Absolute Aim by Red-Rum-18
November 24th, 1989 – Peshawar, Pakistan:
Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, Islamic scholar and proponent of jihad, and his two sons were assassinated by way of detonation cord that was hidden beneath the road they were driving over. The few witnesses interviewed in investigations say that there was presumably a crew doing road maintenance. The identity of the assassins were never revealed, but I know the truth: that the US government sent a denied-ops team called Albion to pose as a road crew and booby trap the street they knew that Azzam would drive over en route to mosque. The team was composed of “Gawain”, “Lancelot”, “Le Faye”, and field leader “Merlin”, who answered directly to commander “Pendragon”.
In recent years, Albion had been defunct, with their prime members separated and living new lives across the planet, but now Merlin, Le Faye, and Lancelot have been reunited by Pendragon to find and eliminate Gawain, who has gone rogue. After two years of tracking him, Albion located Gawain in Arizona and Le Faye, real name Carrie Hartnell, was killed by him in the forest in a harrowing fire fight. Afterwards, Pendragon called for the inclusion of two new recruits, codenamed “Galahad” and “Guinevere”.
In the time between now and Hartnell's death, Gawain, real name: Oliver Queen, had migrated from Arizona to the wilderness of California to elude the government and CADMUS. Late into the night, Oliver's camp came under heavy gunfire from two parties; he fought back, firing hand-crafted arrows with great care and precision under fire, but the unseen assailants could dodge quite expertly. He soon managed to pin the hand of one of the enemies to a tree. Oliver went up to her and... what's this? She's just a teenager! The girl, the one codenamed Guinevere, hunched over in pain when the arrow was removed from her hand, but Galahad, a boy only a little older than her, struck Oliver from behind with a blunt weapon and hand-cuffed him. “Galahad to Pendragon: Target captured. Proceed with extraction. We'll need a medic for Guinevere, too.” On board the extraction jet, Guinevere began showing signs of rejecting... whatever brainwashing CADMUS did to her, so Merlin shoved her out of the jet, leaving her to fall to her death in whatever stretch of wood they were over. Oliver took this opportunity to get loose from his cuffs and attack the pilots, causing a fuel leakage. Oliver stole Merlin's bow and arrow set and parachute to the dark city streets below. He knew that CADMUS had brainwashed him to be an assassin at their beck and call, and he originally wanted to stay away from civilization to escape them. But now that he knows they are willing to brainwash kids and throw them away like trash when they don't comply, Oliver became resolute in destroying CADMUS.
For days he tracked the trail of leaked jet fuel through the city of Sacramento, and found an abandoned warehouse... or so it seemed. Oliver found a secret number pad and was able to deduce the code by the fingerprints left behind. Inside the secret CADMUS facility, he found strange medical equipment, an armory, a training compound, the hangar holding the jet he was just in, and other things. Two CADMUS agents he recognized, Hackett and Na Wei, were inside a computer room, so Oliver knocked them both out stealthily and used Na Wei's biometrics to access the terminal. The files inside included video of the two young agents being tortured and brainwashed using a process called “Checkmate”.
Then he noticed a security feed of a woman, drugged and unconscious, being wheeled into the medical area by armed guards escorted by Merlin, Lancelot, and Galahad. Oliver staked out a nest to snipe and eliminate the Albion assassins, but Lancelot noticed him right away and fired on him with his gauntlet rifles. Caught, Oliver dropped to the floor to fight Merlin and the guards. Lancelot scrambled to a higher elevation to snipe Oliver with a high-caliber sniper rifle, but he shot an arrow at a circuit breaker behind him and electrocuted Lancelot into unconsciousness. When Galahad threatened to kill the woman they kidnapped, Oliver surrendered, allowing Hackett and Na Wei to seize him; Galahad shot her anyway, revealing her to just be a dummy. Merlin subjected him to his specific trigger stimuli that would have activated his programming, but Oliver remembered Guinevere and bit down very hard on his tongue, the pain drowning out the stimuli. Oliver broke free and attacked, shoving a broken metal pipe through Galahad's arm and slashing Merlin's throat with an arrowhead. He took as much information about the Checkmate Procedure as he could and sabotaged the generator, destroying the secret facility in a fiery explosion.
A month later, CADMUS co-director Amanda Waller is attacked in her home. Bearing more advanced gear, replete with a new compound bow, Oliver Queen says to her... “Hello, Pendragon.”
Notes:
* The codename “Merlyn” inspired me to create an assassin team with King Arthur-based codenames.
** Waller, the leader, is “Pendragon”, based on a title of King Arthur himself.
* Oliver was codenamed “Gawain” because the knight Gawain had an encounter with an entity called the “Green Knight”.
* Merlin's real name is “Malcolm Vordigan” (based on his names from the TV shows Smallville and Arrow).
* Carrie “Le Faye” Hartnell is based on comics villain Cupid.
* Lancelot's real name is “Floyd Lawton”.
** After his electrocution, Floyd's memory is extremely jumbled, as if a mix of his civilian life and programming. He survived the battle and will become a paid assassin known as Deadshot.
*Galahad and Guinevere are, respectively, Roy Harper and Mia Dearden.
** Roy and Mia both survived this episode, though Roy may be in need of a new arm...
** Mia and Oliver's rejection of the Checkmate programming has reached the ears of CADMUS scientists, and they are working on a counter to this... provided Oliver doesn't find and destroy all of their bases.
* The Checkmate Procedure was created to implant sleeper agents into society, near targets CADMUS knew could jeopardize American security if terrorists were to target them.
* Merlin also survived this battle, but his slashed throat caused him to lose his voice.
* Oliver's interrogation of Waller will continue in “Absolute Secret”.
