Briefing

General Overlord's face pops up on the screen. The three of them salute him. General Overlord tells them to be at ease and starts talking. He's looking tense.

"The Bravo squad will be sent on a search & rescue mission. As you know, the Delta Squad has been trailing after the stolen uranium for the last year in hopes of getting to the mastermind behind these attacks. We lost contact with them three days ago near here."

The satellite picture of an island floats up on the screen. It is an oval-shaped, small island.

"This is Maple Island. Your job is to run a S&R mission on this island and its surrounding waters. And if the Delta squad is KIA, find out what happened to them."

Sohel asks, "But sir, if it's only a S&R mission, there was no need for you to send us. You can just send a normal recon squad."

"I was going to do that. But last night, at around 0300, we got this."

A video from someone's helmet cam starts playing on the screen.

The screen showed the person running through what seemed like an underground hallway. The audio was of the person trying to keep his breathing steady. A few seconds later, a blood-curdling scream is heard with the sound of blood gushing out from somewhere and the footage shows the camera being blocked by blood. The video footage ends.

Watching the footage, Sohel's face turns dark, Naomi remains silent and Mitali looks away.

"This footage was sent from Flight Lt. Petrov's helmet cam. Someone who can hunt down people like him isn't to be taken lightly. All of you should proceed with caution too. The island is on Indian water borders. I've asked the Indian Navy to help you in this op. I've sent your gear to the SNA naval base in Teknaf. Go there and get ready for the op.

That's all for the briefing. I'll send you a more detailed file in a moment."

Before Overlord could cut the call, Sohel stopped him. He asks Naomi and Mitali to wait outside. They were reluctant but agreed with Sohel's request. Once they get out of the room, Sohel locks the gate and goes to the control panel. He turns off the recording option and gets back in front of the screen. Overlord asks, "What is it, Sohel? Is it something controversial that you don't even want to keep a record of it in the SNA database?"

"Yeah. I've got a few questions for you."

The lines on Overlord's forehead get deeper as he asks, "What is it?"

"What is Project Spectre?"

"Where did you hear about that project?"

"Does it really matter? Tell me what it is."

Overlord sighs and says, "I don't know much about it as the project was shut down before I became the representative of BD in the SNA general's council. All I can tell you is that it was shut down for inhuman experiments with human subjects."

"Then tell me, what is Major Shadow's, or should I say Major Naoki Kobayashi's, connection with this project?"

Overlord looks at him with a serious question in his eyes and says, "Just how much do you know?"

Sohel remains silent.

"Naoki Kobayashi is the only survivor or result of that project."

Sohel thinks, "Now it's all starting to make sense."

Overlord says, "You realise that what I'm telling you is highly classified information, right? You can't share this information with anyone. Not even your squadmates. Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Now cut the connection before they suspect something."

Sohel goes to the control panel and cuts the connection. As he gets out of the room, he finds Naomi and Mitali waiting for him outside.

Mitali asks, "What were you talking about with the general?"

"Nothing much, just official stuff."

Naomi suspects that Sohel's lying but decides to remain silent.

22:11

SNA Naval Base, Teknaf, Chittagong, Bangladesh

An army Pajero stops in front of the entrance check post of the base. A guard comes out of the guard room and asks Sohel for his ID. Sohel shows the guard his ID. The guard salutes Sohel and opens the gate. The car follows the path from the gate and stops before the administration building. It was a rectangular, wide, 3-story building just outside the dock. In the dock, there were many destroyers and cruisers with a huge aircraft carrier. All three of them get out of the car and look at the aircraft carrier with awe.

"Speechless at the sight of BNS Leviathan?"

They look back and see a 55- to 56-year-old man wearing a Navy admiral's uniform smiling at them with his hands behind his back. His face had a cut mark that split his forehead and cheek from his eyeline. The admiral says, "Can't blame you for admiring this beauty. This is the world's biggest and largest aircraft carrier at the moment. There are only three of these. 370 metres long and can hold up to 100 aircraft. It's nuclear powered, so it only needs refuelling every 30 years. This is the pride of the Naval Division of the SNA and the Bangladesh Navy. The others are HMS Kraken of British Navy and RMS Scylla of Russian Navy."

Hearing all of these, anyone would be able to figure out that this admiral here really loves his ship.

Sohel and the others salute the admiral. The admiral accepts the salute and says, "I'm rear admiral Bashar Khan, the one in charge of this base. Come on in; your Italian friend's been waiting for hours."

Admiral Khan takes them inside and leads them to a room on the second floor. They entered a room that seemed like a meeting room similar to the one in the SNA HQ. But this room didn't have a glass wall and was also a bit smaller. As they enter the room, they see Jacob sitting in a chair, waiting for them. Just as Jacob sees them enter the room, he jumps out of the chair and runs to them. He hugs Sohel and says, "Long time no see, boss. How've you been?"

"I've been fine. What about you?"

"I've also been top-class."

He lets go of Sohel and looks at the other two and says, "Nice seeing you too, Ice Queen and Ms. Healer."

Naomi shrugs Jacob away.

Mitali says, "Looks like you still like to give people weird nicknames."

The admiral says you guys wait here; I'll send someone with your gear.

As the admiral leaves, all four of them sit down and start talking about the last two months. Moments later, two soldiers come inside the room with two cases in each of their hands. They put the cases down on the table and saluted them before leaving. Sohel says, "Now that no one else is coming in..."

Sohel briefs Jacob about the operation.

Jacob listens to all of it attentively and says, "So, when do we leave for that island, boss?"

"Tomorrow at 0600 sharp. We don't know what we're expecting on that island, so I've decided to move during the day. Anyone got any objections?"

Everyone nods their heads sideways.

"Okay then. Have some dinner, rest up and get ready for tomorrow."