4 Days After Initial Deployment
Though I care not for these people, it is in my best interest to ensure that this base of operation is not raided by insurgents while I am unable to defend it. I slip out of my dusty, sandy dorm room and head towards the main gate of the school in the cover of darkness. There, I set pressurized IEDs, thinking about just how much the terrorists of this region enjoy using them against American "belligerents". I lay out the apparatus for the anti-vehicle traps, bearing in mind the limited possibility of civilian transport rigging the mines. That could be a problem, as it would be a waste of what little supply I have. I hesitate, second-guessing the need to add an additional trap further into the campus, but decide once again that this would be necessary.
I dig a hole large enough to fit the explosives, forming as solid a supporting structure with the soil's silty consistency as possible for the explosives to lay idle. As I move the last deposit of excess dirt the explosives have replaced, dim lights move along the path. For a second, I believe them to be security or adults of such standing, but the consistent hum of an old engine proves me otherwise. A cargo truck heads my way, seemingly to resupply the school's expended resources. I quickly roll off the path, hoping that the weight of such vehicle does not trigger the traps, because if so, I'd be caught in the blast as well. A moment of truth unfolds at hand as the gates rise with a tremendous screech, cast iron grinding on rusty scaffolding. The truck rolls forward without hesitation, as it does not know of the trap; it doesn't even think to know. The noise of explosion resonates and shrapnel flies towards me, but the ground beneath me does not shake. I blink a few times to realize that the truck has not even reached the point. Did I just hallucinate? Though I had felt frightened in the few seconds prior to the truck triggering the explosives, I feel at rest, thoroughly trustful of my survivability skills. I lunge backward as the explosive lain land is covered by the medium transport vehicle. The explosives do not trigger, and I am instead thrown against a metal object due to my lack of coordination through a misstep.
My body passes through a malleable tin trailer wall, heavily denting it while creating a near explosive sound. The wind is knocked out of me, and gravity takes effect by dragging me out from the hole and onto the ground. I cough up a little blood, then clench my teeth and sit up to regain full consciousness. As my orientation returns, I realize that the truck had stopped directly over the mines; the driver alongside a few individuals unidentifiable under the deficiency of light headed towards the source of the sound. I creep out of the way, heaving a large rock and tossing it in the general direction to provide a general figure for the collision. Upon doing this, I silently step away from the scene and steadily move towards the gate, once again disappearing into the darkness of the night.
Palmyra, Syria
As dirty as I may feel wearing a thobe, walking around in Islamic State-controlled territory is extremely dangerous if not sufficiently blended in with one's surroundings, citizens included. Waves of dust are constantly pushed around, generated from the rubble caused by the explosives that hit this desolate portion of the country. The vibe from this area feels completely unlike that of the towns farther west, but this is to be expected since this entire region has of course been conquered by terror, by the hydra with its blood-drenched jaws. I pass two military-aged males as they walk across on the other side of the street; one holds an RPG and the other an AKM. They wave to me as if signaling me to come to speak to them, but I calmly shake my head and gesture to my lower abdomen, as if suggesting that I had rigged myself with a belt of C4. They nod understandingly and hurry off in their own direction.
If the bright sun in this arid land wasn't enough, I drench in a sweat from the encounter. I, an operative trained by elite professors of arguably the most powerful nation in the world, was not made nervous by the situation; I am anxious for my chance to end their lives. I know that, because of my work here, they don't have long to live, but that isn't satisfaction enough; rather, I was counting on getting the job done at that precise moment. Nobody would hear the shots, nobody would even suspect that there was an enemy marksman in the vicinity; nobody would care, as these people are nobodies. I grit my teeth to maintain a cool temper and remind myself that many scores more will be dead upon my relaying of coordinates.
Behind the cloth covering the majority of my features, a wide grin stretches across my face. If any of those half-brains knew, they'd shoot me where I stand. That fact is enough to keep me motivated for the moment. Sometimes secret knowledge is enough of a victory when immediate action is unfavorable. Where'd that come from? Just a side-effect of having an intelligence officer for a headmaster, I suppose.
As I move further into the hostile territory, checkpoints which seem to check for identification arise, and to this occurrence, I pull out a notebook to record the numbers provided by my GPS watch. At first, I write the coordinates of the anterior structures of the base of IS operation but decide that estimating the few degrees to angle the airstrikes could dampen the overall effect of the mission, I turn back.
Once I know I am out of sight of the border guards, I break the doorknob off of a rear door to a civilian-owned house, then enter it in attempt to gain a strategic edge. I slip through the doorway and freeze, finding myself face-to-face with a potential combatant. In another instant, I relax again; the grey-green eyes of the figure in the hallway mirror are far too familiar to be dangerous. As I walk through the first floor of the house and move toward the stairs, the sound of my heavy boots echoes off of the tightly packed walls. I hear a plate shatter against the floor. Behind me stands a middle-aged woman dressed in black with an expression of complete terror. Just before her open mouth is able to emit the high-pitched scream I know it will, I point the rifle at her neck and pull the trigger. The suppressed rifle casing drops to the ground in relatively the same instant that she does, and she is left on the tiles struggling for air.
I'm careful to avoid the puddle of blood I have just created - no point leaving boot prints for someone else to follow - and proceed up the last set of stairs to the roof. Something tugs at me inwardly as I reach the top of the flight, but I shake it off. She was a risk; I only did what was reasonable. I adjust the cloth over my face and turn my eyes back to the town below me and the task at hand. Neither my expression nor my objective has changed.
The roofs of these Middle Eastern buildings are flat like miniature plateaus, similar to modern architecture widespread throughout Europe and America, where it stands without the clear structural degradation apparent all around me. I back up to the farthest edge away from the base, then sprint across the top of the structure and leap to the next, then the next, and the next after that. I manage to keep my footing and break each of the falls during landing, keeping the potential usage of my legs at the maximum. I pause at the very rim of one of the houses, look down, and notice that in my flight I had passed the blockade as easily as a person would miss the movements of a small creature while looking up at the sky. Instead of being in an advantageous position, I am amidst a dead portion of the city, one empty of all citizens and devoid of life. There are people milling about here and there, of course, but who counts the individual cells of a massive beast as creatures in their own right? Every one of these targets below me is hostile, no matter how innocent or how similar to a civilian they may appear to be. I grin widely once again. One I reach a decent point in the base, I record the new coordinates on the pad, crossing out the inaccurate ones that came before.
As I turn around in an attempt to retrace my path back out of the solidly IS-held section of the city, I witness some strange occurrence in my periphery; a Middle-Eastern man with a bag over his head is escorted through a crowd of people and into the building situated across from me. A large glass window lines the Northern walls of each floor, displaying the interior of what was once most likely a small office building. Through it, I follow the captive and watch him struggle, attempting to break free of his hand restraints as he is forced through a pair of doors into a staircase, dark without its lights functioning properly. I lose track of him until he and his escorts reemerge on the third floor. There, he is thrown into a steel-backed chair and relieved of the brown sack covering his face, allowing him yet another blood-chilling vision of his oppressors. At this distance, it's impossible to discern the facial expressions of the people or make sense of the words on their lips, so I lay back down and steady my scope to watch.
"Really sucks, huh?" I hear a masculine voice behind me and, startled, drop my rifle and stand up to come face to face with one of my classmates. My first thought is to identify his rank back at Suvorov, but just as quickly, I realize that I recognize him not from home, but from the school I'm ostensibly attending here. Initially, it's a relief - he doesn't know what I'm doing here - but it suddenly becomes an even greater risk. He doesn't know what I'm doing here; why is he here?
"What the hell are you doing here? You could get yourself - get us - killed." The thought flits across my mind that he knows about the Chronos, or possibly has one. It's a Mid-East machine, after all; who's to say some resistance group here didn't happen upon one and put it to good use? Russia can't be the only place on Earth where people come up with good ideas. "Don't tell me that you have one too," I breathe, hoping against hope. He looks at me for a moment with blank eyes, not understanding, then shakes his head slightly - as if to dislodge the confusion and let it pass - and looks through his set of binoculars. He nods toward his focus and raises his arm, pointing back towards the building in an attempt to have me watch once more. I see the man on his knees now, bowing and seemingly begging something of his captors. His pleas are met by a gunman escort on the side, who steps forward to put his barrel to the head of the man on the floor. He gulps, but the gunman does not shoot. Instead, the firearm is lifted, and the man is once again escorted into the staircase, then out of doors and towards an old model American Jeep. My classmate taps me on the shoulder, catching my attention. With a frantic, flustered look in his eye, he motions for me to use my rifle.
I growl inwardly and decide that, as long as this kid is here, he might as well be in the loop. Having an ignorant tag-along isn't a risk I'm willing to take on. "I'm here under orders to designate coordinates for a Russian airstrike. If I pop a few shots at a moving vehicle, I am bound to be noticed, and we will have to escape under heavy fire. And to top it off, the insurgents will most likely lose faith in their fortification and move base before the bombers come in." He squints slightly at me as if I've only confirmed some suspicion he had and nods, understanding my argument. As I turn to leave by parkouring back across the occupied town, he follows right behind me, keeping pace somehow. The thought occurs to me that I might try to lose him, but as long as he doesn't betray me or my location, I guess that this setup is fine. This time though, I lead him to slide off of the roof of the woman's house to avoid passing through it and compromising my prior actions to an effective stranger. After all, I don't want to make a bad first impression to a potential