Four Days later, 50km from Pripyat

Michael sat across from Lani in the forward most position in the transport truck. Next to Michael sat that inexperienced agent who had been learning how to gunfight better. Other agents sat in another transport with a different platoon of soldiers. Everyone was wearing Ukrainian issued chemical suits, as well as older body armor vests that were left over from when the local military had upgraded their equipment.

Michael and Lani both had managed to get their hands on some refurbished soviet hardware that had been sitting in storage for some time. They both had AK-74’s that had their wood furniture replaced with aftermarket rail handguards, and even managed to have forward mounted dot optics on the forward rails. Michael kept his AK in his hands, though Lani had hers strapped to her backpack.

In her hands, she held a VSS in her hands with an aftermarket optic mount. On this mount was a variable powered optic with a drop compensation reticle that was calibrated for .300 Blackout, which was known to have almost the same flight path as the heavier subsonic armor piercing 9x39mm rounds. Michael, while holding his AK-74 in his hands, had an AS VAL with a forward mounted dot sight and a modernized adjustable stock.

The team of agents all carried rucks with radiation protection covers. Their equipment ranged from observation equipment, satellite communication devices and decontamination material. Michael and Lani made sure to carry extra ammunition, being that they were the ones strong enough to carry that intense extra weight, as well as being the ones expected to do most of the shooting.

The rest of the team made sure to bring rations. While much of their food came from US First Strike Rations, which was 24 hours of MRE food shoved into one smaller pack with the intent of cutting down clutter while keeping soldiers sustained for longer periods of time with less weight and more worthwhile items per package, their Ukrainian counterparts also provided them with daily rations. Most of the agents enjoyed this, as it gave them some variety to break up the monotony of eating the same green packets of food over and over.

Michael and Lani looked at each other. Michael had his eyes narrowed with a smirk. Lani looked back with a colder face than his, but the message in her eyes conveyed certainty and confidence, We’ll kill them all was the main thought going through her mind. Michael nodded in response to this, as they were so in tune with each other. His own conveyed thought, we’re gonna pull through this together.

After a while, they pulled into a checkpoint. Everyone in the trucks had masks over their faces. Standing up, they started climbing down the steps as they were dropped down. The six agents of Task Force Gift made their way into an old building with a meeting room inside and set their equipment down. Michael and Lani set their bags at the furthest corner from the rest of the team. Their bags were significantly heavier and they didn’t want their ammo stash to get moved.

One of the other agents carried a bin into the room and set it next to the big table. They quickly began pulling materials out and setting the table to be a meeting room. Michael rolled his eyes after taking his mask and vest off. Others began taking their masks off and setting their equipment down. “We really gotta make an office out of this place?” Michael asked out loud as if he didn’t expect anybody to be listening to him.

“Yes,” a female agent spoke up, “we need to make our plan for how we intend to infiltrate the exclusion zone and begin locating targets.”

Lani grabbed one of the chairs and sat in it. She leaned back and smiled, looking at the female agent. “Okay, I never done this,” she said cynically, “what’s mean infiltrate?”

Completely missing the hint, the agent began opening her mouth to give a long drawn explanation. “Well, we want to get in without the subject seeing us.”

Lani put her hand up to stop her. “I’ve snuck into and out of places with shot-spotter,” she said with her eyes narrowed with irritation. “What have you done?”

The agent crossed her arms. “I graduated college,” she said with a scoff, “I learned Russian and Ukrainian while studying in an esteemed university in New York City, one of the finest places to get an education and learn about things you can’t learn.”

Lani stared at her blankly, blinking a couple times. “So,” she said softly, “you suck dick, swallow with all three holes and your parents spent a whole lot of money making you look like a somebody?”

“Tragic,” the agent said snidely, “but at least I’m not a lowly assistant that has to fuck his boss to get on an international mission.”

Michael began to chuckle. “When did that happen?” he asked sarcastically, “was I there when this happened?”

Lani began giggling, “totally, you gave me like five kids while offering me promotions and stuff.”

“Is that where my money went?” he scratched his head, knowing damn well his money went to property and gun related purchases. “Anway,” he said waving his hand, “Alice, you need to understand that Lani does indeed have more real life experience than you do.” He pulled the map out of the bin and unrolled it on the table. He set his compass on the declination diagram and turned the bevel slightly to match the grid and magnetic norths to each other before rotating the map on the table to orient correctly. He then grabbed the tape and secured the laminated map to the table.

He pulled out his notebook with various grids written down and began moving a protractor around the map and began marking positions. He then looked around the map and began drawing little curves with various identifying marks.

“Okay,” he said as he looked up to Alice, “You’re gonna use that college that you went to college for and speak Ukraine to our totally english speaking host nation assets. Do you know what these marks mean on the map?”

Alice stared at the map, confused and amazed at how quickly Michael had placed the positions on the map. “I see that those curve things are positions,” she said with confidence, “I’m sure the soldiers will understand.”

“And when they realize that they understand more about it than the person talking,” Michael said sternly, “they’ll lose respect for you and ultimately our task force.” He pointed to one of the markings, “this is a support by fire position,” he pointed to another, “this is a suggested observation point,” he pointed to another symbol, “this is a rally point.” He wrote the symbols on a piece of paper and wrote English names for them, next to Russian names. He then wrote the grids for some spots that were on the map. “Named Area of Interest,” he said slowly, “I want eyes on these things, and I plan to go into these places and kick some shit over.”

“And what will, um,” Alice hesitated as she had forgotten Lani’s name, “what will she be doing? Or the rest of the Task Force members?”

“Lani will be kicking shit over with me,” Michael said with a soft smile, “Dimitri will be embedding with a host team,” he said as he gestured to a man with a scarred face who acknowledged with a nod as Michael mentioned him, “John will be embedding with another team,” he said as he pointed to the young man who waved nervously, the one who glanced over to Lani with a chuckle as he thought about how easily she was able to throw his gun across the room. “Alan will stay here with you to work on keeping communications up with Tom back stateside.”

After a few moments, the Ukraine officers walked in. Alice exchanged greetings with them. The talk began about the map, the plans and the information regarding the environment. Talk of radiation pockets and such, as well as there being a lot of trucks with mounted weapon systems. It seemed that not all of the enemies were enhanced, that many of them were followers of the enhanced members who were doing most of the busy work such as manning overwatch positions and keeping an eye on the buildings that might have worthwhile finds in them. It was these people who were making it harder to approach the forbidden city within the Zone.

Michael had a very good idea what he wanted to accomplish, as well as how he was going to go about it. He grabbed up his vest and put his chemical mask on with the hood attached. He tucked the hood under the shoulders of his vest, put his gloves on and secured his helmet to his head.

Lani did the same, watching Michael work the equipment that she hadn’t used before. Once they got everything adjusted, they grabbed their rucks and walked outside. While Dimitri and John began talking with their Ukrainian teams, Michael walked down the road with Lani following him. “Michael,” she said softly into her voice activated throat microphone, “can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” he said softly into his own setup, “and we’re the only ones on our channel.”

“Alice is a cunt and a liability,” she said with slowly brewing anger in her tone, “does that bitch have to come back with us?”

“Yeah,” Michael groaned, “that’s why she’s staying back in that office building where she has dicks to play with.”

“You once told me that women were better than the petty sniveling games,” Lani said with detectable confusion in her voice.

“She’s got nothing to show for her education,” Michael replied, “that’s not a female problem. It’s an insecure child problem.”