Michael got on his bike and rode down the hill until he was down in a valley where he could begin his approach with minimal skyline exposure. The valley took many turns but he kept himself on track. As he came around to the front of the large elevated position, he looked up and saw the giant rock where Marcus was hidden.

Meanwhile, two of the bandits had the busted tire pulled off of the hub. They were still trying to figure out how they were going to get the entirety of the cargo out of the van delivered to its location. The leader of the team tried to call for help, but his cell signal was weak. He kept dialing but couldn't get enough of a connection to establish an actual call.

Michael got within four hundred meters of the van before shutting off his bike and dismounting from it. He knew that he could only move another two hundred before he was out of options for cover or concealment. He walked low and slow, holding the AK in his hands. After a while, he got to a point where he was just outside that two hundred meter point. He could see half the team, and knew that the rest of them would react once he made his presence known.

Looking through his optic, he was glad that Marcus had put something with magnification on it. He could see old looking half uniforms, what appeared to be the old tri-color desert uniforms that had been replaced in the US Army's inventory. Black vests, Tri-color pants, t-shirts of varying color, and different sorts of headgear ranging from patrol caps, baseball hats and helmets. He observed mostly black AK looking weapons, but one stood out. It looked to be a general purpose machine gun of some sort. It had an optic on its top.

After scanning the rest of the group, Michael decided that the machinegunner was the bigger threat. He sighted in and let off one shot. The round landed in the shoulder, traveling through the neck and doubling the gunner over. He could hear shouting. Couldn't make out the words, but two of the men got up and repositioned themselves onto a line with another two other men. They were facing his general direction. Is this the reacting to direct fire drill?

Shots started taking flight, though they were way off. He was fairly certain that they either hadn't zeroed their weapons or didn't know where Michael was. The weapon Michael was using had a very good aftermarket flash hider. He let off a few more shots at the team. The guy who appeared to be the squad leader caught two of those shots in his chest. The third landed in his hip, causing him to double over.

One of the riflemen started landing shots a lot closer to Michaels position. The sorry part is that Michael figured out which rifleman it was and sent one more shot at him. He caught it in his collar bone. A loud yell could be heard, though Michael wasn't listening as he fired another shot that smashed through his forehead and into his brain stem.

Three enemies dead, but he had to get rid of the rest. Michael let out a burst of ten into the cab of the van. He was viewing the van from about a 45 degree angle from the front, which meant that pelting the engine block and drivers door would give him a greater chance of killing or injuring anyone in the cab. As he observed the van to see how much damage his burst had caused, he saw something under the van. Someone had gotten under it to try and find Michael. He saw a blast of dust blow out from under the engine block.

As Michael sighted in on the man under the van, a rock near Michael burst into many pieces. The blast scraped the side of his head, though this would not dissuade Michael from taking a few controlled shots. They landed in the bumper of the van, indicating to Michael that he needed to aim down. He let out another burst, aiming low and figuring that he'd have to skip rounds off the ground to have a chance to hit this shooter. Sure enough, the marksman under the van was hit several times. He slumped down and stopped moving.

As this went on, the gun trucks started moving and repositioned themselves towards Michaels general direction. These gunners had optics on their weapon systems, and were about to find him very soon. Michael let off a longer burst at one of the trucks. The windshield was ballistic rated, but the gunner was not so well protected. Four of the fifteen shots hit the gunner in the chest, sending him down to the bed of the truck.

As the second truck sped around from the other side of the van with its dismounts loaded in the back, Michael turned his weapon to the last dismount from the first team and let out five more shots. Three of these shots hit their target.

The second truck had something much worse than the GPMG that the first one had mounted to it. It had a M2 Fifty Caliber. The familiar sound of this machinegun opening fire on Michael gave him all the info he needed on what was shooting at him. Thankfully for Michael, he hadn't actually figured out exactly where he was. Michael emptied the remainder of his current drum into the back of the second truck. Thankfully this gunner wasn't well protected either, and neither were the dismounts in the back. While most of them ducked down, one didn't move fast enough and caught one in his shoulder, which passed through and into his lung. Another gunman had not moved at all and caught one through the back of his head. With only three men left to really deal with, Michael decided now was a good enough time to advance.

Dropping the first drum and loading the second into the weapon, Michael racked the charging handle back and let it fly forward. Feeling it shove that next round into the chamber, Michael stood up and began making his mad dash towards the still moving gun trucks. By the time another man had gotten up and grabbed the handle of the 50 cal, Michael had managed to close the distance by 150 meters. Raising his AKM, he sprayed the back of the truck again. This time he did not let go of the trigger until he had finished dumping rounds into the side of the truck. Once the AK had clicked dry, the last of the men in the back had fallen dead from being shredded.

As Michael tossed the AK aside, he grabbed up his M4 and placed it on Auto as he walked up to the truck. The driver attempted to drive away, though he could not move his armored pickup fast enough before Michael grabbed the handle and ripped it from the door.

As He tossed the door handle away, the driver of the other truck opened his door and tried to stick his weapon out to engage. Michael pointed his weapon with a single hand and let out four shots. The weapon stay surprisingly steady for being held in one hand. The driver fell to the ground, his life was extinguished.

The driver of the fleeing truck turned his vehicle to keep it between him and Michael. Getting out, he lay underneath and tried to fire his pistol at Michael. Michael had begun moving and got to an angle where he was protected by a truck rim. closing the distance, Michael jumped on top of this truck and stood on top of the cab. The driver looked up in horror as he tried to aim his pistol at Michael. Michael already had leveled his M4 at the driver. A quick squeeze and three rounds passed through the mans face.

The threats had been neutralized.

Michael opened up the back of the van and started pulling open the things he could see. As he searched, a small hand reached up and climbed from the front of the cargo area. This was followed by a few more hands reaching up, followed by three small faces emerging from their hiding space. Children, human shields.

Michael raised his weapon upward, waving his left hand to show that he was not there to harm them. "ingles?" Michael tried asking. no reply. "al-injlezeeyah?" nothing. "angliski?" still no answer. "Englisch?"

the little boy finally spoke up, "it's pronounced English."

Michael let out a frustrated huff. "No shit kid," Michael snapped back at the child, "The question was if you fucking speak it!"

One of the other children, a girl, began to cry quietly. "you're not gonna help us!" she said sobbing.

Michael paused for a moment. He looked around to see if any of the men he had shot up were still alive. He walked to the front of the van and grabbed its driver by the feet. He yanked him out of the van and dropped him on the ground. The man groaned. you're alive. I'll ask you.

Grabbing the injured man by the drag handle of his vest, he pulled him to the back of the van and sat him upright, facing the children in the van. "I've got questions for you. Ingles? angliski? englisch? english?"

"I am speak the english" the man said slowly with what sounded like a russian accent.

"Russkiy?" Michael said as he slapped the side of the man's head, "you're from the goddamn red bloc?" His rage began to burn brighter.

"Da, yes, Russia is my home," the man uttered, "served in army, got out and followed money"

A merc. Explains the squad level tactics. "Who are you moving this cargo for?"

"which cargo?" The merc questioned back. This was followed by a strike to his jaw.

"In the van," Michael said through a snarling hiss. "The weapons, the children, who the fuck is it for?" Michael began slapping the man in the face repeatedly in the same spot. Not satisfied with how slowly he was responding, he closed his fist and struck his cheekbone a few more times.

The merc began groaning more, wincing with each hit to his face. "One box drugs, Cartel. Sinaloa."

"And the weapons?" 'Dealer product, some cartel, some independent.'

"And the children?" '...' The man stared blank.

"The children," Michael repeated. "Those kids, the human people, the boy and two girls." He raised his hand to resume striking the mans face.

"labor," the man finally uttered out. "The boy is to be cleaner, the girls for a man."

This struck a nerve for Michael. "The fuck you mean?" Michael grabbed him by the back of the head and slammed his face against the van door. "Who are the girls for?" he again struck the van door with the mans face.

"A buyer!" the man finally shouted out, "man buy girls, likes young, expensive, it's why the security!"

Michael let go of the man. He trembled with rage, pacing about behind the van. Gotta focus. But someone needs to die. But I'm here for a specific purpose. But this needs attention. But not from you. But who else is gonna deal with it?

He walked back over to the man and slammed his head into the ground. He placed a hand under his jaw and with his free hand began punching his face under his eyes. For about five minutes, he was so tunnel visioned on beating this man to death that he didn't hear Marcus approach on his dirt bike.

Marcus threw a small rock at Michael to get his attention. As Michael stopped, Marcus walked over and looked into the van. Seeing the three kids, he had the last piece to the mystery of what was going on down here at ground level. Looking at the man with the pummeled face, Marcus drew his pistol and fired twice into the pulpy head. "That's done now," Marcus barked, "We got shit to do now!"

Michael nodded as he stood up from the body. "right," he said as he turned to look at the different bodies strewn about. "One of these motherfuckers tried to call out." He went over to the man who lay next to a phone and picked it up. He continued walking body to body and digging up their devices that might have info. He carried some of the phones to Marcus. "These kids, guns and a box of drugs are going to different places."

Marcus shook his head. "This is some fucked shit," he said in a somber tone, "We gotta get the shit we came for and get out of here, but we ain't gonna leave the kids."

Michael walked to the truck with the lighter machine gun on it. It was equipped with an M240B and had a commercial market scope on it. In the back was the body of a gunner and many boxes of ammo. There's at least two thousand rounds here. He hopped into the driver's seat and drove the truck to the bodies. Once there, he and Marcus began stripping ammo and weapons. Loading them into the back of the cab, they finished gathering all the individual weapons and magazines up and backed the truck up to the van.

The children stood next to the van and watched, their hands still tied with a cable keeping their feet together. Michael walked over to the kids. They looked to be between the ages of nine and twelve. "I was never here, do you understand?" he watched as the boy and one of the girls nodded. The shorter of the girls stared blankly at him. "English?"

She nodded her head.

Michael repeated himself more sternly, "I am a secret. I don't exist. You never saw who shot these men."

"how did we get out?" the girl retorted, "Why are you any better than them?"

Michaels eyes narrowed. "I don't deliver children to perverts," he explained as calmly as he could, "If I get caught, I won't be able to stop people from hurting innocent people."

The little girl nodded, "as long as they're worse than you, it's okay, right?"

Michael started to laugh as he walked away from this argumentative child. Rather than continue to debate morality with a kid, Michael knew he had to figure out the drugs from the weapons and get this shipment ready for the rancher militia.