Am I the Same Man I Used To Be?

"How did it go?" asked Shin.

"Wasn't that bad. We got all the information we needed."

Sun was starting to rise over the city once again. Takahiro didn't get much sleep. As he took his coffee, he sat outside the shack and gave his report to somebody in JGSA. After his report, Shin came up and two old friend started chatting a bit.

"What happened to hostages?"

"They sleep to never wake up again. Just like the other terrorists."

"Well, I guess I'm happy to see you back."

"What do you mean?"

"You were like.. dead for a long while. You know, after what happened before."

"Is that so? For me I'm the same Takahiro with no motivations to live. It's just like I'm living to see death one day. I'm not trying hard for anything, no matter what I did, I was imagining my death in my head. It wasn't different yesterday too."

"But you're still alive."

"Didn't find any man to kill me so far."

"So you're still blaming yourself, huh? But you accepted Gina with you after all."

"It's a different story. It's actually like babysitting."

"Where's she now?"

"Sleeping. It's probably her first mission like this. Everybody we saw could be our enemy, nothing guarantee our life out here. So she probably didn't get much sleep. At least I can say that she's completely defenceless in that shack, if I somehow die right now she'll be the next."

"But I still don't understand, you said that you'll go alone and then you took her with you. And after that, you said in your report that you won't gonna let her engage to any conflict but you did."

"I know what I said but that was before we realised how dangerous the real situation was."

"But you've accomplished your mission, no? Why did you ask permission for further investigation?"

"We have our reasons."

"And I'd like to hear those reasons you have."

"I won't be the one who you gonna hear that from. If Gina wants she can explain. But I won't."

"Are you doing this for her?"

"Halfly yes. But my real reason is to stop that war, which is about to start."

"And to find the death you're looking for?"

"Perhaps. I don't know if I'm gonna die in this mission but I know there's not much time left before they get started."

"It's not a mission for a 2-man squad. Gina is not even a real soldier she's just an agent for that spy things."

"An agent is much more than that."

"Still, she's not a soldier. Aren't you worried to see her death?"

"She won't."

"How do you know?"

"Because I'm breathing."

Takahiro took a sip from his coffee. He did know how ridiculous was that thing he said. He was breathing all this time and yet let his brothers die. But he had no intention of repeating the same mistakes.

"Just don't let your feelings get the control over you. I'm not sure if it's the death you're imagining and I won't gonna stop you if you really want to die. But still, you have a wedding to attend, and you have Gina to protect."

"I know what's your point, Shin. That won't gonna happen. It's not a job where you could have happy marriages. Gina is just my colleague. We won't see eachother after this mission. It'll be the last because I'll retire again."

"Just be sure your retirement is not in a bodybag." said Shin and turned off the radio.

"Well, I can't give any promises."

Takahiro finished his coffee. He only slept 3 hours but it worthed it. They learned valuable informations. Where Scarface is, who Iron Fist are, what their plan is...

Takahiro was mostly right about his assumptions. They were planning a massive genocide all over the China-Russia border, and it was so close to happen.

'Maybe 3 days, maybe 4. But it'll definitely happen this week.'

Takahiro started thinking about Gina. It really wasn't like he started to like her. But he had to admit that he was interested to her. No matter what, his fate couldn't be changed. Just as what he said, it's not a job where you could have happy marriages. And he was already in his thirties, too old to get married and start a new life.

"Good morning, Lieutenant."

"Morning. Did you sleep well?"

"It was the best sleep I could get in this conditions."

"Lucky you."

"So, we're going after Scarface, right?"

"Yeah. They said he's working in that bunker."

The information they learned last night told them that three different men were responsible for that plan. Iron Fist is the main brain, his location is unknown. Scarface is the man in charge of the Chinese border, working in the bunker they found. And Grizzly, the man in charge of the Russian border, he's somewhere in Blagoveshchensk.

"Tell me when do we start, Lieutenant. I'm ready whenever you say."

After getting prepared, they took the truck last night day drove.

"I'm not sure what can we really do." said Takahiro. "That place is probably more than being well protected, I don't think we can easily find and kill Scarface."

"Maybe we should ask for backup?"

"No."

"You still don't want anybody on this mission?"

"It's not a mission you can do something with a big squad. Shin thinks it is but no. Not anymore. It's more like an espionage and assassination mission. We can not risk the mission with increasing the numbers."

"But they probably know what happened in that factory. They'll be on alert."

"If they're on the alert that means you can use some bait to drag them away from that bunker."

"And how is that?"

Takahiro gave himself some time to think about it.

"We saw few of their warehouses, where they hid the weapons. We'll blow few of them up, at least 3 of them."

"So your plan is synchronising 3 different explosions at the warehouses?"

"Most likely, yeah. We can load 2 trucks with explosives and leave them at the warehouses, then we can keep going for the others. They're probably not protected to not drag any attention. Almost all warehouses are abandoned buildings and you can not assign anybody to watch over those place, it would be way too suspicious. Best they could do is to watch them from the outside but that shouldn't be a problem to us."

"So we will deliver explosives as much as we can just as if it's a weapon delivery from the factories."

"Exactly, but I don't think we can do that too much. You're probably right, they probably learned what happened back in the factory. So maybe one or two deliveries and more than that just gonna increase the chance of getting ambushed."

Takahiro pulled over the car next to sawmill.

"Let's just find ourselves some fancy overalls and get started." said Takahiro as he left the car. "And one more truck if we're lucky."