Alicia never talked about the things she did or saw in Iraq, not even to the rangers that considered themselves to be close to her. The only thing they had were the testimonies and articles written by the journalists about the horrifying events that took place during the last year of the war.
Towns full of corpses, entire garrisons of insurgents massacred, half of Fallujah had been annihilated, bodies hanging from lampposts, charred, sliced in half, both from American soldiers and insurgents. No one knew what was going on anymore on both sides, radios had gone silent. For years to come, the survivors of this catastrophe would speak legends about a demon that was born from the grief caused by the war.
The name of that demon was: “Butcher.”
Alicia remained silent for an entire year, isolating herself from the entire company, not even talking to Conrad no matter how much he imposed himself on her. He began to wonder if Iraq had finally broken her, he wondered if that wasteland had managed to succeed at what he had failed so many times to do. However, one look in her eyes was enough to know that it was more complicated than that.
No, she was not broken, it was something worse than that: she was changed, but Conrad didn’t know if it was a good or bad change.
He was about to find out.
The Crimson Rangers were hired for a job in Afghanistan, a kidnapping of sorts. There was a man known simply as “Arash the unerring”, leader of a cell of extremists that were on the crosshairs of all security agencies across the globe. The client that contacted the rangers wanted to get ahead of the curve and think about the bigger picture at the same time. The rangers were supposed to find Arash and capture him at all cost, then take him to a certain location where he would be interrogated by the client’s benefactors. They wouldn’t even need to take care of recognizance, the client had already done that part for them, so Conrad and his posse took the job.
Conrad’s first mistake was reaching out to Alicia and asking her if she wanted to participate. “You have to work to be part of this company. You’ll lose faculties if you stay idle too long.” -He said, and of course she agreed to tag along.
Conrad’s second mistake he committed when they arrived in the country. He commanded Alicia to go ahead of the group and scout the area, keep an eye on their hideout and make an assessment of their forces. She nodded and headed on out.
Just to make sure she didn’t get any funny ideas Conrad only allowed her to take a single knife and a Glock 17 with a single mag. He assumed she would have enough common sense to know if she were to do something stupid, she wouldn’t be able to get out of the situation alive with just that; That was his third and last mistake.
The rangers would rendezvous with Alicia at dusk close to the perimeter of Arash’s hideout out in the desert. They drove through the road in a line of three Humvees, armed to the teeth, but they weren’t expecting to use any of that weaponry, at least not yet.
When they were close enough, Conrad called Alicia through the radio, but there was no reply.
“Scout, this is commander, what’s the situation? Over.”
Still no response.
“Scout, what’s the situation? Respond. Over.”
There were a few seconds of static through the line, she finally turned on the radio, but what came next was not her voice, but the agonizing screams of a man that was being carved and gutted like a fish.
Everyone jumped out of their seats, Floyd quickly turned off the radio.
“We have to hurry.” -He said. – “She went and did it.”
They stepped on the accelerator, maybe it was not too late, maybe they were just in time to stop her before she threw the entire operation out of the window.
The target was supposed to be hidden inside a complex comprised of tunnels under a mountain and the entrance was supposed to be guarded by at least 4 combatants.
When they arrived, they found the four combatants dead on the ground, one of them was missing his rifle and another one was missing his head. The metal door to access the tunnel was wide open, the missing head was lying next to it, there was another corpse at the entrance, his throat slit open.
“Holy fuck…” – Said Cole, the squad’s marksman. – “What the hell did she do?”
“We have no time for that, we must go in.” -Commanded Conrad as he raised up his rifle and walked into the tunnels.
Inside they found yet another massacre. Bodies of extremists sprawled all around, gunned down, thorn by grenades, cut by a sharp knife and an exceptional might. Inside a room they found Farid, Arash’s second in command, he had been nailed to a wall. A nail for both hands, arms, legs and finally a single one lobotomizing him.
“She’s gone completely insane.” -Said Aiden as he looked at the carnage. – “Where the hell is she? it’s so quiet in here.”
“Let’s keep going.” -Said Conrad, looking away from Farid’s corpse and moving on.
They had to be careful to not trip over the corpses, there were at least fifty of them, and they could only assume she had been the one that killed them all.
The rangers finally made it to the command room after having to deal with the pungent scent of blood flooding the tunnels. They finally found her, sulking on a chair right next to the corpse of Arash.
There she was, hanging her head low, holding onto that rifle she had snatched from an enemy’s dead hands, she hadn’t even noticed that they were there.
“You fucking brat!” -The commander’s belligerence brought her back from her stupor as he grabbed onto her chair and pushed her away to the wall. They quickly examined the corpse, and they didn’t need the medic’s professional assessment to know that this man had died not long ago, clearly amidst a deep and agonizing pain none of them would ever want to feel. After confirming Arash’s death, he turned his attention back to Alicia. – “We needed that man alive, you sick bitch!”
He threw a haymaker down on Alicia’s face, but she didn’t stop it, she just received it and endured it. She looked back up to him, expecting the next blow. Her silent defiance only made him more furious.
“You…agh!” – He grabbed her by the collar and kept punching her in the face. He kept punching until his knuckles began to bleed and swell, no one dared to interfere, not only because that would be defying the commander’s authority, but also because they thought that was the least she deserved as a punishment.
She didn’t counter a single one of those punches, she just remained still, staring at Conrad with those animalistic eyes of her that told him “I don’t care, I’m a demon, you cannot do anything to hurt me.”, but this only made him even more furious.
He kept punching until his knuckles cracked and he was forced to stand back by the pain on his own hands. Alicia remained in the chair, her nose shattered, bleeding from both nostrils, the mouth, an eye and her jaw was swelling.
Conrad was about to continue with his healthy hand, disregarding the pain he felt in the other one, but he was promptly interrupted.
“Sir, you have to see this.” – Said Aiden.
“What is it? can’t you see I’m busy!?”
“This is important, sir. Look.” – Aiden showed him an USB. -We found this on the table, we checked it out on Arno’s computer. It contained a folder full of documents pertaining to this cell’s operations, including a whole list of names and associations with other groups… -He looked back at Alicia, snorting out the excessive blood that had gathered inside her nostrils, splashing it on the ground, still with a deprecating glare. – “Eh…We also found a book, Arash used it to keep a schedule. He’s supposed to meet up with some important people in two weeks.”
“We don’t know if this is what the client is looking for, Aiden.” -Argued the commander.
“Maybe not, maybe it’s just what they need. What matters is that there’s the slightest chance that these pieces of information might appease the client and we can still get something out of this really bloody mess.”
Conrad pondered on it. Aiden had a point. Even if their current client didn’t want any of the things they found in that mass grave, they could still make an arrangement with them, or find someone that was interested in them instead. After all, information on terrorist groups and activities was just as valuable as eight bars of gold in those times, and the price didn’t show any signs of going down any time soon.
“Alright. We’ll take everything. Let’s go back to the base.” -Said Conrad. Everyone picked up the information and any additional piece they could find in the vicinity and walked away.
“What do we do with her, commander?” -Said Aiden.
Conrad looked back at her, still sulking in that chair like so discarded puppet.
He just spat on the ground and walked away, making sure to not trip over the cadavers sprawled around.
Aiden thought of executing her in order to put an end to her murderous yet somehow sad existence. She even saw his fingers approximate to his backup pistol, but he quickly reconsidered it.
“I don’t think I’ll ever understand why you came up and killed everyone when you were already informed on what we had come to do, Alicia.”
She closed her eyes, feeling exhausted by everything that had happened, including the beatdown she had just put up with.
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“But I can’t blame you. Honestly, these animals deserved it.” -He looked at the corpses around them. – “You were just way more honest about it than all of us.”
He stretched his hand towards her, but she didn’t return the gesture. She stood up from the chair and averted her gaze from his.
“…I’m sorry…” -She said, those were the first words she would say in a very long time, and Aiden felt kind of weird for being the one to hear them among all others. – “…I just can’t stand it…”
“What? What can’t you stand?” –He asked, trying to overcome the surprise of hearing Alicia speak.
She looked back at him. She looked so tired and dejected, but that fire the commander saw within her was still pretty far from dying. – “…That every second it passes, they are still alive…”
Alicia dropped the rifle and walked away, not before spitting some blood that had accumulated in her mouth.
Aiden was left puzzled by that sentence. – “(Who’s still alive?)” – He wondered. All in all, it could only be related to what happened in Iraq, but he couldn’t be sure because she never spoke about it.
They offered those logs files to the client as some sort of compensative action for failing to fulfill the conditions of the contract.
Fortunately, the client did seem interested in acquiring that information, and he was surprised that they found it in such an exposed place. Like the saying goes, stuff is always in the last place you’d go to search for them.
The client accepted the information, an acceptable payment for the group. Still, the fact that they failed at the initial conditions of the mission still made Conrad furious.
Back in the headquarters, Conrad had reached the conclusion that Alicia was of no use to him anymore. He had invested a lot of time and resources into training her, but in her current mental state, she was simply detrimental to their activities, and he couldn’t keep her around as a free loader either, and to top it all off she certainly wasn’t suited to stay in the base as a cook or just a janitor.
He had to get rid of her. However, it wasn’t as simple as walking up to her and shooting her in the back of the head, she had somehow earned the sympathy of the softest members in the brigade, and killing her personally would cause a schism within the group.
He couldn’t tell Colin to do it either, it would be pretty obvious he commanded him to assassinate her.
A few days later, just as he was drawing a blank and about to give up on thinking what to do, a new job offer reached his table: an assassination contract. They received some of those from time to time, easy enough for just one of them to take them on. However, this one was special.
He would recognize the target anywhere. Simon Glass, the most prolific arms dealer of the decade. He had been spotted in Belorussia, probably checking up on his clients in the country.
According to the file, he was getting ready to travel to Russia in a cargo train in a couple of days. He had his own entourage of mercenaries watching his back at all hours, heavily armed, disciplined and well trained. His arsenal for sale was also traveling with him in that train, he liked to stay close to his merchandise.
The objective was to assassinate Glass before he crossed the border, there were no other conditions for the completion of the contract, so under all clauses, it was a simple job, completing it was a whole different matter.
Those mercenaries were no joke, they were prepared for all sorts of eventualities, absolute professionals. One wrong move and the rangers would be overwhelmed; Glass had a small army at his service.
That’s when Conrad had one of his Machiavellian ideas.
He picked up his phone and called Colin.
“Colin, do me a favor and call Alicia to my office.” -He said. – “I’ve got a job for her.”
A few minutes later, Alicia was sitting right in front of him in his office. It was pretty obvious that the last thing she wanted was to have to talk to him at the moment.
“How’s your nose doing?” -He asked. – “It seems to be healing up pretty fast.” – He pointed at the band aid over her nose bridge.
She didn’t respond, as per usual. When Aiden told him that she had spoken he was hoping she would loosen up a bit afterwards, but she wouldn’t do that in his presence.
“I know that I said a lot of things back there and I roughed you up really bad…but you at least understand why I did it, right?”
She just nodded.
“Right, good to know. I’ve realized I was just too brutal back there with you, so I’ve been thinking on how to compensate you.” -He took the file from inside his desk and showed it to Alicia. – “A while ago this came to me, and I thought that you might be interested.”
Simon Glass was partially responsible for the mass destruction that happened in Iraq due to the weapons he sold to the insurgents, Conrad knew, and he also knew that Alicia was aware of it, he was sure that she had seen him before and knew what he had done.
Her reaction by seeing his picture confirmed his suspicions. That bloodthirsty glare so characteristic of hers betrayed her emotions.
However, that file didn’t include everything that she needed to know about the task. He had made sure to leave out the pages that mentioned his small army of mercenaries.
“I know you and this man have history.” -He said. – “And this is an opportunity as good as any other. The payment is also good. So here’s the deal, you’ll go into this mission solo, and once you complete it, I’ll allow you to keep thirty percent of the earnings. What do you say? Will you kill Glass?”
“…I will.” -She said.
“Excellent, you’ll be in the helicopter at midnight, go prepare yourself. Dismissed.”
Just like he said, she was up in the air that night, heading to Byelorussia before the train departed. What methods she used to kill Glass or not, that was ultimately up to her; it’s not like he cared at all.
That night he served himself a cup of hot chocolate and leaned on his chair, smiling, relishing on the feeling of relief he had thinking that she wouldn’t ever come back.
A day and a half later, a concern was brought to him. Carlos, the gunsmith in charge of the armory went to talk to him.
“Boss, there’s something you need to know.”
“What is it, Carlos?”
“Uh, I was doing some inventory on our arsenal and I noticed that there were a few things missing from our black stock.”
The black stock were the weapons they weren’t supposed to use under normal circumstances, as to not draw the attention of NATO or any other global authority.
“What? What’s missing?”
“Six mustard gas grenades, sir.”
“Six!? How’s it possible!?” – Conrad scratched his beard. –“What else is missing?”
“Nothing else. Eh…when the girl was gearing up for her mission, she also took four blocks of C-4, I asked her if she knew how to handle them and she said yes, so I left her take them, if she blows up her fingers trying to activate them, it’s not my fault. She also took a gas mask, I don’t know why she would need one but…”
“She took four blocks of C-4…she isn’t trained to use them as far as I know.”
Conrad went over these facts in his head, it was all too obvious, and because of it, concerning.
“Oh no, she couldn’t have…!” -He said, and just as he was about to get up from his chair, another person entered his office.
“Sir! Sir! You have to come to comms room! it’s urgent!” – It was Bernard, he was in charge of the logistics and communications.
“Now what!? What’s happening!?”
“Simon Glass’ death is on TV.”
Conrad rushed to the comms room. There, Bernard showed him the recording of the news clip covering the event.
“A huge catastrophe happened in the eastern Byelorussian border.” -Said the news anchor on channel 6. – “The authorities suspect this was a reckoning between criminal organizations.”
They proceeded to show footage of a derailed cargo train from a helicopter. There were signs that a series of explosions took place, getting the train off the tracks, and destroying a huge part of the merchandise within. Conrad could also see a few charred corpses sprawled around the scene of the crash.
“The border authorities received a report of a train derailment at 8 PM yesterday. This train was coursing under the façade of transporting medical equipment, when in reality it transported an undetermined amount of illegal weaponry, including rifles, pistols and rocket launchers. Around the wreckage, the police have found the corpses of consultants from a private military company, these people were under the employment of a man known as Simon Glass, an arms dealer wanted by multiple organizations all across the world for his involvement in multiple armed conflicts. The police assumes that he was within the train at the moment of the wreckage, but it will take time to identify his corpse among all the other ones.
Just then, the cameras showed the presence of people wearing hazmat suits carrying cleanup equipment.
“The authorities have also determined the presence of chemical agents within some of the wagons, so a specialized squad has been called to deal with the gas so it doesn’t spread across the area.”
They proceeded to interview one of the people in charge of the cleanup, he didn’t seem excited about it.
“We’ve determined that mustard gas was used to kill the people within the wagons before the train derailed. It’s a highly dangerous chemical so we prioritize getting rid of it as to not expose people nor nature to the danger.”
“The Byelorussian government speculates this was an attack performed by a terrorist group to settle accounts with Simon Glass, though the motives might remain unknown until an investigation is carried out.”
Conrad turned off the TV, he couldn’t bear listening anymore. He could only pray that she was among those unidentified charred corpses they mentioned at some point.
A message came through the radio. “HQ, this is Pequod, requesting authorization to land.”
“Roger that, Pequod. Welcome back.” -Said Bernard answering the request. Right after, the commander snatched the microphone off his hands.
“Pequod, this is commander, are you alone?”
“Uh…no sir.” -He replied. – “I extracted corporal Alicia as requested.”
In response, Conrad smashed the gadget into the ground and walked away.
“What the fuck was that, commander!?” -Said Bernard as he was walking away, the sound of the door being smashed was his response.
Conrad walked through the base, all the way to the landing zone, muttering to himself. He was confused, his head was spinning in all directions, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
“It was a sure death, that man was untouchable…” -He muttered to himself. – “He was untouchable, invincible…how the fuck does a brat manage to kill a man like that? Did she get lucky with the gas? Most likely, without it she would’ve risked herself and died. I should’ve told Carlos to dispose of those fucking things, I’m so fucking stupid, why didn’t I think about that before? she doesn’t care about laws nor rules of engagement, of course she would use them if she had the chance…”
He kept muttering to himself until he was at the landing zone, watching how the helicopter approached from the horizon and landed right in front of him.
Alicia got off from the helicopter, carrying the used gas mask on one hand. She had a huge spot of dry blood on her face, it reminded him of the bitter day they found her. oh, how he regretted having bought that crate of apples.
She was walking towards him, at that point he didn’t even care about schism, he was about to draw his pistol and gun her down right there and then.
But suddenly, he saw as she was quicker to the trigger, took her gun and shot him twice in the chest and once in the head, sending him down to the ground. Conrad saw himself die, he felt the shock of being murdered, but the moment he blinked he was back on his feet, completely unscathed, no bullet holes to be found.
He felt his chest, trying to look for them, trembling. Then he searched for the one on his forehead, nothing.
Alicia walked past him, setting her eyes on the showers. – “Thirty percent…mine.” -She said as she walked away.
“…Yeah…thirty percent.” – He said, resigning himself.
Using mustard gas was a risky move, but with that disaster no one would be able to involve them with the attack. All that mattered is that a mercenary under the banner of the Crimson Rangers had completed one of the hardest jobs available at the moment. That was the best publicity the group could ever ask for.
A bunch of new jobs arrived to Conrad’s table, alongside a lot of money for Glass’ death, the team would be able to buy some commodities for themselves with that amount.
Of course, Alicia was the one that benefitted the most from the success of this mission, and she made sure the amount was right according to the percentage that was owed to her. Conrad cursed Arno, from the logistics room, for teaching her how to math.
However, she didn’t do much with the money, she asked Anya to teach her how to stash money the way adults do, meaning: in an offshore account under a fake name, and so she did. Alicia would take money out from time to time, but she would mostly use it to buy books she had an interest in reading.
In any case, it was time to get back to work, all requests seemed good enough, so he and the team would be very busy during the entire season. Of course, he’d bring Alicia to each and every single one of these jobs.
She only kept improving as a killer during each assignment. Every mission was a success, not only because of his brilliant tactician mind but also because she usually dealt with the bulk of any opposition they faced during the missions alongside Anya and Colin.
Afghanistan, Africa, Siberia, Syria, Jordania, and the list kept growing. Alicia made a lot of enemies and killed many under the leadership of the Crimson Rangers.
But a person cannot just kill and walk away, that’s not how the world works.