0940 hours, Local Time

July 19th, 2006

Southern Peruvian Amazon

Agent Abigail Carver had never tasted Hooah! Bars before, but right now it tasted like gourmet dining. Her normally small mouth stretched impossibly wide as she attempted to stuff the entire bar into her mouth in one go. Four days of nothing but wild fruits and stream water that had animal piss, human waste, and God knows what else in it can leave people desperate properly processed nutrition.

Half amused and half amazed, Sanchez unzipped his water sack from his vest and handed it to the CIA agent. He watched as the woman’s facial muscles contracted (almost comically), her hands squeezing the sack in an attempt to draw the containers contents out as quickly as she could. In the back of his mind, Sanchez found himself wondering what Carver would’ve done had he handed her a canteen.

After a full five minutes of sucking, the CIA agent lowered the sack and handed it back to the Lieutenant with a grateful nod, running her hand across her mouth. Sanchez fought against raising his eyebrows as he received his water supply, emptied of at least half of its content. Without a word, he reattached it to his vest.

“So, what happened out there, ma’am?” Willow spoke up at the now fed and watered Carver.

The woman looked at the Captain and raised an questioning eyebrow,

“What do you mean?”

“What happened to the other agents?” Willow prodded.

Carver lowered her eyes and turned away, her voice was laced with bitterness,

“They’re dead.”

“What?”

Carver turned back to the Delta Operative, tears now welling up in her eyes.

“They’re DEAD!”

Willow was taken aback by the agent’s answer, though he wasn’t expecting anything else. The realist in him had long since written off the three intelligence agents as casualties in the War on Terror. Carver being alive had been a one in a million chance.

“Okay, how?”

“You ask a lot of questions, you know that?”

“Those are my orders, ma’am.”

Carver sighed in defeat; her face was lined with fatigue as she lowered it to rest in her hands. Drawing a breath, she removed her ands began…