Hollywood Zenith



" First of all, I want to thank you for bringing my son home. He told me everything and it didn't sound like you needed to do it." Daris only eluded to his son's mistake at first. 

" It's fine. We were young and reckless in the past too. Beside he is a good kid, only misguided and hasty in his decision to prove himself." Steve asked.

" That's true but I heard he-"

" It's fine, we can let bygones be bygones. It did cause us some trouble but fortunately none of us died. It will be cruel to pursue it further knowing that a third party was to blame for everything." Steve cut him off and spoke his mind.

" If you say so." Daris was a lot passive but Ahmed was not, he started asking important questions.

" Why are you even here and who are these people hiding in the region? From your equipments, it doesn't look like you work for government." Ahmed knew after the peace pact there was no chance for any foreign country to march into the country so openly.

It's not like there were no foreign forces, Serbs were mostly getting support from Russia but they did it in a more discreet way not like Steve and his men that were going around exposing themselves to the native people.

If word got out about them, there would be a massive pushback from dozen of factions trying to exert their dominance in the peninsula. The reason was simple because the western forces were too late with their aid despite knowing about the horrible abuses of human rights that were recognized under the United nations.

 If they showed themselves so soon after the tragedy, it would definitely not sit well with natives especially the Bosnians that practically hated them.

" I asked Hamza to elaborate. Did you talk to him?" Steve asked.

" But it doesn't make sense beside he might not notice but you didn't give him any names or told him who you work for. It's not that I am forcing you to reveal it, just know that there won't be much cooperation on our part if you continue to hide it. We can go out separate ways and agree to not trouble each other in the future granted you don't do anything stupid along the way." Daris laid out the conditions openly.

Ahmed also nodded thinking it was best to not get involved with any shady organization even if they saved his nephew's life there was no telling if they were not going to stab them in the back in the future.

Steve had anticipated this round of questioning. Even if the roles were reversed, he wouldn't trust a stranger because there was a bunch of risk involved with exposing your home to a potential invasion if there was ill intentions involved.

" I would love to tell you everything but how can I trust you?"

" It seems like we are at a impasse."

Both men were adamant of not budging an inch, Ahmed, Cho and Drac were looking from the sidelines waiting for them to end their staring contest. Drac came closer and whispered something in Steve ears, he furrowed his eyebrows but it relaxed when hearing his whole plan.

" Alright, how about this? Once we know that you are not connected to them and doesn't have any rats in your ranks, I will share everything."

" No! Isn't that inviting trouble? If we take them inside, they will know every weakness of our base along with our numbers. How can we know that it's not a ruse to deceive us?" Ahmed spoke up vehemently counseling Daris to not accept their ridiculous demands.

Steve smiled and signalled Drac who pulled out his laptop to start loading few files. Most of it was things that Jane collected like their history and all serving members in their forces along with their base location along with every minute details she could scrub off from the foreign intelligence groups.

Next it was the recently recorded footage that Steve asked the pilot to capture. It showed their base design in crystal clear quality due to their high tech equipment. It didn't give the full picture but Steve was ready for his punchline.

" We were able to do that in one day, if we truly wanted to harm you there are better ways to do it rather than talking to you." It was a bluff, there was no way Samuel would agree to them torching innocent civilians but Daris not knowing who Steve worked for and recently witnessing his crazy behaviour couldn't help but feel worried about the possibility.

In the end both men agreed to a tactful mental ceasefire and Daris along with Ahmed led Steve and his team inside their compound.

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"Even if you look day and night you are not going to find it because all of us are a big family. Whatever dark forces you are searching for wouldn't lurk in these part of the world." Ahmed took him around while Daris went to inform other veterans about their deal.

" You don't know them like we do. They are a tricky bunch always escaping by the nick of time." Steve asked Drac and Cho to look around. He was hoping they wouldn't find any damning evidence of the whole place being under their control and Ahmed showing them around just to lure them where they couldn't contact the headquarters.

But after few minutes of inspecting he could see the people living in this place were not faring much better than other refugees. They might have bare minimum necessities but one couldn't call it a life worth living.

Cho and Drac also came back and shook their head. Steve felt a little relaxed knowing it, he didn't want to annihilate the whole village if they were colluding with the organization. It's not like they would go on a massacre, just eliminating the top brass of this place would surely bring the small town to it's knees knowing vultures constantly circling them waiting to make their move.

Daris also came back along with Hamza who seemed to be dragging his feet behind his father. Steve could see his red eyes signalling that the young man had been crying recently. He didn't say anything as Daris invited him to a small building which seemed to be heavily protected.

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