Offensive Operations

Chapter 6

6

It was only an hour by helicopter, but soon Cody was back at the White House. His first major issue had shown up and now he needed to prove to the people that he could handle this. On the inside, he was being torn apart. Someone was making them look bad, but it was even worse because no one knew they existed outside of a few select people. Now the public would forever know the Delta Squad as the enemy.

Cody wasted no time. He took a breath and got off the chopper as soon as it landed. He had to be confidence itself, any wavering on anything now and the public would tear him to pieces, the whole country would melt into nothing. He was sure by now everyone knew about the terrorist attack, the podium and stage was already to go when he arrived. He was going to waste no time in getting to the point. He walked right to it.

His mind was playing out everything from a sniper’s bullet in the chest, or a bomb going off. All kinds of terrible things that could have happened once he got on this stage, but he had to do it all the same. As he walked to the stage he could feel the cameras on him every inch of the way.

Cody walked on to the stage and stood behind the podium and couldn’t believe what he was going to say.

"My fellow Americans as you already know we have been attacked. This attack is symbolic and meant to frighten all of us, it won’t work, we will not be broken. This will be short and to the point. A message to the terrorists that call themselves the Delta Squad. You will be captured or killed. Whatever comes first. If you give up now, you will be allowed to keep your lives. You have until the sunset of today to turn yourself in, then we come for you with everything we have," Cody said to the cameras and he hoped whoever was responsible for this mess was watching.

The anger in his eyes spoke volumes and could not be hidden by any amount of acting to be calm. It felt like the war was back on. 188 was gone, but this had a different feel to it. 188 always announced his plans out of arrogance. This came with no warning.

"No questions, please," Cody said and walked back into the White House.

The others were already there waiting for him inside. "So, where did you end up putting the "Delta Squad" any ways?" Cody asked the others who were there. Wyatt just laughed.

"My plan worked. They are at Fort DIAB as we speak. I teleported them. I hope they didn’t die. They should be safe there for the time being. I did good this time," Wyatt said, no one smiled at this, Fort DIAB was a terrible place to put anyone and they were sure that It was the first place Wyatt could think of. It would better than being out on the streets if things did go as bad as they could, however.

Blake just sighed and brought the current situation back up to the point.

"You knew this was going to happen, Cody. Why did you let it happen?" Blake asked him straight out. Cody looked away from him for a moment, the anger in his eyes didn’t diminish at the accusation.

“Honestly I had no idea this would happen. I figured losing the war would make most of them go into hiding without leadership. The Syndicate didn’t know this was coming, no one detected it,” Cody said to him, it wasn’t good enough but it was true.

"The only way to take down all of the generals of 188 was to let them think we didn't know they were coming or where they were. We had no luck chasing them down in the war so it wouldn’t have been any different if we were hunting them. Besides those freaks are not your average criminals. They would have slaughtered hundreds just to get away. Now that we know exactly where they are, we can take them all down at the same time," Wyatt said, sticking up for Cody.

Josh shook his head. "You really think it'll be that easy. They took our name, Cody and you just declared us as the enemies. We can't do anything and no force you can call up can do anything about it either. This is bigger than you think it is. As far as everyone in the world is concerned, we are enemy number one. If we show up all the bad guy has to do is sit back and watch as the big guns come after us,” Josh said to him and continued.

“Someone’s been planning this for a while now,” Josh finished.

Cody's thoughts were broken when he said that. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean that, well, the day I got back the streets were flooded with this new d**g, the Crimson Eye. Nobody knew where it came from but its appearance and the end of the war is not a random thing, it does terrible things to people. It reminds me of the BOBO soldiers we saw, something is going on and you won't even bother to look past your plan of letting all the bad guys come to you. This new job of yours is blinding you and now we are the enemies. This is all connected," Josh said acting paranoid about something only he seemed to be able to see.

"Well, thank you for that information. First of all it doesn't matter who the delta squad is. Nobody knows who we are. Enemy or not it doesn't matter. We can pull this off. Some d**g has you concerned when the entire world could be at risk? Get your issues straight here. We know where the enemy is, we have a good idea who it is. We can take them down," Cody replied to him.

Josh didn't feel comfortable with the situation, losing a landmark like that was a small price to pay in the mind of the commander. He knew they would want revenge, he didn’t think it would come in such a big fashion like this.

The door to the oval office clicked then opened. By the time, it opened the president's eyes were already on the door, so too was the rest of the squad.

"Sir, we have a…" the guy stopped. "Hey, what are you guys doing here?" Wyatt smiled at those words but then he was a little worried. Will was supposed to be at DIAB. What was he doing here?

"Will, haven't seen you in a long time. How's it going?" Josh then walked to him and slammed his hand into Will's back, the force was too much though and the new guy almost went sailing into the desk.

"Easy, easy! You forget just how much force you have," Will said and grimaced in pain and regained his balance.

"Sorry. So, Captain Bootstrap, what are you doing here?" Josh asked. "Yeah, the last time we saw you, you were sent to Xy. What brings you back?" Dustin asked and didn't seem to care about seeing him, but seemed annoyed to learn he was back. Was it Xy or DIAB, Dustin couldn’t remember. All he wondered was who was taking care of the kids if Will wasn’t there.

"Guys I’d love to explain but there is no time to explain. If you would pay more attention to, say, I don't know, the television you'd know why. Right now, we have bigger problems. The Delta Squad is coming this way and we need to get the president out of here, so if you'll come with me, Sir, now."

Will was impatient and nervous. He had not changed a bit despite being a General.

“They are coming here? No one is stopping them?” Cody asked, he was shocked. “No, sir, you don’t understand. They are flying in weird armor suits. In the city. Shooting at them would result in extremely high civilian casualties. We can only watch for now,” Will replied to him. Cody’s left eye twitched. He was ready to sacrifice a lot of people to bring these maniacs down. His violent instincts were beginning to surface.

“Very well, we’ll get out of here,” Cody said, sticking to the role he was playing for now. The others were visibly uncomfortable about all of this situation. Mainly the news that the enemy could fly was most distressing to them.

Will shook his head and kept talking, giving too much information.

"They say they want to talk to you. As you know its American policy that we don't deal with these types, ever. The best choice is to retreat to find a better plan, just give us time and we’ll do it." Will said to him, realized at that moment he’d said too much.

Silence overcame the room. Once Will said they wanted to talk, the others knew that Cody wouldn’t pass up a chance to meet the enemy in person.

"No, I have to handle this personally. I can‘t meet my first crisis as a leader running away, Will. You need to get out of here now. I know how to handle this," Cody said plainly and with more confidence now as the tension seemed to get worse.

"But Sir. This is a bad--" Blake grabbed the protester by the collar of his fancy suit and lifted him off the ground. “General, the president has made a choice. Get back to DIAB, we will handle it from here," Blake said and he threw him towards the door. Blake had no time for whiners today, and he took his role as being a secret service agent very seriously.

Will was able to remain standing. Only just barely, he was really getting sick of being treated like this but he knew these guys were in the military with him in the past and they hadn‘t changed much at all.

That didn’t explain what they were doing here or why Cody was the new President, everything was still very unclear to him. Will was doing his best to function in a world that had been turned on its head by recent events.

"Sir, you should really look into getting some better friends," Will said but Cody ignored him despite their differences he was pretty sure he couldn‘t get better friends then this even if nobody knew who they really were.

"Will. Get yourself to Fort DIAB. I have a special mission for you there. Be there as fast as you can," Will just shook his head but an order like this was too hard to not be excited about

“A special mission in Fort DIAB. I’ve only been there once. I’ll consider it an honor, Sir,” he said and walked out closing the door behind him.

“I thought he was running the place,” Wyatt said to himself.

“I guess not, but it’s not like we get a newsletter or anything. I have no idea what’s going on anymore,” Dustin replied.

"Bootstrap, of all the people you could have called upon to be part of your team, you pick him?" Wyatt almost laughed at this. “I didn’t pick him. He’s been in this machine since just before we even became the squad. He’s weird but reliable,” Cody said.

“I don’t know how he ever made it through the Marine boot camp,” Dustin replied. They had known of one another for a long time, but Will, like everyone else had no idea who they actually turned out to be. “I’m sure Will and the kids will get along just fine, what’s the worst that could happen?” Wyatt asked himself.

He could feel his plan falling apart by the second, nothing was as he thought it was.