Chapter Text
The cold had already seeped through every layer of Soap’s clothing. He thought growing up in Scotland had made him pretty tough when it came to cold weather, but the harshness of Siberian winter would send anyone into a fit of madness. The roar of wind rushing past his ears dulled the sound of his comms crackling to life, but not enough for him to miss Laswell’s voice coming in through his headset.
“Soap, are you in position?”
He shook his hands to try and fight the numbness that had crept into them before responding, “Affirmative, ma’am. Waiting on your signal.”
He only had to wait a few seconds before her voice sounded in his ear again.
“Move in, Sergeant. Be careful.”
And just like that, any distractions were pushed from his mind, his focus solely on completing the mission and nothing else. His whims about Siberian weather and the brutal cold were completely gone, in favor of being glad the snow was thick enough to hide his footprints.
He’d been told to limit casualties as much as possible. He was gathering intel on a new Russian terrorist, Leo Turgenev, who had only popped up on the 141’s radar in the past year. An inside informant had told them that there was information relating to Turgenev somewhere in the base that Soap was tasked with infiltrating. As far as the 141 knew, nobody on the base knew anything about Turgenev or his political extremism. A lot of them were simply civilians who lived there because they had a family member stationed there. They wanted him to go in and get out unnoticed if possible and keep the number of bodies as close to zero as he could manage.
He cut through the fence leading into the base, glad it wasn’t electrified, and slowly started his trek through, taking his time so as not to alert anyone to his presence.
It wasn’t until he stepped in blood-stained snow that he realized his efforts to go unnoticed were probably unnecessary.
He followed the trail of blood to the body of a Russian soldier. The man’s throat was slashed and his weapon was still in its holster. He had almost certainly been attacked from behind. Soap tugged off one of his gloves and felt the man’s neck where the gash was. The blood was cold and mostly dry but not as dry as it should’ve been if the body had been sitting there for a while. Rigor mortis had already started to set in but wasn’t fully rigid. Whoever had killed him had done so recently, within the past 30 minutes if Soap’s approximation was correct.
Soap pulled out his heartbeat monitor only to find that there wasn’t a single heartbeat in his immediate vicinity. He moved forward at a much faster pace, not finding a single heartbeat in the entire base. He did come across dozens of bodies, mostly soldiers, and some civilians. Most had been shot, likely by a sniper positioned somewhere just outside the base. His best guess was that the assailants had picked off as many people as they could from afar, while another team moved in to pick off stragglers. Everyone was likely dead before they knew they were under attack. That had to be why Laswell hadn’t mentioned any sort of distress signal.
He quickly radioed her and reported what he found. She maintained a calm disposition, but Soap could’ve sworn she sounded shaken.
“Someone is either just as interested in getting to Turgenev as we are, or they knew we were coming and they’re trying to protect him for some reason. Either way, continue with your mission, Sergeant. There’s a chance whoever was there before you missed something.”
“Copy, moving into the main compound now,” He hugged the wall of the building, worried the snipers may still be out there, although he knew it was unlikely. They would’ve had plenty of time to take him out while he was making his way across the base if they were still there.
“And be vigilant . Someone doesn’t want us to see whatever was or is in that base. If our information is still there, expect resistance.”
“Understood,” He moved into the compound, immediately realizing the people inside the building had not been insulated from the slaughter. In every room he cleared, there was at least one body. Most looked like victims of surprise attacks, but others weren’t as lucky. It was clear that some had attempted to fight back. They had likely spent their last moments in sheer terror, fighting till the bitter end to protect… something. Soap didn’t know what, and the people within the base probably hadn’t known either. It wasn’t his job to ask questions. It wasn’t the job of the soldiers that littered the ground either. Soap wondered if that’s how he’d end up eventually. Ripped to shreds by an enemy far more skilled than him, not even knowing what he was fighting for or why. Just fighting and dying because that’s what soldiers do.
He updated Laswell as he moved through the compound. He checked drawers, busted open safes, found a laptop in one office, and slipped it into his bag, hoping something useful might be on it.
He made sure to check his corners, always looking over his shoulder, well aware that he wasn’t in the clear. He was still in hostile territory, even if he thought he was alone. The corpses at his feet had probably thought they were alone in the moments before their death. He could not afford to be so careless.
He cleared most of the rooms, slowly making his way to the control center. He told Laswell, and she reaffirmed what he already knew, that it was the most likely place to store important information. If he was going to meet resistance, it’d be there.
He pressed his ear to the door of the room, straining to hear any noise from within. Not hearing anything, he wrenched open the door and made it exactly one step into the room before he was thrown into the far wall by an explosion.
He felt his head crack against the concrete wall, a ringing in his ears that made his vision swim, and burns across the front of his body. He could feel a wall of heat coming from the control room, his blurry vision only making out the bright red of a roaring flame. He forced himself to get up, almost losing consciousness, but pushing through. He held up his weapon, peering into the control room, which was still very much on fire. Soap glanced around, deciding it was a lost cause. Anything worth finding was going up in flames around him.
As he left the compound to head to the exfil site, he was completely oblivious to the lone sniper hiding in the surrounding mountains, watching Soap through his scope.
/////
“I want to apologize again, Soap,” Laswell paced beside his bed in the infirmary, gaze distant.
Soap brushed off her apology, “We knew there might be resistance. Someone didn’t want us to find whatever was in that room. They destroyed what we wanted and tried to take out an enemy soldier while they were at it. I knew the risks.”
Laswell shook her head. She stopped and turned towards Soap.
“We think Turgenev may have been holed up there,” Her face betrayed no emotion and Soap wished he could get a read on her, now more than ever.
He tried to sit up but gave up when the movement tugged painfully on his charred skin.
“You said I was looking for information. You didn’t tell me I was going after the fucker.” Soap attempted a glare, but Laswell was as unflappable as ever.
“We were under the impression that that’s all you would find. If we had known there was a chance he’d been there recently, we would’ve sent a whole team. It was meant to be a recon mission. We believe our informant wasn’t aware of how close he was to the target.”
Soap huffed, closing his eyes and tilting his head back onto his pillow. He was tired and sore. He didn’t want to do a debrief right then, but time was of the essence. They were close, so much closer than they had thought. For all they knew, some of the bodies at the compound could’ve been Turgenev’s handiwork.
“Is the informant alive?” Soap asked. Laswell sighed.
“We’re in the process of making IDs on the bodies now, but it’s unlikely. If he made it out, we may never hear from him again. Moles tend to be pretty skittish.” She walked over and sat on the edge of his bed.
“Do we know who was behind the attack?”
“Obviously, someone working for or with Turgenev’s people. Likely a mercenary group who’ve been hired to protect him. That’s all we’ve got so far. But…” She trailed off, looking Soap in the eye.
“...We think it was one man.”
Soap blinked, trying to process what Laswell had just said.
“That’s not possible.”
“It’s difficult to pull off, but not impossible. In fact, we’ve seen it before.”
Soap’s brow furrowed at that. “You’ve seen it before?”
“We think the person behind what you found at the base is someone we’ve dealt with before,” Laswell pulled her laptop out of her bag. She pulled up what Soap assumed was the presentation he would’ve had to sit through at the actual debrief if he hadn’t gotten himself blown up. She opened a slide that showed an absolute bloodbath. Soap immediately recognized how strikingly similar the killings Laswell was showing him were to what he had found in Siberia. Clean slashes across the neck, a knife in between the C1 and C2 vertebrae, a shot right between the eyes. It was precise and fast and impressive . Most of the bodies lacked defensive wounds entirely. They had no idea he was coming until they were already bleeding out. It looked like a team had cleaned house. It didn’t look like the work of one man. Laswell adjusted the computer so Soap had a better view. “This was the work of a British mercenary. After this stunt, we lost track of him for a few years. Until,” She went to the next slide, which showed an equally familiar and gory scene. “He popped up in Uzbekistan. Then again in Mongolia. Then in Morocco. Then Canada, Colombia, Estonia, Turkey, Senegal, and so on. It took us a while to realize it was all the same person. We figured it was a team. But his work’s unique, and he’s not perfect. He left a paper trail, albeit not much of one. The snow was thick enough that it covered any footprints he left, and he’s good about covering himself, but we’re 98% sure this is our guy.”
Soap stared at the images that flashed on the screen. Laswell shut the laptop abruptly, shoving it back into her bag.
“So, yes, we do think one man was responsible for what you found in Siberia.”
Soap can only come up with one question to ask after that, “Why?”
Laswell gave him an odd look. “Why what?”
Soap swallowed thickly, “Why did he do what he did in Siberia?”
Laswell stared at him. “Likely because he was hired to protect our Russian. We don’t know why he killed everyone when he was likely just sent to go after our informant, but we’ll figure it out. But, if you’re asking what his personal motivations are, why do men like him do anything? Money, vigilantism, glory? His ‘why’ doesn’t matter as much as his employer’s ‘why’, or the ‘how’ and the ‘where’. If we’re right, and this mercenary is the one behind what happened in Siberia, we need to find him immediately. He’s dangerous on his own, but now he’s protecting someone even more dangerous than he is.”
Soap nodded, feeling a migraine coming on.
“What’s his name?” Soap asked. “The British mercenary. What’s his name?”
Laswell was already gathering her things to leave as she answered, “He calls himself Ghost.”
/////
News spread fast around the base.
As soon as word got out that ‘The Ghost had tried to kill Soap’, he hadn’t had a moment of peace.
Apparently, Ghost was a bit of a boogeyman, a scary story that superior officers told their men to keep them in line. ‘Stay close to the rest of your unit or else the Ghost will put a bullet in your skull’.
If he wasn’t being pestered by some of the newer recruits, begging him to talk about Ghost and how Soap managed to escape with his life, then he was being hounded by his peers, who were just as big of gossips as the rookies.
“So, did you actually get to see him?” Gaz had asked while they were watching some of the recruits run laps and, also, watching Price yell at the stragglers.
“For the hundredth time, I didn’t see him. He was already gone by the time I got there,” Soap answered, rolling his neck to ease the soreness that came with walking face-first into an explosion. “Also, Laswell hasn’t confirmed that Ghost is the one who did it.”
“She said she was 98% sure, which means she’s 100% sure but she has to cover her ass in the unlikely event that she’s wrong,” Gaz stated. Soap snorted, realizing the 141 had gotten the exact same briefing he had in the infirmary. Soap didn’t disagree with Gaz, he just didn’t want to talk about Ghost anymore. He hadn’t even known the guy existed until the day before, and now he couldn’t go anywhere without hearing someone talk about how lucky he was to be alive after a run-in with the Ghost.
“Whatever. Bet it’s all urban legend. I mean, yeah, he’s good, but he’s one guy. Half the shit people are saying has to be made up,” Soap watched a private fall on their ass and delighted in Price immediately barking at them. He almost felt nostalgic about his days in basic. Almost. He felt Gaz’s eyes on him and turned to see Gaz staring at him like he was crazy. “What?”
Gaz shook his head in disbelief. “If you really think that, you haven’t been paying attention to what people are saying.”
Soap scoffed, “I literally can’t avoid what people are saying, it’s driving me fucking mad.”
“I’m not talking ‘bout the recruits, or Meat and Scarecrow, I’m talking about Laswell, Price, those guys. The higher-ups who have to keep tabs on people like Ghost. That’s where the real stories are. All I’m saying is, based on what I’ve heard from them ? You’re lucky to be alive right now. The Ghost isn’t the kind of guy to leave loose ends.” Gaz gave him a light punch to the shoulder before heading back inside, leaving Soap to think about the information he’d just dropped in Soap’s lap.
Laswell had only divulged the bare minimum of information about Ghost in order to convince Soap that he was the one behind the massacre in Siberia. What she had shared had been telling enough, but was she actively hiding how bad this guy was from Soap? Why? Shouldn’t Soap know what he’s dealing with if he’s gonna help track this guy down?
If Laswell wasn’t going to tell him what was going on, he’d figure it out for himself.
/////
Price would rip him a new asshole if he caught Soap digging around in his office for classified information that he had no right to look for. That thought did not deter Soap whatsoever.
He understood that he was a soldier and the only information that was pertinent to him was whatever his superiors deemed pertinent, but Soap was also a cheeky bastard who liked to get his hands dirty. Laswell hadn’t been honest with him about Ghost, at least not as honest as she could’ve been. It wasn’t that Soap didn’t trust her - he trusted her with his life. Soap just couldn’t get what Gaz had told him out of his head. So he searched for his own answers.
He tried to skim through the information he found, not wanting to find anything that didn’t directly relate to Ghost. After 30 minutes of flipping through manila files, Soap stumbled onto one that looked unusual enough to grab his attention. At the top, it read ‘Riley, Simon’, and unlike most of the other files, there was no photo. The most notable difference from Riley’s file was that the majority of the information was redacted. Not even the date of birth was visible. Soap was so busy flitting through the pages of redacted information, hoping for anything useful, he failed to notice his Captain enter the office until he heard a knock on the doorframe.
Soap froze, Riley’s file clutched in his hand like a lifeline. He knew turning around would only incriminate him further, but who was he fooling anyways? The choice was taken from him when Price walked over to him and tugged the file out of his hands. He glanced at it and then back up at Soap. Soap was expecting some sort of reprimand, because Price may be more lenient with the 141, but breaking into a superior’s office and snooping through their files wasn’t something that he could let slide. Price surprised him by simply sighing, tossing the file onto his desk and collapsing into his chair. Soap wasn’t sure what to do, but it seemed like Price wanted to talk, so he walked to the other side of the desk and sat across from his Captain, waiting for some sort of indication of whether or not he was in trouble.
Price wasn’t looking at him, his gaze was glued to the file. Soap couldn’t be sure what was so interesting about it, damn near everything but the name was redacted. Soap opened his mouth to say something, anything because the silence was maddening, but Price held a hand up to stop him. He nodded his head towards the file.
“You know what that is?” He asked, eyes still trained on the name at the top, ‘Riley, Simon’. Soap nodded because if he had had any doubts before, the way Price was acting made it obvious who the file was about.
“It’s him, isn’t it? The Ghost?” Soap asked, leaning forward to try and force eye contact with Price, who was unfazed by the attempt.
Price just nodded, looking much older than he really was, a weariness on his face that Soap was unaccustomed to seeing.
Soap swallowed thickly before asking the question that had been itching at the back of his mind since he’d found the file, “Why do you have this? I was looking for mission reports that mentioned him, but you have this. A full dossier on the fucker. And why the fuck is it all redacted? What fucking use is keeping it if you can’t read the damn thing?” Soap was picking up steam and he knew he had no right to be angry in this situation, that Price was more than entitled to chew him out. But Price wasn’t angry and it made Soap feel dangerously emboldened. He wanted to keep going, to keep pushing until he got some sort of reaction out of his superior, but Price was done being a silent observer to Soap’s tantrum.
“I know why you were in here. I get why you’re curious. You want to know if what people say about him is true, and if it is, then why’d he leave you alive?” Price finally looked up, making eye contact so fierce Soap wanted to look away. “What you’re hearing from the rookies isn’t true. He’s worse. I’d say he’s a machine, but machines don’t feel and I think he likes it . He enjoys his kills. What Laswell showed you is only the stuff we can actually confirm was him. But he’s been everywhere and he’s not always tidy about things. He can wipe out an entire Siberian military base before anyone can radio for help but he can also drag it out. We had a mission a couple years back where a couple of our guys got separated from the rest of the unit. They got stranded in the Indonesian wilderness. Over the next week, Ghost slowly hunted ‘em down and picked ‘em off, one by one. Like he was making a fucking game out of it.”
Price leaned back in his chair as if trying to put distance between himself and the file.
“I don’t know why he left you alive. But he had a reason. No doubt about that. He knew someone was going to be on that base after ‘im and he could have picked you off, but he didn’t. Maybe he wasn’t expecting the 141 to show. Maybe he was just playing with his food. Whatever the reason, you’re on his radar now. I’m gonna do everything in my power to get you off of it. That means you cannot, under any circumstances, go after this guy. Am I clear, Sergeant?”
Soap scoffed, “He’s working for Turgenev. You want me to just sit this one out? What if you need the 141? You gonna bench me just cause you’re worried? ” Soap was outright offended. Price could be overprotective with the 141, but ordering them to not go after one of the most dangerous terrorists they’d been after in years just because he was concerned about Soap getting hurt? It wasn’t like him to put safety over the mission. Injuries and death came with the job. He knew that.
“Do not fight me on this, Soap. I get the job’s dangerous and I’m not benching you. You’re right, I need you to go after Turgenev. But not Ghost. Ghost won’t just kill you. Once he has you in his sights, once he’s decided that you’re his target, he’ll rip you apart piece by piece until there’s nothing left. I cannot, in good conscience, let that happen. Not if I can prevent it.” Price grabbed the file and shoved it back in the filing cabinet from which it came. “Once we get Turgenev, hopefully, Ghost will move on. Then, things go back to normal and we won’t have to deal with him for a while.”
Soap clicked his tongue a few times, just because he knew it pissed Price off. He still had questions, like why Price had that file on Ghost, or why he kept it when most of the information was useless. Those questions would have to wait. “And what if he doesn’t move on? What if you’re right, that he’s set his sights on me, or the whole 141? What if putting down Turgenev doesn’t get rid of him?”
Price’s face looked even grimmer than it had throughout the entire conversation thus far.
“We just have to pray that doesn’t happen.”