McLeod's Russian was rusty, but he was acutely aware that he had just been called a dog.
His brain, still buzzing from the combat high, processed the dysfunctional English and re-parsed it in his brain, even while he squinted in the thick dark of the room to get a fix on their shoulder patches.
"The USFU doesn't answer to the spill response team," he answered, looking up at the other man, voice low and void of inflection, and even while it was a little windless, it had no other distinctive markings that would have made it memorable. The words had no sting to them, and he could have been reading out of a manual for all the weight they held. Although calling the biohazard containment team the "Spill response" team was a little inflammatory.
If not for the weird, empty feeling around him, he would have been entirely forgettable to any other testosterone and adrenaline-pumped commando.
"Our involvement here is done. We completed our assignment." He paused, reflecting on the Russian's words, debating whether or not to give him more information. McLeod decided to be diplomatic, not wanting to get a bad chit for this, and supplied, "Substantial casualties were suffered; threat was eliminated in our sectors."
He watched the other men, waiting for some kind of mirroring response. Several other of the biohazard containment team had come in behind the tall, young Russian, one of them tossing off some kind of question in his language.