The Story of Blood and Roses

He didn't look 'dangerous' in the least. I scrolled down, looking through his date of birth, date of joining the army, date of honorary retirement from the army. He had been dismissed from his position in the army ten years ago. He had been part of a force of secret operations. The team had tried to ambush a hideout of terrorists in X country.

It mentioned that the team he had been taken prior permission from the government authorities to land flights on the land and capture the members of the terrorist organization as instructed by the UNO, but the top-secret information had been leaked and the terrorists had been prepared. The modes of transport they had used had been shot down or forced to land. The planes that had been shot down had no survivors, while the only plane that was not hijacked (of the three) was raided by the terrorists, and the soldiers were taken hostage. The soldiers had been tortured for days as the reports said to reveal the plans of the US government and the actions that would be taken. They had even used the captive soldiers to make a pact with the US government. They also used the non-existent intelligence they had gotten from the soldiers as an incentive to make alliances with other terrorist groups of the world.

Ethan had been one of the few who had survived the torture of the camp. He himself had explained how the terrorists found great pleasure in idolizing Hitler and even though they didn't possess an ounce of the toxic charisma that the man possessed, used the methods that were the indicators of Hitler's anti-Semitic policy. Soldiers had been left in gas chambers for hours (or so they thought) and given no food or drink. There were other methods of torture as well. Most soldiers did not want to speak. Ethan had been one of them. These soldiers had mostly died of hunger and malnutrition or had died due to the torture. The executors had forgotten that these soldiers knew mostly nothing about what happened next than what was told to them by higher authority. Or they simply knew and enjoyed torturing these people. Whatever be the reason, they had partially entertained the soldiers and used massive amounts of their funds to feed and inflict pain on them. In the end, only four out of the many who had initially left for the mission had survived.

That was not the end of it. There must have been something missing because it never mentioned how these soldiers were finally rescued. One couldn't put it past the government to do something about it, but to take the risk for saving such few lives seemed out of character. Having only limited access meant that I probably wouldn't get the whole story.

This meant that there were a few juicier bits that most people wouldn't have access to. I was one of the less fortunate ones who didn't have the authority to access all the files, but Jake had that advantage. He could access just about anything. I quickly put down the details of the contents and went over to check the mail that Jake had sent to me. I saw his address and cell phone number on the top, which I religiously copied down and then went on to, check other details. I found out that he had been the leader of the secret op team that had gone into the mission and was the only one who had possessed all the information that the terrorists had wanted to extract from the team. Ethan had been kept alive because they thought that it was a miracle that the plane he was in wasn't shot down. They thought of it as divine providence and tortured him, obviously. According to the time frame, this went on for over a year's time before they were rescued.

The rescue mission had been a tricky one to stomach. It had turned out that the government had paid quite a large sum of money to get the living soldiers back. Their outlook was to redeem the public image that had been projected about the government's lack of action to the apparent withholding of soldiers and to complete the mission that the primary group had been sent to execute.

They had hired the Organization to get the work done and the offer had been taken up without a second thought. The government in a way would be in debt of the organization if the mission was a success. A group of five had been sent into the field to exterminate the terrorist group and rescue the kidnapped soldiers. Two of the five members (all men) had been my father and the other—the elusive Jasper. That struck a chord. How close were they?

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