Operation Holiday Cheer - A Spy School Story

Chapter 27: Past, Present, Future

First of all, special thanks to @Radouglass4 for support on writing this chapter.

And now, before delving into this chapter, there's a few notes I need you all to read:

If I'm not mistaken, this is the longest chapter yet. I started writing, and I just couldn't stop. There were a lot of unanswered questions within the story thus far, and I needed to make sure I got all of them. There's a lot of detail, and I tried to make it as descriptive as possible so you can best understand the backstory that is the Mexico op.

Be advised, this is also the darkest and the grittiest content I've written— more so than anything in Chapters 6-13. There is M-rated language, violence, gore, torture, and rape (not explicit, because I don't write explicit sexual content). I've put some warnings in for some of the heavier content, but reading around ultimately destroys context. Besides, I have a feeling there's going to be something I could slap a warning on that I didn't, and I can't cater to everyone.

Like I said at the very beginning, Operation Holiday Cheer is a very serious story, with darker themes and an attempt at as much realism as possible—in this instance the dangerous and morally dubious realities of espionage and war.

If you cannot handle this, DO NOT READ THIS. I can't stress this enough. I'll try to figure out something with Chapter 28 for any potential skippers. Reader discretion is SERIOUSLY advised here.

And on that note, here is the Mexico op that kicked off this entire story... YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Ciudad Juárez

Chihuahua, Mexico

MI6 Safehouse

Ben POV (nightmare)

"You could not live with your own failure. And where did that bring you? Back to me."

Once again, I found myself in front of the driving cause of it all. The man whose manipulation and evil rivaled al-Qaeda: Joshua Hallal. Shrouded in darkness, it was so easy to slip back into the memories. The gunfire, the blood, the dust, the screams, the pain.

And yet, I resisted. It was nothing more than remembrance of a dead man.

"Oh, you actually think I'm dead?" he maliciously chuckled, reaching out towards me. I tried to back away, but I couldn't budge, allowing him to grab the front of my shirt and press a knife to my throat.

But not just any knife... it was that knife... the one stained with blood... the same one he used when he had me tied up in that chair.

'Come on, Ben!' a mysterious voice suddenly shouted. 'Fight it! Fight it!' I tried to resist, but to no avail. All my strength left my body, and I felt myself slowly black out as the voice of encouragement faded away.

"Oh my... you still think you're the innocent one here. You continue to resist. How pathetic. Let's take a trip down memory lane, shall we? Let us remember... Mexico..." Hallal whispered before he put the knife away and began to choke me out. I wanted to resist, but my body was limp. Deprived of oxygen—or whatever it was you breathed in a dream—darkness and hallucination took me.

Third Person POV (flashback)

It all began simply enough. At least, as simple as it could get when the CIA was involved.