50 Mutual respect 2 (2/2)
”You don't even know what it's all about, wouldn't it be reasonable to listen to the whole story before refusing.” Buren argumented to make Lazar and Amandla stay.
It was indeed unreasonable, Lazar could refuse after hearing them. At least he would know what their goals are by staying, ”We are listening.”
Andrew breathed a sigh of relief and gave Buren a grateful look when he saw that Lazar and Amandla had sat back down.
”All right.” Buren had a little satisfied smile on his face as if Lazar had already agreed to help them.
”When we arrived in Boston, our first concern was the evacuation of civilians, starting with the younger ones. We've been through every kindergartens, elementary schools, colleges and universities...” Buren began to say as he leaned under the table.
'...' Lazar saw that Amandla's expression had softened slightly at the mention of these places.
”In spite of the opposition of the monsters and our losses, we successfully completed each exfiltration... At least when it wasn't too late to intervene.” He continued to say without a hint of emotion in his words while he was mentionning the death of children, teenagers and young adults who were supposed to have a future perhaps pessimistic but certainly less cruel than what the apocalypse had done them.
*ZIP*
”And?” Amandla felt compelled to break the long silence that followed what seemed to be the opening of the zipper of a bag.
”We have successfully performed every exfiltration except one.” Buren came out from under the table and dragged a file with the initials 'M.I.T' written on it over the table in the direction of Lazar.
'M.I.T' undoubtedly meanning Massachusetts Institute of Technology since Buren had talked about universities, by deduction Lazar understood that this was the place where the exfiltration had failed.
He immediately opened the file at the first page and placed it at equal distance between him and Amandla so that she could read it at the same time.
The file wasn't very thick, about 30 pages at most, and if Lazar relied on what he had read in the first few lines, the beginning of the file focused on what had happened during the failed attempt of exfiltration.
Andrew and Buren were silently watching Amandla and Lazar read the content of the file and when Buren saw that Amandla and Lazar frowned nearly at the same time, he allowed himself to give them some details because he knew exactly what was bothering them, ”In the first few minutes of the operation everything went well, there wasn't even a monster in sight. Then we lost both radio and visual contact with each of our soldiers at the same time.”
”And you don't know what happened next since of the 300 soldiers you sent, none have returned.” Lazar said to complete the assessment of the operation that Buren was doing.
Buren lowered his uniform cap, it appeared like a gesture to show his miscontentment at the fact that Lazar was pointing out how much of a disaster his operation had been, ”Mr. Sullyvan and I view things this way; If you want me to accede to your request, there's only one way to get me to say 'yes'. Succeed where I failed.”
The way Buren had said his last sentence, it appeared as a challenge to Lazar.