chinese New Year parade. the helicopter is en route back to their base on Lam Dong, they took a sip on local Vietnamese beer while Zane takes a sip of a freshly cut-opened coconut.