Looking Back: Operation Flashpoint

In 2003, NATO deployed several teams of former Orion agents to a small island off the coast of East Africa to investigate suspicious activity.  Although each pair of agents believed they were commissioned alone, NATO had sent at least two teams into the island.

After monitoring the island for months for the activity of the Somali government using the island for some sort of experimental weaponry, Owen Darkwind and Ted Tyler agreed to work together one last time. Several weeks earlier, the island had gone dark, and NATO needed information quickly.  When they arrived at the island, all was deserted until the discovered another team deployed, Paul Anderson and Samantha Tyler (Ted's 7th wife).  Although surprised to run into one another, they worked together, discovering an abandoned weapons depot with ammunition, artillery, launchers and an underground laboratory.  Unsealing the lab, they delved into the darkness.  It soon became clear that an outbreak of some viral contagion had infected the residents of the lab turning them into bloodthirsty cannibals!  While scrambling back out the lab, Owen released an incendiary device capable of incinerating the entire underground lab.  Although the timer gave them five minutes to get out safely, resistance while retreating was heavy and in the heat of the moment, Owen was forced to choose between guarding Paul or Samantha to aid in their retreat.  Owen's loyalty to Paul overrode his feelings of camaraderie with Ted.  Samantha was trapped behind debris, left to fight off the mob of cannibals alone.  When Owen and Paul reached the surface and rendezvoused with Ted, their eyes met and reality set into Ted just as the ground rumbled with the sound of the explosive incinerator!

While Ted dropped to the ground in anguish, Paul and Owen tried to help him get back to the skimmer boat to escape the island, but Ted refused to move, damning Owen's decision and vowing to get revenge some day.

The events and details of that operation remain classified and, although other agents may have been present, surely Ted, Owen and Paul are all aware of those events.