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Emigrant Peak, Montana. 15/01/2013. 09:50.

Camilla kept walking as quietly as she could among the trees and bushes in front of her, things quite difficult considering the thirty kilo of gears that she had on her and her weapon who kept getting jammed between branches. She had lost radio contact with her other team members some time ago, the last being with Lucie five minutes ago. She knew it was not because of technical reasons that they had lost contact but because they have been taken out. She knew that she had failed that exercise but she was too stubborn to quit and she thought that if she could take him down alone, she could still come out with a win.

Their mission had been simple and quite straight forward. One prisoner managed to escape from prison and is now on the run. A few people alert the authority saying they saw someone matching his description entering the wood. Her team mission was to find him and bring him back to the prison. In that particular exercise Camilla was leading the team consisting of Lina, Lucie, Hans, Na-Yung and Jon. Scott was in the woods, observing the way that she handled things and Nathaniel was the prisoner in question.

Hearing the sound of wood breaking in the direction in front of her, Camilla crouch and strain her M4 in that direction. Thirty yard in front of her, behind a huge tree she could distinguish a piece of orange clothes fluttering with the wind. Flashing a victorious smile, Camilla made her way to the side moving quietly and paying special attention to move around the bushes. With a better look now that she had close on the three, she could see an arm clutching a gun behind the tree.

Turning the safety off, she aimed and shot at the arm in question, two paintballs leaving the muzzle of her gun and hitting the target who yelped in response.

"I got you! You stupid blond..." Her shout of joy dying abruptly on her lips when she felt cold steel press on her throat.

"You stupid blond what?" The voice of Nathaniel whispered almost huskily in her ear.

Not understanding at first what happened, all became clear when she saw Scott walking from behind the tree, massaging his arm where the paint hit him. Taking his knife away from her throat, Nathaniel took her gun away from her.

"Let's go back to the camp to debrief." He said before starting to walk, not waiting for either of them.

Walking inside of the camp, Camilla could already see her teammates already busy doing push up in military fatigues. It was going to be two week since they had first come here and now they were all in shape. Even Hans who was the worst physically arriving here now could do a long series of push ups without falling to the ground. The first week has been rough not only for Hans but for all of them. Nathaniel kept pushing them until their breaking point, all of it to start again the next day and the day after that.

He was right, Nathaniel was hated before the first day was even over but he kept his promise. He ran with them, he did push ups with them, he pushed as much weight as they did and even more.

Seeing Nathaniel, Scott and Camilla coming back into the camp, they all stop doing push ups and get to their feet. Looking at this, Scott made a move of his head, signaling Camilla to join the others members of her team in line.

"So, why did you fail?" Nathaniel asked after looking at each of them.

"You cheated! It was supposed to be…" Camilla starts.

"Shut you friggin mouth, Flores!" Scott yells at her.

"Okay, Lucie. You were the second in command of that operation. What could you have done better?" Nathaniel asked, looking at her.

"Our deployment was bad. We should have kept visual contact between the team of two. We would have covered less ground but we would have been more safe." She answers.

"It's true. The only reason why I was able to pick each of you out was the fact that you were divided and far away from each other. But this is a consequence, not the real problem. Hans? Your turn."

"You were simply better than us. You hit us and I didn't even see or hear you until I had your knife on my throat." Hans answers.

"It's because you were not looking at the right places. You keep looking at the height where you expect a man to stand but they can crouch, lie down and even be on top of a tree. Moreover, when you are walking with teammates, you will learn to have a look out at one eighty degrees on your side to have an optimal cover. Don't worry, I will train you, this will not happen again."

"But why? Making sure I'm fit, I can understand but training me as a commando it's just too much! Especially considering I will be on the backline most of the time. There is no need for me to learn all that!" Hans said, exasperated and tired. Nathaniel had pushed him the hardest since they started training.

"Because the strength of our team will be determined by our weakest member and right now, that's you. And no, you will not stay on the backline, you will go in action like the rest of us where you will pull your weight. Lina, your turn."

"Our deployment was bad. I was in a duo with Hans, Lucie with Jon, Na-Yung was our scout and Camilla was left alone. We should have split the team better. Jon was in the army and even Lucie was trained in the French military while neither Hans or me did. We should have teamed up Camilla with Hans, Na-Yung with Lucie and Jon with me. Our individual skills and experiences would have been a better match." Lina said.

"Excellent Lina." Nathaniel nodded approvingly. "Okay, Camilla your turn. Why did you fail?"

"I said it before! You cheated! It was supposed to be one prisoner, not two! You tricked us!" She shouted angrily.

"There was a twenty five page file with every information on the prisoner. Did you at least read it?" Nathaniel asked patiently.

"Yes, I look at it quickly. I didn't want to waste time and let the prisoner run further away from us. There was not any relevant information on it. I didn't care to know what food he liked or whatever." Camilla answers.

"Irrelevant hein?" Nathaniel said, walking to the table where the files were, picking it up and launching it into the surprised hands of Camilla. "Page twenty three, fourteenth lines, start reading."

"The cousin of the prisoner supposedly owned a cottage on the north side of the mountain." Camilla read out loud, starting to realize her mistake.

"The error that you all made was to trust the information in the briefing too much and so you did not seek to inform you more than that. You need to realize that information in the military is more often than not flawed or flatly wrong. Do not base your plan of action on that information and try to seek out as much intel as you can in those intelligence reports. Moreover, you should have thought of one more thing. Escaping from prison is an extremely hard endeavor, doing it alone is almost impossible, you should have expected at least one more person with the escaped prisoner." Nathaniel said out loud before coming close to Camilla and starting whispering in her ear.

"Having ego is good, it can motivate you to be better than everyone but you need to control it, not be controlled by it. I put Lucie as your second in command because she's smarter than you and could hold your impetuosity in check. Being impetuous can lead to your death or one of your teammates. I know that you were never trained to be an officer but I will train you to become one. One more thing, the next time Lucie or Lina is trying to make a point with you and you shot them down like you did, you will get latrine duty for the remainder of our training. They were just trying to help you and you behave like a bitch." Nathaniel finished before taking a step back.

"You all failed. Two hundred push ups for each of you." Nathaniel said before waiting for someone to groan but no one did. They seem to have understood by now that bitching about push up was multiplying the number of the said push up.

"Sir, where is Na-Yung?" Camilla asked, she still seemed a little rattle by what he just said to her.

"Na-Yung seems to have misunderstood scouting and assassinating. She tried to take me out alone in the woods by surprise." Nathaniel said, smiling internally when watching their surprised expression.

"Is she alright?" Lina asked worriedly.

"Yes, she's fine. I just knocked her out and tied her up to a tree. I'm going to wait four hours and then I'm going to bring her down. I don't take kindly to people fu**ing up an exercise in the hope of making a point." Nathaniel said with a dangerous tone, making eye contact with everyone, his message clear. What happened to Na-Yung could happen to everyone. "Start pushing people!" Nathaniel shouted, urging them to start their exercise.

Walking away with Scott, Nathaniel did not have to wait long before Scott's voice is concern.

"Sir, you really think that we can make it work?" He asked sceptically.

"You see how far they had progress in barely two weeks." Nathaniel answers simply.

"Yes, it's very impressive. They are indeed extremely talented but they are nowhere near ready for what is coming." He said with a hint of worry in his voice.

"You are right Scott but you know as well as I do that we don't have a choice in this matter. We have sixteen days left to wipe them into shape and force as much knowledge into them as we possibly can."

"We could postpone the operation until they are ready." He suggested.

"I can hear that even you are not okay with what you are suggesting. Go back with them and lecture them while they are doing push up. They will not become delta's in a month's training but I want them close enough that they could hold their own against one."

"Alright. What are you going to do about the one tied to a tree right now? Her attempt would have succeeded against everyone but you. She slipped right past me and I didn't even hear or seen her, it's really impressive."

"Yes, it seems that the CIA trained her well in sneaking, not really surprising there. This is one of the reasons she's tied to a tree right now and not on her way back home. Don't worry, I'm going to deal with her. In the meantime, I have work and you do too Scott." Nathaniel said, giving him a pointed look.

"Yes, sir." Scott nodded understanding the order, walking back to the others.