Page 4 of Fire for Effect

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.

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