CH15: DRAWING FIRST BLOOD.

This is a passion work. So, I would really appreciate it if you leave behind a review when you're done reading.

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CH15: DRAWING FIRST BLOOD.

"Alpha team, Bravo team, you have been given green light. Commence Operation Catching Fire."

All the Operators immediately had their game face on. Failure was not an option. Any mistake could lead to their death.

Champion Onuoha continued to stalk the enemies around the building. He noticed something that made him shake his head. The patrols had started to get lazy. They stopped patrolling around the building and only walked back and forth a side of the building, leaving the two guards in front of the door to take care of their side. This made things somewhat easier for him.

In the current situation, the guard posted at the north-facing door was responsible for keeping a lookout in the northern direction. The same goes for the guard posted at the southern door. A sniper was on the roof with a view of the surrounding area. Each of the two patrols just walked back and forth the eastern and western walls, occasionally looking towards the doors when they reached the end of the walls. He could not understand why they're doing such a thing, perhaps they were tired of walking around the building or they just got complacent. Well, he wasn't about to complain.

He made his way to the southern side making sure to use the environment as cover. He soon found a suitable position. He aimed with his suppressed HK416 assault rifle. The sniper on top of the building seemed to have felt something and was about to turn in Champion's direction. Before the sniper could complete his turn, Champion squeezed the trigger.

Tuut tuut (silenced or suppressed gunshot sound?) Headshot.!

Champion couldn't relax after the kill, however, as he had to quickly take down the guard in front of the door. Although there was no audible sound from the dead guard dropping to the floor of the roof, the guard in front of the door looked like he heard the gunshot. He, however, didn't seem to have identified it as a gunshot but the weird sound attracted him nonetheless. Champion quickly turned to him and took aim. (1)

Tuut tuut

This time the bullet was shot at the enemy's centre mass (Chest Area). The guard hit the floor dead. Champion quickly made his way to the eastern side while hugging the wall of the building. The patrolling guard most likely heard the previous guard falling to the ground. He waited just before the turn to the east and brought out his knife.

He heard the guard making his way over. His heart was beating fast as if to leave his chest. His right palm holding the knife became sweaty as he tightened the grip around the blade. The guard arrived with his gun pointed outwards. Champion skillfully used his left hand to hold the gun and direct it away while simultaneously stabbing at the guard's neck. The knife passed through one side and protruded out the other side of the neck. Champion quickly disarmed the guard as he fell powerlessly to the floor holding his neck to prevent him from shooting his gun and alerting the other guards.

Champion looked at the man choking in his blood and felt nauseous but he quickly held it in as he still had work to do. He made his way into the building. He crossed the hallway to the northern door. He heard the guard at the door say something to the patrol causing the latter to laugh. He waited for the patrol to move away.

When the patrol moved away and started following the western wall in the southern direction, Champion silently opened the door behind the guard. He moved stealthily behind the guard. He covered the guard's mouth with his palm to prevent him from screaming while repeatedly plunging his blade into his back, stabbing his heart multiple times. He quietly placed the guard on the floor.

He re-armed his HK416 rifle and made his way cautiously to the western wall. He arrived at the turn to the western side. He peeped out at the guard and found that he was still walking away cluelessly. Champion strafed out and shot him in the back of the head

Tuut tuut Headshot

He quickly turned and made his way into the building and up the stairs. He arrived at the body of the sniper and took away his gun. He turned around and made his way up the tower. He cautiously moved up the staircase making sure every angle was clear before moving. He eventually arrived at the top of the tower and found nobody there. He heaved a sigh of relief.

He took a seat before one of the computers and typed away. He ran a diagnostic test on the system's firewall. When he was done, he contacted Korede Balogun through the comms to pass on his findings.

"This is Bravo 4. Come in Bravo 1."

"This is Bravo 1. What did you find?"

"Alpha team, Bravo team, you have been given green light. Commence Operation Catching Fire."

Abdul-Lateef Abdul-Salam was looking around the port from his scope when he heard the instruction from HQ (Homebase). He found enemies moving around the port and started counting their numbers. He also took note of their positions.

As he continued to look around, his sights caught onto Champion. He watched as he stalked the guards. He continued to watch just in case Champion required help. He didn't get to act though, as he witnessed Champion take out the guards.

"Not bad. No wonder Team Leader sent him out alone." He soliloquised

Unbeknownst to Korede, he had earned Abdul-Lateef's respect during the training camp. This was why he was not against Korede being their team leader. This was also why he was readily willing to listen to Korede's instructions even though he didn't completely understand what the latter was looking for. Korede's ability to assign people once again impressed him. (2)

Since Champion had taken care of all the hostiles, Abdul-Lateef looked away and resumed his objective. When he wanted to report his finding to Korede, however, he heard the person's voice.

"This is Bravo 1. What did you find?"

"Alpha team, Bravo team, you have been given green light. Commence Operation Catching Fire."

Korede faced the team

"Well, we have a big area to cover. So, let's split up into pairs. Corporal Izamoje, please go with Temitope. Corporal Mohammed, you're with me. Our objective is simple. While Alpha team pushes through the middle towards the center of the port where intel suggests the deal will go down, we'll clear the enemies around the perimeter to prevent them from flanking Alpha team.

We'll go right and you guys go left. We'll meet at the center on the other side and push through the middle together. Though it is expected that Alpha team will face most of the opposition, keep your wits about you. Something doesn't feel right here."

Though Korede was just repeating what they already know, no one said anything and just nodded.

"Pay attention to your comms, I will relay new orders as the situation develops. Alright, Move out!"

Each of the pairs moved in their allotted direction. Korede and Fatima moved cautiously but very fast. Soon they came across three tangos. At the next turn, they saw two tangos standing on top of containers on both sides of the road with a third patrolling the road.

Korede raised a fist, gesturing for Fatima to stop.

"I'll take the one on the right, you take the one on this side and the road." He said as he equipped his suppressed M2010 ESR and took aim at the enemy. Fatima quickly crossed to the other side of the road to get a better aim at her target with her suppressed HK416.

The reason Korede decide to share the targets like this was that the enemy on the right was further away while the other two targets were closer. It made more sense to use the bolt action sniper rifle to take out the farther enemy and the Automatic rifle to take out the two closer ones(3).

Both had their sights locked on their targets. Korede nodded and they both shot at the same time. Before the one on the road could react, Fatima shot him in the chest. He dropped to the floor and his gun flew a bit away from him. He wasn't dead yet as he weakly tried to crawl to his weapon. Korede quickly walked up to him and finished him off with a headshot from his M9 Beretta(also suppressed). He released the bullet casing in his Sniper Rifle's gun barrel and turned to Fatima who was walking to him. He raised his fist to her. She hesitated a bit before she bumped fist with him. Her hesitance caused a thought to flash in his head

'She's quiet. Now that I think about it, our team is mostly made up of 'quiet' operators. Only Mary and Temitope seem to talk much.'(4) He chuckled to himself as they continued. By the time they covered two-thirds of the way, the pair had killed four more enemies. He wondered how the other pair were doing.

Temitope and Mary had reached the same point as Korede and Fatima in the other direction but they had only killed four tangos in comparison to the latter pair's seven.

Just as both pairs were about to meet up, Korede heard Champion's voice from his comms.

"This is Bravo 4. Come in Bravo 1"

The pairs met up and Korede gestured to them to wait as he replied Champion

"This is Bravo 1. What did you find?"

[A.N: Please, don't forget to leave a review of the work to encourage me. Your opinion really matters to me.]

AUTHOR'S NOTE/ RAMBLINGS

1 As formerly mentioned, suppressors don't negate the sound of a gunshot, they merely make it unrecognisable as a gunshot which is why the guard heard the shot but didn't realise it was a gunshot.

2 This is what I will call a typical case of 'Respect Bias'. Once someone like this respects someone, they will always be impressed by possibly whatever the person those. After all, what's special about assigning a sniper to a sniping job and an expert programmer to hack a system.

3 Basically, Bolt action means you can only fire one bullet at a time, then you need to open and close the piston(?) to release the bullet casing before you can fire another round. Though this is done within seconds by pros, it will still give the enemy the chance to react and fire the gun, possibly alerting other enemies in the area. This isn't a problem for the operators since their guns are suppressed. It is also the reason why Korede switched to his secondary weapon since his primary one isn't suppressed.

4 Pun intended.

[A.N: Please, don't forget to leave a review of the work to encourage me. Your opinion really matters to me.]