.

"Rainbow Six"

The entire office floor was abuzz with shuffling feet and panicking voices. There was no time to waste. Every second that went by meant another innocent life was cut down, hundreds of miles away.

"Get me in touch with the NSA.", Six ordered her male aide as they strode. "They better have a damn good reason why these bastards slipped under our noses!"

"We're trying ma'am, but their phones are ringing off the hook."

The dark-skinned woman cursed under her breath. She was just in a meeting with the Joint Chiefs a few minutes ago. Now, she is scrambling to respond to a catastrophe she should've seen coming. The attacks overseas, the weapons smugglings, the escalation. Her little Program, not even a year old, was called in from Europe precisely to prevent these things from reaching American soil. Now, her worst fears came true: it finally happened. On her watch.

Why Bartlett University? Was it to send a message? These psychopaths must be incredibly confident or callous, most likely both, to think they can get away with attacking a prestigious center for learning. A soft target for sure, right at the heart of the Commonwealth. But the place is also surrounded by hundreds of state and local law enforcement units, not to mention the JSOC soldiers temporarily stationed at Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford. And one half of Rainbow is just an hour-long helicopter flight away. It's a suicidal attack, by all accounts. Regardless, it's imperative that she moves now, rather than ponder about these things.

"What about our team in Bragg?"

"They're suiting up as we speak.", the young assistant responded again. "Hereford is also mobilizing- Baker said his boys can start flying to Logan International within the hour."

Six noted his report. Her face was strewn with an icy calmness that contrasts the anxiety and dread from the people around her. She can't blame them though. If things were different, if she didn't accept that job at the Pentagon, the same job that led her here, her feelings would probably mirror theirs. The knowledge that lives will be either saved or lost by what they do next is never easy to accept. But she has seen far too many horrors in her time to let such soft sentiments prevail. Let alone self-doubt.

She also knows that seeing Rainbow's Deputy Director lose her cool is the last thing her subordinates needed. So, she has no choice but to play the actor, create an aura of force and control like the eye of a storm. She did just that when she opened the door to her office, entering the room with a firm sense of authority. She was immediately greeted by a bespectacled secretary, rising from her seat.

"Ma'am, Homeland Security just called.", the young woman reported. "Director Treadway wants to talk to you, ASAP."

"He'll hear from me later.", Six replied. "Right now, I need to coordinate my resources."

The secretary nodded back.

"Here's the latest sitrep from the DHS. It was faxed to us ten minutes ago..."

Six grabbed the document from her hand, immediately sifting through it as she proceeded to her desk. She quickly went to work- each tidbit of information, no matter how small, was quickly, but carefully analyzed. She needed all the facts to get a better idea on the on-going carnage at Bartlett. And the words painted a gruesome scene in her head. Military-grade firearms, an unknown chemical agent, casualties estimated to be in the hundreds. No doubt these were the same weapons smuggled from the Port of Boston last night. It was all the more reason for her to send Team Rainbow in full force.

Nothing but cold logic and protocol guided her next thoughts. 'Terrorists' and 'civilians' became numerical variables that needed sorting. What is the best course of action that will diminish the former and save the latter? And how many of her own is she willing to gamble, just to achieve that goal? She looked at the entire thing like a mathematical problem. As heartless as it sounds, adopting this state of mind is the most expedient way to avoid making rash decisions. She'll never repeat her past mistakes.

Briefly, the Director became a different person.

"Ma'am?", the secretary called her attention. "I have Cowden and Baker on comms..."

With her cellphone on her ear, the young woman motioned to the large, wall-mounted monitor. Six nodded back and rested her hands on the table, clasping them.

"Patch me through...", she ordered.

With a flick of the remote, the black screen sprang to life. It produced two images separated by a vertical bar. On the left was Seamus Cowden, clad in a rugged military hazmat suit with tactical gear, sans the mask, as did the rest of his team at Fort Bragg, scurrying in the background. On the right was Mike Baker, donning regular black-colored arms and armor, as his colleagues in England hoisted bags over the shoulders, ready to board a shuttle to a pre-arranged emergency flight to the US. Both of them looked back at the monitor with serious faces and earnest anticipation, eagerly awaiting their next orders.

"Seamus. Mike."

"Ma'am…", the Scottish man answered.

"Go ahead ma'am, we read ya.", her old friend replied.

Slowly, more than a dozen faces stared back at her as well. More than a dozen men and women from diverse backgrounds and four different continents. Former special forces soldiers, police officers, intelligence agents, all serving under the Program. The best and brightest the world had to offer. It felt a bit surreal for the Deputy Director to see them all gathered as one, only separated by thousands of miles. To most of these operators, their last meeting with Rainbow Six was months ago, when she interviewed them for this job.

It was at this moment when the gravity of the situation dawned on the older woman. Rainbow has never been mobilized at this scale. Mike and his little band of professionals performed admirably in Hamburg, Abidjan, and London, but those incidents are 'minor' compared to the bloodbath currently underway. And this afternoon, they'll be sent on a mission with very little intel, with almost no back-up, and certainly with no guarantee of a successful, clean op. They'll only have their skills, wits, and weapons to protect them. Perhaps even a dose of luck.

The pressure is on.

"Ladies and gentlemen…", Six began her speech. "...We have an active situation... The nature of this threat will require a full strike team..."

For a second, she glanced at her aide. The man nodded back with a quaint smile; he already prepared a full briefing for these opeartors. There was no need for her to get into specifics.

"...One of our most notable institutions of learning is under siege…", she continued. "We know that all first responders have gone silent. And we confirm numerous casualties due to the release of an unidentified bio-chemical weapon..."

Seamus and Mike maintained their stern poker faces. But Six can tell that her last sentence gave them pause. Neither of them expected to encounter such level of horror again. They've seen firsthand what a single canister of Compound Z can do to the human body. They've seen nerve gas used by fanatics on innocent people. And now these terrible weapons have found their way, much, much closer to home.

"...This is more than just an attack on our soil. This is an attack on our future..."

The woman looked to the left side of her screen.

"Seamus, you and your team are to be inserted directly into the hot zone… against an unknown number of enemy combatants. We will have decontamination crews on standby… Your orders are to eliminate the threat and rescue any survivors you may find…"

"Roger that.", he replied.

She has a lot of faith on this man, especially since Mike himself vouched for his competence. But she hoped to God that she didn't just send him or any one else under his command to their deaths. Considering what they're up against, it will be a damn miracle if Rainbow comes out of this one unscathed. Then again, she had the same fears when they first deployed, less than half a year ago.

"Mike...", the Director turned to her right. "...Assemble your team at Brize Norton. Maintain minimum operational readiness. We'll call you when we need you."

"Understood."

In the event things go to hell, Six will have to rely on the Army Special Forces and National Guard to resolve the crisis. After all, it will take Mike and his team at least eight hours to fly stateside. Part of her wanted to question if dividing Rainbow's manpower was the smartest choice. But, what if Bartlett was just a diversion for a simultaneous attack somewhere on Europe? Paranoid thinking for sure, but time and experience have taught Rainbow's Deputy Director to always trust her gut.

And right now, it's telling her that this is only a taste of things to come. Regardless of how this day will end, everything is about to change. There will be a lot of fingers to be pointed, policies to be reviewed, people to be mourned over and buried. And Rainbow, she assumes, will be at the forefront of it all. Worse, the time is probably nigh for the Program to finally step out of the shadows. She sacrificed so much to keep this taskforce a secret...

"This is why Rainbow was formed. This is what you all have trained for...", she went on.

...But these thoughts are for tomorrow.

"...Your time is now."

The two commanders nodded back and closed their respective channels.

One image was left open on her screen- that of Seamus. He activated his helmet camera after the speech, giving the older woman a clear view of his next actions. From his perspective, the team at Fort Bragg are making their way to the tarmac at Pope Field, all kitted up and weapons slung on their backs, and about to board the Blackhawks that her government so graciously leased to them. The team is wearing Level 4 MOPP gear, so it's hard to tell who's who, given the bulkiness of the suits. But Six remembers all of their names by heart. It's the least she can do.

Cowden. Campbell. Trace. Pichon. Touré. Côté. Tsang. Castellano. Weiss. Streicher. Kessikbayev. Senaviev. Basuda. Imagawa. Enatsu.

"Godspeed, everyone.", she whispered to herself.

A moment after, the aide brought out his cellphone to answer a call. A few words were exchanged before he looked at his boss. It's clear that he had another urgent message to deliver. There's no point stalling this one.

"Ma'am? I have Director Treadway on group call. NSA and CIA are also on the line..."

Six took a deep breath. She knows there's no going back after this.

Mission elapsed time was zero minutes and thirty seconds.

...

TO BE CONTINUED

Author's Notes/Comments: I decided to end this series with Rainbow Six's point of view of the "Article 5" situation. Might be an odd choice, but I wanted to explore her character a bit, given how very little screen time she had. I opted not to give her a name, out of respect to the game's 'lore', and I also incorporated an edited version of her Article 5 opening speech. Rest assured I won't leave things hanging here; Article 5 will be the first chapter of my next series: "Freedom Day" (my profile has the details, plus a list of future stories).

Again, thank y'all for supporting Behind the Mask. Happy 2017!