Chapter 2: We're not in Afghanistan Anymore

For someone who was in the air force, I admit to admit it was actually pretty strange sitting in a more civilian like aircraft for the first time in a while. When I was told I was being shipped back to the States, I was expecting the usual C17, not a fancy private jet. Even the slippers provided were high quality. Aside from myself the only other passenger was a woman my age in a business suit. In the back sat two men in tactical gear. One was armed with a Colt M4 Commando and the other had a handgun holstered. I figured they were part of some badass part of the military that didn't liked to be asked questions.

My superior officer wasn't very specific about the details of my being recalled back to the states, only that the higher ups were interested in me participating in an important new operation. I sipped my water and tried to relax and enjoy myself. As an Airforce Para rescue Jumper I spent most of my time in Somalia and Afghanistan riding one helicopter or another back and forth through the air. I hadn't had a bird's eye view of good old American architecture in a long time.

Suddenly feeling conversational I decided to try my luck with the woman in the cabin with me. Brown hair, fit body, and fine breasts. She was very attractive. I figured she was Spanish or some kind of Middle Eastern.

"Names William," I said with an extended hand. "William Stockton."

She smiled at me and leaned forward to shake my hand. "Dalia Baer."

From the accent I could tell that she was Israeli.

"So what business do you have in the States?" I asked, making strong eye contact.

"Well one of the men back in airfield we took off from told me we were selected for some special op."

"So we are in the same boat huh?"

"Unusual that our higher ups would specifically select from the IDF."

"I'm not IDF. I'm with Mossad."

I raised my eyebrows high. "You sure you're supposed to be telling me that?"

"If we are to be working together then we should have trust yes? Trust is built on honesty. I've had enough with lies for one lifetime."

At this I laughed. This woman was clearly new to the whole thing. "You might be in the wrong business then sister."

Dalia glared at me. "Not all intelligence agencies are as black as your CIA."

"Eh, I'll give you that one I guess. Though I must admit I wouldn't know. I'm only an air force grunt."

"Ah, you are a pilot?"

"No, a Para rescue jumper. Some called us PJs."

"Impressive, this is U.S. special forces yes?"

"We'll ma'am I'm no Delta commando but yes, lot of boys don't make the cut."

"It is the same for Mossad. I suppose this is why we are now here."

I was liking this chick more and more. Her accent was lovely and there was something exotic about foreign women that made them that much more attractive. I was 99% sure we was the intelligent type too.

"Listen, when we land, can I buy you a coffee? Do you have burgers in Israel? I mean a real burger. Not that McDonald's stuff."

The landing in Homey Airport was rougher than expected. The elephant in the room is always all the movies, video games, and novels surrounding the place which the public commonly refers to as Area 51. On your first you would expect to see a place surrounded by force fields and laser turrets. Oh yeah, all the guards are droids too. Imagine my disappointment about four years ago when I found out that it was just a warehouse for all sort of obscure and disappointingly believable military goods. Most of the stuff is in developmental stages or the higher ups haven't decided on the level of usability. Stealth choppers, IFVs with advanced camouflage, and drones are often tested here. Sometimes they fly in people the CIA really don't like, where they hide them and "encourage" such people to see things their way. Though the word "alien" is often thrown in the direction of the airport, for me the dry Nevada heat hit close to home. For a second I thought I was still in Afghanistan.

A man with black curly hair and a white polo shirt greeted Dalia and I as we stepped off our flight with our luggage.

"Welcome back soldier," he said, beaming. "Names Norton. I hope you slept well on the flight cause the others are expecting you in a the meeting room in one hour."

"I once defended a crashed little bird for three days without sleeping a wink," I said.

Norton chuckled. "Now that's solid my bro. You are welcome as well Miss Baer. I hope you will have a comfortable stay. Now come, let not waste any more time. Jesus, I knew I should have used the bathroom earlier."

As Norton led us towards a jeep I noticed an elderly officer in uniform speaking to a man in a dress shirt and slacks. The man had two guards in tactical gear standing behind him. The black SUV beside them had the words "Serenity Security Services" spelled out in white over the doors. I didn't have anything against PMCs but the man in the dress shirt really didn't look like the trustworthy type.

"That's Leopard," said Norton without looking. "He's a high ranking official from Serenity. Pretty slick guy. He's good at what he does though."

"Leopard is an unusual name," said Dalia. "A call sign?"

"Who knows?" said Norton. "I don't even think his own employers know his real name."

A few minutes later we found ourselves in what resembled a typical corporate office room. The meeting room was transparent but the glass soundproof. I sat outside watching a few men inside having what I assumed to be a conversation on something important. Dalia went to use the restroom, leaving me sitting next to a blonde man in a suit wearing square rimmed glasses.

"Pretty exciting stuff isn't it?" he said abruptly, without looking at me.

I sipped some ice cold water from a paper cup I had acquired a minute ago. "What is?"

"Must be pretty big if they have so diverse a team," he said. "Look inside. See the two men sitting on the right farthest away from us with near identical haircuts?"

"Sure."

"They're from MI6. The one with the sports watch is former SAS. Now see the guy with the short stubble and slight bed hair? He's got short black hair and there's a guy in Vans sitting to his left."

I let out a sigh. "Yeah what about him?"

"Green Beret. One of their best I hear."

The door to the meeting room swung open and a middle aged man with a receding hairline looked down at me. "We are ready for you William."

I looked to my right in the direction of the women's bathroom down the hall. "Did you want to wait for Miss Baer?"

"No that's alright, come on inside."

I felt a little unnerved by the expectant stares the men in the room gave me the moment I stepped in, maybe even irritated.

The man with the receding hairline took a seat at the far end of the long table while I remained standing two steps away from the door that closed behind me.

"My names Thomas," he said. "I'm with the NSA. As you know we called you all the way out here because we think a man with your skillset might be of use to a joint task force that we are forming."

"A joint task force for what?" I asked sharply.

"Short answer? Terrorists."

He motioned toward the man with bed hair. "This is Peirce Winters, a Green Beret and the current team leader."

He then pointed to the Asian man with the buzz cut sitting across from Peirce. "That's Sheng-Han. He's with the Chinese Special Forces, Nanjing division. The two gentlemen here from Britain are with MI6, Ronnie O'Sullivan and his senior colleague, Grant Robinson, a former SAS trooper. We have two other operators in our current roster who are elsewhere, a Canadian and a German. And you have already met Dalia Baer from Mossad. Ah yes, the gentleman sitting next to Peirce is Gare Fallon."

Gare waved at me before looking down at his cell phone again, I couldn't tell if he was texting or playing some kind of game. He didn't look very intimidating compared to the others, but if he earned a right to sit at the table I thought it best not to jump to hasty conclusions.

"We are just going to ask you some general questions," said Thomas. "I hope you don't mind."

"Is this an audition?"

"Sort of. Don't worry, your place here is fairly secure, that's is, if you're still interested by the end of it."

"Very well then, shoot."

"Are you married or are currently in any sort of relationship?"

"Currently single but I have an ex-girlfriend."

"Have you ever killed a civilian either intentionally or on accident?"

"I once shot a woman in Somalia in the leg. It was an accident. No it wasn't lethal though."

"During a mission, what would you say you prioritize the most? Safety of the team or the objective?"

"In our line of work the objective is the safety of the team."

Gare chuckled. "I like that. Just pass him Thomas, his resume alone is good enough for me."

"Fine, interviews are tedious anyways."

"Can you tell me what were here to do now?"

"Yeah, I was getting to that. How familiar are you with the Planned Parenthood bombings of 2019?

"Think I might have saw some of it in CNN."

"What about the mass subway stabbings in Shanghai last month?"

I recalled the graphic photos I saw on the web. Even though I had some pretty grisly wounds on the battlefield, and even treated some of them, the idea of innocent civilians being stabbed repeatedly in the gut churned my stomach.

"I also caught that on the news."

"The raid on a government armory in Bolivia last September?"

"Don't know anything about that."

"William we believe that these attacks are pieces of a larger whole. We aren't entirely sure who are or what exactly we are dealing with but a lot important people in several different countries across the globe are not happy, hence this team."

At that moment the door opened to admit Dalia. Thomas reintroduced everyone and but skipped the questions this time.

"We are going to Canada," he continued. "We believe that a man who supplies our suspects' weapons is hiding out there. The two other members of your team I mentioned earlier are waiting for you there."

"Always wanted to take a vacation in Canada," I replied.

"So is that a yes? Are you signing on with us?"

"Yes."

"And what about you Miss Baer?"

"This is what Mossad does. We bring justice to those who would seek to hurt God's people."

Thomas exchanged grins with Peirce. "Well alright then. All that is left is to see the quartermaster."

Within an unmarked hanger where the quarter master was located were several men working on a UAV drone. Aesthetically it resembled the Predator and Reaper models from General Atomics, but a little sleeker. One of the workers who was wearing a dirty white t shirt looked up from the table of weapons and gear he was working on.

"Like it?" he said to us. "It's the Predator C Avenger. It's faster yet more fuel economic. Though listed as a developmental aircraft, she is operationally ready. She has all the aerial surveillance toys you could want and well as an internal weapons bay in addition to her six external hard points."

He cleared his throat and wiped his hands on his shirt before extended his hand towards me. "Names Roger. I'll be handling your gear for the time being."

We walked to where a couple of tables hand been put together to serve as an outfitting station.

"We got all sorts of assault rifles, PDWs, and launchers. Some of these models didn't make the cut to be standard issue but, her, everyone's got their own preferences."

Roger pointed to a table full of ammunition and mags piled high. "I was told you were dealing with well trained and well organized hostiles. I took the liberty of ordering some high velocity ammunition to defeat body armor. As for oyur own protection though...."

He walked over to a table displaying several plate carrier vests. With a grunt he picked up a heavy looking steal plate that had been painted grey. "One inch AR 550 steel plate. Believe it or not, this will stop a black tip 50 BMG round, with minimal scarring to the plate. Quite heavy, but worth the extra effort to carry if it will save your life."

Roger held up a black full face mask that looked like it was made of leather or rubber. The only openings were the two small eye holes. "Level two ballistic mask. Uncomfortable and messes up your peripheral vision. Gets kind of sweaty too but hey, it will stop up to .44 special. You might still get admitted into the hospital for a cracked skull though.

"I thought Canada was supposed to be a chill place to be," I said, turning over one of the masks in my hand.

"Which is a damn shame that we are being called there," said Ronnie. "I got a wife so I'm taking the body armor."

While the others browsed the large selection of tactical gear and armament, Gare stood to the side just aimlessly pacing around. I felt conversational as I usual so I walked up to him.

"Thomas didn't mention where they pulled you from," I said.

Gare looked at me, his expression tired or uninterested. "I belong to a group more obscure to the public," he said simply.

"CIA?"

"CIA?!" he said incredulously with a snort. "You can buy a CIA operator action figure at Target. There in every by the books military thriller under the sun. You have a funny notion of what is obscure my friend."

"My mistake," I said. "Just trying to get to know my team. As a PJ you and your fellow crew have to be like one, or a man or woman dies on your watch."

Gare flicked his eyes up and down as if he was sizing me up. "I'm sure we will work together just fine. When Peirce is not in charge, I am. You understand?"

"I understand sir."

With that Gare strode over to the table of assault rifles. I was liking my new job more and more.