“This is the easiest money you’re ever going to make. In your line of work, that’s a God-send.”
I stared at the generic, nameless Suit standing in front of me. He claimed that he worked for the CIA. Even flashed his badge and all. It didn’t matter to me whether or not I believed him. The only thing that mattered was the fact that he paid half up-front, promising the other half after the job was done.
I’m a part of a freelance mercenary group. Modern-day soldiers of fortune. We’ve been hired by Government agencies before, but mostly just ones in Africa and Southeast Asia. You can imagine the type of shit that we’ve been asked to pull off. Safe to say, ethics aren’t our primary concern. Now, I’m not blatantly immoral. If somebody offered us an exorbitant amount to oversee security for a human trafficking ring, I’d shoot them on the spot. But that’s not to say that we’re good people. Far from it, in fact. I don’t expect you to feel sympathy for me. I just want to get my story out there.
Something very strange is going on. Something that we should probably all be worried about.
The mission itself was presented as a simple one. But the circumstances surrounding it were more unusual.
“We’re staging a raid on a fanatical religious cult in Montana. Real psychotic bunch.” I remember the Suit telling me.
I couldn’t have imagined a better compensation than the one he was offering, so I listened intently. In all honesty, it was nearly enough to set my entire team up for retirement. Nevertheless, the whole situation unnerved me. We were caught completely off-guard when they contacted us. Somehow, they’d found our email address on the dark web. I knew what we were doing was illegal, but they didn’t seem to care. In fact, they never mentioned anything about our past crimes at all.
In reality, they probably could’ve smoked us at any point. It didn’t make a lot of sense why they chose not to, or why they chose to approach us at all.
I had my hunches, of course. Most of them to do with the fact that we were entirely expendable and operated under-the-radar the best we could. (Obviously, we didn't do a good enough job).
Whatever. It is what it is. We needed this payday. Our little operations couldn’t last forever.
“I know it’s not important for the job, but… what’s the purpose of this raid? These guys growing weed or something?” I asked. The question came out snarkier than I’d intended it to.
The Suit just grinned. I guess he had a sense of humor.
“Well,” he began. “I doubt you’ll be telling anybody, so I suppose you might as well know.”
He seemed confident in that assumption. Maybe a little too much so.
“These people stumbled upon something that they shouldn’t have,” he continued. “And then they tried to hide it.”
“Better not be something that’s moments away from exploding.” I said.
The Suit laughed this time. “It’s not so simple. Mr. _____ what do you know about the existence of extra-terrestrial life?”
I raised my eyebrow. What the hell was he about to tell me?
“You’re asking me if I believe in aliens,” I responded. I took a second to consider it. “Sure, why not?”
He went on to explain the real objective. It sounded absurd, but it was also coming out of the horse’s mouth. You tell me what I’m supposed to believe.
Apparently, a UFO had crashed on a farm in Southeastern Montana a few days prior. As luck would have it, this farm belonged to “The Church of Blissful Ascension”, the cult in question. Shortly after it landed, some cult members stumbled upon it, subsequently being ordered to drag it into the leader’s farmhouse, which was quite literally a mansion.
Not much was known about the leader, other than his epithet, which was “The Divine Messenger”. Yeah, that type of guy. In reality, the cult was just a front for the trafficking of various goods, which had brainwashed its members into doing a lot of the dirty work.
The most interesting part about this was the UFO itself. It was allegedly about twelve feet wide, three feet in diameter, and shaped like a pill. Before it landed, it’d been moving erratically, seemingly teleporting short distances every few seconds or so. After it landed, some kind of dark-green fluid began leaking out of it.
Now for the actual mission. We simply had to go in and assist a team of SAC/SOG agents in wiping out every single member. No survivors. No witnesses. No exceptions. What the CIA planned to do with the UFO afterwards was none of our business. Not that I really wanted to know.
We didn’t have much time to prepare for the raid, but it didn’t sound like we needed it. We were dealing with amateurs. Most likely just trigger-happy rednecks who couldn’t strategize or aim for shit.
I suppose “Raid” wasn’t the most apt way to describe the job. It seemed more like a slaughter than anything else.
My team of six met up with the SAC/SOG team (also six) at a small underground complex used by the CIA for clandestine operations located about thirty minutes away from the farm. There, we geared up, went over tactics, and were told to repeat the objective at hand. No witnesses. No survivors. After all that was said and done, we piled into a SWAT truck and drove off. We’d never worked with the CIA in the past, so we supposed this was standard procedure.
We suited up in black tactical gear provided by the agents themselves. This part was a bit odd to me. We had our own gear, stuff we’d been using for the longest time. Both sets were nearly identical, but the agents still insisted that we use theirs.
The atmosphere in the truck was also disconcerting. Maybe it was just in my head, but everybody seemed so… stiff. The agents clutched their rifles with iron grips while staring blankly ahead. My team tried talking amongst ourselves, but every word just felt awkward. I just chalked it up to nerves, which didn’t make any sense, cause I’d never felt nerves like that before.
After what felt like hours, we finally arrived, stopping some odd yards away from the farmhouse in order to remain undetected. We piled out, got into formation, and began. I was assigned the furthest flank position, so I stayed back as everybody else moved ahead. The closest people in front of me were one of my guys and an agent.
It didn’t take long for the strangeness to amplify. I noticed that the agent was gradually moving slower and slower. Eventually, I caught up to him. Well, it was more like I was forced to catch up. If I’d been moving any slower, I would’ve stopped. This agent had ruined the entire formation without anybody at the front noticing.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked, as I walked up beside him.
Without answering my question, he handed me a small scrap of paper. I took a quick glance at it, seeing an address and a date/time written down on it.
“Meet me. Don’t be late,” he said, no inflection at all in his voice. “Do whatever you can to stay alive.”
As soon as he finished saying this, he sped up, reclaiming his original position.
Obviously, that interaction was a cause for concern. I had to start wondering just what the hell I’d gotten my team into. I seriously started considering calling it off right then and there, but before I knew it, bullets were flying. The agents at the front had taken out the two guards standing at the front entrance. Soon after, we blew the door down and stormed inside. The agents shot down a few more guards stationed on the main floor, before we started heading towards the basement.
Once we got down there, ten more guards/cult members were waiting for us. As per the mission, I raised my rifle and prepared to fire.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t have been prepared for what happened next. The agent at the front raised his fist, signaling for us to stop. Surprisingly, the guards didn’t shoot at us. In fact, they didn’t even react. The agents began turning around, before aiming their rifles at us instead.
“There’s been a change of plans.”
We’d been set up. That much was obvious.
I didn’t even have time to curse before the shit went off the rails. I ducked, feverishly trying to avoid point-blank gunfire while firing off nearly-blind retaliatory shots. I managed to stumble my way behind some cover, but not before having two bullets graze my cheek and thigh. I peeked out, seeing the cult guards with malicious grins across their faces, also shooting at my team and my team only.
Amidst the chaos I could see Faisal, one of my men, rush an agent in an attempt to take him down to the ground. It was definitely a desperation move. But despite Faisal being substantially larger than the agent, his take-down was stuffed and he was subsequently thrown into a pillar.
I could feel rage washing over me. I raised my rifle, aimed at the agent’s head and fired.
…he didn’t go down.
My aim wasn’t the issue. I could see the bullets drilling into the side of his helmet. The guy even flinched. But he didn’t fall. Instead, he finished Faisal with a shot to the head and walked off.
My mouth fell agape as I started backing up. I guess I was pretty rattled, because I stopped paying attention to my surroundings. I felt myself bump into somebody, before spinning around to see another agent staring me down. I thought about going for my knife but before I could even make a move, the agent grabbed my arm and effortlessly Judo slammed me onto the floor.
I’d been thrown before, but this was by far the most painful one I’d ever experienced. It felt like I was being tossed by a gorilla, not by a man with a similar build to me. His strength was ridiculous. Once on the ground, he mounted me, before raising a fist. I knew with every fiber of my being that a single punch would pulverize my entire skull.
As I started preparing my soul for the afterlife, the agent hesitated.
“Play dead!” He whispered, his voice a familiar one.
He slammed his fist down inches away from my head and cracked the floor next to me, before flipping me face down.
“Don’t move, no matter what happens.” He whispered again.
The pressure blanketing my body soon disappeared. The agent was getting up.
I know what he said, but I didn’t want to listen. I wanted to help my team. I got them into this mess, so I was obligated to get them out.
But… I didn’t move. I knew it was useless. The basement had gotten quiet. No more sounds of struggle. My team was dead, and it was entirely my fault.
Moments later, somebody began talking, snapping me out of my self-pity session.
“Jeez. Job well done, huh?”
It didn’t sound like one of the agents, so I assumed the voice belonged to a cult member.
What the hell is going on? I thought to myself. Were they working together?
“Now, about the payment-“
His question was interrupted by gunfire. A brief bout of additional chaos followed as more bodies dropped to the floor. I counted about ten in total. I guess they weren’t working together after all.
“Alright, let’s make this quick.” One of the agents said.
I had to wonder what he was talking about. What more did they need to do? I listened to the sounds of scuffling boots as the agents went around doing something. I opened one of my eyes just a sliver, trying to make out what the hell was going on. I wish I’d just kept it closed. I was lying right next to Ricardo, one of my team members. As I stared at his lifeless, bullet-ridden body, I wanted to scream. I Forced myself to keep my mouth shut. I continued watching as the agents went around to every single body, both my team and the cult members, and injected some kind of dark-green fluid into their veins.
Soon enough, they got to me. I held my breath and laid stiff as I felt the needle go into my arm. Thankfully the guy didn’t check my pulse. I was losing my fucking mind at this point. Not just because I was playing dead while some mystery fluid was being mixed into my bloodstream. It was the whole damn situation. If this hadn’t been the worst day of my life, then it was certainly a contender.
Afterwards, I heard the agents mumbling to each other. I couldn’t make out much, but I did hear “12 hours” being said quite a lot.
Twelve hours? Twelve hours to what?
After about five more minutes, the agents finally left. I laid still for some time after that. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to seeing what the agents had left behind.
But I wouldn't be able to get to the bottom of this by wasting my time mourning. My entire body was in pain as I pulled myself up. Trying not to look at the massacre around me, I took out the piece of paper that one agent had given to me.
The address belonged to a motel in Billings, while the meeting time was in ten hours.
I stripped off all of my gear and made myself look as presentable as I possibly could before getting the hell out of the farmhouse and trying to hitch a ride on a nearby road. A couple of hours and $200 later, somebody finally agreed to give me a ride.
Luckily, Billings isn’t too far away from the farm, so I think that I’ll be able to get to the motel in time.
However, I’m not so sure that I’m going to like whatever’s waiting for me there.
---
Credits
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