Call of Duty: Love Ops

Chapter 5

The next day the team was up bright and early. Logan stood in front of them. "Alright guys, I want to do this as fast, and as safe as we can. Stay on task and listen for my orders." Officer Lakelan, or Lake as he liked to be called had tracked two of the suspects to a casino on the beach. All they had to do was extract them without sounding any alarms. Calliope was overseeing the mission from the interrogation room. She had opted not to tag along to the extraction. Though she was more than qualified, she didn't exactly know if she could handle the stress of a mission at the moment. She knew she'd eventually have to get over it. "Easy now" she said through the coms. The team had split up with Colt leading Officer O and Floods and Logan with Officer Lock. Colt's team was headed for the penthouse suite, they would go up through the emergency stairwell and in through a window. Then they had to sedate the suspect. Logan and Lock's job was a little bit more complicated. Their suspect was on the casino floor, making it so much harder to extract. They'd have to lure him to a secluded place.

Calliope watched as both teams headed for their respective targets. Colt's team was halfway up the stairs when she noticed someone coming down from the top floor. "Colt, come in." She shouted into the coms. "You've got company coming from the top!" Just as her words registered in Colt's mind, a man dressed in black jumped from the flight of stairs above the team. He was armed with two handguns and what looked to be a large machete on his waist. The team easily took the guy down. Calliope watched as Officer O disarmed the assailant and searched for anything useful. "Colt, I don't see any more heat signatures near your target. Stay vigilant though." With that she turned to the set of screens monitoring the other team. They had split up, Officer Lock was on the casino floor watching the target from a distance. Logan was waiting patiently in the bathroom. Calliope immediately recognized their strategy. She watched as Officer Lock slipped some cash to one of the bottle girls. No more than five minutes later a drink was 'accidentally' spilt on the target. He angrily made his way off of the floor and into the bathroom. Logan swiftly intercepted him, sedating the target in one quick move. The two men carried the target discreetly through the back and made their way to the rendezvous point. "Nice job boys."

Calliope switched back to Colt's team to find that they had made it to the target. Surprisingly enough the target was putting up one hell of a fight. He managed to fight all three team members. She watched in horror as the target easily took down Floods and Colt, leaving O to fight. Calliope knew O could hold her own but she couldn't just sit back and watch. "Damn it all to hell." Cal muttered as she grabbed two throwing knives, a beretta. She looked back to the monitor to see that two men had joined the fight. It didn't look like O could hang on much longer. It didn't take long to reach the fight. She wasted no time, easily taking down the first guy she saw with her gun. That drew the attention of the other two. "O!" Cal shouted and threw her gun to the officer. She pulled her knives out as the target approached her. "Calliope Cruz, I was hoping you'd come. Milo sends his love." Calliope's heart dropped, that was a name she hadn't heard since she was last active. She cleared her head trying to focus on the man in front of her. "That's nice but I'm here for you." With that Cal threw her first punch with a knife wedged between her fingers, effectively cutting the man in his check. He seemed unphased as he tried to return the favor. Cal saw it coming and dodged his punch. She then kicked his feet out from under him, making him fall to the ground. Before he could get up Cal had him cuffed she kicked him in the head to knock him out for good measure. She looked over to O to see that she had taken care of the other guy and was trying to wake Colt and Floods. Cal called in an extraction team.

The team sat on the other side of the interrogation room watching the targets they had brought in. They still had two more to go but for now they would have to settle with the two they had in custody. Cal sighed before turning to the team. "We have eyes on the other two decoys. I think it'll be easy to extract them. We made quite the commotion yesterday. So much that they are apparently moving the other two. I'm pretty sure that means that the two we have are definitely decoys but they could also be trying to throw us off our game. I suggest we split the team up again. There will be four black escalades, two of them carrying the targets. All we have to do is hijack the car, park it in a random location and move the target to one of our vehicles. It's simple and easy, I've done it numerous times." The team agreed and they began to work out the details. Later that night Cal tossed and turned, tell tale signs of a restless sleep. Flashes of a beach, blood running down the sand into the shoreline, a dark shadowy figure. Cal's heart throbbed in her chest, climbing to her throat. "This is for you, I'm doing this for you!" The figure shouted while standing over her. The sun was so bright that she couldn't see his face. As the shadow grew closer, the face became more clear. Cal gasped, "Milo?" With that her eyes snapped open. Cal shook her head to rid herself of the dream. She looked down at Logan who was sleeping peacefully with his head on her chest. Sighing, she ran her hands through his hair until she fell back to sleep.

The next day Cal told herself she was gonna stay out of the field and direct the mission. Her dream reminded her of things she had tried so hard to forget. The team had split up once again. Each group was tasked with hijacking one car. Colt's team was lucky enough to catch the driver before he arrived at the casino. The target had no idea until he arrived at the wrong place. With three in custody, it was up to Logan and Lock to obtain the fourth target. Their target was already in the car when they arrived. They decided to wait until the car was in the parking garage to make their move. Cal watched as Logan cut the car off in the middle of the garage. Lock then approached the car with his gun drawn toward the backseat. Logan trained his gun on the driver. When Lock opened the door and cursed. "We have the wrong car damnit!"

Calliope cursed under her breath She looked at all of the surveillance screens to find that there were still two cars on route to their location. The windows were tinted, but she had a gut feeling that the target was in the second car. The team was too far away to catch up, Cal knew it was up to her to finish the mission. "Can I ever get a break?" she huffed as she ran to one of the many cars on base. Once behind the wheel, she threw the gear into reverse and gunned the engine. "Dr. Cruz, this is O. We have your visual, backup is on the way." Cal knew that she'd have the target secured long before backup arrived. She had done this hundreds of times. "Don't bother coming out here. Have them wait at the nearest rendezvous point with a car." Without waiting for a response Cal shut off her coms. Soon enough she was right behind the two escalades. She skillfully maneuvered the car extremely close to the bumper of the escalade. "Come on, take the bait." She was hoping the drivers would split up, the front car moving to the left and the back car moving to the right. This was a classic defense tactic that she had seen many times before. Usually the decoy car would put up a fight while the other car drove away. Luck was on her side as the cars split up. Cal knew that she had to make the first move. In lightning speed she whipped out her beretta and cracked the window, aiming at the car on the left. She knew she had to make her move before the other car attempted to escape. Without hesitation she shot through the passenger side, to where she knew the driver sat. Instantly, the car swerved and crashed into the side of the road. Cal shot through the rest of the front window just to be sure. The car in front of her had sped up, but not fast enough. Cal pressed her foot down on the pedal and reclined her seat all the way so she could sit on the floor but still steer the car. Just as she did this, bullets rained down on the car. The car was pretty much bullet proof, but Cal knew it could only withstand so much. She was gaining on them really fast. When she was close enough she pulled the car up to the right backside of the escalade and cracked her door open all while maintaining the direction and speed of the car she was driving. She was still under major fire when she leaped from her car to running boards on the escalade. Her car spun out and crashed, in the midst of that she maneuvered her way to the top of the car as light as she could. If everything went as planned, the people in the car would think she went with her car. She crawled around the top of the car to the drivers side, making sure to avoid the sun roof. However she did see that there were three people in the car, including the driver. Cal knew she had to take out the passenger first. She angled her gun through the sunroof and shot right through at the passenger. This set the driver into alarm and Cal decided to just jump down through the sunroof into the passenger seat. She held her gun to the drivers head. "If you're smart you'll pull over." She knew she was taking a risk, seeing as the driver could easily crash the car and kill them all. But she decided to take a chance. The driver listened and began to stop the car. She turned to the target in the backseat who was clearly searching for a weapon. Cal rolled her eyes and pulled out her taser, effectively sedating him. Once the driver had pulled over Cal made him get out of the car while shifting herself into the driver's seat. She knew better than to leave behind any dead ends, she aimed her gun at the driver.

Logan, Colt and the rest of the team sat in cars at the rendezvous point. It was killing the both of them not to go help Cal. However as they watched her secure the target it became clearer and clearer that she didn't need their help. "Holy shit!" Floods exclaimed, he and Lock couldn't take their eyes from the screen. They both nearly fell out of their seats when Cal jumped from her car to the other. Logan was on the edge of his seat with worry. It wasn't until she was pulling into the empty lot where he was that he relaxed. He shot out of his car to greet Cal. "That was amazing baby." Cal grinned back at him. "As much as I love getting compliments from you, we need to get the target to a secure place. I have no doubt that there is a tracker on that car." Cal said pointing to the escalade. "Alright, you heard the woman!" Floods and Lock moved the target to one of the cars they had brought with them. Once secure, they all headed back to base. Cal sighed on the way back as thoughts about her past bubbled in her brain.