Hector slammed the man against the helicopter, the propellers still whirling above their head.
"Talk." He snarled. "Or I'll make you wish I had the impatience to just kill you." He knew ways to make a man truly
suffer, and wish for death, though death wouldn't come without intervention. He twisted the other man's arm behind his
back, to the point of breaking, but not quite there yet and glared at him. "Who has the white doctor and where is she?"
Mike kept an eye on Hector as he gestured over several of the other international operatives to take the other two
they'd managed to 'collect'. Bug eyes had been there and, lo and behold, the warehouse had been owned by their old
friend. Omar the small arms dealer. Mike had taken him too just for good measure. Beaten the shit out of him for the
same reason. To him at least it proved that Hector's theory was paying out. Whoever had been after the supplies had
wanted a doctor this time. Of course there was always the possibility that Omar was just the unlinked connection in
both of the cases but Mike tended to think that would have been a pretty big coincidence considering how many other
arms dealers and petty criminals there were in the area for the real bad guys to use as go betweens.
So Omar and Bug eyes, both the -very- worse for wear got hauled out of the bird all trussed up as well. But Mike had
them wait. So they could see how a very irrate Delta dealt with people that messed with his woman. What Mike had
done to them - for 'resisting capture' was probably small potatoes. William let it go. These men were tiny cogs in a
much larger machine. But willing cogs all the same. There had been a great many innocent people, children included,
killed in that fire they'd set. He'd seen some of the pictures. Whatever they got, they deserved.
Blood could wash off the tarmac as easy as engine grease.
"Nothing! I don't know! The man in the suit - he said he'd pay good!" Scarface, already only able to stand on one leg
and already bleeding profusely, realizing only now that the soldiers had let him think he could get away just so they
could take him down with force, was panicked and babbling, eyes rolling white. He was a dead man and he knew it. "I
don't know! I swear! The men in the truck - they didn't talk! Just gave me the money! I didn't ask - they would have
killed me!"
"Where'd they get the truck?" Hector shouted at the man as the helicopter powered down, slamming him against the
fuselage again for good measure, his head thumping off the metal.
"I--I don't know!" Bug eyes said.
"You do." Hector repeated in his own language. Swanson had wandered near by and raised an eyebrow at Mike.
Maybe giving Hector an outlet for his anger wasn't such a good idea. Mike gave a shrug, face neutral. Just because
he didn't get to hold Andi in his arms didn't mean he wasn't in love with her too. And he'd already gotten to vent some
of his rage and guilt and helpless frustration on the disappointingly easy raid. Hector could take all three of the men
they'd picked up apart with his bare hands and Mike wouldn't flinch.
"The fire you set killed innocent children." Swanson said, fluent in the language, his accent as native as Bug Eyes'.
Hector looked at Swanson and took a deep breath, then released the man. Bug eyes sighed in relief and rubbed his
throat, until Hector started dragging him to the tent where the wrapped bodies, awaiting burial, were being kept. He
looked at one of the doctors in there. "Unwrap one." He said. "The worst one."
"Excuse me, you can't just come in here..."
Sam, surprisingly, came to clear the way, getting the story. "Go ahead." Sam said, smoking a cigarette in the door
way. With shaking hands, because the doctor knew what was under the shroud, the body of a child, or what was once
a child, was unwrapped. The doctor left the tent, a hand over his mouth. Shocking even for him, and he had seen a lot.
Hector was careful not to look directly at the body. Instead he grabbed Bug eyes by the back of the head and shoved
his face within inches of the once human child. "I repeat...where'd they get the truck?"
Bug eyes started screaming and crying. "The fire wasn't supposed to be that bad!" He said, his voice choked with
sobs, fear and disgust. Swanson was nearby to translate, turned away from the corpse and the rest of the shrouded
figures. "Just a distraction to bring the Red Cross out....but it got out of control...and we couldn't stop it...and I heard
the screams and I grabbed the first doctor I saw...I couldn't take it....and I handed her over...then I left, I ran away from
the smell. The fire. The screams."
"You picked the wrong doctor. Now where did they get the truck?"
"I don't know!"
"You do know. That truck used to be a UN military truck from the seventies. Now who sells trucks like that?"
"From a village south of here, a man sells revamped and rebuilt old military trucks for farm use."
Hector nodded and released the man, and stalked out of the tent, leaving the man to see exactly what he had done,
the sobs audible from outside. He went over to William. "I have a bead on the truck. We track down the seller, he can
point the rest of the way."
William raised an eyebrow but that was his only comment on the Delta's methods. Special Forces saw things all the
time that other people couldn't imagine. Nothing like a half decomposed mass grave to give a body nightmares to
wake the dead. The man inside the tent crying certainly deserved to see what he'd caused. But there was a cold edge
of cruelty to it that was disturbing.
Man in front of him needed a long stint with a shrink when this was all over.
Until then - he was going to make some bloody glorious use of it.
"Right." He agreed with a nod. "Think we're still on target with the warlords. If the equipment dealer verifies that, or
better yet actually knows which group, better yet. We'll pack up here. See if we can't get more on this 'man in a suit'.
Set out a team to secure us a base camp in the mountains. You take whoever you like and bring this dealer to heel. If
he knows anything I want to hear it. And Yank..." he met Hector's eyes with his own steady ones. "Keep in mind the
bloke might not know what his truck was going to be used for. Yeah?"
Swanson grabbed some water bottles and handed one to Hector as he thought.
"Swanson, he's the most fluent in the language." Hector said, eyes narrowed as he surveyed the men going about
their business, picking his team. "Mike." Because he had promised. "Jet." Because he at least looked local and
seemed one hell of an operative. "That's it. Let me know the co ordinates where you'll be." He nodded at William and
called the other two over, and headed off in an unmarked truck towards the used car dealer.
Hector let Mike drive, since he knew the locations of villages better, and went about stripping off his gear, not planning
on going 'operative' on the man, who might very well be innocent. He leaned his head against the headrest and
exhaled.
"You okay?" Jet asked him. "Hanging in alright?"
"Be a whole lot better once this is over."
"Well, that move wasn't anything the SAS would have done. They would have just interrogated him for hours." Jet said.
"Well, they think I'm nuts now."
"You are nuts." Mike stated calmly, driving with one hand while he ate a protein bar with the other. He shot Hector a
glance. "And they're so going to haul your ass into some shrink's office over this one. Shit," he realized. "Mine too." He
offered Hector one of the bars. "I'm blaming everything on you." He decided. Out of everyone in the camp, he was
probably the closest to Hector on this one. But even he couldn't say he felt about Andi the way the Delta next to him
did.
Jet, folded up comfortably next to Swanson, handed up a couple more bottles of water forward before passing one to
Swanson and then taking a long swallow from his own. As cool as a Zen master. The way he always was. Way he saw
it, he and the blond were the safety net. And he had no problem with that. He did a good job as back up. Got to see
more that way.
"So how're we playing this?" He asked, voice mellow. They had a bit of a way to go yet but it never hurt to come up
with the strategy now and at least walk their way through the approach at least once.
"I was thinking we'd be civilized, see if he talks first." Hector said, nodding at Mike as thanks for the protein bar and
scapegoat for the shrinks. He probably was headed to one. "Say we're after the exact make and model of the truck he
sold to one of the guys, then casually shake him down for who he sold it to."
"And if he has more than one?" Swanson asked, knowing Hector and shrinks didn't mix. Never did. They had to
undergo regular evals to make sure they were still able to do their jobs without losing it and weren't on the brink of
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and even those innocuous easy to fake evals he gave the people trouble. So much
so that he got a new shrink each time, always a newbie.
"Then we want all of them, plus one more. And won't take no for an answer, so we want the name and location of the
other person, to go offer to buy them out." Hector said. "I'd settle for a name."
"Then we'll get a name." Mike agreed. He had no problem with letting Hector head this operation. He'd always enjoyed
collecting the intel and piecing it together more than giving the orders. "Even if they paid and tried to cover their
tracks, most dealers in the area have an idea of where their goods are going. Its not that hard to tell a farmer from a
militant." The real problem was that the groups usually worked in a ladder form. Dealing through third parties that
dealt through third parties, that dealt through even smaller third parties. Made them hard as hell to track to their
source without extensive research and time. And that was time they didn't have this go round.
"I'll pull tail gunner and stay outside." Jet volunteered. "I blend better than you white boys." Mike nodded agreement,
even though Jet blended due to his skill even more than his skin color. If Jet didn't want you seeing him, he could be
right in front of you and you wouldn't. Mike turned the car off the 'main' road and started down the rutting dirt one that
would eventually lead them to the town in question and their vehicle dealer. Who might or might not know what he'd
been selling that truck for. For his sake, Mike hoped he didn't.
"Cat nap, boys." He suggested. "I'll give you a head's up when we're getting close."
Hector laughed. "Some of us are less white than others." He said.
"Hey!" Swanson said, knowing Hector meant him, with his blonde hair and fair skin. "Don't hate me because I'm
beautiful." Hector laughed again and folded his arms over his chest and closed his eyes, every little bit of sleep
offered to him, he would take, bumpy ride or not. Swanson looked at Jet, who shrugged. If Swanson, his chalk mate,
wasn't sure if Hector could hold it together, how could Jet be?
Mike met Jet's eyes in the rearview. Gave an imperceptible nod and Jet settled back in the chair and closed his eyes,
entire body relaxing even more. As if someone had thrown a switch.
Hector would hold. He had no right to and every right in the world to go Rambo on them all and get himself killed. But
he'd hold. Because Andi was counting on him. And Mike, who couldn't even claim he was that close to the man, still
knew him well enough to realize the Delta would take on both Heaven and Hell before he'd let himself let her down.
Hopefully - that would be enough.
Because - when he thought of Andi, out there in enemy hands... Sure, she saw a lot in her line of work. More than
anyone should. But there had always been something untainted about her. Sometimes it made him wonder if that was
why both he and Hector were so drawn to her. Because of that nonjudgmental acceptance. If they took that away from
her - if they hurt her, broke her... He realized his teeth were starting to ache and loosened his jaw, flexing his numb
fingers on the steering wheel. Took another swallow of water and paid attention to the surrounding area.