Mission 3: Part 2

After Christophear and Zach pulled Ryan onto the helicopter, they continued on a ways until they touched down at an airport.
“Is this the country?” Laz asked.
Jordan frowned. “No, of course not. This is the airport. You didn’t think we’d fly all the way to the country in the helicopter did you?”
“No, no of course not,” Laz lied unconvincingly.
Jordan led them all to a plane and they strapped themselves into their positions. Jordan sat in the pilot’s seat, and a young lady made herself at home in the co-pilot’s seat.
“This gorgeous young woman is our co-pilot today,” Jordan informed them. “Joy, say hello to my favorite group of secret agents in the world.”
The woman waved to them from the cockpit. “Nice to meet you. Secret agents, huh? What organization?”
“IMF,” Ryan replied, lowering his shades just enough to wink at her.
“IMF, huh? Never heard of it.”
“Yeah, we get that a lot,” Laz replied. “That’s what makes it so secret.”
Jordan started up the plane and they taxied down the runway. Before they knew it, they were airborne.
The ride was rather uneventful except for the constant bickering between all the IMF agents over a card game they were playing. Ryan was constantly shoving aces up his sleeve, which, for some reason, upset the other players. Meanwhile, Tim was stealing other people’s chips from behind their back. This ended in an all out brawl, in which Chris nearly threw everyone out of the plane.
“All of you shut up or I’ll throw you all out of the plane,” Chris bellowed.
Everyone instantly closed their mouths and sat down quietly until Jordan informed them that they were near their destination.
“Agents, we are nearing our destination,” Jordan informed them. “Strap yourselves up.”
The agents instantly grabbed their parachutes and put them on.
“These parachutes are in working condition, right?” Laz asked.
“Of course they are,” Zach replied.
Chris and Tim shrugged. “You never now,” they said in unison.
Ryan shook his head. “It’ll be fine. If you can survive a flaming building then you can survive a HALO jump.”
“Halo?” Laz said, brightening up. “I love that game. But what’s that got to do with jumping out of a plane?”
Timothius shook his head. “Not Halo, HALO. High Altitude Low Opening, that’s how all the secret agents do their jumps. It prevents them from being detected by enemy radars.”
“All right guys,” Joy said, turning around. “There’re a few things you need to know before you jump.” She put up one finger at the beginning of each point, or each paragraph. The first thing you need to do is,
“Strap yourself up, the next thing is to have,
“Patience, you need to wait for the right moment to pull the string, what you want is a,
“Low opening, this will prevent you from being detected.
“Always check out where you’re about to land before you hit the ground, make sure there’s no enemies there. And finally, when you hit the ground,
“Tuck and roll, to prevent an ankle injury.” She stopped and smiled. “Any questions?”
Laz raised his hand. “Yeah is it just me or does that spell SPLAT?”
Joy gave him a questioning look. “What do you mean?”
“I think what he’s trying to say is that the first letter of each point spells out SPLAT,” Chris said.
“Oh,” Joy said. “Never noticed that. Kind of ironic, isn’t it? Well, get ready here’s the spot.”
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” Laz said. But before he could protest he was shoved out of the plane. Ryan leaped out after him and all the rest of the agents quickly followed him, every one of them screaming their heads off.

Ryan landed on the ground a while later in a heap. He sprang up from the ground and shook off his parachute. Before he even had time to move though, Zach landed on top of him and knocked him over.
Ryan scrambled up and laughed. “Now, what are the chances--” but before he could finish Tim caoe from above and smashed into him. Ryan jumped up again. “Geez, how unlucky can a guy get?” As soon as he finished the question Christophear followed and sent him flying. “Would you people stop landing on me please?” Ryan yelled. “Where’s Laz?”
“I’m up here,” came a distraught voice. “Anyone wanna help me down?” They all looked up and saw Laz, hanging from a tree.
Ryan sighed. “Of course he got stuck in a tree.”

After they helped Laz out of the tree, the team crept along until they reached the outer fence of the enemy HQ. The top of the fence was lined with barbed wire and there were guard towers with spotlights positioned along the fence line. There was only one gate, which was guarded by four men, all armed with sub-machine guns. Inside the gate were several more guards patrolling the premises.
“This next part could be a little tricky,” Ryan said.
“‘A little tricky’?” Laz hissed. “That’s gotta be the understatement of the year. Crap, there’s gotta be almost forty guards in there.”
“Forty-five,” Ryan corrected him.
“Still, he’s got a point, that’s a lot of guys,” Zach pointed out.
“True, but I’ve got the perfect diversion,” Ryan said confidently. He pulled a few uniforms out of his pack. “Here, put these on.” He tossed them at the other agents.
Timothius looked at the uniform, it looked like it belonged to a general. “Cruise, what are we doing?”
Ryan grinned. “How good are you at acting?”

Ryan led them back down the road a ways where they found a black limo hidden in the bushes.
“Where’d this come from?” Laz asked, bewildered.
“I did a little planning ahead,” Ryan replied smugly, tapping his head with his finger.
“Yeah, but how’d you get it here?” Christophear asked.
Ryan opened his mouth to explain but then stopped. “I’m not exactly sure.” He rolled his eyes and started to uncover the care. “Oh, who cares? Just put on the uniforms and get in.”
“So what are we doing? This wasn’t in the plan,” Zach said as he was getting dressed.
“The emperor’s plan involved us getting shot full of holes,” Ryan replied. “This plan gets us in and out alive, hopefully.”
“What is the plan?” Timothius pressed.
Ryan folded his arms and grinned. “We all get in this limo and drive up to the gate. I’ll be the driver, Zach and Chris will be the bodyguards and Tim is the general.”
“General?” Timothius exclaimed.
“Yeah, the general who’s scheduled to come here for an inspection,” Ryan replied.
“What do I do?” Laz asked.
“You hack into their computer records and create an appointment for General Vassili,” Ryan ordered.
“Who’s General Vassili?” Laz asked.
“That would be Tim,” Ryan said. “Now, anymore questions?”
They all shook their heads.
“All right, let’s move....