Overwatch

A Tier One short story

• Fiction
• Short story
• Action and Adventure

								
Prologue
The outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan were usually quiet at night, so when the rumbling truck engine died, it meant the night fell silent save from the soft roar of the capital city a couple of miles away, and insects chirping faintly. 
And the crunching of boots, when the two men stepped out of the box truck. 
“They should be here soon,” said Rayan Shahid, eyeing the landscape nervously.
“Do you trust them?” Replied his brother Hamza.
“I don’t need to,” he said, feeling the reassuring pressure of the Beretta 9mm pistol in his waistband. He didn’t know really how to use it, but he figured that if shit got hairy, he could wave it around in their faces.
If they fucking arrived.
“Look!” said Hamza, pointing into the night. Headlights pierced the black, bouncing on the undulating road.
It was one pair at first, then two, then four.
“Shit,” Rayan said.
Hamza pulled his pistol, checking the weapon was loaded by pulling the slide back slightly.
The shapes of Toyota Hilux pickup trucks emerged from the black, pulling up in front of them in a cloud of dust. Men stepped out, four men from each vehicle. Each held a rifle, and they all had shemagh’s on, covering their faces from the dust and the prying eyes of the two Pakistani’s. 
One man emerged from the dust; he appeared unarmed, but the way he commanded respect from those around him and the way he stared with unforgiving steel intimidated the brothers more than any weapon could.
“Do you have our product?” He asked in English, an African accent booming over the desert.
“Do you have our money?” Hamza replied. 
The African barked a command in his own language, and a man scuffled to the back of a pickup, pulling out a duffel bag and throwing it on the floor. A poof of dust rose as it impacted.
“Ten million rupees,” said the African.
The brothers looked at each other, before gesturing to the African to follow. The African brought an AK-wielding accomplice with him. The group walked to the back of the box truck, and Hamza lowered the ramp. Inside the musty interior were around a dozen boxes, all secured to the floor with load-bearing straps.
“That’s seventy-five kilograms of explosives overall. All the plastic explosives have detonators attached, and there’s a few old 60mm mortars in there too. They’re inert, for now.” Rayan said.
The African nodded appreciatively, before gesturing to his men to come and load the boxes, the brothers turned to the African, asking a question to which the answer would be burnt in their minds for the rest of their lives.
“Our middleman never told us your name. What is it?”
“Aamadu. Aamadu Mensah.” 
Chapter One
One week later…
The stranger was disciplined.
The heat in Pakistan is relentless basically all year round, even more so in the confines of a bus. The heat was exacerbated even more by the fact that the stranger was covered head to toe, apart from a small slit for his blue eyes. If one looked close enough, they could perhaps see that the skin was a tone darker than the other occupants of the bus. 
The heat was sweltering, but the stranger didn’t care.
The stranger was disciplined.
He leant his head on the dirty window, scanning the dusty outside but also passing his eyes over the equally dusty interior and occupants. There were a few single men, military age. One wore a dirty suit with sweat stains visible even from the back of the bus, where the stranger sat. 
There was a family sat a couple of rows in front, and the children kept shouting, playing and sleeping throughout the six hours that he’d been on the bus. The stranger kept throwing glances over, not for operational reasons but for personal instead. That family, the wife, the children, the holidays.
That was something the stranger knew he’d never have.
It didn’t bother the stranger; he was on a mission. Nothing came before the mission. Not family, not friends, not hopes and not dreams.
The mission was everything.
One of the children, around six to seven years old, turned around and looked at the stranger. The curious brown eyes met the steely blue, and the child soon turned around, more subdued now.
After another hour, the city of Peshawar loomed into view. The heat was magnified tenfold in the city, the chaotic traffic and towering, crumbling skyscrapers only added to the claustrophobic atmosphere. Crowds flowed through the streets, and often onto the road; several markets were still open and the shouting of people trying to sell their wares blasted through the thin glass of the bus window. Even the smell of curried goat wriggled its way into the stranger's nose.
The bus rolled to a stop, and the stranger stepped off into the street, nearly knocked over in the pulsating mass of people. He pulled up his shemagh, flowing through the crowd. He had a destination.
A mission.
The stranger’s eyes darted everywhere as he performed a surveillance detection run, a series of random manoeuvres designed to either lose anyone following or force them to compromise themselves. The stranger crossed a busy road, looking quickly to the right to see if there was anyone out of place. He didn’t stop despite the honking horn of a taxi and its equally loud driver and slipped into a bustling market. Immediately, people were in his face trying to sell him food, drinks, fake jewellery, and cigarettes. One man selling fake Marlboros pulled on his shemagh, and the stranger batted his hand away. 
The stranger, having decided after another hour of walking and jumping on buses, decided that he did not have a tail. He checked his Garmin Instinct Tactical watch, and he still had another hour until he needed to be at his destination.
Sitting down inside a café, the stranger ordered a can of Coke, and relished the biting cold on his fingers and down his throat as he drank. He ordered a sandwich and chomped away as he still surveilled his surroundings. He checked his phone, obscuring it under the table so no one could see the message.
“You’re the first one on overwatch Mason. Get here for 1930 local time.”
The stranger put his phone away, looking around again. Mason Fisher was here on his own for now, but he wouldn’t be for long. Soon the rest of Task Force Solace would be in theatre, and then the real action would begin. He had almost enjoyed the time solo, however. Hopping the border in the dead of night, getting a bus to Karachi and then one to Peshawar had taken the best part of two days. He had credo’s; passports and documents forged by the best in MI6, but going through border control was an unnecessary risk. The papers would hold up to quick scrutiny, and even perhaps a little deeper. But did he trust Pakistani intelligence and border officials to not throw him into a holding cell and then a shit-stained, piss-reeking prison cell he could barely stand up in?
Absolutely fucking not, so Mason hopped the border.
Besides, Mason could take care of himself. He knew how to fight with his fists, with a blade, and with a firearm. Especially the suppressed FNX-45 that he could feel against his hip.

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