Chapter 1

"You should have stayed in command."

Davis glances at Claude, and both quickly look from me to Henderson, who keeps a stern face, as if focused solely on the mission ahead. He is in command of the mission, and that’s how it’s going to stay even though he knows most of those present would have chosen me.

I don’t care about that. I just want to move forward and complete the mission. After that, I can spend a month at home. I miss my mother and my younger brother.

It’s five-thirty in the afternoon, the time Henderson planned for the ambush. We’re going to catch the base soldiers by surprise. We know exactly how many there are in each position. There aren’t many, and the teams are ready. We are a group of eight facing twelve enemy soldiers at the base.

The plan is to split up and silently eliminate the first six enemies. After that, we enter a place that looks more like a research and experimentation laboratory—very different from what we expected to find, which were cells holding prisoners. On the way, we encounter two more soldiers, who are taken down by me and Henderson without using weapons. We neutralize them with fatal blows that break their necks. The situation is tense and full of mysteries.

We push forward and reach the main laboratory. Davis is used to distract the soldier at the door, and Henderson once again delivers a fatal blow from behind to avoid alerting the soldiers ahead, who are our main focus. They are certainly with the prisoner or know his exact location, and we’ll be able to interrogate him until we get the information we need.

A soldier suddenly appears from behind. With no chance to defend himself, he is taken down by Davis with a silenced weapon.

We now have a total of ten soldiers down, with only two left inside the room we’re heading toward. Henderson asks four guys from the team to stay outside providing cover. Two soldiers remain at this point. He and I proceed to the main room that the soldier was guarding.

As we open the door with as much silence as possible, we hear voices in a language I recognize but don’t fully understand, since I’ve only studied it for a short time.

We also hear the screams of a man, which we quickly conclude belong to the captive journalist, the main target we’re looking for on this mission. The plan is to eliminate the two soldiers and capture the journalist, bring him back with us to our base, and let our superiors handle the interrogation.

We arrived in front of what looked like a laboratory an all-white room with a huge glass wall. The screams grew louder, along with the laughter and conversation in that foreign language.

We pressed ourselves against the wall so we could observe inside before entering. I looked and confirmed there were only two soldiers, but what I saw next left me stunned. They weren’t interrogating the prisoner.

The prisoner was lying on some kind of table that held him on his back in an almost upright position. He was completely naked and being violently raped by one of the soldiers while screaming and muttering things in his language.

The other soldier watched the scene, saying something with a smirk as he stroked himself.

I glanced at Henderson, who was now also staring at the scene, and he signaled for us to move in. He kicked the door open and immediately shot the man standing behind the journalist. As the second soldier started to react, I put a bullet in his head.

The prisoner screamed in terror. We stood there for a second, staring at him strapped to that table, neither of us understanding what we had just walked into. We hadn’t expected this.

Gunshots echoed from outside. I looked at Henderson and immediately moved toward the door. The prisoner kept screaming. Henderson told him to shut his mouth. He couldn’t see what was happening, so of course he was desperate. I pushed that aside and told Henderson I was going out to check what was going on.