The Quraci Job

Overview
The Quraci Job was the last Suicide Squad mission in their first incarnation.

When it rains...
For this mission, which took place in July 2008, Task Force X consisted of Shrike, Riddler, Photon, Deadshot, Killer Croc, Captain Boomerang, and Savant (Brian Durlin). The mission also featured Nightshade as a DEO Handler, as TFX was under DEO supervision in those days, and also had Rick Flag aboard as their mission commander.

The mission was to go to Qurac and extract a high profile target from what was thought to be a rebel camp.

The mission was a giant mess. Riddler, Photon, and Savant had disabled their explosives while en route to the mission using a device Riddler had fashioned by cloning Flag's remote. Upon landing, Riddler feigned a knee injury and told Savant and Photon to save themselves and make off while the team was unloading their gear. While Photon sneaked away quietly, Savant decided to stick around to get some sweet revenge on Flag, sucker punching him. Savant then proceeded to ridicule Waller over the comms as Flag was continually beaten. Waller tried to trigger the bomb but found that it was disabled. The rest of the team just stood there since Savant held Flag's remote trigger to the bombs in their heads. But what Savant did not expect was for Waller to threaten to blow off Croc's head if Savant got away, so with savage ferocity Croc jumped into the fray and in one powerful chomp bit Savant's head off.

Satisfied that his device had worked, Riddler also disappeared in the confusion.

When all that was done, Waller asked Floyd for a headcount and when he said that Photon and Riddler were missing, Waller tried to activate those bombs. When they didn't work either, Waller considered sending Floyd to find them but decided against it fearing that Riddler had found a means to deactivate the bombs and might share that secret with the others.

So with three members down and their commander nursing a concussion, the team tried to do their best with Deadshot, Killer Croc, Captain Boomerang, and Shrike.

It pours
The "rebel camp" that their target was being held in actually turned out to be a League of Assassins camp where they were laying low after the attack on Gotham the year before. Their target was revealed to be Ra's al Ghul himself who was supposedly being held prisoner by his own people after "botching" the Cataclysm. In the attempt to free and re-capture Ra's, the four members of Task Force were themselves captured as Ra's revealed his imprisonment was a ruse after leaking faulty intelligence to the DEO to expose their mole.

Before Waller could arm the bombs, Ra's al Ghul activated a jamming device to block Waller's signals and cut off communication. The League then tortured/interrogated the Squad as Amanda Waller rounded up reinforcements. Ra's had the torture sessions recorded and broadcasted them online, even reading off Rick Flag's service record to make the government connection obvious. When she was interrogated, Shrike blurted out everything: namedropping Amanda Waller, admitting they were the 'Suicide Squad', detailing past ops she had been on. Everything.

When his sedatives wore off quicker than El Penitente expected, Killer Croc broke out of his restraints and rampaged through the camp, giving the others the distraction they needed to escape. Once out of the camp, as Flag, Deadshot, Boomerang, and Shrike regrouped. Croc was long gone, having fled his own way. Though the League had confiscated their weapons and the GPS trackers, the team knew the bombs might still be active. Shrike didn't think so, saying that if they were Waller would likely have blown off her head for what she had said. When Flag asked what she meant by that, Shrike explained and Flag responded by shooting her in the face with a gun he managed to get off an assassin in their escape.

Boomerang drew a gun on Flag in defense, thinking Flag was about to off them all, but Deadshot stopped him, reminding Boomerang that if Flag dies, there's no way Waller doesn't have them killed on sight. Deadshot logically says that all of their best chance for survival is to work together. Following that, Flag, Deadshot, and Boomerang managed to escape Qurac after nearly three weeks in the desert.

Aftermath
It was later learned that Croc survived his explosion and went on the lam for a while, though he nearly died in the dry environment of the Quraci desert.

When Flag, Deadshot, and Boomerang were brought back to the states, Deadshot and Boomerang were given their first pardons on an airfield and ran off (though that wouldn't be the last time they would be on the Squad). After a Senate hearing was held in the aftermath of the exposure of the existence of Task Force X, Flag was arrested and did some time at Stryker's Island for his refusal to testify against Waller.

Flag was quietly given a presidential pardon six months later when the media was too involved in something else.

Links and References

 * Event Gallery: The Quraci Job