Disclaimer: Burn Notice and all of its characters belong to Matt Nix, and the USA Network. The quote in the beginning of this is from Call of Duty: Black Ops, which belongs to Treyarch. There is also a quote from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which belongs to Infinity Ward.
As for the scenes in this where Michael is speaking Russian, I am learning how to speak Russian at the moment, but my computer won't let me type in Russian, (and I'm sure not everyone speaks it) so I'm just going to write them in English and let you use your imagination. Also, I don't know an exact timeline for pre-burned Michael, so bear with me.
I'm working on the next chapter of "What We Fight For" as well, don't worry, folks! :D
A lie is a lie. Just because they write it down, and call it history doesn't make it the truth. We live in a world where seeing is not believing. Where only a few know what really happens. We live in a world where everything you know...is wrong.
I'm not the man that the government would have you believe that I am. I have a ledger full of lies. I'm not saying that I'm a saint. Not by a long shot. What I am saying is that the documents in that blood staind file folder don't tell the story of where I've been. Of what I've done. There is no penance for a soul like mine.
It was once said that "it doesn't take the most powerful nations on Earth to create the next global conflict. Just the will of a single man". I am a strong willed man, that's for damned sure. But, the thing is, as easy as it is to encite a global riot, the key to doing it well is being a ghost.
For a decade, that was my job. I was the thing that went bump in the night. I was the scary story that kept foreign operatives in line. I was a glorified boogey man. Then, with one phone call, my world shattered with nine words.
"We've got a burn notice on you. You're blacklisted."
So, what do you do when you've been thrown to the wolves, planted in a city you never wanted to see again, and the only thing you have left are your friends? You think about the sins of your past, of course.
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Pripyat, Ukraine
25 December, 2001
0325 hours
Christmas Day had never exactly been all that great when I was a boy. My father would go down to whatever bar he could find open, come home smelling of cheap bourbon, and Lucky Strikes, and beat me until he thought he'd "made a man" of me. Happy holidays.
That was why it wasn't exactly a tragedy that I was hunkered down in a drafty shack in the middle of a Ukrainian ghost town. My handler had assured me that the 3 kilometer distance between Pripyat and Chernobyl was enough to ward off any residual nuclear radiation. Wouldn't want to grow a third eyeball or anything fun like that.
I was green, fresh out of training, and I had been in country for longer than I could count. I was supposed to be gathering intel on some men with edgy trigger fingers that were moving towards a nuclear launch at the United States.
The door to the shack opened, letting in a gust of powdery snow and I resisted the urge to snap into a standing position, but allowed my hand to stray to my hip, hovering over my Sig.
"Good evening, Comrade." I said through a thick, affected Russian accent, the dialect coming easily. Eighteen months of having it drilled into your head will do that... I plastered a faux smile onto my face and stood, my hand extended to the man in front of me.
He stared at me warily through charcoal grey eyes, his sharp jaw line was tense as he stepped closer before extending his leather glove clad hand. His larger hand closed around my own like a baseball mitt.
"Do you know what your job here is?" He questioned, his deep voice and gravely.
"Move to the warhead site and give orders to launch." I replied, my voice steady and confident.
"Very good. You'll bring this launch code to the site, and give it to a man named Alexzander." The man handed me a large, bullet proof case. "If you do not complete your task, Comrade, the Commander will be displeased. I can guarantee a bullet in your skull before the sun has crested the horizon. Understand?" I gave a short nod. "Good. Best of luck." With that, he turned on his heel, turned up the fur lined collar of his jacket, and strode back out into the howling snow.
I stood, shaking the numbness of the cold that had spread through my limbs, and moved toward the door. Pulling my own coat tighter and the hat down tighter around my ear before going out into the blinding snow.
The trek to the launch site was long and tedious. It didn't help that the truck they'd given me had shitty windshield wipers and no heat. Good to know they take care of their troops.
I finally reached the desolate looking launch site nearly an hour later. The sun would be coming up soon, so I hurried through the knee deep snow, the briefcase clutched to my chest, and shouldered my way into the launch barracks.
Two men were hovering over a card table, yelling at one another over which one of them had been cheating in the card game they had going. When I cleared my throat, they looked over, their faces cold.
"I have the launch codes." I said simply, holding up the case for emphasis. The larger of the two men took a step closer.
"Fantastic. Dimiteri, get the system going." He stated, sending the other man towards the large computer on the far side of the room.
"I assume that makes you Alexzander." I said to the large man. His dark hair was close cropped, making his pudgy face look like something that belonged on a cookie commercial rather than a Russian soldier.
"That I am. What's it to you? You don't you just hand over the codes and we can get on with this already. You're wasting time." He sighed, his exasperation obvious.
"Sorry, Alex. No can do." I stated, drawing the weapon from my holster and firing a round into the front of his skull. Alexzander dropped to the ground with a sickening, wet sound. Dimiteri didn't even get a chance to turn all the way around before I cut off his concerned yelp with a shot through his temple.
Sliding the satellite phone from my pocket and dialing a number quickly, I stepped back out into the snow.
"I need an extraction. Be ready to do a touch and go. We'll have Russian troops coming in hot within the hour." Ending the call, I began jogging toward the tree line, heading for my extraction team.
Mission accomplished, crisis averted.
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Bogota, Colombia
25 December, 2002
14:30 hours
The bar was dingy, and the air was about a thousand times too thick with humidity for my taste, but the beer was cold. Lord knows that, every now and then, that's enough of a comfort to get you through the day. I was halfway through my first beer when I felt the shift in the air as someone sat on the barstool next to mine.
"You look like hell."
"Good to see you too, Sam." I said with a short laugh, glancing over at Sam as he gestured for the bartender to bring him a drink. "How are things stateside?" I asked, my voice low enough that no one was going to hear us over the roar of the men directly to our left as they cheered on a static laden soccer match on the tiny television.
"They're well. I checked on your mother and brother the other day. They both seem to be doing well. She's a little pissed that you haven't gone to see your dad's grave yet." I rolled my eyes and took another long drink of beer.
"Of course she is. I don't understand why she's surprised. He wasn't exactly the most loving man, I don't think he'd give half a damn if I never came by." Sam pulled a shrug and ran his hand through his hair.
"How about you? How've you been?"
"Can't complain. Business is booming." I grumbled, downing the rest of my beer. "Traveling the world, meeting new, exciting people." And then killing them. I added as a bitter afterthought.
"Have the nightmares gotten better?" Sam questioned, his voice so low that I had barely heard him. I could tell that he was uncomfortable asking the question.
"Sam, I'm fine. I don't need you to mother-hen me." I replied, glaring at him. The only reason that Sam knew about the night terrors that had plagued me was because he had witnessed one of them and demanded an explination. Put enough bullets in men's heads, and they're bound to come back to bite you in the ass. I glanced down at my watch and threw a few bills on the bar before standing. "I've got to go, duty calls. It was good to see you, Sam. Next time you're around." I clapped him on the shoulder and snagged my empty beer bottle off the bar.
"Definitely, brother. I'll be sure to look you up next time I'm in the backdrop of God knows what country." He chuckled. "Probably best if you look me up next time. Less hassle for me to track you down."
"Fair enough." I chuckled and headed out the door, leaving Sam to sweet talk the tan-legged beauty at the end of the bar.
I walked halfway down the street, my hands in my pockets, and whistled a tune to myself. The man was hovering outside a shop, his stark white suit the only reason that I could distinguish him from every other Joe Schmo on the streets. I slowed my steps and waited for him to move down the street and duck into a side alley before following him.
I began to stagger and sing a scattered, drunken version of some drinking song. The man spun to face me, his hand twitching towards the location of, what I was sure, was a pistol with a caliber to high for him to handle. I leaned on the concrete wall heavily, my palm sliding against the inexplicably wet wall.
"What are you doing?" The man called out, his English very good for a man that I knew for a fact had spent his entire life waiting in the wings of the Colombian cartel.
"I dunno, man, isn' this tha way that I'm 'pposed to go to get back to my hotel?" I slurred, one of my eyes beginning to droop closed. He shook his head and stepped closer, his hand, thankfully, relaxing to his side.
"I think you're lost, friend." He replied when he finally reached my side, his hand falling onto my shoulder.
"You sure?" I continued, making a show of struggling to keep my standing position. "I's pretty sure it was this way." The man quirked a brow at me.
"I'm sure. There are no hotels this way." He replied.
"Oh, well, in that case." I replied, pulling the double needle from my pocket and driving it into his belly button. He dropped to his knees, clutching the wound as he gaped up at me. "Black Mamba venom." I replied, answering his unspoken question. "It's native in Africa, but, by the time they find your body, it will have left your blood stream. They don't check the belly button for puncture wounds when they do an autopsy."
He stared up at me, his eyes wild with fear as he gasped for air. I grabbed his feet and began dragging him behind the trash pile that was at least a foot taller than I was.
"The thing is, Chavez, you shouldn't have been moving your cartel up to our neck of the woods. That venom that I injected you with will kill you within fifteen minutes. You feel your heart racing?" He gave a short nod. "That's the cardiotoxins. The cool thing, though, is that the neurotoxins will get to you before the cardiotoxins. You'll get to sit through the first stages of your brain deteriorating. Damn shame that I'm the only one that will know what happened to you." I gave him and evil smirk, lifted a few of the trash bags and shoved him into the center of the mountain of garbage before replacing them, his body invisible and the odor of the massive garbage heap enough to mask the smell of decomp.
I straightened my suit and walked out of the alleyway to browse a couple of stores before hopping back on a plane to Washington. Threat neutralized, mission accomplished.
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Belfast, Ireland
25 December, 2004
2100 hours
The Black Sands Pub wasn't exactly 'my scene', but it was, as it turned out, Michael McBride's. That was why I had been sitting at the bar, staring into the black abyss of a pint of Guinness, when I heard the tiny bell dinging as the door opened. Sean Glenanne was supposed to be meeting me at the pub to talk shop, and figure out whether or not he was going to let me into his group of explosive experts.
I had been in that deep cover for long enough to know that the Sean Glenanne wasn't exactly the most punctual man in the world. For a man that was supposed to be a major player in a terrorist organization of Irish rebels, he wasn't very good at covert meetings. He was loud, he picked fights over the smallest issues, and he loved chasing women. All in all...he was an Irish boy.
I turned my head slightly, using the mirror behind the bar and my periphial vision to catch sight of the woman that strode across the scarred, scratched wood floors of the pub and leaned on the bar like she owned the joint.
I had seen her face before, but it took me a moment to realize that it had been in the briefing file for the IRA group that I would be working with. This was Fiona Glenanne. I swallowed down the rest of my beer around the lump in my throat before sliding off the stool and striding over to her. I wasn't sure if the overconfidence was born of beer that was darker than the ink in a Sharpie, or the fact that I wasn't me in that moment. I was McBride. I have to admit, that was a cover with swagger.
"Excuse me, Miss, I don't mean ta interupt your drink there, but I was wondering if you'd like ta dance?" I questioned. I can't tell you why it shocked me when I found myself looking down the muzzle of a snub nosed revolver, but I kept my cool and let out a deep chuckle.
"I'll take that as a yes." I stated. Fiona had grinned and tucked the gun back into...wherever the hell she'd pulled it from, swallowed down the whiskey in front of her in a smooth swallow, and then finally turned to face me.
"I guess you think you're some smooth talker, don't ya?" She asked, her accent dripping from her words like thick honey. I smirked down at her.
"No, I just think that I've got a pretty good read on someone like you."
"Is that so? Well, then, we'll just have ta see how good your 'read' is by the end of this song." With that, she tugged me onto the dance floor and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. We swayed to the rhythm of the acoustic guitar on stage in perfect synchronization. We were making our second pass of the stage when she finally spoke, her eyes searching mine like she could read my entire ledger without even knowing my real name. "So, am I to take it that you're McBride?" I feigned confusion and quirked a brow.
"I'm sorry?"
"Michael McBride. I'm Fiona Glenanne. My brother sent me to see if you were worth the excitement that we've heard about you." I caught sight of her brother laughing with another, smaller man in the corner of the pub and rolled my eyes.
"That I am. It's good ta meet you, Miss Glenanne." I said, my voice low and even. I vaguely registered that Fiona's face had inched closer to mine.
"Well now, if you're as ballsy as they say you are, McBride, why don't ya just kiss me? You've been thinking about it since we started dancing." Well, I'll be damned...she was right. I smirked and leaned in, my lips hovering over hers for half a second, before finally brushing over them.
Her lips were soft, like silk, and had me leaning into the kiss like it was the only thing keeping me grounded. She tasted of Irish whiskey and the faint, lingering taste of blueberries, mixed with something darker, something musky. The air around her was scented with gun oil and the scent of an expensive perfume that I'd never smelled before.
All too soon, she was pulling away, leaving me staring at her kiss-swollen lips with starry eyes. The next thing that I knew, her palm connected with my cheek, stinging the skin as I watched her walk over to her brothers, her hips swaying in rhythm with the song. She whispered a few things in their ears, and then stepped out the front door.
I was still standing on the edge of the dance floor, dumbfounded, when Sean came over and clapped me on the shoulder, a low chuckle rumbling through his chest.
"Well, it looks like you've passed the test, McBride. I'll come by your place tomorrow to tell ya what we've got planned. You might wanna get some ice for that cheek, lad. My sister has a helluva swing on her." He laughed all the way out the door, the smaller man following him, and leaving me there with a stupid grin on my face.
Months later, as I sat on an airplane on my way to my next destination with Card snoring to my left as he slept, drooling on the airplane window, I stared down at the photograph of me and Fiona at one of her family's parties. She was smiling so tenderly up at me, her arms tucked around my waist, and I couldn't remember a time when I'd seen myself that happy.
I sighed and tucked the photo into the breast pocket of my shirt before leaning my head back and preparing for my next cover. I'd gone in, infiltrated the Irish Republican Army, gathered intel, and taken out a few targets in the process. But, I'd also left the woman that I had fallen madly in love with (a woman who was not, in fact, my fiance) without so much as a goodbye.
Threat neutralized, for the time being. Mission accomplished...
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I do not deserve praise for the atrocities that I have commited.
I do not deserve the compassion of those that are closest to me.
I have done things that are beyond unforgiveable, but somehow, some way, the group of people that I had left...my makeshift family, had forgiven me. They didn't see the bloodstained hands of a monster, they saw a man that was fighting tooth and nail to keep them safe while trying to clear his name.
I am not a hero, I don't deserve a spot in Arlington or a medal to hang in a case on a mantel in a home that I will never have. I was a glorified assassin with a government paycheck.
But, of all the things that I have done, leaving Fi in Ireland had been the hardest. That was why I spent so much time, sitting on the edge of our bed in the humid Miami night air just watching her sleep. It still boggles my mind that she came all this way. For a man like me.
I'm not the man that the government would have you believe that I am. I have a ledger full of lies. I'm not saying that I'm a saint. Not by a long shot. What I am saying is that the documents in that blood staind file folder don't tell the story of where I've been. Of what I've done.
There may be no penance for a soul like mine, but maybe, just maybe, I was on the road to redemption. A road that started on the shattered ruins of a path that I thought I'd left in Ireland. A road that ended with Fiona. She was the only mission that mattered anymore.
I settled back into bed and she instantly gravitated towards the heat of my body until I wrapped her in my arms and placed a kiss to the top of her head. This was what my life had boiled down to. This was the most important thing on my list of accomplishments that the world would never see. They could put whatever they wanted in the history book, I knew the truth. I was one of the few in the world, but I had someone to share my burden with. Someone that I trusted, heart and soul.
Mission accomplished.
Much love,
P.S.,
Burner4Life, I missed you too :D