“Commander, the cartel has us surrounded, hundreds of them, front and back, not to mention the mounted HMG trucks coming up on radar. I know you have a ton invested in this, but you and all the men here, including me, are in way over their heads with this!”

            “So you’re telling me you want out. I always knew you were such a coward…”

            “I’m no coward sir, I have nothing to lose and plenty to gain from this, just like the rest of these lowlifes you call an army. I’m just letting you know that we only have thirty men willing to fight in this against a massive unconventional army a.k.a. a cartel. The odds are against us; I thought you should know that.”

            “That’s what you think, but I’d see the glass completely full.”

            “What does that mean, sir?”

            “It means grab what you can kid, we’re moving out.”

                                                                 

“Commander” Michael Grimes was the leader and coordinator of the misfit operation called the A.D.A, or Anti-Drug Army. Most of the time it was just a five man operation, going to cities where drug cartels have complete control over the populace. Kidnappings, corrupted leaders, and lack of police or any kind of law enforcement was the least of the citizens in those cities’ worries. Grimes would go into these cities or third world areas, take out members here, burn down a supply house here, and maybe even assassinate a politician or judge working to get cartel members out of prison. But now Grimes has a strong collective; men, helicopter support, and all the guns, grenades, and rocket launchers a small task force could ask for. Now his men were ready to strike, to put a massive blow to a certain drug cartel called “The Swordsmen.” That is until, when they first entered the city of La Fortaleza in the coastal region of Iron Hurst, someone tipped them off to the cartel’s leader, Elmo Melendez, and he sent most of his forces to meet them at their safe house.

            “Alright, you degenerates, listen up,” Grimes called out to the nine men in front of him, “we have a massive army coming right at us. Now I would love to stay and take out as many of these criminals as possible, but we’re here on a mission, not to do some, heroic, last stand, kamikaze nonsense okay? We’re here to, if not put an end to this drug cartel, do enough damage so that the local government can finish them. Some of you are just here for the money, I understand that, but if you want your paycheck, then you better bring me Melendez’s head on a silver platter. Now we have a lot of men coming at us from all sides. All we need to do is fight our way to the truck and Humvee.”

            “Didn’t we park them a half mile away just to keep the cartel from picking up our scent?” one soldier pointed out in his thick southern accent.

            “Well, yes, but…”

            “Then why should we listen to another word you say, city slicker?”

            “Because I’m the one running this operation.”

            “That don’t mean jack at this point!”

            “Hey, maybe they saw us come in, maybe someone tipped them off, and maybe it was a bad call by me, none of us know that. What we do know is that we don’t have time to argue, because there’s a cartel about to come down on top of us any second! So if you want out due to my faulty leadership, there’s the door. You can face the cartel on your own with nothing but the clothes on your back, because that right there,” he points to the weapon in his hands” is my hardware, Rogers!”

            Rogers, the man starting down Grimes, look at him straight in the eyes with extreme content. “There is nothing I would love more than to shoot you in the foot, take your guns, steal a car, head back to my hometown sell all of it, and go out with my wife, most likely not in that order. But I need more money than that for my nine kids. So my advice to you is this: you better have every cent you promised ready for me when this deal is done, or it won’t end well for you.”

            “Is that a threat, cowboy?” Grimes said with his face an inch away from Rogers face.

            “Nah. It’s a certified guarantee. And if you’re looking for the seal, it will be stamped on your face with my boot.”

These two men were so into the fight that they could not here the gunfire going off nearby. Then the man in Grimes’ second in command, who hasn’t revealed his real name or face to anyone on the team since he wears a white hockey mask and goes by the alias “Enforcer,” taps Grimes on the shoulder.

            “Sir, I’ve already got the team moving. We’re under heavy fire, so I suggest you make it quick,” Enforcer said in his rushed, British accent before running back downstairs.

            “Can I count on you, soldier?” asked Grimes.

            “For now,” replies Rogers and they both race downstairs. Upon exiting the building both Grimes and Rogers are met with heavy gun fire from M4s, AK-47s, and a wide array of pistols and machine guns. With men already trying to form a path through the line of cartel foot soldiers, Grimes jogs through the hailstorm with his personally modified AK-47 with drum magazine firing back. He soon gets to a group of his men, taking cover behind some large rocks. Before speaking to them, Grimes takes down three men with his sharpshooting and eagle eye.

            “Your name’s Ramirez, right? The one I spoke to earlier? Give me a sit-rep.”

            “Yes, sir! Uh… We have a team getting the truck and Humvee over here. We can use the truck to run over these guys and the Humvee’s machine gun to thin them out.”

            “What about air support? Where’s Overlord?”

            “We got word that he’s assisting Yankee Team, the one lead by Captain John Weaver. Their safe house is under attack too.”

            “Great, so we’re not just walking out of this,” Grimes mumbles as he shoots down two other enemies that popped out of the cover of the trees at the wrong moment. “Alright, we need to thin out their numbers, and meet the convoy halfway. Kid, you know what’s in your backpack?”

            “No, sir. I haven’t had time to check.” Said Ramirez as he takes off his backpack. He unzips his bag to find a mortar launcher with several shells next to it.

            “You know how to use it, kid?” asked Grimes.

            “I’ve had some experience with one, yes. I won’t let you down with this, sir.”

As Ramirez readies the mortar, another one of the crew, nicknamed “Handyman” comes running to Grimes with an M32 grenade launcher.

            “Grimes, I’m having no luck with the M32 and I’m running low on shells.”

            “Let me show you how it’s done,” Grimes says as he takes the M32 and whatever shells are left. He fires off seven grenades and kills, in total since he was counting, fifteen cartel members. Grimes reloads what shells are left, hands the launcher back and says “It’s all in the wrist.” Then Rogers comes up to Grimes position. Once he gets there, he fires one more skillful shot from his modified hunting rifle.

            “Grimes, they got more guys circling out position. This doesn’t look good. Where the heck is that truck? By the way, I got fourteen kills, four of them were headshots.”

            “Roller Team, where the heck are you guys? Roger, I got 23 kills, five were headshots.”

            “Jesus Christ on a horse.”

            “Everyone hold position until evac gets here.”

            “Sir, I don’t mean to be a wise-cracker but didn’t you say we weren’t going to be doing any “last stand” stuff?”

            “We have to do it sooner or later.”

            “Why?”

            “Because we’re awesome.”

The cartel members advance on the A.D.A position, but the resistance of the heavily outnumbered men is astounding due to teamwork, constant communication, and the better arsenal of weapons, not to mention mortar strikes on the right concentrated areas. Dozens of cartel try to suppress the enemy by advancing on their position with their standardly cheap guns, but the team manages to hold them off longer and more effectively with constant vigilance of their position and plenty of headshots. Then a truck, around the size of a Costco delivery truck, able to hold several pieces of furniture, or over a dozen men and a pile of C4 explosive, and right behind it is this camouflage colored armored car with heavy armor plating, rows of spikes on the front, and a mounted 50. Caliber machine gun on the top with a man sending rounds at the cartel, taking down several grouped together members at once.

            “O’Brien, get out! I’m driving! We’ll cover each other.” Grimes yells as he provides covering fire while get in the driver’s seat of the Humvee. “Ramirez, ride shotgun!”

A couple of men get into the back, or cargo section, of the truck while men like O’Brien and Rogers provide support. Then the man called 84, through his ski mask, yells, “RPG” and as O’Brien watches the RPG cartel soldier aims the Rocket Propelled Grenade launcher at the truck, ten seconds later, with the sound of gunfire down to only a few pistols from the cartel’s men, a hunting rifle shot rings out and the RPG user’s head rocks back and he falls to the ground.

            “I took that son of a gun, out! He had an RPG, that’s three points!” cheered Rogers as he and O’Brien climb into the truck.

            “Come on, I’m sure that some divine force (*coughs* the party) allowed you to kill him before he destroyed the truck,” said O’Brien.

            “Shut up, man, you know there’s no such thing as ‘the party’ you idiot,” Rogers said once the truck bed door closes and the convoy drives out of the area and leaves the remaining Swordsmen associates in the dust; still firing what ammo they have left, then throwing their guns in the A.D.A’s direction in anger.

 

            “This is Sox Team, reporting in, all enthusiasts accounted for, en route to smoke house B. Other teams and Overlord report in, over,” spoke Grimes into the radio while he’s driving on a dirt road through hot, dry desert with nothing but cacti and ruined hovels on it.

            “This is Braves Team, reporting in. We lost Big Boy and Tomas from a cartel attack. Everything else is good to go. We’re en route to Smoke House A, over.”

            “This is Yankee Team, reporting in. We lost A. Weiner to an RPG. Everything else is going as planned. We’re en route to Smoke House C, over.”

            “This is chopper Overlord. I am on bingo fuel and need twenty mikes to get to Rendezvous Alpha. Will meet you there, over.”

            “Look like everything is going according to plan, kid,” said Grimes in proud moderation.

            “Not exactly, sir. We had hundreds of cartel come down on all our teams and we lost three men, and we were outnumbered from the start.”

            “I thought you said you never back out of a fight?”

            “No, sir… you know what? No disrespect sir but you always jump to conclusions and I don’t…” Ramirez starts to say, but before he can finish, Grimes turns his head and looks at him with a frown and eyes that says, “Shut the hell up” and then Ramirez bites his tongue and Grimes turns his attention back on the road. A few minutes later, Ramirez speaks up again. “Well… sir… if you don’t mind me asking, what’s your personal vendetta against drug cartels?” and Grimes lets out a deep sigh.

            “Well kid, it’s not so much as the cartels in the world, as to their products. Both my parents were heroin addicts. I remember growing up in an abandoned house until I was seven when The Children Guardian Company took me and made me live with my uncle, who learned the secrets of hiding his crystal meth habits from the FEDs. His three daughters, who were my cousins, smoked nine blunts of marijuana together a day. They practically dropped out of school before they dropped out of school.”

            “You’re from Blight City in the Diego Province, right?” Ramirez interrupted.

            “Yeah, why?”

            “Isn’t going to school there kind of pointless since school there only has ten grades, gets next to zero funding, and the only real work available is in the military?”

            “That’s not the point. In fact, there are a couple of good colleges where I’m from where you can get an education and then a good enough career. Anyways, I had to live with weed in the air for another eight years until I could move out on my own.”

            “So you signed up for the armed forces?”

            “Your one smart kid, you know that?”

            “I had a similar story, my parents hit the bottle all the time, so I had to live with my sister, who was sixteen and had a kid.”

            “No one cares, Ramirez.”

            “Oh, right… sorry. Continue.”

            “Well, I joined the army, I served and fought against and with some brave men in South Fire Land, West Orange, and Griffin View. And one day, I fought on the home front.”

            “So you fought the local “Grateful Red” drug organization? I’ve heard about them. They got chapters all around the world.”

            “Yeah, I was the one who brought down the Diego Province chapter leader, Billy Curr.”

            “Really?”

            “Yep.”

            “I find that hard to believe.”

            “Don’t believe it if you want, I don’t have evidence on me. But they called me a hero, they called me the one and only who brought down the “Grateful Reds.” They offered me a high ranking in the Diego Army, but I turned it down. They say you should follow your bliss, and killing people was part of my bliss, but so was killing the right people.”

            “You didn’t feel like the conquering of nations was the right thing for you, so you started the A.D.A so kids won’t have to put up with junkie parents like you did because you killed their suppliers.”

            “Pretty much.”

            “You know your dream of getting rid of all the drugs organizations in the world is impossible, right? There are some governments that fund drug cartels.”

            “Hey, if the dream is not impossible, then it’s not a good enough dream.”

 

The “drug container” out in the small town of Sun-Borough is as large, four story warehouse. The citizens know that the cartel stores drugs, weapons, hostages, and other deplorable things, but few decide to do anything about it because they know if they do, their entire family will be killed and any property they own will be burned down, leaving them to bear that reality. Right in front of the compound are three two cartel guards with AK-47s.

            “So I said to the old lady, ‘if you wanted a parking space so bad, you could go to the back of the store, there’s plenty there. You get my vibe right?’” said the guard to the left of the gate, wearing running clothes and a bandana over his mouth.

            “Buddy, you shouldn’t be such a wuss. You should have told her “you get my vibe, because we got one (cocks his AK-47) inside my gun,” said the other guard, with what looks like a Samoan symbol tattoo on his left check.

            “Oh, that guy, Carl, from A Death Wish said that, right?” said the first guard as they shared a chuckle. Then they spot a bike taxi, a bicycle with a cart with two couches, able to seat three people attached to it, comes rolling in with a Caucasian man in a suit with a large suitcase in the passenger cart. The bike taxi drops off the man at the gate, pedals off, and the man walks up to the guards.

            “What do you want, bellimbusto,” said the tattooed guard.

            “Yes, I’m Sully O’Brien,” said I’m presenting a meeting with the cartel members here to talk about your retirement plans.” 

            “Oh, yeah, you’re that guy, going to sell us some resorts in the Petaluma Islands. Come right in.”

The two guards escort the suited man into the building, and fifteen minutes later, all the cartel personnel in a large, college lecture hall like, meeting room, where all the cartel are sitting in folding chairs, and the suited man has a bunch of presentation boards of luxury resorts.

            “You all probably wonder, with all the people you’ve killed, drugs you’ve snorted and/or injected, cities and towns you’ve taken over, and all the women you have abused, you’re probably thinking,” O’Brien started with the spunk and enthusiasm of a young salesman slightly going through a religious experience, “‘is there any way I can enjoy some time off’ or ‘if I put in enough time and work, can I retire to someplace spectacular, instead of dealing until I die?’ Well thanks to the cooperation of “War is Peace” Construction Company and The Swordsmen drug cartel leaders, we have officially built the first of several Cartel Retirement Resorts. Look at these beautiful two bed, two bath condominiums in Proving, Critical Province. Now some of you are asking ‘isn’t that where they tested those tactical missiles eight years ago?’ That’s actually true, but the government alongside the workers of Party Nation have rebuilt and cultivated the land. This place is in tremendous working order!”

As O’Brien went on, changing display cards showing peach painted condos with restaurants and casinos nearby, and a pool in the center of the building that could be large enough to be considered a small water park, that included skinny, tan, beautiful women coming out of the pool with the perfect smiles. Some of the cartel audience members poke at each other, talk about the condos, talk about the casino, wink about the women, and others sit unimpressed. Inside the containment of the warehouse, the cartel guarding it is down to a skeleton crew. Two of the guards are standing up staring at a tablet displaying a bald man with a blonde mustache in a chemistry classroom full of teenagers, in front of him is a vat with vapors coming out and behind him is a whiteboard that has the words “How to Cook Meth” written on it. Then, as they stare at the tablet contently, Ramirez sneaks up behind one of them with a baseball bat and right beside him, behind the other guy, is Grimes. They lock eyes, give each other a nod, and simultaneously take down the two cartel with one blow to the head from a bat and one snap of a neck.

            “Set up the charges,” commands Grimes to Ramirez as he whips his backpack to his front and he starts taking out C4 bricks. “To the rest of Sox Team, this is Grimes. We’re setting up the last of the charges. How are things on your end?” says Grimes into his headset while he helps Ramirez set up the C4.

            “All charges are set up at the right spots, Grimes,” said an A.D.A soldier on the other end, “we’re moving to extraction.”

            “Alright, give O’Brien a phone call now.”

            “…and I can tell you guys and you can tell them, those people who say the only things that come out of joining a cartel is death or drug addiction, don’t know jack. All the drugs, women, swimming, TV, and sun tanning you want,” O’Brien was wrapping up when the cell phone in his pocket rings. He takes out the “2005 flip phone-like phone from his front shirt pocket and answers.”

            “Yeah… okay… sure… Guys I will need to take this,” he grabs a stack of pamphlets from his suitcase, “so I’ll be passing out these brochures. They got the insides of the buildings, payment rates, which shouldn’t be a problem for you guys because the cartel funds it, and the number that you need to call to schedule an appointment. Thank you for calling.”

O’Brien hands out the brochures, exits the room to the balcony overlooking the drug storage being able to see tiny, blinking red lights throughout, and puts the phone back up to his ear.

            “Are the charges ready? Alright I’m on my way out,” O’Brien says to the phone, and before he can take one step, he feels the barrel of a gun up against the middle of his back. He also hears, in a dialect he cannot understand “on your knees.”

            “My cover’s blown,” O’Brien said to the phone,

 “Blow the charges. Duty must be done. This is for the pa…” Before he can finish he gets shot in the back of the knee, with the bullet exiting through the center of his knee. He dropped to the floor and howls in pain. After he’s on the floor, he looks up at the one who shot him, who was no older than thirteen years old, barely starting puberty. He then keeps chanting to the phone next to him, “Duty must be done! Duty must be done!” Then a few of the cartel in the meeting room come out and see him on the floor in pain.

            “What the hell happened? Why did you shoot our business partner, you stupid!?” said the first cartel guy to come through the door.

            “I heard him say ‘blow up the charges,’ and I saw some guys take out our brothers! He’s working for them! The A.D.A is here!” said the thirteen year old. Then a second cartel member picks up the phone and hears “O’Brien, what happened! We heard a gunshot are you alright?”

            “We got your stupid, amigos,” said the cartel answering the phone, “come and get him.”

            “What do we do, Commander?” asked Ramirez from the passenger seat of the Humvee, with Grimes in the driver’s seat and five other A.D.A soldiers surrounding the Humvee’s radio.

            “Grimes blow the charges. He’s gunshot. He won’t make it out even if we got in there,” said one soldier. “Negative! Do not do it!” said another, “he’s one of us! We shouldn’t leave a man behind!” Another one stated, “The key word in there is “shouldn’t.” Even the Unionists have to leave men behind with their ‘Rangers lead the way’ and all that.”

            “Sir, I am willing to go in there myself to get him out myself. Just say the word,” said Ramirez.

            “There’s not a man brave, foolish, and insane enough to pull something like that, so stow it!” yelled Grimes at Ramirez and Ramirez backed away from him. The argument over whether or not to save O’Brien keeps going back and forth between the members of the A.D.A. Some shout at each other and some try to remain calm. At this point, Grimes has the feeling of panic rush through him at a slow pace for the first time. He closes his eyes and clutches the C4 detonator, hoping that the answer will come to him that way. Then he feels the detonator being snatched away from him. He looks up and see that Rogers has the detonator, and he immediately raises it up in the air and presses the button. Several hundred meters away, the large warehouse has flames spurt out from certain points inside and outside the compound and within seconds of the explosions, the entire building collapses, leaving rubble and a great cloud of dust over the town.

            “Thank me later,” Rogers said after he tosses away the detonator and heads back to the truck.

 

            “’We had hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of products and revenue in those warehouses! How in God’s name did you let them get past?!’” said a tan man with the perfect South American moustache and shaved haircut into his rotor telephone in his well-lit enormous office with a large balcony overlooking a luscious redwood tree forest, paintings of himself rimmed in gold, and a massive bear skin rug covering most of the floor. “I NEVER signed on to a retirement resort plan for the cartel, and I NEVER WILL for those idiots at this point! Of course it was those A.D.A people, the ones I TOLD you to kill yesterday! I want every gangbanger and Swordsman associate packing heat and patrolling the area and I want full members on high alert at all stations and towns looking for them! Look for a bunch of dimwits with an attack helicopter!’” As he is yelling into the phone, two explosions go off in the nearby distance, followed by gunfire. “WHAT THE HELL IS THIS! GET EVERYONE OVER HERE! THEY’RE TARGET IS ME!” And at that moment, an attack helicopter, with two mini-guns on the side of it, comes into the view of the office from above. The man in the office, two seconds after seeing the helicopter, he grabs his bedazzled, golden revolver from his desk and makes a break for the door. The guns spin up on the chopper and they fire. Fortunately for the man, he makes it to the door without a scratch.

            “Commander Grimes, this is Overlord. I had a visual of Melendez and opened fire, but I lost him,” said the helicopter pilot on his headset in an authentic Russian accent

            “That’s alright, Overlord. Our team is spread thin but we have blocked off his escape routes. We’re under heavy fire at the front gate, we can use some air support,” replied Grimes through the radio.

            “Right away, mark your targets.”

With all watch towers destroyed, cartel guarding the outer perimeter with a sniper shell in their bodies, and small but growing fires spreading through the forest surrounding the stronghold, the A.D.A marches on the site. Braves team has taken down all the members guarding the left side of the compound, Yankee team has blown a hole into the right wall of the compound and is polishing off resistance in that area, and Sox team has met heavy resistance taking the front gate. The gate is wide open, but men, some call them “brutes,” some call them “heavies,” some call them “super armors” fire off their light machine guns and sluggishly march towards the position of Grimes and his men.

            “So how exactly are we getting paid for this again?” asked Rogers over the radio with an annoyed tone.

            “I told you,” replied Grimes, “my mission is to bring down Melendez, but he has several safes full of cash all over the main house, including one as big as a master bedroom; rumored to hold millions of dollars. Once he’s dead, we can crack them open and take what we want. Now focus up, we’ve got armor punks closing in.”

            “Just so you know,” said Ramirez who is right next to the boulder Grimes is shooting from, “my mission is to bring Melendez down with you. The money will follow soon enough.”

            “Whatever, kid, now focus on the regular guys. Overlord, where the hell are you? We need your guns to take out the heavies!”

            “I see you and the heavies. Guns, guns, guns,” said the pilot as he hovered in front of the gate and proceeded to fire his mini-guns, bringing down the six armored soldiers with machine guns in a matter of seconds and then uses some mini missiles to destroy any remaining enemy positions.

            “Thanks for the guns Overlord, we’re moving up,” said Grimes, “everyone into the building. I want Melendez’s head on a platter A.S.A- now!”

            “”Commander we see a large group of enemy reinforcements heading towards the front gate. Wait a minute, I got a missile locked on me and I can’t see them!” said the pilot in panic mode, and then a Surface to Air Missile comes rising up from the forest and hits the helicopter’s tail rotor. The helicopter goes into a tailspin and starts losing control of its direction. “Dang it, I’m hit! I’ve… lost control. I’m going down! Repeat I’m going down at Bravo, Victor, Niner! Mayday! Mayday! Tell my wife I…” Right before he can finish his transmission, the helicopter crashes into the forest, not too far from where the missile that shot it down was fired.

            “Grimes to Brave and Yankee teams, Overlord is down and we have enemy reinforcement coming up the middle towards the compound. I want guys from all teams over to defend the front gate. Ramirez, Rogers, Terrier, Bulldog, and Ryan, with me. We’re finding Melendez. Everyone else, make sure the cartel doesn’t get though!

Ten minutes later, eighteen men are fighting off dozens of cartel with AK-47s and M4s and using the redwoods for cover. The remaining six men have spread out through the compound into three teams of two. Ramirez and Grimes then enter the large office Melendez was in before the helicopter attacked him.

            “This was where Overlord last saw him. Scan the area,” commanded Grimes.

            “Maybe we’re in the wrong business, sir. This place is so sweet,” Ramirez says as he checks the back of the desk, opens up the cabinet, and finds thousands of dollars’ worth of alcohol. “Check it out, this scotch has got to be worth at least two grand, sir!”

            “Seriously, kid stop calling me sir. Haven’t you noticed that nobody else in the organization calls me that?”

            “Well, I’m just used to it. From the Democratic Army to the bounty hunting I did a few months ago, I’ve always had someone above me, sir.”

            “Well don’t you think that it’s time you struck out on your own, kid? And don’t you feel disrespected when I call you ‘kid?’”

            “No, I never gave either of those questions a thought. I’ve always liked being called a kid and having someone giving me orders. It keeps me humble.”

            “Grimes!” shouted a voice from the headset radio, “we’ve spotted Melendez! He’s trying to escape with a white pick-up truck! He has some of his guys loading safes on it and other guys shooting at us! We need backup at the back garage of the compound!”

            “How many vehicles do they have their, Terrier?”

            “Plenty! Why?!”

            “They’ll be our escape route. We’re on our way. Ramirez, tell everyone to fall back to the garage at the back of the compound.”

Seven minutes later, Grimes and Ramirez were a few minutes away from the garage, when they receive one more transmission from soldier Terrier.

            “Sir, we’re got all the cartel guarding Melendez, moving in for arrest. Wait… Rogers? What are you”… and then a gunshot sounds into the radio. Ramirez and Grimes breach the door and find that Rogers is staring at the corpse of Terrier with a pistol aimed where Terrier once stood. Upon seeing Grimes and Ramirez, Rogers shoots Grimes in the shoulder, knocking him down, tries to shoot Ramirez but the gun is out of bullets, so Ramirez runs up and grapples/tackles Rogers MMA style, but then takes a heavy knee to the face, a kick to the groin, and has his head slammed into the side of the truck. Rogers leaves him to deal with the pain, gets into the driver’s seat of the truck full of safes and other valuables, and drives off and out of the compound.

            “Boys, the commander is down, and so is Ramirez!” cried a voice from the inner part of the garage as Ramirez lay stunned and hurt with his ears ringing. Then he feels something plunge into his veins and flow into is bloodstream. A few seconds later he was good as new and was back on his feet so he can get back to his commander.

            “Sir, are you alright?” asked one of the A.D.A with slight concern. Did the cartel finally get to you?”

            “Nah, it was Rogers. He betrayed us. He’s got the money I promised you guys. Tell the rest of the A.D.A to head out. If you want to get paid then you need to hunt down Rogers.”

            “What about Melendez?” asked one of the soldiers.

            “There’s a small bunker to the west where he hides out. Leave him to me.”

            “By, yourself? With a gunshot wound? You can’t, sir!” stated Ramirez, and then Grimes pulls him in close by the scruff.

            “Listen, soldier, my dream has officially come true. Or at least it will when I kill that son of a gun. I know you told me that you joined to make some money for your cancer battling sister. You need that money and Roger’s getting away. Go! Just GO!”

            “I am not leaving you here! You said no ‘last stand’ stuff!” At that point, Grimes is desperate to get Ramirez out of here, so he fires his pistol into the air and points it at him.

            “GET OUT OF HERE, RAMIREZ! THAT’S AN ORDER!” Grimes shouted with high intensity and seriousness. Then one of the other A.D.A soldiers grabs Ramirez by the arm and drags him to one of the cars. All Ramirez can do, once he gives his commander one more salute, from the car is watch as Grimes treks off into the woods with nothing more than a revolver and several grenades.

           

Melendez rubs his slightly shaven chin in accomplishment, now safely inside his bunker. He walks over to the Game Informer video gaming system in the corner, complete with wide screen, HD TV. He starts a new game of Naked the Puzzle Beater and when he gets eleven minutes into the game, the door guarding him blows open. Melendez breaks the glass of a lever nearby and releases it, sending a loud ringing sound that can be heard above the bunker for miles. Then he heads down a hallway. When the smoke clears, Grimes moves in to see an open door heading downstairs. He heads downstairs into a darkened room and before he even steps foot on the bottom floor, the lights come on and he sees a Taser box right in front of him. Before he can do anything about it, several prongs go into his body and the shockwave that felt so powerful, it could take down 50 elephants, Grimes simply blacks out.

            “You think you can take away my livelihood? You think you can destroy all I have worked for. Doing that basically means that you want to erase the hard work of the local street hustler I supply, who has to look over his shoulder 1000 times so he doesn’t get killed. You’ll undo the hard work of the brother who have to sit in a jail cell for years upon years. I don’t think they would like that, since you in a way sent them to jail. And what about all those people who gave or lost their lives to my cartel. The ones serving under me were a proud, noteworthy bunch and the ones against them were arrogant and deserved to die. If they die in vain, they might as well have died at your hands. Did you come here to take the burden off my hands by being the one at fault for killing innocent people? Do you want to…?

To shut Melendez up, Grimes shoots him right in the heart with his revolver in under an exhale. Then he blacks out from the pain again. Ten minutes later, Grimes wakes up to a new pain; the pain of a knife going into a nonlethal portion of his chest.

            “You’re going to die right here, right now, you rat,” says the very young man pointing a pistol at Grimes.

            “Before you shoot,” Grimes struggled to say, “let me ask you this. Do you have a dream, kid?” and he gets a few swear words and homophobic statement in response from the gunman and his associates. “You’ve got to have a dream, right? What is it? Become a CEO? Run a restaurant? Maybe it’s just to rise to the ranks of this despicable, gutless, pitiful business you call drug trafficking,” and after hearing that, the gunman shoots Grimes in the leg. Grimes muffles the moan of pain that tries to come forth.

“Well,” he said weakly, “whatever the dream, make sure it’s impossible, if it’s not, it’s not a big enough dream. Now go on, make an example out of me.”

 The seventeen year old gunman staring Grimes in the face with the gun pointed at Grime’s eye and his finger on the trigger. In his mind, the thoughts of killing him and not killing him raced back and forth, because the thought of being the CEO of a fast food restaurant chain sounded pretty good. Maybe this cartel isn’t the best thing for him. But what if this guy is just trying to psych him out? And before he can fully debate the matter in his head, his lieutenant pushes him out of the way and shoots Grimes dead center in the forehead.

            “’You’ve become weak,’” said the lieutenant in their dialect, pointing his Desert Eagle at the seventeen year old.

“No!” said the kid.

            “I was completely wrong about you.”

            “No!”

            “I thought you could make it big here.”

            “Please!”

            “You’ve gone soft, even in the face of our founder’s killer. You know what I must do.”

            “DON”T!” was the last word the seventeen year old uttered right before a heavy pistol round went through his frontal lobe.