As the ambush had almost been complete, the remaining Alpha teams: 1, 2, and 4, began regrouping at a designated emergency rally point. The field team leader of Alpha Team 1, Lieutenant Taz, began looking at his own squad and other teams, "There was gunfire. Just past the border, near Rally Point A. I strongly believe Alpha-3 didn't make it. We'll have to head on foot to the checkpoint nearest to Point A and see what's going on."
Taz talked grimly, but calmly. As chatter arose, Taz continued: "We need to make sure Commissioner Fremont and his security detail made it unscathed. It was a 12-man team. They surely could've held their own."
One member of Alpha-1, Staff Sergeant Callum Rowe, spoke up nervously: "How many suspected casualties?"
Taz replied, "Everything is an unknown variable at this time. We move in cautiously, and if we see anyone suspicious, we capture or kill. Everyone understand?"
Taz was met with a collective 'Rog' by the three Alpha teams. They all got into their own HUMVEEs and drove to the site of the ambush. The team made their way to the site of the ambush. All that was left was the bodies of Brooks, the entire security detail, the three damaged SUV's, and no sign of Commissioner Fremont.
"Bloody hell...place is a mess." One member of Alpha exclaimed.
"Nobody made it," Taz replied sadly.
However, unbeknownst to the Alpha teams, the enemy sniper still remained.
The hostile operative adjusted the zoom of his scope and inhaled while lining his scope up with Lieutenant Taz leading the group. He took the shot, signaling the rest of the hidden operatives to fire as well. Within moments, the QRF was eliminated efficiently. They were shot like birds hunted for sport, each of them helplessly falling to the ground without any clue of what had just happened.
All but one Callum Rowe, who crawled behind a vehicle. When the unknown enemies came to finish the bodies, Rowe acted dead, hoping they'd move past him. Luckily, it worked.
After seeing that no one was no longer moving, the hostile sniper lifted up his sniper rifle and held it by the barrel while setting it to the ground. He took out his comms transceiver, talking calmly, "Commander... the UN's peacekeeping unit has been disposed of. We are extracting out of the premises."
Minutes later, the hostile forces packed up their gadgets, including the radio jammer, and left the scene. This allowed Rowe, in his dying breath, to deliver a distress call about the situation, "the Commissioner....hes...hes gone....everyone...is gone...." The radio crackled as he spoke. He hid behind the downed SUV, bleeding out painfully slow.
And behold, only one transmission made it through to the UN Peacekeeping Corps' HQ in Angola, the dying breath of the Staff Sergeant. Soon, news of the Commissioners kidnapping would spread throughout different organizations. But it would not be long until the entire world knew of the incident.
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JUNE 10, 1997
UNITED STATES AFRICA COMMAND - ANGOLA
The Africom Base was chaotic.
CIA Handler Major Thomas Merrick arrived early.
He settled into his office. Before he could get started, he recieved a call.
CIA Deputy Strategist - Mr. Graham.
Merrick sighed, picked up the phone, and spoke calmly, "What is it, sir?"
"I sent bodycam footage picked up from the site. Watch it."
The voice on the other end didn't sound panicked. Just urgent.
"Sir, this--"
Mr. Graham wasted no time to put Merrick in line.
"Major Thomas Merrick, we have a rapidly developing international incident on our hands, here. There isn't time. Watch it."
Merrick developed the footage and watched closely on his moniter. It was blurry, and hard to make out the situation from the grainy outlook, however, Merrick immedietely could tell it was brutal and efficient. The man with the bodycam watched as his detail fell one-by-one, before the lead hostile arrived and captured Commissioner Fremont. Merrick couldn't tell who it was through the footage.
From the footage, Merrick watched as the hostiles made quick work of the commissioner's detail and managed to capture him before all the bodycam footage went dark. Additionally, Callum's following distress call helped pick up the pieces of this ambush and what exactly went down.
Mr. Graham waited until Merrick finished the footage before speaking again, "Tell me you got something, Merrick. Because from this footage...what I can tell is, I just saw a UN Peacekeeping squad appear from a field and ambush a security detail like it was nothing!"
Merrick knew that it wasn't the UN Peacekeepers who came out of the field. It was clearly a hostile presence in their gear. But what confused Merrick was the pure efficiency of these hostiles. The Zaire Liberation Force were never known for intelligent plans -- Normally they came into a fight with child soldiers and lack of ideas, but this was something different.
"All I've got is a list of my men thats gotta be sent to a morgue, sir." Merrick replied coldly, but honestly.
Despite being on different sides of the world, Deputy Strategist Mr Graham and Major Thomas Merrick had their eyes on the same subject. The footage was blurry at best, but telling enough of what just happened.
Behind Merrick, were numerous other soldiers, appalled at how quickly their brothers in arms had fallen at the hands of an unknown enemy. To his left, the radio was tuned to a live news report of the Commissioner's kidnapping. To his right, several officers frantically received dozens of phone calls from different places.
"They left nothing..."
Graham replied quickly to Merrick's latter statement, "If I had to take a guess, I'd guess that you're stalling, Major. Every minute that you sit on your ass is one more minute of torture for the commissioner. We know the ZLF doesn't take prisonors, so this is a different circumstance for them! You need to get a team actionable and on the ground before this becomes out of hand."
Graham understood the assignment and knew that this kidnapping was either a ruse or a setup for a bigger plan. The longer Merrick took to assemble a team, was longer for the ZLF to continue their reign of terror in Zaire.
"Don't worry, sir. It will be done." Merrick calmly set the phone down, hanging up on the deputy strategist. He turned off the moniter and pushed past a few frantic officers before looking out of the window of the Africom Base, which was bustling with activity. In the distant horizon a heavy storm had clouded the sky.
A war was soon to come.