"Requesting radio silence now." The voice of Nathaniel said in the com.
Cutting his mic, Scott ran to where Jon was looking at Lucie, Na-Yung busy escorting the prisoners out. They all had learned some quick phrases in Burmese to be understood by the prisoner and Na-Yung was using that now to reassure everyone that things were going to be okay. Things that even Scott was not confident about right now.
"How is she doc?"
"She has a cracked rib but otherwise she's good based on what I can see right now."
"Alright, now can someone tell me where the guy came from and why nobody told me that we lost a prisoner?" Scott asked, looking at a thirty something years old woman dead near Lucie.
"She was not a prisoner, she was just pretending to be one!" Lucie finally spoke, putting back her vest in place. "I was busy helping two girls walking away when I noticed her trying to leave to the center of the fort. At first, I thought that she was just a little out of it so I walked to her to steer her in the right direction. That's when she wiped a gun to my face. I managed to move away the gun from my face but she still got me in the chest. Before going down, I shoot her down with my handgun. I'm so stupid, I should have expected something like this."
"Don't do that now, you will have a lot of time later to think about it. Make mistakes, learn from them and then do different mistakes, this is life in a nutshell for you kiddo." Scott said before being interrupted by three gunshot coming from the other side of the fort.
"That was Nathaniel." Lucie said with certainty.
"How can you know? And why would he take the suppressor off of his gun? That's really stupid to be honest." Jon asked skeptically.
"She's right, he's the only one who can be accurate in a single shot and that fast between targets. Yeah, it's stupid but he's doing that for us. The first place that the soldier would usually first check would be our position as it is where their money is, by making noise, he's basically redirecting all the attention on them. Let's go people, we need to get the prisoners out of here now before the whole fort is coming on them!"
"Scott, this is the last of them." Na-Yung said when seeing them run in her direction, pointing to the seven womens who were passing by the hole in the wall.
"They know where to hide?" Scott asked quickly.
"Yes, I explain it to them."
"Okay, then we are moving, they can pass the wall without our help now."
"That was not Nathaniel." Lucie said, hearing an automatic weapon firing.
"Remember your training, we move together, be swift but not quick. Lookout for your fellow teammates and be attentive, remember that you can't shoot what you can't see but what you can't see can very well shoot at you."
Moving between the buildings, Scott and Na-Yung were walking side by side, gun ready while Lucie and Jon were covering the rear. Meeting a few stragglers, they took care of them before moving on. There was non stop gunfire now and they even heard a grenade or RPG at one point exploding. Raising his fist into the air, Scott stopped them before turning his com back on.
"Nathaniel, I'm going to get overrun! We need to blow the explosives now!" Camilla shouted in the com in a strained voice.
"No! You need to wait fifteen more seconds or we will all die!" Nathaniel shouts back, his voice sounding tired.
Scott and Na-Yung look surprised at each other for a second after hearing the voice of Nathaniel. They were the ones who knew him the longest and they never heard him sound so tired before and they had witnessed him doing things that could put to sleep even the more fit athlete.
"Now, Camilla!"
"Fire in the hole!"
"Everybody down! Take cover!" Scott shouted, taking a knee and bringing his arm to protect his face and eardrum.
A series of explosions shook the whole fort in that moment followed closely by people screaming and moaning in pain. Getting back to their feet, Scott rallied the team and moved to the towers, passing between burning buildings and dead bodies along the way. The sight was extremely gruesome but Scott had seen worse in his career. For Na-Yung and Lucie, things were not the same as they never saw something like that before and they were doing everything that they could to avoid puking all over themselves.
"Camilla? Nathaniel? Report please." Scott called on the com.
Getting no response, the team started to hurry along the way, shooting everyone that was still on their feet. Based on what they could see, the charge had detonated at the time where they were in the street, running to Nathaniel position. The team were especially ruthless with the injured soldier, killing them without mercy. Nathaniel and Scott were seeing eye to eye in that regard, when you are on the side of human trafficking, you are just on the wrong fu**ing side and you deserve only death.
Once they cleared the streets, they finally arrived near the towers. The numbers of bodies here were just staggering, Scott could count at least twenty dead at this intersection alone. With a hand signal, Scott took the little road to the right side with Lucie while Na-Yung and Jon took the avenue to the left.
"Camilla!" Scott shouted, seeing her aiming at him.
Seeing that it was them, Camilla lowered her gun to the ground, relaxing visibly. Slumping to the ground exhausted, she closed her eyes for a moment.
"Are you okay? Why did you not answer the radio?"
"Our earpiece died because of the blast and yeah, I'm fine. It was close tho. I was lucky, I did not take the brunt of the attack, Nathaniel did." She said, nodding in Nathaniel's direction.
"Scott, you need to come here! This is bad!" Na-Yung shouted in the com.
"I'm coming!" Scott answers back, running to Nathaniel position, followed closely by Lucie and Camilla.
"What the hell happened here?" Scott shouted upon arriving.
The place was a mess and pretty much destroyed, there were bullet holes everywhere and even the rock wall where Nathaniel had hid had collapsed. But that was not what Scott was talking about and his focus was on Nathaniel who was slumped against the wall, his eyes closed.
"I don't know! It does not make any sense!" Jon shouted, his hands checking Nathaniel's body. "He's bleeding from his eyes, noise, ears and mouth. His clothes are torn and soaked with blood but I can't find a single bullet wound or injury on his body, I don't understand!"
"Scott…" Nathaniel called in a hoarse voice.
"Yeah, I'm here." Scott answered, taking a knee beside him.
"How are things going?"
"The prisoners are secured. We need to comb the fort in case there are a few soldiers who choose to hide but I believe we hold the fort now."
"Good, go according to the plan, you know what we have to do before leaving." Nathaniel said, his voice trailing at the end.
"I know what our mission is, don't worry about it." Scott answers in a soft voice.
"His pulse is through the roof!" Jon shouted, scrambling for his med bag. "If I don't sedate him right now, his heart is going to burst."
Finding what he was looking for, he took the syringe and plunged it in his neck. A few moments later, Nathaniel was unconscious.