The desert at night was an eerie scene. It was nearly pitch black aside from the one construction light in the back of Rodolfo's truck, the stark yellow beams reaching out and eventually disappearing into the consuming darkness. The wind had died down to a stifling stillness and in the distance, a pair of coyotes yipped and howled to one another.

The bag was ripped harshly from his head and Hassan's expressionless, nearly-black eyes slowly turned from one man to another. Ahead of him, Graves was setting up his laptop, adjusting the camera and tapping at the screen when the image crackled and pixelated. "Y'all got a clear picture?"

"Crystal," replied Shepherd, leaning over his desk to get a better look at Hassan in the background.

"All set," piped in Laswell as she set a smoldering cigarette in the ashtray beside her, a long, silver stream of smoke curling from her mouth and nose.

"Alright! We're live, folks." Graves turned to face Hassan, rubbing his hands together and snapping his fingers as if in muted excitement.

"Do you speak Arabic?" asked the Major casually.

"No."

"Farsi?"

Philip pursed his lips, trying to dampen them with his dry tongue. "... No."

Hassan's mouth turned up in a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Course not. Then I'll speak your bastardized medieval English because you are all uneducated street dogs."

Novaleen, standing beside the light, rolled her eyes and choked back a scoff. "For a bunch of uneducated street dogs, we happen to be the ones holding you by the throat at the moment," she murmured to herself. "I'd pick your insults wisely if you don't want to be turned to dog food."

Graves shook his head. "Ahh, see... we're getting off to a bad start here, Hassan."

"You are talking to a Quds Force officer."

"You're the commander of a foreign terrorist organization."

Hassan tilted his head forward, his brows setting and the smile fading from his face. "I could say the same about you."

Philip looked up to the star-scattered sky and sighed. "What's your target... Major?"

He cocked a brow in response. "What was your target when they sent missiles to my land?"

"Oh well, wild guess... To nail your ass." The corner of Graves' mouth turned up in a sarcastic, jeering smile and he batted his eyes to emphasize the mockery in his tone.

"So insolent and foul-mouthed." Hassan grinned back, a glint of challenge in his dead eyes. "You will learn to respect me when your nation sees fire."

Novaleen noticed the back of Philip's neck sparking with rage but recognized the glimmer of fear in his eyes. She glanced over at Ghost who himself was tense and she clutched her water bottle tightly. "Don't..." she whispered. "Don't kill him yet, Philip..."

Graves stepped forward, leaning down into the Arab's face with a snarl. "You are in bed with the cartel, Hassan. If you disappeared, no one would know where to look for the fuckin' stain!"

Unbothered, Hassan chuckled, not even moving away so he wouldn't feel the Commander's breath on his face. "I have no doubt you'll take pleasure in torturing me," he purred.

Soap couldn't sit still and watch them threaten each other anymore. "Who'd you get American missiles from?" he demanded.

Shepherd cut him off before Hassan could reply. "I don't care who they're from, I wanna know where they're going."

NAG set her brows looking at the back of the computer. It seemed odd to her that he didn't care how Al Qatala got the missiles in the first place. Perhaps he thought it was a secondary issue. That didn't stop her from being curious, though.

Graves lifted his head at the shrill caterwauls of the coyotes across the dunes. Though not nearly as robust as their Gray Wolf cousins, he remembered growing up hearing harrowing stories from the Indigenous tribes about trickster gods and shapeshifting skinwalkers with voracious appetites and questionable morals. All nonsense, of course, but hearing their ravenous cries in the night was enough to send chills up a man's spine. "Look around, Hassan." A pair of glowing eyes stared unblinkingly from a hill not far from them and he turned back to the Major. "Now you can either become part of the food chain or you can start talking."

Hassan scoffed, pinching his brows together. "I'm a hostage here. This is illegal."

Alejandro's hand squeezed on his shoulder. "You are a prisoner of war."

His eyes darted back and forth between his captors and finally met with Shepherd's on the computer. "Iran is not at war with Mexico. I've broken no laws. These men and their commanders are the law-breakers."

Soap was fed up with the semantics. "Really? That's your plea? If not for stealin' and dealin' US missiles, you're a fuckin' terrorist leader, you illegally hopped the border between the US and Mexico, and you arsoned a house trying to kill a Mexican Special Forces Operative. You, and your beloved General Ghorbrani, broke every-"

"DO NOT SPEAK HIM NAME!" Hassan's lips were snarled back in a display of wrath that made even the sands flinch. He had risen up to a kneeling position, straining against Alejandro's grip as he spat his words at the young Sergeant. "You executed him and you will pay for your crimes! الله وحده قادر على مساعدتك الآن- Only God can help you now!"

Everyone was shooting worried glances back and forth, and Graves looked at Shepherd, blue eyes wide. The General's face had darkened with a sinister glare. "I want this bastard in permanent custody or looking up at the God-damned grass."

As Alejandro and Soap descended on the Major like the starving coyotes, Laswell's voice rang out. "General, wait! We can't do this!"

Shepherd's voice was barely above a growl when he responded. "Why not?"

"This will spark outrage among Al Qatala and the Cartel."

"So what? I won't be manipulated just because I might offend a bunch of terrorists."

"Sir-"

His eyes were nearly glowing with fury. "Laswell- give me exactly one good reason we shouldn't put this piece of shit away?"

"Killing him would be an act of war."

NAG picked up the laptop and turned it to face her. "Excuse me?" she rattled. "We're already at war with Al Qatala and Iran doesn't care, we've already killed Ghorbrani, and you heard Soap, he's committed a plethora of other crimes in the US. And, Mexican Special Forces is helping us retrieve and deport him for those crimes, we have clearance to capture him in Mexico. Our asses are covered; what about this is an act of war?"

The Intelligence Officer seemed smaller now, shrunken back against the wall behind her. "He's already threatening an attack on the United States, if we kill him, the US could face a rash of terrorist attacks. And with missiles on their side, it would be detrimental. All eyes are on us, we need to keep our heads cool. Right now, he's too hot to hold."

Grave's expression dropped and he took the laptop back. "No, Actual, please, let me finish this. He attacked US citizens- my fellow Texans, I can't- we can't let him go like this..."

"Graves- there is nothing else I would love more than to see you take justice for your country, but Laswell is right. We're in a delicate situation, we have to turn him loose. See where he leads us..."

Philip lifted his head, mouth tightened into a frown and he turned away. Soap caught the look of hurt in the commander's eyes and he stepped in front of the camera. "General, he's right here, you can't be serious?"

"I'm afraid I am, son."

He set his brows and looked back over his shoulder at Hassan. A low, ominous chuckle rippled in the Major's throat, and Soap wanted to pin him down and squeeze his neck until his eyes burst from their sockets. Bloody bastard...

Ghost turned a scuffed-up, grey flip-phone in his hand. "... Did we get anything from his phone at least?"

Laswell was quiet for just a moment, looking at a map on her screen and she finally spoke, relief flooding her voice. "Affirmative. We got a hit on a location."

"Good." Shepherd sighed quietly to himself. "Now take him back and let him go."

Rudy was staring forlornly at the sand, arms folded. Alejandro felt a boiling rage inside him and it took every fiber of strength not to tighten the black bag as he put it back over his head and suffocate him. "Up, asshole, on your feet." He traded one more wounded glance with his Sergeant Major and started to drag the terrorist leader back toward the truck.

As Graves canceled the uplink and closed up the laptop, NAG saw a deep shadow cast over his face. "Philip..?"

His jaw was stiff, brows set low on his eyes. "Alejandro," he called. "Wait a moment."

Al paused just a few feet from the truck and raised a curious brow. "Yes, sir?"

Hassan didn't even feel it when Graves pulled the trigger at point-blank range. His legs buckled and he fell limp to the sand, gray and red pulsing from his skull.

Alejandro jumped back, a blue streak of explicatives erupting from his mouth. "¡¡Qué coño!! Mierda, ¿en qué estás pensando, bastardo?- What the fuck!! Holy shit, what are you thinking, you bastard??"

The shock nearly knocked Soap off his feet. "Graves, what the fuck have you done?!"

Novaleen raced out past him and ripped the bag off Hassan's head, rearing back to see his brown eyes wide open and his jaw slacked. "You bloody fool!" She turned around, bristling fearfully as she threw the bag down into the sand. "Shepherd just told you to let him go!"

He holstered his pistol, his expression darkened by the splatter of blood that he hardly seemed to notice on his cheek. "How are they going to know the difference?" Graves turned back to the others, who all stared frozen in horror. "Throw him out in the desert, let the animals take care of him."

Soap, admittedly, wasn't upset that Hassan was dead, the thing that put a pit of dread in his stomach was his willingness to disregard a direct order. He was trembling when he came to Alejandro's side, picking up the heavy dead body. All he could do was meet eyes with the Colonel and they both recognized worry in each other's gaze.

Ghost hadn't moved yet, his eyes wide enough to show their whites. As Graves walked past him, he was just able to find the words to speak. "You think this'll have repercussions?"

Philip halted and didn't look up from the ground. "So what if they do?" His voice had grown quiet, barely louder than a whisper. "It'll just give me more reasons to wipe every last cartel drug lord and AQ operative off the face of this earth."