What we hadn't prepared for and had no way to predict was that we'd be filmed in action. 18 hours after we'd wiped out the kill squad, an email landed in HM's inbox, and a half-million others, that had a link to a video. The cartel squad had laid a trap for us, and had filmed their entire operation, from their first shots until we'd taken off to go back home. It was shot in good-quality infrared, and had everything: Paratroopers landing, the biplane circling and trashing vehicles, and PBE troopers going from body to body making sure the kill squad was dead.
That would have been bad enough, but it also went to various news outlets and gov't agencies. The news agencies immediately and predictably thought that the US Marine Corps was sending a US Navy SFOD-A team to wipe out suit-wearing Mexican stock traders.
The DEA knew it wasn't them, realized that we were why they'd been losing bribe money, and called the ATF. The ATF lost their shit when they saw the video of us wiping out a tactical team with automatic weapons fire, and called both the FBI and various Senators. The Senators called press conferences, while the FBI assigned a large team of agents to start collating all the rumors they'd picked up over the previous six months about an "elite paramilitary organization" operating in the area, then called a caterer for the local field office's field team. The CIA operatives working in the DEA, ATF, FBI, and the Legislature called their bossess, who turned down the lights, put in their earpieces, and adjusted their ties, then called us on our FOB's unlisted land line.
The Central Intelligence Agency. The C. I. Motherfuckin' A. They're elitists, they have absolutely no concept of right and wrong, they can't be trusted to not stab everyone involved in both sides in the back, and they're the absolute definition of an anachronistic organization. While the FBI gets bogged down in public-relations productions like chasing down Anonymous and high-profile serial killer cases, the CIA has never much cared about their image, and is probably the only agency left that's still obsessed with their original mission: Quietly kill as many people as possible in the name of Protecting America, Fuck Yeah.
So naturally, while the shit was hitting every fan from Los Angeles to New York, the CIA watched the video a few times, realized that they'd get rid of us faster by paying us to wipe out a Mexican cartel, and decided to work with us.
31 hours after we'd returned from our failed attempt to rescue the rancher, a Lear jet landed on our runway. It hadn't told us it was incoming, and everyone who could walk grabbed a rifle. Even the Boss had grabbed a rifle to greet the plane. When only one man got off, wearing a white T-shirt and a flak vest, the Boss strode out to meet the man in true PBE style, wearing his finest top hat...and nothing else. No one was going to tell HM to put clothes on when he had a weapon on him.
I was impressed with the Langley cat, he didn't even blink. He obviously knew to expect a large amount of weirdness, and after few quiet words with HM, they walked into HM's office. Ten minutes later, both of them walked out, and HM called us all into the theater.
"OK, that was the called we'd been waiting for. Agent Smith of the CIA has just handed us a contract to go South across the border to begin anti-cartel operations in Mexico. We're being paid by the US government now, but we're still not officially working for them, which gives us a lot of freedom in how we do things, and a lot of room for them to cut us loose if things go bad.
"We start in three days, Major Max and the vehicle teams have been working on refitting some vehicles for long-range recon into Mexico. You'll be taking those and doing basically the same thing the SAS did in Africa. We'll do resupply work from here, and your jobs will basically to kill everything with two legs and a weapon, no questions. All available intel says that the only folks with weapons are the guys working for one of the cartels, so they're all legal targets.
"Officially, you're not trying to start a war, so there's no point in trying to take ground. Kill cartel members, burn the drugs, steal everything else. You have your orders, get to it. Vendimus Mortem!"
"FUCK YOUR SHIT!!" we all yelled back.
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