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You didn't wanna conclude your Aquaman, MB?
New Orleans
One Month Later
The foreman hands me my paycheck and walks off to give the rest of my coworkers their weekly pay. I stuff the check into my back pocket and remove my hardhat. Working construction isn't the most desirable job, but it's the only job I can get. That snake Faraday wiped me from the system. My trial, guilty verdict, and years in jail were all wiped away. Only problem is that I have a big gap in my history. Nobody wants to hire a guy who used to be in the Army and then fell off the face of the Earth for six years.
I walk off the job site and head down the street towards the small apartment I now call home. A glance into a shop window tells me that my shadow is back once again. For a week now a man has been following me. He follows me to and from work, even if I manage to lose him. With each passing day he gets a bit bolder and follows closer. Right now, he's twenty yards behind me. I turn a corner and duck into a doorway, melding into the shadows waiting for him to pass. My watcher, dressed in a black suit and tie with a black glove on his hand, stops at the doorway and turns to me.
"Sergeant Turner. I was beginning to think you liked me following you."
"Who the hell are you?" I growl, bending down into an offensive stance and preparing my body to lash out. "Why have you been following me. Who sent you?"
"I did."
A middle-aged black woman comes up from behind and looks at me.
"Ben, my name is Amanda Waller, Sarge and I are from the government. We want to talk to you."
"About what?"
"The Suicide Squad."
"Never heard of it."
Waller's face turns to stone and her eyes lock on mine. "I know you think you're doing your duty by keeping you mouth shut, but you need to get something straight: I already know about the squad. I founded it four years ago. It's my baby, my pride and joy. I can name off all the members we've had and all those that have fallen in the line of duty, Rick Flag included. I don't have time to play games, Sergeant, so get your ass in gear and follow us. Understood?"
I look at Waller, and then to Sarge, whoever he is.
"What other choice do I have?"
"Smart boy. I like it. Follow us to our car. Once we get there, tell us everything you can about your last mission."
********
"...and we were running away from the base when the bomb hit it. Blew the camp all to hell. When we got back, I tried to confront Faraday on what Flag told me. He denied it, threatened me with more jail time and death if I didn't shut up. Nightshade was still unconscious when they released me, I had no idea who to talk to and what I could even say."
I fidget in the backseat of the car with Waller next to me. Sarge is in the driver's seat, driving down I-10.
"What was your involvement with the mission planning?"
"Flag asked me for advice every now and then, but it was mostly up to him and Faraday."
"What do you know about African Petroleum?"
"I assume it's an oil company. I saw the name plastered all over the camp we went into."
"Well, Flag was right. Faraday lied to you all about your mission. You weren't going into an Islamic extremist training camp, it was a housing facility for AP's security teams. A few klicks away from the camp is an oil field. That particular oil field is being sought out by a rival oil company. Strausburg Energy Solutions."
Waller passes me a photo, it's grainy. A security camera snapshot of a man walking through an airport terminal.
"That photo was taken the day you were released from prison. That's Farday, boarding a flight out of the country. The passport he used was under the fake name of Robert Kanigher. When he went AWOL, people began to take notice...I began to take notice. Sarge and I came down to Louisiana and didn't like what we found. The squad's team leader was KIA, and Ops Control up and left. Something didn't feel right, so we went digging. Sarge and I combed through Faraday's encrypted files and conducted interviews with your teammates still in jail. Faraday's legit ID and his assumed name were added to watch lists and we began to search for any info we could regarding both names."
Waller takes the photo from my hand and replaces it with a printout of a bank statement.
"This is a Swiss bank account set up with Faraday's false name. As you can see, it's flush with 6.5 million dollars. For the past six months there have been deposits into the account with each deposit a little over a mil."
Waller hands me another sheet. This one with dates on it.
"Each of those deposits occurred within 72 hours of a completed mission the Suicide Squad carried out. Some of my buddies in the CIA tracked the deposits to a corresponding Swiss bank account owned by a shell company that links to Strausburg Energy Solutions. Faraday was on their payroll. Each mission you pulled? You were doing it for SES. Each and every mission correlates with keeping up with SES' agenda."
Waller ticks off names on her fingers.
"Cortez, the drug dealer you killed, he owned a piece of land off the coast of Costa Rica that SES wanted to drill oil on. With his death, the property went into arrears and SES bought it up for a fraction of what it cost. Farook, the Egyptian president you saved, well his first act in office was to allow SES rights to manage and distribute across the globe, all the oil produced in Egypt. The group of pirates in Haiti were fishermen who blocked SES' rights to offshore drilling. The man you killed in Manila, a former SES employee who was committing corporate sabotage."
I look straight ahead, stunned...I don't know what to say. Faraday was a jerk...but I didn't think he could do this...
"...Why are you telling me all this?" Is all I can muster to say.
"I want you back on the team, this time as a willing volunteer. I stepped away from my project, and the Suicide Squad suffered for it. No more. From this moment on, Sarge Steel and I are now doing Operations Control for the team. We're going to hunt Faraday down and make him pay for betraying his country..but I need a field leader."
"I think you're looking in the wrong area. I'm just a noncom."
"I know that, Sergeant. But it's for one mission only. The most important one, one we need to undertake before tracking down Faraday."
She takes the other pieces of paper from my hand and passes me another picture. It's an aerial photo, zoomed in and blown up several times over. It's of a camp somewhere in the desert.
"This picture was taken three weeks ago by a UAV. It's a prison facility the Nigerian rebels are using. See the man in the middle?"
She points to the overhead shot of a man, walking between two armed soldiers. I can't make out much, but I can make out enough. He's a white man...with red hair.
"No..."
"Yes," Waller says with a twinkle in her eyes. "Took me time to confirm it, but Rick Flag is alive and he's rotting in a Nigerian prison. I need someone to get him out of there. I need to warn you, though, this mission is extremely dangerous. A suicide mission."
I look at Waller and smirk.
"I know just the team to use."
Thanks for the props, MB. Both parts of the montage are up, and that's a wrap on season III!
MVP: Byrd Man. Always on top of things but never abusive, has very interesting characters and has kept this RPG a float many times. In a message board where thereve been so many good concepts for RPGS come and go and die out before their time Byrd is the driving force behind this one.
Is there someone else named Byrd Man that I don't know about?
Oh yeah lost my head there for a moment...Well I should've said never physically abusive.