1. A Smiley Face
Chapter 1
A Smiley Face
Griff
One year ago
Kemet Ungoverned Spaces
“Are you some kind of contractor? Are you even American?” The Navy SEAL glanced at us with leery eyes.
I said nothing. Neither did Agent Sierra, my work partner, or Agent Oscar, our supervisor. All three of us carried our weapons at the low ready, faces covered. Mirrored glasses concealed our eyes.
“I’m Royce Matthews,” The SEAL said, extending a gloved hand to me and my team.
We stood silent and did not reciprocate, letting his hand hover between us, unacknowledged before Matthews awkwardly dropped his it to his side.
We were not to speak, interact, or do anything else at this point, but to stand and observe this prisoner exchange, recording details for future use.
“Are all you Cerberus guys mute or something?” Matthews was a wordy bastard.
He had a creatine puff to his face and was built like an ox.
There was also some guy in an Army Military Police, MP, uniform which was out of fucking place. What the hell was he for? Back up? Were the SEALs taking him out on a field trip or something?
“Are one of you guys the Ghost ?” Matthews kept pushing his luck. “What about you, baby? You the Ghost?”
He was talking to Agent Sierra, and I could feel her internally battling with the desire to punch him in the throat.
People the black ops community were obsessed with the Ghost. The undercover guy who apparently was saving the world, one clandestine op at a time. Alone, behind enemy lines. The guy was a legend that no one knew. We knew, for a fact, he was not a Cerberus agent. My money was on CIA.
“Come on, baby, tell me… what’s your type?” Matthews wasn’t going to give up. He flexed his biceps, a little. I barely refrained from laughing.
I could feel Sierra roll her eyes. It was practically audible.
“What do you guys think about this whole thing?” Matthews glanced between us, hoping one of us would crack.
We were like those guards with the big hats at Buckingham Palace. Everyone knows that Cerberus agents don’t talk. We show up, wearing our little ninja suits, with our three headed dog patch. We come, do the work, then leave. We don’t exchange names, shake hands, or make conversation.
“This is total bullshit,” The MP, Sergeant Carlin, chimed in.
Emboldened by the agreement, Matthews turned back to us, and asked again, “You gotta think that this is bullshit too, right?”
Trading a Kemet National Front (KNF) Operative for a Marine who went AWOL from his duties working with the United Nations because he decided to go walkabout in the desert like Lawrence of Arabia was not, in fact, a person I felt worthy of a hostage exchange. The KNF terrorist cut off the heads of western soldiers, doctors and teachers. The guy was scum and didn’t deserve to see the light of day.
But that wasn’t the point. President Lau was sending a message that American citizenship meant something. That no American life would be taken for granted – no matter how unworthy.
At the height of the Roman Empire, a citizen could walk anywhere and know he was safe, because to attack a Roman was to declare war on the Empire. At least that’s what the myths said. I wasn’t sure if that was true though.
Maybe I’d ask the human Encyclopedia, Taz Guerro. I left the team one year after we had our little… night … to take this gig with Cerberus. We’d managed to remake our friendship. Everything was fine, as long as we never acknowledged that night.
I pretended I had blacked out and didn’t remember a thing.
Having her as a friend – even a shit talking one – was better than not having her at all.
We were friends.
Very good friends.
Very good friends who communicated in insults, and half-barbed jabs. I mean, really, with friends like her, I didn't need the mile-long list of enemies that I had.
The hum of a car sounded behind us. Faint, and distant. Oscar, the supervising agent, and I kept our eyes forward, scanning for incoming militants. Sierra turned to the sound of the oncoming vehicle. With a nod and a gesture, she let me, and Oscar know that it was the package, and that we didn’t need to turn.
Right on time, the militant truck, with their black flag flying behind them, appeared in the distance, stopping 200 meters in front of us, the two vehicles sending a cloud of dust swirling in the wind.
Three of us, plus a team of SEALs, and now a CIA agent stood face to face against the group of para-militants who jumped out of the bed of the truck, dragging their prisoner behind them.
The front passenger seat of the black government car opened, and a woman in a crisp black suit stepped out. Her short, pixie cut black hair was slicked back, giving her a severe appearance.
Everything about her screamed “Fed”.
She went into the back seat and yanked out the man himself. Our KNF prisoner, nicknamed the “Barber” for his sadistic hobby of scalping.
He was scrawny, his arms bowed from probably spending his days bound and gagged in a hole. He blinked at the sunlight, opening his mouth. His teeth looked… frail. At least what was left of them. Someone had obviously popped him in the mouth one too many times. His beard was wiry, and uncombed, his thin cracked lips beneath was hidden in the unruly curls.
The guy was thirty, but already at Death’s door.
I felt no sympathy for him whatsoever.
He’d filmed himself killing a woman with Doctors Without Borders by taking a blunt steak knife to her throat, and slowly grinding her neck until she died. The whole thing was painful, and agonizing, lasting almost fifteen minutes.
The sadist got everything he deserved.
That’s why Cerberus was here.
We weren’t needed for a hostage exchange. Not even a little bit.
We were here to observe, and report because we were going to kill him later. He’d stop breathing within simple days. Why two days and not two hours? Because a sadistic part of me - a sadistic part of all of us - wanted him to enjoy a day or two of freedom, before we put him into his tomb. Give him a sense of hope – before we ended it. I was going to look him in the eyes, before I put a bullet through his head, and I would enjoy it.
“This isn’t right,” Matthews said, his voice too loud, and his general attitude too entitled. He was the kind of guy who went to a bar and demanded everyone thank him for his service.
The KNF militants walked towards us with their beaten, and probably malnourished Marine. His hands were also bound behind him.
“Ma’am, no way are we exchanging this schmuck for that son of a bitch,” Matthews said, flicking his thumb over to the Marine the KNF trudged forward. “This fucker deserves to die in a hole.”
The woman stared at him with an almost bored expression. Then she put the pistol behind the prisoner and walked him forward.
“This ain’t right!” Matthews said, louder this time. And I could tell that all the SEALs were becoming agitated.
He would start a riot with his big mouth.
“You said it,” Sergeant Carlin chimed in. Who the fuck was this guy? The parrot? Why the hell was there an MP here?
I made eye contact with Oscar, who was technical team lead, and he nodded. He was thinking what I was thinking.
The three of us would have to subdue some SEALs if they got a little too rambunctious.
We needed the hostage exchange to happen. Otherwise, our plan to kill him later wouldn’t fly.
There was some legal mumbo-jumbo that kept him from being executed, and this hostage exchange was just a way to get him in the sights of a firing squad. That was if the SEAL team didn’t start a fucking mutiny.
Matthews was shaking with frustration, his passion getting in his way.
He was far from the quiet professional I had come to expect.
“This is bullshit!” Before Matthews could take a single step forward, Oscar, Sierra and I turned to face the SEAL team. Sierra raised her weapon to aim right at Matthew’s head. That stopped him in his tracks.
“Do not move,” Oscar ordered in his monotone voice.
“This is bullshit,” Matthews said, with far less steam than before. “You fuckers are all just pawns of that bullshit Davis Lau.”
“President Lau,” I corrected.
“He ain’t my President!” Matthews said, completely missing the point of democracy. “I didn’t vote for him!”
I rolled my eyes.
There was no point getting into a scholarly argument with a guy like Royce Matthews.
“You guys will pay for this.” His oversized teeth ground together as he laid down his threat. “This is absolute bullshit. Soldiers, sailors and airmen died bringing in that piece of shit.”
Soldiers, yes. Airmen… maybe? Sailors, not likely. Did SEALs still count as sailors, even though they didn’t really sail? The navy remained a bit of a mystery to me.
Matthews flinched, like he was going to take a step towards Sierra, and she calmly placed her selector switch from safe to semi with an easy flick of her thumb.
Our SEAL friend stopped moving. His sense of self-preservation kicking in.
The exchange was long, and tense, with our guns pointing at our fellow Americans instead of scanning for hostile intent. But then the CIA woman came back, American Marine in hand. She quietly stuffed him into the back of her SUV and drove away without a word.
Sierra lowered her weapon, and we stepped into line, quietly walking to our vehicles.
“You’ll fucking pay for this bullshit!” Matthews called.
I stopped in my tracks, and turned to look at him as Sierra got behind the wheel, and Oscar put his hand on the passenger side door.
“We patriots aren’t going to put up with this. Not from you, and not from that scumbag, Lau!” I was surprised when the MP chimed in, adding fuel to the fire. I still had no idea why he was here.
Matthews’ green eyes, the color of pond slime, hardened like clay. It was the look of resolve. Cold, calculated, killing resolve.
It was the look we all got when we were ready to set a plan in motion that would only end when our target was dead.
I was starting to feeling that we were the ones in the crosshairs.