separate from his squad and find his own way back through enemy lines to base camp, he got his first taste of operating solo. No squadmates’ backs to watch, no predefined mission parameters, a license to kill, and a lot of bad guys to use that license on. Not only did he make it back to base camp alive, but he also managed to kill seventeen of the enemy by himself: with only an M4, a pistol, one extra clip of rifle ammo, and a knife. The last four kills, apparently, had been made after he had run out of ammo, and judging by stories that circulated later on, the families of the deceased would have had no chance of holding open casket funerals.
He had risen quickly within the ranks, being put on special assignments, and eventually, due to his loner tendencies and his ability to make operational magic happen when given a long leash, he was assigned solo assassination missions: taking out high-profile or tactical targets as a splinter cell – for the United States neither condones nor partakes in assassinations of foreign leaders... officially, at least – backed up only by minimal reconnaissance and intelligence members with whom he rarely interacted, save for the occasional radio contact. He came to like it that way. Just him and his target. His guidance counselor back in high school would have said that he was channeling his anger at his dead father toward these surrogates, the enemy combatants he so efficiently dispatched, but Enrique didn’t buy into that. He was simply good at killing people who needed to be killed. Very, very good.
Enrique slid his plain white entry card through the reader next to the entry door – a door that, like the rest of the building, appeared to be made of mirrored glass, but was in fact constructed of two inches of steel, with the glass merely covering its exterior. In fact, all of the building’s windows concealed either a foot of concrete, six inches of steel, or both, immediately on the other side of the glass. Entering the building, Enrique removed his sunglasses and glanced at each of the five closed-circuit cameras trained on the small entryway; at each of the thirty-two tiny nozzles connected to pipes filled with cyanide gas that would be released should some unauthorized person try to gain admittance to their sanctum; at the vent in the ceiling used for sucking the gas away after the unwelcome guest had been taken out of play.
On the numeric keypad to the right of a heavy steel door – the only features in the otherwise stark concrete room – he punched in the 8-digit code, prompting the pad to slide back into the wall, then up, revealing another console with a small camera lens, a microphone, and a large LCD touch-pad. He pressed his right palm to the touch-pad, a red light-bar like that of a copy machine passing over his hand and recording his fingerprints, handprint, and pulse – in case someone might try to use the hand of a dead agent to gain access. He enunciated his agent identification number into the microphone, and centered his left eye in front of the camera lens, which image-captured his retina.
When the security computer had checked the passcodes and biometric data against the agent files in the system, verifying that he was indeed supposed to be in the building, a small green light next to the camera lens lit up. One last step. Enrique backed up two steps, turned his face and body to the center camera, cognizant of the other four that were also focused on him in his current position, and stared patiently into the lens. The operator on the other side saw that it was a living agent – and only that agent – and pressed the button to buzz him through. Rushing to push open the door before the lock reactivated – and he had to go through the whole process again – Enrique entered the brightly lit headquarters of the Division.
Some people found the security measures to be a bit overkill, but not Enrique. He was glad for anything that would protect this great
He had risen quickly within the ranks, being put on special assignments, and eventually, due to his loner tendencies and his ability to make operational magic happen when given a long leash, he was assigned solo assassination missions: taking out high-profile or tactical targets as a splinter cell – for the United States neither condones nor partakes in assassinations of foreign leaders... officially, at least – backed up only by minimal reconnaissance and intelligence members with whom he rarely interacted, save for the occasional radio contact. He came to like it that way. Just him and his target. His guidance counselor back in high school would have said that he was channeling his anger at his dead father toward these surrogates, the enemy combatants he so efficiently dispatched, but Enrique didn’t buy into that. He was simply good at killing people who needed to be killed. Very, very good.
Enrique slid his plain white entry card through the reader next to the entry door – a door that, like the rest of the building, appeared to be made of mirrored glass, but was in fact constructed of two inches of steel, with the glass merely covering its exterior. In fact, all of the building’s windows concealed either a foot of concrete, six inches of steel, or both, immediately on the other side of the glass. Entering the building, Enrique removed his sunglasses and glanced at each of the five closed-circuit cameras trained on the small entryway; at each of the thirty-two tiny nozzles connected to pipes filled with cyanide gas that would be released should some unauthorized person try to gain admittance to their sanctum; at the vent in the ceiling used for sucking the gas away after the unwelcome guest had been taken out of play.
On the numeric keypad to the right of a heavy steel door – the only features in the otherwise stark concrete room – he punched in the 8-digit code, prompting the pad to slide back into the wall, then up, revealing another console with a small camera lens, a microphone, and a large LCD touch-pad. He pressed his right palm to the touch-pad, a red light-bar like that of a copy machine passing over his hand and recording his fingerprints, handprint, and pulse – in case someone might try to use the hand of a dead agent to gain access. He enunciated his agent identification number into the microphone, and centered his left eye in front of the camera lens, which image-captured his retina.
When the security computer had checked the passcodes and biometric data against the agent files in the system, verifying that he was indeed supposed to be in the building, a small green light next to the camera lens lit up. One last step. Enrique backed up two steps, turned his face and body to the center camera, cognizant of the other four that were also focused on him in his current position, and stared patiently into the lens. The operator on the other side saw that it was a living agent – and only that agent – and pressed the button to buzz him through. Rushing to push open the door before the lock reactivated – and he had to go through the whole process again – Enrique entered the brightly lit headquarters of the Division.
Some people found the security measures to be a bit overkill, but not Enrique. He was glad for anything that would protect this great
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