THE SYNDICTE

 

THE SYNDICATE

V

Baghdad, Iraq

The sun scorched mercilessly over the shattered city, turning the air into a haze of dust and smoke. The city was once a pillar of hope and a proud mosaic of life: narrow alleys humming with vendors, mosques echoing with prayer, children playing under the sun and people dancing to the deep music of the street musicians. But now the smell of gunpowder and rotting flesh clung into the air like a bad omen.

The streets were abandoned from life, only a few people could be seen. Abandoned children walked aimlessly in stupor ignoring the gunshots like some annoying flies. Mothers could be seen wailing in despair covered in ash and dust mourning for their loved ones in rumination. The fathers carrying dead corpses of their children singing funeral hymnals in their foreign tongue.

Tears could be seen from a far glistening their faces like rare oils covered in sweat. Their clothes were tattered, torn and dusty. Cars exploded from a distance in loud bangs in a raging ball of fire, above could be seen fighter jets circling around the bespoke area like hanging vultures, black, ominous and destructive unleashing hell on its members spraying the ground with bullets.

The once tall buildings and apartment blocks were reduced to rubble, inside were trapped innocent lives that cried for help feeling the weight of the building across their chests, blood oozing out of their mouths calling for Allah to save them but their prayers were dead just like their cursed lives.

Gunshots clung into the air like a call for desperation, the people had been defeated, punished and beaten life was no longer the same. A huge sand storm covered the residents in a whirl wind of dust blinding them momentarily such that they would cover their faces with strands of parchments cut from their clothes.

There in the midst of war the U.S army unleashed hell in an unscrupulous manner. Snipers were seen dangling on rooftop shanties splitting the silence with a loud bang aiming at the insurgents one by the one they fell under the deep spell of their highly advanced guns that tore through their flesh like a butcher slicing fresh meat. Blood spluttered at their impact like a raging explosion.

There in the middle of the street the bodies piled high like a towering sentinel. The hamas had taken full control of the area only for the U.S army to infiltrate and destroy, they wore huge arafats that covered their faces making their identities incognito, there armed with AK-47’s they laid waste to the countless innocent lives taking some as hostages.

They shot in the air blindly hoping to catch the American soldiers but to no effect. They were taken out one by one like falling dominos. They cried to their dear God in their final moments cursing the earth upon they walked, their last breath of life cascading from their malnutritioned bodies. Some were seen retreating scurrying across the rubbles to shelter only to be caught in birds eye view of the black hawk helicopter disintegrating its victims with a swift blow of bullets.

Another building collapsed in a cloud of ochre dust, swallowing the cries of the wounded.

 Langley, Virginia

“Agent Mason do you copy?” said Carl over the telecom.

“Yes Greenhorn I copy,” said Mason.

Mason adjusted his AR-15 weapon slightly across the shoulder. His face covered in dust…

“What do you have for me?”

“Two assailants are manning computer servers East of your direction” said Carl confidently.

“We have Gordon and Ramsey in the vicinity copy” said Mason.

“Any civilians?” asked Mason.

Carl switched his feed into infra-red, none that he could account for…

“None, copy,” said Carl.

Private Mason knelt behind a crumbling wall taking point guard, sweat trickling down his brow, the sheer harshness of the dessert biting his eyes in huge pangs of annoyance. His sniper rifle felt heavy as if it carried the weight of every life he had taken. Around him, the platoon moved like ghosts silent, tense and cruel. Each man was a shadow of who he once was like the god forsaken ground on which they stood.

There atop the desolate apartment building he looked through his scope taking down two of the hamas’ members across sixty yards both headshots, their death swift and precise as if their lives were meaningless and their bodies as sheer wild creatures of the night. Another shot ringed in the air like a siren, another man down.

Gordon and Ramsey adjusted their weapons of war as they descended from the helicopter.

“Mason, do you copy?” said Gordon.

“Copy Gordon,” said Mason

“Infiltrating has begun,” said Gordon defiantly.

They laced the doors with explosives as they were bolted to the ground and were immovable.

“Clear!” shouted Gordon and pressed the detonator giving way to a loud bang.

They moved swiftly and with haste shooting anyone that seemed to walk with two feet with precision. They used pistols for long range kills. The hamas attacking blindly charging insolently like a raging bull only to be caught with the swift fury of Gordon’s Swiss Army knife. Their mission was simple to get access to the mega servers inside this motel room.

Behind a closed door an assailant waited his bony fingers clutching a kitchen knife as if holding on to his dear life. Sweat trickling from his crown. There he waited behind the door of a dimly lit room filled with the humming of computers and servers. Ramsey threw a flash grenade in defiance, kill the hostiles subdue the others his Major’s instructions ringed in his head.

The Arabian man covered his ears as he was deafened by the loud bang of the grenade. He went into submission and cornered him, tying him up with his hands across his back with a zip tie. Gordon went through a sweep and search through out the rooms killing any hostiles he came across.

“Greenhorn we are in the server room” shouted Ramsey as he opened his portable laptop sticking a USB cable inside one of the computers.

“Okay gentlemen, stand by,” said Carl.

He opened his terminal and started hacking the server, going through a huge amount of information. SQL databases of timed attacks, videos of journalists being abducted, important politicians and democrats being killed. This is not right thought Carl this is the engineering of war…

Puzzled he snapped back into reality and downloaded the data. All seemed to be ethereal as if stepping inside a maze of confusion. Suddenly his comms buzzed.

“Greenhorn do you copy? Did you receive the data? I repeat did you receive the data?” said Ramsey.

“Affirmative” replied Carl instantly.

Gordon and Ramsey had to move quick as more insurgents were coming. They had to move fast to the top floor where the chopper would be waiting for them. They dashed frantically up the stairs jumping over dead bodies like wild panthers.

They evacuated timely.

The mission a success.

And Carl was left with questions as he syphoned through the data.

What did I get myself into?