1 RedHawk Mercenaries

It was a dark night.

The stars provided some semblance of light but the thick canopy of trees blocked the light from entering into the forest. The forest was oddly silent, no sound of predators that usually roamed around the place could be heard.

A perfect environment to infiltrate.

Infiltrate what you ask? An enemy base of course. Intel was received by the Interpol that Dr. Mary Kate, the world renowned scientist who found the treatment for cancer when she was 21 years old, was located at one of the bases of a terrorist group in the amazon forest. She was reported missing last month and had become a very important person of interest for every group and agency all across the globe.

And now she was located by the US government. The president must've already arranged parties and media stories to play politics, but sadly they'll have to wait. And as much Interpol would love to brag about their defenses, there is not a computer or network in the world which could not be accessed by Nick. As soon as the Interpol received intel on the doctor, we were already on our way towards the great forest of amazon.

We are the RedHawk Mercenary group. One of the world's fastest and deadliest mercenary group.

With only five members, we possessed the swiftness which could never be achieved by any other organized military agency. And without losing any fire power to boot. Each and every member of the RedHawk Mercenary group had the talent and expertise of entire platoons worth of soldier's right at their fingertips.

It was founded by John Wick. He was our leader. An ex-marine of the US army who was at the post of Major General at the time he left from the Marine Corps. At the age of 47 he had the body and reflexes of a 27 year old train soldier.

Sophia and Anastasia Sholokhov. Twins from Russia and our arms expert. One can easily be fooled by their bubbly girl-next-door appearance and attitude, but one blink of an eye and you'll be stabbed or shot by them a dozen times. We know, we've seen it happen.

Nick Jones. Our tech and logistics expert. The sole reason we were never, ever, tracked by anyone in the world. The only people to reach us were the people whom we allowed to. Give him a computer and you'll see the work of a god. Omniscient and Omnipresent.

And lastly, Me. Charles Raymond. Your friendly, neighborhood ….. Explosives expert. And if you still don't get the idea from the thick, heavy undertone, let me clear a few things up. I Love Explosions. Loved it from my childhood as any young boy my age did, but I took it to the extreme. Since a young age I've read and researched about explosions, almost lost my life a couple of times but that just made me go at it harder than before, albeit a bit more carefully than earlier. Oh how much I envied characters like Deidara and Mr. 5 from Naruto and One Piece, respectively, for their prowess in creating explosions and the latter possessed outright immunity towards explosions. And the fucker flicked around boogers for god's sake!

"Enemy base located. 250 meters north" Sophia's silky voice over the intercom stopped my train of thought and made me focus in front.

A square building of around 1000 sq. m. could be seen in the clearing in front of them. He quickly spotted the patrol squads and their movements expertly. They were all dressed in white and red garbs of different shades. Rather stupid if you ask me but if they wanted to be located so badly, why disappoint them.

"Take your positions everyone and hold fire. Spot your target and lock in." John ordered as he crouched down on the ground and aimed at the patrol guards of the base.

Sophia and Anastasia creeped forward and took their position as the vanguards. Nick and I hung backwards. John wanted to do this stealthily, so unless my firepower was really required, I will mostly be in the position of a rear guard. Nick just opened his tools as he began to gain access into the enemy base.

We waited with baited breath as the patrols made 3 rounds around the perimeter of the base. As soon as the pattern was exposed to us, John gave us the order we were waiting for.

"We move in 3. 3… 2… 1. GO!"

As soon as the orders were received, the patrol started dropping like flies. By the time we reached at the front door, all the patrols were silenced and Nick gained access into the enemy system. The door was quickly opened and we entered into the base swiftly.

"Target is located in the underground basement of the facility. I've sent you guys the layout with the X representing the target on your visors. The target is holed up with some kind of mechanical lock door." Nick's gruff voice provided us with the information we needed to proceed further.

We start heading deeper into the base, following along the dark corridor while shooting down all the terrorists that came in the way. But the next junction led to a big room filled with lots of boxes. The terrorists in the room dashed to find cover and soon alarms were rung.

"Shit! Drop the shadow mode and Power through before the target is compromised!" John orders.

The moment John ordered to power through, the twins started mowing down the terrorist so quickly they didn't even know what happened.

Soon we reached our target destination. Nick tried to open the door again but due to it being a mechanical door, he couldn't force the system to get it open.

"The door is too thick for us to shoot it down. Raymond you're up!"

I head to the door and put my ears on it. I could feel no vibrations coming through the door, which meant it was thick enough to not let the sound vibrations to pass through.

"The door is at least 3 & ½ to 5 inches thick" I deduced. "Standard explosives will not work on it. But I have something that'll work just fine."

I quickly pulled out a bomb and started tweaking it. Energy released by a standard bomb travels along the spherical radius from the center of the bomb. The tweaked bomb allows all the energy from the explosion to travel downwards instead of in the spherical manner. It had enough energy to blast through a metal door of 5 inches thickness. I asked everyone to clear the area as I set the bomb up at the center of the door and soon found some cover for myself.

"Going off in 3… 2… 1…"

BOOM

John signals the twins to enter the room and follows behind them. They make the room secure by killing off the remaining terrorists. Nick and I enter the room after getting the clear signal.

Entering the room our attention is diverted towards the cage located in the middle of the room. A figure could be seen tied up to a chair and the cage seemed to be electronically locked.

Nick, looking at the electronic cage, starts walking up towards the cage to unlock it. The prospect of capturing the target seemed to make Nick excited as he fail to the see lights flashing at the back of the cage. The blinking lights were coming out of a white oval shaped device. Although it looked completely in place with the whole setup, I had a nagging sensation that the back of my mind. My instinct was screaming conspiracy.

"WAI-"

*BOOOOOOM*

< --------------------------FTS--------------------------->

PAIN.

That was all there was. That was all I felt.

I started thinking about what happened to distract myself from the pain. Apparently, my instinct were right again. The white oval shaped device was some kind of proximity fuze, which lit up the explosives present in the room.

It was a trap.

Hah! Never would've imagined that Interpol would be willing to play so dirty. The information was false.

Or maybe it was just released late and the original Mary Kate must've already been rescued and a decoy was left in her place.

The pain was slowly receding and my body was turning cold. Well, whatever was left of my body anyways, I didn't even have the strength to check my condition.

A chuckle escapes from my mouth, soon turning into a burning painful laugh.

The Irony.

It seemed fitting that I get to die due to an explosion. But I wish I could've had much more personal experience with explosions.

Like controlling explosions, being able to feel an explosion without dying, BEING AN EXPLOSION MYSELF.

Where I can use that power without being able to be accountable to anything, without any restrictions. Nothing to tie me down. Where I could be FREE.

After that all I ever felt was the sweet embrace of Death.