The TOC is exactly like the last one, as it was in Jordan, a star shaped table with Blackwood at one of its points, along with a number of screens displaying all the data the suits and spooks managed to gather while the rest of the team was training over the past few months.

  John sips his morning coffee at his seat while flipping through the papers before him, eyes still subconsciously waiting for a signature line at the bottom even after years of not seeing one.

  Shaking his head, John closes the paper and looks to Blackwood who makes sure everyone is well and settled before clearing his throat to begin.

  “Good morning everyone, I hope you have been having fun because from today forward we are back to work. Our newest contract is Operation Deianeira, and our particular Hercules in need of killing is this man right here.”

  Pointing to the screen, the Cuban man from the first video that launched this operation, as well as several other photographs—some newer and some older—display over the screens.

  He is a well built man in his early 20’s, with tanned skin and short cropped black hair shaved on both sides.

  “He looks like you, Spaz.” Kid throws an elbow his direction.

  “Fuck of, I’m hotter.” Spaz traces his jawline with his finger to the sound of several groans.

  “Continuing.” Blackwood eyes the group and waits to regain their attention. “Cesar Moreno, he lives with his mother, father, and four younger siblings in the city of Havan, the port city just south of Key West, Florida.”

  The screens shift some more, displaying photographs of a modest two story home. The white exterior is faintly stained with running trails of black, one of the windows is boarded up and several panes of glass on the second floor have obvious bullet holes in them.

  “Cesar is 22 years old, he dropped out of school at 12 to help his father with work at a local grocer, a grocer that became the primary safehouse for the owners extracurricular activities.”

  Photos of the store in question, an equally modest market on the corner of an otherwise busy street, housing a number of men inside, some wearing rifles across their backs while other photos show men carrying boxes out of the back with armed guards.

  “Packing a lot of heat to be transporting produce,” Spaz nods.

  “That is because they stopped selling produce almost entirely ten years ago and switched to cocaine.” Blackwood clicks his remote and photos of packed drugs are shown. “Cesar began running cocaine at 15 years old, and based on our intel we can determine that his body… changed for lack of a better word approximately a year ago. This accelerated his drug running operation substantially. Over this past year he has gone from near poverty to almost the exact opposite.”

  “Then why is he living in that shitty house still?” Kane asks the question brewing in John's own mind.

  “Because despite how he rips men apart, he is a sentimental boy, with a soft spot for his hard working parents. Aside from us, nobody with regular contact with Cesar knows where he lives. He keeps a low profile in the streets and when he isn’t ‘working’. A big house means a big target and while Cesar might be bulletproof, his family is not.” Blackwood explains.

  The spooks are some scary mother fuckers. The amount of intel they have on this kid is nearing unreasonable. The packet before John details everything he could ever hope to know about the boy. Like the fact that his grandfather beat him as a child, and his psychological profile reflected that in his desire to have power over other people. The packet shows all of his movements, taken from a mix of aerial surveillance, and stalkers who had been trailing him for months now.

  He knows that Cesar lost his virginity at the age of 16, that he chipped a tooth in a soccer—or rather football, incident.

  The thought of Blackwood having all this data on John made him squirm. With the knowledge that he was trailed all throughout his time in Oasis meant that they probably had just as much if not more info on John than they did this boy.

  “Do we know how he became bullet proof?” Casper asks, tapping at the stack. “All this intel and not a word on how he came to shrug off a 50 cal?”

  “The details are unclear, at this moment in time the only thing we can trace is an ‘inciting incident.’” Blackwood flips through a few more photos before landing on a gruesome scene.

  The photograph displays an abandoned building, where the corpses of several young teens litter the floor in various states of rot and decay.

  “Cesar was here, playing in this building his friends would frequent to smoke and drink and get up to trouble. One of the local gangs stumbled upon them as they stumbled upon a stash. They must have recognized Cesar as a rival and thought... well we can all guess what they thought. The children were slaughtered one by one. Each body showed signs of torture, truly horrific shit. However Cesar was the only one to make it out alive, unharmed, and leave several bodies behind along with the broken remains of several AK-47 rifles.”

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  More photos display the adult corpses, each one was a mangled mess, twisted and torn like a child playing with clay.

  “But other than this moment there are no signs of what gave him his abilities?”

  “Deal with a devil?” Blackbeard asks.

  “We doubt it. Lilith’s debrief confirmed for us that no other devils other than herself and Bazel made it out of hell, and she told me that she would inform me if any others managed to escape.”

  “Maybe... he ate some part of an anomalous entity?” Kid suggests, “Remember the fishermen after that sea creature in the horn of Africa? People who ate fish that ate the monster’s parts we couldn’t salvage had heightened senses, extended lung capacity, some even showed physical mutations.”

  “Cesar is a religious boy, devout catholic.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Bronco asks warily.

  “His family is steeped in tradition. They eat together every night, no exceptions. Cesar still has regular contact with this father in their day to day drug operation and they don’t even so much as snack without sharing their food with the other. If it was something he ate, drank, or breathed in then the rest of his family should be showing the same changes, they are not.”

  “Maybe it was the silver flash again? Something random?” Spaz starts, but Blackwood cuts him off.

  “We can speculate all day, the contract remains the same however. We are tasked with putting an end to Caesar's reign. Though as per the DOD it is requested that, if possible, we secure him alive so they can conduct testing on the subject to determine the nature of his durability and enhanced abilities.”

  “Why is the operation a reference to Greek mythos if Cesar was Roman? Wouldn’t a better operation name be something like... Brutus? Or Operation Senate?” Kid asks with a raised hand.

  “An excellent question,” Blackwood turns to Casper.

  “Because the DOD are filled with idiots.” Casper responds.

  “Oorah” John fist bumps the ex navy seal, and Spaz, the ex Delta.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Blackbeard asks, shifting in his chair to pay attention to the fun parts.

  “The operation is broken into three phases,” Blackwood begins, moving the screen over to show maps, photos, team compositions and all the juicy details John is eager to sink his teeth into. “Stage one. In two days Cesar is set to deliver a large shipment of cocaine to a boat docked west of Punta los Colorados. His route will take him south from the grocer, where he will stop at five key locations.”

  Blackwood points out the buildings in question in time with red outlines appearing to highlight them in the mass.

  “After loading the shipment, Cesar and his team will wait till nightfall before setting up due northwest to leave the bay and be out into open waters. After which he is to dock at Summerland Key where the shipment will be picked up by a 3rd party in the states.”

  Blackwood turns to the table as the teams are split into duo pairs on a screen behind him, John’s name being the only one without callsign yet.

  Apparently saving the day with a fucking laser rifle wasn’t enough to warrant a name, nor any of his other heroic feats in the several dozen missions since then, though it doesn’t matter too much as John doesn’t have anyone attached to his name, so just John is fine.

  “Team one, phase one is Kid and Cat. You are to infill at Cesar’s home after he has exited the range of his enhanced hearing. Your task is to bag the family, place them into the van driven by John and Spaz.”

  Kid and Bella share a look and a nod.

  “The four of you will drive west, opposite Cesar’s path of travel until you reach our warehouse located here off Lamparilla and San Ignacio. The family will be delivered, secured, and held until phase two is enacted.”

  Blackwood turns to the others now.

  “Phase two has Casper and Kane at the docks, you will infill to the ship's location via dive, where under the cover of shadow you will scale the boat's exterior and secure the vessel. Once you are confirmed aboard the vessel via coms line you will receive a phone call from team one with the voices of his family. You will use his family as leverage to gain his cooperation. The two of you will instruct him to take a detour. Cesar will be dropped off at the west docks where he will be received by team four composed of our remainders Bronco and Blackbeard.”

  Bronco and Blackbeard share grins, while Casper seems as happy as can be to have a swim on this mission.

  “Phase three has Casper and Kane remaining with the boat, where you will link with a joint unit of coast guards and a unit deployed from naval air station Key West to conduct an arrest on both the runners and the receivers. Meanwhile team three will link with teams one and two at the warehouse. Who will have equipped themselves with the weapons and armor already there to bag Cesar. Once Cesar is in hand, our sailors will be set to receive him aboard our Williams Kraken where he will be brought to a black-site shared with US intelligence for interrogation and experimentation.”

  “And if we can’t capture him?” John asks.

  “Then we drop him and deliver his corpse to the US intelligence black-site and take home only two thirds our total contract payout,” Blackwood says solemnly.

  John never cared about the money, after all he had nothing to spend it on, though he had to admit it was impressive how much they were making from operations.

  “Any other questions?” Blackwood asks the team.

  No one says anything, so with a clap of Blackwood's hands the teams are dismissed.

  “We are green light in two days, individual packets have been sent to your rooms detailing the exact specs for each team.”

  John can feel the static in the air as they file out of the TOC. Finally they had a mission that was more reasonable. Super durable drug lord aside, they weren’t dark on coms, they had more than enough intel to operate from, they would have the TOC in their ear, his new weapons and armor, and a solid fucking plan.

  With a fist bump to Spaz and a comment about him being given passenger princess duty, the teams fully disperse to go over their plans.

  John can’t help but smile, ready to get back to work.