WAR BUDS (COMPLETED)

THE INTERROGATION

"what?" I said.
"You know what we're looking for. Where are they?"
"Who are you? " I asked. They looked like they could squeeze me with one hand. They had their hands clenched, like they wanted to beat us up, but they couldn't for some reason. Their faces were full of anger, but they couldn't land a punch on me even if the world was about to end. It was like they'd been ordered not to kick our asses.
"You know what? I'm sick of you, I don't care if I die for this, but I'm taking you to hell with me."
"could we try going to heaven? I heard it's on the way." I said, trying to sound strong while practically shitting my pants. That's when I heard someone laugh. But it wasn't from within the room, it was from the outside. It was a woman's laugh. The door opened, and both men just ran towards the sides of the room, leaving an empty space for her to walk on. She came in, with a smile on her face. She was a short, but very smartly dressed woman. She walked with a limp, wearing a sort of skirt with a shirt and something that looked like an apron my mom used to wear. She stood emotionless for a second, and said, "A man that can amuse himself even in the worst situations is the greatest kind of man. You're funny. I like it. My name is Maria Krushchev, and I'm the Head of the Russian armed forces. What my men need you to do is tell them where you've kept the prisoners of Vietnam, and we'll set you free."

" why would we ever give you this information? It's obvious you're planning something bad. How can we trust you and be sure that the information wouldn't be used for anything wrong? "
" fair enough. We all know that world war II ended less than 2 decades ago, and we wouldn't ever want something like it to ever happen again. Atleast that's what we thought. You Americans are filthy bastards. You invaded vietnam, the country that's under our protection. We keep our promises. We signed a peace treaty, and a country like Vietnam belongs to the Vietnamese and nobody else. So you could do the less painful thing and tell us where the prisoners are, or you'll die and we'll eventually infiltrate the army and find out ourselves."
" Do you really think the army wouldn't find out about you?"
" Oh I'm sure they won't. You Americans are really dumb. You could probably appoint a orange headed, old ,hotel owner as your president without a second thought." she said. She wasn't completely wrong; I mean she kidnapped us from our beds without anybody even knowing we'd been taken." we want the same thing. Neither of us want America to win this war. We want to save the Vietnamese too."
"well done. They've trained you well. Brucus;Clarice, kill them. They're of no use to us"
"Wait! I swear I'm not lying to you, just give us a chance to prove ourselves."
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't just kill you right now."she said,with a hint of a smile on her face.
" because..... My mother's name is Martha?" I said, with hopes of living another day. They opened Tobey's cuff, and he said,"ignore him. We can get you whatever information you need, provided we're assured that nothing happens to us or our friends."
"very well then. I'll have my men escort you, but remember, I'll have you brought to me every time I need information; and if you fail to give it to me, that'll be the last memory your little American brains will have."

After that, it just seemed so blurry to us. We couldn't remember where we were, how we came back here, how we even got there, but we couldn't possibly forget what she said to us. Everytime I thought about it, I got the chills. Could she really want to protect the people, or was this some elaborate ruse they made to take over Vietnam? My mother always said to me that the Russians shouldn't be trusted, but we had no option but to trust them. We took a leap of faith, be gathered all our documents and information and kept it in a bag. At around 2300 hours, Robert and Steve returned, carrying a body bag. I gathered everybody and had Steve meet us at the abandoned shed I found when I was disposing the bodies. I made sure that nobody was around before we even spoke a word. Tobey gave me an all clear from the outside, and we opened the body bag.

They managed to find a man that looked exactly like Tran, except this man had only one hand. We looked at them in shock, and they did the 'shoulder lift'. Great. Now we had to get Tran to come out, and somehow convince him to cut his left hand off. Cutting someone's hand off was easy do think of doing, but I'd puke my ass off If I ever saw this. And then, Tobey said that we didn't have to cut any part of his body off. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed. Even though I'd puke from both ends while seeing this, I still wanted to see it. Tobey said he'd need about 2 days to put this plan into action, and then he explained the plan to us.
"this is the plan. I have a way into the kitchens. We're going to slightly poison the food for the prisoners. The minute they fall sick, they're going to cry for help. The guards will have to send them to our healthcare, where they'll be greeted by Jessica. She's going to switch his body with the dead one, and then declare him dead. Easy peesy."
We thought it was a really good idea, and we agreed to our roles and I was about to leave when I saw Tobey mouth some words to me. They were either,'this is not the plan' or, 'kiss me, not the jam.'
To be honest, kissing the jam sounded like Steve's thing, so I knew I wasn't going to be happy with what I thought I heard him say.
I rushed back inside, and somehow Tobey was already inside waiting for me. He locked the door behind me.
"why didn't you tell everyone the real plan?? Why is there even a fake plan on the first place? What do you think you're doing?!"
"look, the only reason I couldn't tell everyone the real plan was because this mission is very complicated. We're trying to free the enemy and betray America. I'm not sure we can trust anybody other than the 2 of us. We never know who might go and stab us in the back. I trust you, and I hope you trust me too, because I don't think anybody else should know what our plan is."
" Seems fair. But I still don't feel rightly about this. I think we can trust these people. They've helped us all this way. They deserve to be treated with loyalty. And what is the real plan anyway? "

" You remember the notes you made for me? What you didn't realise was that while you were making notes, there was no guard walking around the cells to check up on the prisoners,otherwise you would've been caught. You didn't hear any footsteps either, did you? This either means that the guards don't usually move around, or that they leave early when their shift is about to end. All we need to do find the right time to go inside, and then as soon as we find this man you speak so greatly of, give him this Bobby pin and tell him to keep it safe. Then we're going to follow my fake plan, but we're going to put in sleeping pills instead of poison. Tran has to avoid eating the food, and as soon as everyone falls asleep, which is roughly an hour after they take the pills, we use the key you stole outside the pub and open the door on the side for him to escape. Easy peesy"
Yeah. Sounded very easy - peesy to me.
Now before I continue with my story, I need you to know this. I know I'm the guy who's supporting the minority and the oppressed in this story, but I'm not the typical nice guy. I'm not the guy who does no wrong. I'm not the guy who puts everybody around me before myself, and I'm not the guy who everybody can look up to. I'm a normal person. I have my limitations, my vices. Throughout this story, I'm a naive and impressionable 18 year old. I've done some selfish things during this time, and I just want you to remember that I'm just as human as you are. I've done some bad things, and I'm not proud of it, but I'm just as heroic as a realistic hero might be.
We did everything according to the plan, and we had tran out within a day and a half. What felt weird was that there was no army officer standing anywhere near the prison or even the camps. The entire camp had been stranded. I looked at Tobey in shock, and he gave me a smile. He did something ; something that made all the officers disappear. He refused to tell me what he did.
I looked at Tran and said, "we need your help. What do we do next?"
He said, "we go.... My village. Death...many dead."