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Chapter 1
Out of the Frying Pan
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Captain John Price, 22nd Regiment, SAS Mountain Troop.
Site Hotel Bravo, Afghanistan.
Day Zero, 2016.

Captain John Price opened his eyes slowly, blinking away dust and sand from his lashes. His face was aching and bruised, and he was fairly certain that his nose was broken. He glanced around, seeing a man's corpse lyingover his own battered body. The corpse belonged to the traitorous General Shepherd. Price knew he didn't kill the American...but who did? He pushed the dead body off, and grabbed the general's dog tags; a piece of evidence to prove the man was dead.

He abruptly remembered where he was, and who had been there with him. Captain John "Soap" MacTavish was sprawled out on his back a few meters away.

"Soap...Soap! Don't die on me!" Price gasped hoarsely. The older SAS captain was panting and struggling to move towards his fellow comrade, who was his closest friend before, and his only friend right now.

The Mohawk-haired Scotsman had a severe knife wound in his chest; fortunately for him, Price was a competent field medic as well as an excellent marksman. Being a man of many skills certainly paid off. The bearded captain dressed the wound as well as he could with the limited medical supplies he had. No organs were punctured, and miraculously, the stab wasn't exceedingly deep. The blade had avoided both Soap's lungs and heart by mere centimeters.

"God damn it. Where's an extraction heli when we need it?" the Briton growled under his breath. As soon as the thought went through Price's mind, he heard the distant thunder of chopper blades slicing through thick desert air.

"Soap, sounds like this is it, mate. I 'spose they're coming to finish us off." He dragged the injured Scottish captain behind an old, rust-patched pickup, and handed him a Steyr TMP with a few extra clips.

"Thanks, Price..."

"Don't waste your breath; we're both going to die here, anyway." he rasped, glancing around for certain enemies.

Price's radio crackled on; they were both surprised it still worked after that fall down the waterfall. "Captain Price...do you read me? I am coming over to your position with a Pave-Low for extraction...do you copy?"

It was a wonderfully familiar Russian voice; never before had either one of the men been so grateful to hear that thick Russian accent before.

"Nikolai...thank God..." Soap whispered hoarsely.

"I hear ya loud and clear, mate. I got Soap here, and he's hurt pretty bad. Do you have any medical equipment up there?" Price barked into the radio.

"Da, I have a medical kit and some supplies. I will be landing nearby in a minute or two."

Sure enough, in about two minutes, Nikolai's "borrowed" Shadow Company chopper landed a few hundred feet from the SAS captains. The goateed Russian hopped out from the cockpit of the chopper and jogged towards MacTavish, concern evident in his sharp brown eyes, which immediately fell on the Scotsman's chest wound; it was crudely bandaged with blood seeping through the pure white cloth.

"Captain Price, he is not doing well."

"No, he isn't. Now help me lift him, Nikolai." Price and Nikolai grunted as they helped their injured comrade, leading him towards the extraction helicopter with his arms over their backs.

"Come on, Soap, just a bit more..." The gruff old Briton growled under his breath.

They laid his body on a bench inside the helicopter, Nikolai jumping to the front and powering up the rotors. The bearded Englishman gritted his teeth as he looked around the passenger for a medical kit. He found one in the corner, underneath the seats; he slid it out and popped it open. It was a fairly large kit, with plenty of painkillers and ample tools for disinfecting and stitching a wound.

Price peeled off the impromptu dressing he'd applied before, and yanked the belt from his pants, folding it up and placing it on a seat next to him. Price cleaned his hands thoroughly and pulled on a pair of clean medical gloves. He stuffed the leather between the surprised Scottish captain's teeth, and stabbed a morphine auto-injector into his arm. The older man sighed as he grabbed a bottle of disinfectant, wiping the blood away from the wound with a towel dampenedwith the cleansing substance.

He could see Soap's teal-blue eyes tear up slightly, and he noticed his teeth sinking deep into the pliable leather. The Englishman hated doing this to Soap, his trainee, his closest friend. If anything, it should have been him comforting the younger captain, telling him it'd be all right. But the circumstances didn't allow for that luxury; he had to take on both the roles of medic and friend at the same time.

"Hold on, Soap...breathe. Keep breathing. It'll hurt less soon." he muttered. He worked quickly, expertly, cleansing the wound, stitching it up, applying a clean, tight dressing, and cleaning himself and Soap, removing the belt from the Scot's mouth once he was done. Price knew Soap still felt a significant amount of pain, despite the injection of morphine and his caution in operating. In his eyes, Soap was still, in a way, the clumsy FNG he'd met all those years ago; he couldn't stand hurting him in any way. Hell, even when he'd criticized the recruit's name, five years back, he'd immediately regretted doing that because of the hurt look in Soap's eyes. That was the same look his visage held right now. It spoke volumes.

He couldn't withstand that gaze. It hit him at one of his only emotional weak points. Soap trusted him, and he felt like he'd failed that trust. It grated on him, that loss of trust. It was the same feeling as when he said the truth, and a close friend accused him of lying.

Price pulled his sand-colored slouch hat over his eyes, and yanked off his checkered black-and-white keffiyeh, wrapping it around Soap's neck gently. The scarf had quite the story behind it. His fellow prisoner in the Gulag used to wear it. When the prisoner was killed by the guards during an especially violent torture session, Price kept it in memory of his lost friend. He had held onto it throughout his remaining time in the Gulag. He wasn't a superstitious man, but it always seemed to bring him good luck, even after his rescue by Task Force 141.

Right now, Soap needed all the good luck he could get., and maybe, just maybe, this would give him that little push he needed to defy the odds, to stare Death in the face and walk away unscathed.

"Soap. Feeling better?" the British man asked quietly.

MacTavish nodded slightly; he was quite pale, and was sweating profusely. The Scot needed to rest; he'd lost massive quantities of blood. Nikolai would have to get them to a place with some real medical supplies, and soon. Soap's life depended on it.

The SAS captain barely even attended to his own wounds, simply wiping away some blood from his bleeding nose, and applying a wet towel to his throbbing forehead in a pathetic attempt at reducing the pain.

"Hey, Nikolai. Where are we headed?" Captain Price growled to the man sitting in the cockpit of the Pave Low.

"To a town in Russia. There is a place where nobody will find us. We will get medical supplies and ammo."
"Where, exactly?"

"A big town...it was evacuated just after the war started, I think. Nobody will look for us there."