Rainbow Six: Broken Arrow

Chapter 23: Showdown

Director Kingsley tapped his finger repetitively on his desk while staring at his phone, waiting anxiously for Hudson's name to appear on the screen. It had been a week since her last report and he had figured she had been compromised. 

Kinglsey wanted to disavow Chavez and his ragtag team more than anything, but his division was technically run by President Ryan, and the CIA had little to no power over the SOG. The only reason Ryan had placed the SOG under the CIA was for their covert nature. But luckily for Kingsley, the SOG had no paper trail, only a few in the entire world knew of its existence. If something that never existed went missing, who would notice it was gone? Ryan couldn't acknowledge the SOG's existence even if he wanted to. Having a secret kill team doesn't sound good to the public, despite every modern president using them at some point in their career.

Taking Kingsley out of his thoughts, his phone finally rang, revealing an unknown number.

"Director Kingsley," he answered.

"Kingsley, is this line secure?" A voice asked on the other end.

"I'm the CIA Director, Romavich. Yes, it's secure." Kingsley said with a hint of sarcasm.

"Listen, American, there is an entire fleet surrounding my island. F-18s are buzzing over as we speak." Romavich said flatly. Kingsley could hear the 'wooshing' of jet engines on the other end. 

"Goddammit!" Kingsley threw a fit in his soundproofed office, almost throwing the handset, but refrained and brought it back to his ear. "Listen, General. Burn everything and haul ass. Leave nothing with my name on it."

"Kingsley. Nothing is going to stop me from starting this wildfire. I thought you were in this all the way. All the way to Moscow."

"No! No, we agreed on Kyiv. You could go hog wild with your communism there." Kingsley said as if Romavich was a child.

The General let out a grim chuckle, "You're wrong. This isn't just a ground war, Steven. My political machines are already in motion. It matters not if I die here tonight. The Soviet spirit will live on for generations. I will make sure in my dying breath, that nuke will change the world."

"Oh," Romavich added, "The money is being transferred to your account now. I suggest you disappear after this though. Goodbye, Kingsley. Welcome to the new world."

The line dropped as Kinglsey stood speechless. He was done. All he ever wanted in life was to vanish after he got into the government. It was his whole reason for helping the SRF. He knew destabilizing the world would be one of the prices, but he had no surviving family. A man with nothing to live for is truly dangerous.

There was one more thing though. The SOG operator 'Archer' had caused him a decent amount of trouble and vice versa. Archer was a loose end that Kingsley couldn't tie up himself, but maybe he could motivate someone else to do the deed.

Kingsley accessed a burner email and copied and pasted a pre-written "classified" document to send to every major news outlet in the United States. "Good luck with this, friendo." 

***

The briefing room aboard the aircraft carrier was similar to the ones West had sat in multiple times before. He didn't like the odds of this operation. In his book, one human intelligence source was untrustworthy and this in particular couldn't be corroborated by anything other than a couple of satellite photos. The risk of nuclear detonation outweighed those odds, so they were going in anyway.

West watched as Ding took his place at the front of the room, a tablet held to his side and a confident grin spread across his face.

"Afternoon, Task Force Shadow. My name is Domingo Chavez. I'm an operations director in the CIA and I own you for the duration of this operation. Last week, a nuclear warhead was stolen from a classified launch base by a group of socialist radicals, known as the SRF, Soviet Reunification Front. They are highly funded and highly trained. Their troops are hand-picked from several eastern European nations' SOF groups. Their motives are the destruction of Russia's post-Cold War government. As you know, Russia is just now getting on track since the last election. The SRF sees this as an opportunity to use a nuclear device to pour gas on the coals with the Russian-Ukraine debacle. The current administration is trying to calm tensions with Ukraine, but the SRF sees this as a chance to reinsert the former 'socialist utopia'."