"Do you normally make-out with the people you're hired to kill? It doesn't strike me as very professional."
"Put the gun down," Gabriel panted, not answering her.
"Why on earth would I do that?"
"Because you're not going to shoot me," Gabriel rep...
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Four years ago
"Martinez, Omar, Brudzinski. Special assignment for you."
Gabriel's commanding officer, Lieutenant White, threw a folder labelled "Timurovich" on the table. Gabriel opened it to find a picture of angry-looking man staring back at him.
"You want him taken out?" Gabriel asked, as he and the other three Marines looked through the rest of the files in the folder.
"No, we want him alive. He was a higher up in the terrorist organization TLK. He got on the organization's bad side, so now they're holding him captive. We have a few other teams who will secure the compound where he's being held, but you three are in charge of bringing him out."
"Why is he on their bad side?" Omar asked as Gabriel dug through the files. Startled, he found multiple pictures of women and children staring back at him with haunting, empty expressions.
"He's a human trafficker?" Gabriel guessed.
"Yes. Among other things," Lieutenant White responded. "He originally ran weapons but has since expanded into trafficking people."
"Including children," Gabriel added.
"Apparently even TLK has lines they won't cross," White answered. "That was the final straw for them."
"What's going to happen to him?" Brudzinski asked. "If we rescue him."
"When you rescue him," his commanding officer corrected him sternly, "you'll turn him over, and what happens to him after is none of your concern."
"But...he'll be punished, won't he?" Omar asked.
"Why are we even cutting deals with this kind of person?" Gabriel added, confrontationally.
"You three certainly have a lot of opinions today," Lieutenant White growled. "Timurovich knows the location of one of the leaders of TLK, Sychin Koshkov. But that doesn't really matter, because more importantly, I am your commanding officer. If I told you to jump, your only question should be 'how high?'. Do you understand soldiers?"
"Yes sir," the three replied, with Gabriel muttering his response.
"I can't hear you Martinez."
"Yes, sir," Gabriel replied more loudly.
"Good. You'll go at 0100 hours. Get some sleep before then."
*****
The mission started smoothly. Gabriel, Omar, and Brudzinski arrived at the compound, snuck inside while their fellow soldiers provided cover, grabbed Timurovich, pushed him inside their vehicle, and drove off. It was once they left the compound that everything went to shit.
