The jungle is dense enough that I'm able to keep myself concealed from the surveillance team's sight with minimal effort. They're spaced out too evenly rather than working together in packs of twos or threes as a more experienced group would. Perhaps they, quite naively, believe the possession of big fuck-off guns will be enough to keep them safe if they come under attack.
I'm almost annoyed Bullet thought he needed to strong-arm an agency like FISA into getting one of their agents to take out an extremist group so clearly in their infant stage. Bullet could have sent any outside team of mercenaries, men unattached to him in an official capacity, to take them out. Although I suppose then he wouldn't have the pleasure of forcing me to work for him again, or muddying the reputation of FISA, even if he's the only one who knows about it.
Bullet enjoys things like that. Feeling special. Holding secrets over people's heads. He's a really sick bastard, one of them who enjoys psychological warfare more than the physical. If the man could sell weapons meant to fuck people up mentally, he would.
It made my power rage inside me to have Leo so close to that man. I hated allowing Bullet the satisfaction of seeing me squirm, but I hated how he looked at Leo even more. It was clear Bullet worked out within the first five minutes that Leo meant something to me. I know it was partially my fault for letting my protectiveness show, but I couldn't help it. When Bullet talked about Leo being attractive, insinuating that's why FISA sent him in, and looked at him like he wanted badly to reach out and touch him, to ruin Leo the way he has so many other people before, I saw red.
Bullet has a penchant for treating the people he sleeps with like toys he can break without consequence. It made me sick to imagine him getting his hands on Leo. There's a chance if we did as Leo said and went back to Bullet with a “no” over dealing with his extremist problem, he would make a counteroffer despite saying he wouldn't. There are no rules with Bullet. He just pretends there are. I wouldn't have put it past him to make Leo part of the deal instead. It's the kind of thing he'd do, especially if he thought it would hurt me.
Leo might have agreed to it as well, which is the scary thing. He's against killing people to get the right results, but he'd have far fewer problems putting himself in the line of fire. It’s not atypical for agents to use sex as a way of getting information from targets. At least it wasn't for OI agents. FISAmightdraw cleaner lines than that, but I doubt it, not with how willing they were to give me free rein over this mission.
There's no way I could ever let that happen. I'd kill a thousand radicals to protect Leo from Bullet's sick games. So maybe me doing this isn't just about getting the information and completing the assignment, I'll admit that. Maybe it's about shielding Leo the only way I know how.
I get a bit closer to the camp, moving through the trees high above where any of the gun-toting members of RA would be able to see me, to check out how many more extremists I'll have to deal with once I get past their pitiful excuse for a surveillance team.
From my vantage point, I’m able to see into RA’s camp. It has a very basic layout, with only one large tent and a cluster of tables covered in maps set out in the open. Sitting smack dab in the middle of the camp are Bullet’s stolen goods, the crates of weapons peeking out from underneath a large green tarp.
I count ten more men within the camp, either hanging around near the vehicles, mostly jeeps and a few large trucks, likely meant to transport the guns, or walking in and out of the single tent they've bothered to set up.
Out of thoroughness more than any genuine concern over my ability to handle RA, I spend some more time observing and noting their patterns. After one hour, they change out their surveillance team, but the set-up seems to be the same. None of them stick together, instead scattering like sand in the wind.
Once I'm fairly certain there won’t be any surprises, I move back through the treetops, planning to deal with the men on watch first and then work my way in.
Alone as they are, it won't be difficult to pick them off one by one.
Since I didn't bring my silencer with me, using a gun is out unless I want to alert the whole camp and risk them making a run for it.
I go back to the truck, thankfully not yet stolen, and use my power to release the passenger-side window from its frame.
Taking the pane of glass with me, I return to the trees. Moving through the dense jungle is a bit trickier with a pane of glass in tow, but it only takes me a little longer to track down a lone member of RA, especially as he’s making a very loud mess out of playing soldier.
Staying high enough the man won't notice the green glow, I crack the passenger-side window's glass into pieces I can use as projectiles. It was a decent-sized window, and the small weapons I've created should be more than enough to use on the watchdogs patrolling around the camp like incompetent, dizzy snowflakes.
I worry for a moment the man heard the glass splinter into pieces and will get suspicious, but he barely even twitches, apparently assuming it's just more jungle noise.
I'm getting more and more offended over being sent after these idiots. Professional pride is a thing, even for assassins.
When I drop onto a lower branch, my target surprises me by quickly turning towards the sound rather than dismissing it as more jungle noise: praise be, silver fucking star. Unfortunately for him, I'm not giving out participation trophies today. He barely has time to raise his gun before I'm able to get a large chunk of glass lodged in his eye. I drive it in fast and hard, piercing the eyeball and brain in one power-driven thrust.
There's a crisp sound as the glass shard sinks deep enough into his brain matter to send his body spiralling and shutting down from the shock of significant trauma. The man drops to his knees, the fall slower than you'd expect from watching films. It’s like he's stuck in slow motion as the world moves on at normal speed around him.
Eventually, he collapses to the jungle floor in an undignified heap, his large gun crushed uselessly beneath him.
I wait a few moments just to be certain the man is dead before pushing on in search of my next target, once again using the dense tree foliage as cover. Glass shards dance between my hands, green light pulsing around them in time with my steady heartbeat.
From my previous observation of their patterns, I learned the guards check in with each other every ten minutes via radio. This means I'll need to be quicker with the next few kills, to make sure they don't alert their comrades to my one-man insurgency of their camp.
Every other member of the patrol unit proves pathetically easy to find. I barely have to track them at all; the idiots practically stumble into my path like flies getting themselves caught in a web.
Of the ten men remaining, I get five of them the way I got the first, by stabbing shards of glass through their skulls. Three others take larger and blunter pieces to their jugulars. This mode of attack is slightly more difficult because it means having to yank the glass out again, so they'll bleed out quickly.
I don’t flinch or falter when I’m reminded of my brother and what I did to him, instead pushing that shit down like I was trained to do. I wouldn't have survived this long if I wasn't able to still do my work whilst swimming through trauma flashbacks.
When only two remain, I take more time, allowing them to radio camp and declare the perimeter safe, devoid of any potential threats, before striking. I don't want the people back at camp to get suspicious of their human surveillance cameras going silent on them.
After doing a quick check around the perimeter to ascertain the true defencelessness of the camp and confirming I didn't miss anyone, I make my way forward through the treetops again.
I consider corpse robbing one of the dead men's rifles but ultimately discard the idea. There's enough glass floating between my hands to use on the rest of RA, and I still have my Sig for back up if I need it.
