Tough Team

Aidan's doorbell rang, and he glanced at the clock, 8.30pm. he wasn't expecting any-one. Aidan was six feet two, and his build matched his height, broad and well muscled, squarish face, brown hair, and dark eyes. Opening the door, he was surprised to see his boss Mick standing there holding a large yellow envelope. He grinned and stepped inside and into the lounge, asking Aidan how he was. Aidan knew by his agitation Mick was holding something important but he could never have guessed the magnitude of it.

Tossing the envelope on the table he sat on the couch and asked Aidan for something strong to drink, adding that Aidan would need one as well, he poured two glasses of scotch handed one to Mick and sat in the chair opposite him. He had a drink, put his glass on the table and leaned back waiting for Mick to tell him what was going on.

Mick began by telling Aidan three days ago a Pentagon official had received an encrypted message stating a North Korean man had requested asylum, in fear of his life if he were returned. He had smuggled classified top secret information out and wished for it to be examined as he could no longer participate in the atrocities that were happening in the name of military advancement for the state and its people.

Mick continued telling Aidan intelligence since then had confirmed overseas sources reporting a high level Party member had disappeared, his current whereabouts was unknown and a huge search had been undertaken to find him. The North Koreans, and Chinese police had been looking for him in China, thinking he may have tried to reach South Korea.

The U.S. government secured a private business jet and flew agents to Russia under the guise of businessmen there to discuss improvements of the factories in Russia. They were met at the airport and driven to the embassy. The Russian officials read the paperwork outlining the project the businessmen wished to implement and the overall costs and benefits it would provide to both business enterprises into the future. As the agents were to fly out later that evening citing another business meeting, they suggested if there were any questions another meeting could be arranged, after dinner the agents left to return to the States the defector dressed as one of the businessmen left with them, one of the other agent remaining so the correct number of men was counted boarding the jet and flying out that night.

Aidan stared at Mick in stunned surprise, a North Korean defector holding a high ranking government position within the Party was like an insight into the most secretive country in the world. He asked Mick if he thought it possible he could be a plant, but Mick asked him to read the documents before he asked any questions, tomorrow he and his men could talk to the guy. Mick stood up finished his drink and walked to the door telling Aidan to ring him first thing in the morning.

Before settling back down Aidan refilled his glass, opened the envelope and slid out the contents. Roughly drawn maps giving the position of a remote compound, photographs from a N.A.S.A. on a flyover of the area were grainy, black and whites barely showing anything, and pages of statements from the defector. Aidan picked up the papers and starting from the first page he began to read. He looked at the rough sketches he had and examined the photographs. He finished reading, finished his drink and picked up the phone calling his team.

The team had been together for the last five years working for the government on operations considered too delicate for the government to be involved in publicly. The five men had group and individual skills that the upper echelons of government decided could be used to gain an advantage so a permanent team made up of specialists, operate under their specific orders was immediately implemented. All of the men had been told to attend a meeting at the Pentagon. They were briefed on what they had been chosen for and why. They would be placed at an undisclosed training facility, living and training together to become an elite specialist team capable of operating under the most adverse conditions imaginable.

The next morning at three thirty the men were being driven to an airfield to begin their training. Te light plane was ready and as soon as the men boarded they were given permission to taxi and take off. After the plane had landed, the men were met by two men dressed in black suits and loaded into a windowless van, none of the men spoke as they took their seats. Several hours later the van came to a stop and as the side door opened the bright sunlight blinded them for a moment. Stepping out Aidan was handed several pieces of paper by one of the suits and was informed the team had two minutes to memorize the contents. Without another word the two men took the papers back and returned to the van. After the van had left the men evaluated the terrain around them noting different points and what they thought could be problem areas.

First they decided to select who was in charge, after a short discussion the men selected Aidan with Jake as his second if Aidan was indisposed. The men had memorized the co-ordinates they had been given and working from the direction of the sun they began to make their way to the given location. Travis and Trent worked together to keep track of the direction they were going using the sun and shadows to determine the time. The men looked for any thing that would help identify the location they were in but nothing gave them any clue. The terrain was rugged and difficult in parts and knowing they wouldn’t reach the target before nightfall they prepared to camp deciding it would be dangerous to continue after nightfall.

Scouring the landscape the men looked for something that would indicate water was near. Some of the plants were healthier than the others indicating better moisture and the prints of the different wildlife could tracked and used to help find water sources, moisture could be collected from dew in the morning and certain materials could help absorb water overnight. They collected branches suitable to make a shelter they could cover with leaves and brush to give them some protection from the weather overnight. While Jake started a fire the others collected wood and sitting around the fire the men each gave a quick rundown of themselves and each man gave his honest opinions of what he thought about the formation of the team.

Before sunrise the men were on the move, again carefully making their way across the uneven ground until the sun rose behind the mountains. The men began hiking in the direction Trent and Travis had indicated. They continued on until Aidan climbing a rise called to the others. A small stream just moving ran at the bottom of where they were and continuing further down into a gully. Getting to the bottom was difficult and dangerous without any equipment with Ethan and Aidan reaching the bottom first with Trent Travis and Jake right behind, the respect would take time but grow with each success. Deciding whether to follow the stream which would be a source of fresh water and food was not hard. They had followed the stream for about fifteen kilometers when Trent told them they had to change direction and move away from the stream. Climbing up the mountain the men continued the conversation from last night talking about their life before the marines, why they had joined, the women they had met and the places they had seen.

From the vantage point the men could see a cabin with a black van and two dark colored cars parked at the front. The men immediately recognized the van even from where they were, this was the target they were to find. After a six to seven hour hike the men arrived at the cabin and knocked on the door. A chair scraped across the floor and heavy footsteps stopped on the other side and then the sound of a lock being opened before the door swung back and a very surprised man stood in the doorway. A voice they knew asked who it was before Mick saw them standing outside. Ushering them inside he told them only two other teams had done the same thing but not quite as efficiently the time taken to locate the cabin had been longer in those cases.

Nearly six months passed before the team was given its first assignment, to blow up a storage facility of weapons with ISIS fighters defending it. The operation had been successfully carried out and the team were active again within a month to stop a convoy of insurgents moving weapons to fighters in Syria. The mission was again a success for the team. The two blows they had dealt had put a huge strain on the insurgents trying to keep weapons supplied for the fighters. Food supplies for the ISIS fighters were sabotaged and destroyed, the team also hit medical supplies for the insurgent fighters was targeted and taken or destroyed.

For the next five years the team has carried out missions throughout the world, the team was unknown to anyone except a select few. Many of the government officials talked amongst themselves as to who they thought was behind the attacks on the insurgents with a few thinking it was another radical middle eastern group in fighting for supremacy of the regions. When any of the men who knew were asked, each of them had said that like everyone else they wished who ever it was would joined them.

Aidan, the team leader, aged thirty-three was serving in the marines for the first seven of twelve years, the last five had been spent with his team. As a marine he had proved a formidable, and deadly opponent becoming an expert strategist and coordinator, an elite sniper and also participated in mixed martial arts fighting. He was not deterred by the fact the marines did not approve of the fights, it kept him in top condition and kept his reflexes sharp. He was large with a body of a wrestler, dark brown eyes and short brown hair. His agility for his size often caught his opponents off guard surprising some when they first encounter him and quickly discover not to underestimate him or his ability.

Jake is six feet two, light brown hair and light brown eyes that constantly narrow when he talks. a twenty-nine year old who had joined the marines when he was nineteen, with skills in strategy, coordination, electronics unconventional warfare tactics. He modified and improved the devices the team now used and over several years had developed a G.P.S. twenty millimeters long that could be implanted behind a rib and remain undetected until the correct frequency was used. He had been involved in action throughout the Middle East and Asia gathering as much intelligence against the insurgents as possible. Sometimes the local civilians desperate to rid the town of insurgents had placed both their own and their family’s life in jeopardy by placing devices in areas Jake couldn’t access.

Ethan is thirty-one, five feet nine and a marine special operations leader and medic who has been on countless missions. He began to specialize in toxic and chemical warfare after treating civilians caught in a chemical attack in Syria. Up until that time he had never witnessed first hand any chemical warfare, only what the media had shown and reading about it in medical journals describing the effects of several different types of agents. There was no for the actual reality of what the civilians were really being exposed to. The skin and flesh that bubbled and burst all over the body boiling them alive. Suffocation as the toxin shut down the respiratory system. The affected died where they had collapsed in pools of body fluids. Ethan was sickened by the sights he witnessed, but the screaming was the worst, something Ethan had never heard anywhere and it still haunted him.

Trent is five feet ten, thirty-one years old and a veteran deployed to the Middle East for unconventional warfare operations. Shrapnel scars on his face showed an old injury he had received from the blast of a roadside bomb several years earlier. Fit, lean and muscled with light brown hair and hazel eyes he considered himself good looking. Before being selected for the team Trent had thought of leaving and starting work in private security as a body guard. The money was better and the chances of getting yourself killed were much less than what they were presently. He was mentally exhausted and needed out, he had been on six or seven operations and the civilians, their heads and body parts strewn everywhere like garbage, the survivors, numb and in shock sitting silently beside the dead while children scream and the hate filled eyes of the civilians follow every move the liberators from the west make. He had become disillusioned with who and what he was fighting for, the civilians hated them, he hated all of it, the fact of the matter was he wanted out.

Travis is twenty-nine and six feet tall with jet black hair and a hard muscular body. A veteran who has been involved in specialized operations through-out the world, an espionage and explosives expert with training in martial arts and he is fluent in Arabic, Russian, and Chinese, highly skilled in unconventional warfare tactics and has not had any problems with what he has previously done, fully aware of how deadly and dangerous the enemy was if they were not completely eradicated. He was all too aware of the daily be-heading’s or drownings the insurgents had perpetrated, where he had been stationed and the civilians both children and adults, were all forced to watch and endure the horror, too terrified to refuse. He and his men had been ordered to eradicate the problems the civilians faced in the way they deemed necessary.

Arriving at Aidan’s within an hour, the team sat down while Aidan explained what had happened starting with what Mick had told him and continuing on with what he had read. Listening to what Aidan told them, the men could not Some of the documents detailed the testing effects and the results of toxins and chemicals perpetrated on civilians and prisoners. It was beyond the teams understanding the depths of deprivation the military was responsible for. Never had any of the men in the team ever encountered the inhumane treatments described. Those responsible would be tried as war criminals by any other government. A government and its military protected its country and citizen, they didn’t conduct experiments on them. The other documents showed the Workers Party and listings of the various departments and the duties they undertook.

Each of them read the documents spending several hours discussing what they had read and the possibility of going. Aidan said they would be talking to the defector in the morning but if what they had read were true it was Saying they had better get some sleep Aidan stood up and told them he would ring them after he had spoken to Mick.

Meeting at the Pentagon the following morning they waited for Mick who arrived an hour later explaining the defector had been terrified of talking to them and was having second thoughts about what he had done. The interpreter had told him going back now was a death sentence, not just for him, but for his family and friends. The argument had gone longer because everything he said had to be translated between the two and had to be understood Finally he understood there was no going back, but he could make a difference from here if he assisted the people who wanted to talk to him. They could get the proof that was needed to show the world governments what the North Korean government was ordering its military forces to do.

The men followed Mick back down the corridor he had come from and stopped before a black door guarded by a marine who saluted before opening the door. The room they entered had a large table with chairs encircling it. Computers showing aerial shots of jungle were lined along the side wall and a large screen was off to the right. A short man no taller than five feet with a large head stood up, the interpreter also stood and introduced himself and Yuang. The men introduced themselves telling Yuang that what he had managed to do could only help those who were

Mick uploaded the U.S.B and the men asked Yuang about the documents and other relevant material concerning the compound he had specified. He told them how he had been in an adjoining office with the door partially open when two men had entered the other office. One man was a government official and the other man was a party member from a another section. For reasons he could not explain Yuang did not announce his presence but he stayed silent and listened to the conversation between the two men speaking of experiments being performed on both civilians prisoners. Now foreigners traveling by themselves or in small groups were kidnapped in China and sold to the North Korean government.

Yuang said he had trouble believing what he was hearing and if he was discovered he would be executed immediately for treason, he said he had been too terrified to tell a single person. He traveled out to the area they were talking about and drew small maps of the surrounding area but he was too scared to go near where the compound was. Yuang through the translator explained in detail all the information he had given them and once he had finished the men sat silent before Aidan stood thanking Yuang, telling him they would like to speak to him again soon. The interview had gone well into the evening because of the time it took translating what Yuang had said then every question and answer.

Mick and the team stepped out into the corridor and Mick told them to head to the dining room he would meet them there, he wanted to check on Yuang before he joined them. The men walked through the corridor to the lounge and followed the passage to the dining room. A maitre d’ at reception escorted them to a table and after ordering drinks Aidan asked the men what they thought of the defector’s story and was some of it just that. No-one spoke for a couple of minutes and then Ethan spoke questioning the fact that if foreigners were being abducted, why had nothing been reported of travelers not returning. They needed to establish if any one had been reported missing, and if so their names, nationalities, family details, travel itineraries, and which foreign embassies, if any, had been contacted.

Sitting at the table the team began to work on the best way to approach the kidnappings to determine the truth without raising any suspicion then they could work from there. Before much more could be said Mick sat down and looked around the table at the men. He grinned when he told them he thought it had gone better than he had expected telling them the abductions needed to be checked into first. Mick said he didn’t have names but, he had some nationalities Yuang was certain about that they would begin with. After ordering they had a drink while they waited for their meals which they didn’t have to wait long for. For the next twenty minutes no-one spoke until they had all finished and their plates had been cleared.

Jake asked Mick about accessing documents tonight from foreign embassies without raising red flags, Mick stood up asking one of them to order him a drink while he sorted out what could be done. Ten minutes later he returned with a U.S.B. he handed to Jake telling him everything he needed was on it. Under no circumstances was he to let it out of his sight or possession. After finishing their drinks, Mick said good night telling them he would be in touch in the morning to discuss the issue further. They ordered another drink and organized to meet at Aidan's tomorrow morning.

The men were all sitting around Aidan’s kitchen table by six-thirty the following morning drinking coffee discussing where to start. Jake told them he had been able to establish a number of foreigners had not flown out of China but it seemed had vanished and no records show any of them having departed by any other means of transport. All of them were either traveling on their own, pairs or in groups no larger than three and they had all been touring the more remote areas of China. No missing persons reports have yet been lodged by any family, relatives or friends of the tourists, which they found unusual.If Yuang was right then actual proof had to be obtained.