Prologue

"Cliffhanger"
Day 2 - 07:35:56
Sgt. Gary "Roach" Sanderson
Task Force 141
Tian Shan Range, Kazakhstan

The wind that blew through the Tian Shan mountains was cold: I could feel as harsh gusts of wind smacked against me in sporadic bursts with the times in between being filled with gentler and longer periods of cool breezes blowing across my face and chest. Of course, I wasn't cold. Military equipment, a winter coat, a thermal jacket, and a layer of hot sweat generated by half an hour of straight mountain climbing were keeping me perfectly warm as I enjoyed the brief respite given to Captain John MacTavish and myself after we had been spending a majority of this day climbing, hiking, and climbing some more to get to where we were now.

I stole a brief glance upward as we waited there: it wasn't that much higher until we would be at the top of the cliff. From there MacTavish had told me that our orders were to infiltrate the base, meet up with a CIA spook who had some sort of secret reasons for following us in on the mission, we would get the ACS module, and then we would make our way to the designated primary extraction zone at the best possible speed that we could possibly manage. If it wasn't for the fact that we had to work with a spook from the Central Intelligence Agency, a man by the name of 1st Lieutenant Richard Brook, then I would have felt just fine about this mission but as a member of the 1-4-1, I had to be willing to deal with variables like that. Besides, he was on our side, and a third gun just might prove useful...even if he was a pencil-pusher who had barely ever been in the field.

The end of our break was suddenly announced with a MiG roaring away from overhead.

"Alright Roach, breaks over: let's go." Captain MacTavish ordered.

I watched him throw his cigar over the edge of the cliff, I stole a glance down at it, and watched as an almost unnoticeable black shape bounced down the icy face of the cliff to the foggy depths far below. Then we rose seemingly as one body in to a standing position before we started moving. We went relatively slowly, having to keep our balance as we did so. Soon we reached an area that Soap found suitable in terms of how flat it was, ordered me to spot him, and then we both started up. As I climbed up the cliff, performing an action that was felt like it was becoming instinctual to me, my mind was slightly elsewhere. As we climbed, forcing ourselves up, I kept wondering how a pencil pusher from the CIA made it through this. Had he gotten in by some other way and if so, how? Everywhere else around the base was massive mountains and one heavily guarded road between all those mountains. Besides that, there was no way that he had gotten in from something like a parachute or a helicopter. The guy must have been pretty fit for a desk worker-turned-field agent. It didn't matter though, because even if he had simply had to cut a hole through the fence and walk through, we still had to meet up with him as part of our orders directly from General Shepard himself.

As we climbed another MiG took off, shaking large pieces of ice loose from the face of the cliff. I watched as MacTavish lost his grip on one of his climbing axes and swung to the right, both as a result of the MiG passing so close, and also probably to avoid the falling ice. I myself shifted to the right and watched as the larger pieces of ice went tumbling past me, breaking up in to smaller pieces as they fell down the cliff, and the smaller pieces simply bounced off me. I didn't wait long for the ice to fall and resumed climbing as soon as I could, MacTavish doing the same. I watched the Captain disappear over the edge as he pulled himself up above me and I kept climbing until I had caught up, digging my axes in to the surface of the small plateau on which we had found ourselves, and pulled myself up. A thin and wispy fog surrounded the area immediately around us and I watched as MacTavish steeled his nerves for the next jump. I had, of course, seen the satellite photography and did the same.

"Good luck mate, see you on the other side." MacTavish said.

I gave him a nod and watched as he turned to the ledge. He ran and leaped from the edge, straight in to the fog. Once he did so I waited for a moment and watched it clear enough for me to see him waving me to follow him over. I took off running and jumped from the edge, my axes raising above my head in midair, and one of my feet extended ahead of me. My foot caught the ice first and they were followed immediately by my axes digging in to the ice...but that didn't last. I had kicked in to a bad piece of ice and it gave out almost instantly under the strain of my weight: leaving me sliding down the cliff with only my axes to save my life. I began panicking as I slid, then the matter was made worse by the right axe busting free, and I was suddenly left hanging by one hand. I was really panicking now, looking down to see the foggy and seemingly bottomless mist from which I had just come: I had always had a fear of dying alone. I thought this was it, that Captain MacTavish would have to abandon me and move on, but then I heard a sound like my own axes slicing through the ice.

Captain MacTavish burst from the fog in a flurry of ice particles as he kicked his feet in to the cliff face, stopping his own fall. MacTavish clasped a hand around my wrist in that same moment and I suddenly felt relief starting to come over me. He motioned with his head and I gave him a nod. I swung my body as best I could, timing it with his own through, and increasing the overall momentum as Captain MacTavish threw me farther up the cliff. I dug in with my axes and resumed climbing to the top. I felt the adrenaline from my near-death experience beginning to fade away as the adrenaline of being in the middle of an extremely dangerous mission began to take over. I kept climbing until I reached the top of a second plataue with Captain MacTavish right behind me. When I crested the top I stuck my climbing axes back on to my vest and took my primary weapon, a silenced ACR with a heartbeat sensor and a red-dot sight attached, from my side, and MacTavish drew his rifle as well. We pulled ourselves up several small rises in the cliff-face until we both arrived at our destination: after all that trouble we had managed to get inside the base's perimeter.

"Roach: check your heartbeat sensor." Captain MacTavish ordered.

I flipped it away from the gun, the sensor suddenly activating at the motion. It showed me it's scope, a small line going out to detect the heartbeat of anything bigger than a small piece of fauna. I knew exactly how it worked, that this one was in fine working condition, the color coding that was programmed in to it, and it's obvious practical applications in combat. However, being the newest guy to the team, I guessed that one of the things I would receive besides crap from my fellow Task Force members was the concern (sometimes unnecessary) of my superior officer.

"You should be able to see me on the scope." MacTavish said "The blue dot is me, any unrecognized contacts will show up as white dots."

I nodded and we both started moving at a low crouch near the runway, right as a MiG came in for a landing.

"Roach, these muppets have no idea we're here: let's try and keep it that way." Captain MacTavish said.

I did nothing in response as we rounded a turn in the trail and began cresting a small rise...but then we were both put on alert by something we saw. The human eye naturally picks out any shapes that don't seem natural to the surrounding environment. That's why straight lines, faces, and the silhouettes of people can all seem to stick out more in an environment than things like trees, animals, and other parts of nature which was why they had developed things like camouflage uniforms and colored face-paint. I was no college-qualified naturalist, but I had never known about black boots magically growing out of the snow of the Tian Shan Range. MacTavish and I both approached slowly, our guns raised, and we scanned our surroundings at all times. The tall ridge to out right, the runway, and the large rock to the left of the bodies we had just found. It was almost definitely our contact, Lieutenant Brook, but we didn't want to take any chances. To be safe, MacTavish issued the challenge we had been briefed on.

"Shakespeare." Captain MacTavish called.

We both watched as a crouching figure suddenly stepped out from behind the rock. His face was unidentifiable, masked by a winter mask to keep his nose and mouth warm while, a white beanie on the top of his head, and a pair of goggles across his face the revealed the only recognizable trait which was his blue eyes. He was in combat and climbing gear like our own, he had things like a few grenades and ammo pouches on his chest gear, and he was holding a SCAR-H with a silencer and thermal scope attached to it. It was obvious with the way that he had casually revealed himself, with his weapon down, and without so much as a singly order barked at us that he was the Lieutenant Brook who we had been ordered to meet. He moved towards us and stopped a few feet away.

"Hello Captain MacTavish." Lieutenant Brook said in a light but somehow unfriendly voice as he then looked to me "Sergeant Sanderson." He said, giving me a nod.

"Good evening Lieutenant Brook." MacTavish said "Mind telling the Sergeant here why you're tagging along?" MacTavish sounded annoyed "Your friends said I wasn't allowed."

"I'm simply here to retrieve some files we believe might be on the base: you two don't need to worry, I won't interfere with your mission." Lieutenant Brook seemed to be trying to tell MacTavish to shut up without actually saying it.

"Alright then, let's go." Captain MacTavish still sounded annoyed as he motioned with his head for me to follow him.

We kept moving down the trail as Lieutenant Brook took up a spot behind us. As we passed the rock behind which the spook had been hiding I was able to get a perfectly clear look at the bodies as I had passed them: with they way the blood from their head wounds had darkened and how snow had settled over them in a thin sheet, it was obvious that they had been laying in that position for some time now. We approached another turn in the trail, coming to a rise in the path, and as we did two white dots began showing up on my scope with a beeping sound emanating from my ear-bud as if to remind me. When we began to crest the rise I saw the masked heads of the two Russian soldiers as they both stood there talking to each other about...something. Neither of them noticed any of us.

"Alright Roach, let's take them out at the same time: on three." Captain MacTavish ordered "You take the one on the left."

I looked through my red-dot sight as MacTavish got in position, the dot partially blotting out the face of my target.

"1, 2...3." Captain MacTavish counted.

The count had been relatively quick considering the kind of precision that we were approaching the situation with but we both fired at the same time. The Russian to the right fell forward as the single round from Captain MacTavish's M21 smacked in to the top of his neck while my target fell like a bag of bricks: three rounds from my rifle buried straight in to his face. We moved on wordlessly past the two bodies, going further in to the hostile base with every step.

"Storm's brewin' up." Captain MacTavish suddenly commented.

"I noticed it too, we can use it to our advantage." Lieutenant Brook spoke from behind us.

It was at the moment that Captain MacTavish said it that I too noticed it. The snow had been falling at a light but constant rate since we had inserted and according to the weather reports it was to be that way for the next four or five hours. Apparently since we had inserted that weather forecast had changed because now the snowfall was becoming heavier, closing the distance of my sight closer than before. We kept moving towards a line of marker flags that were placed so patrols would be able to tell where a steep fall was during a storm.

"I'll provide overwatch with the thermal scope from this ridge, you two go further in to the base." Captain MacTavish ordered.

I watched as Captain MacTavish jumped up to the ridge that had been to our right this entire time, pulled himself up, and disappeared from all forms of detection save for my rifle's heartbeat sensor. I looked to Lieutenant Brook and he made a motion for me to lead the way. I nodded and began moving towards the marker flags, gently hopping down from the edge, and landing in a pile of snow below. I heard almost nothing save for snow crunching as Lieutenant Brook hopped down beside me and we slowly began moving across a snow-stained asphalt road. Ahead of us was an orange-painted snow tractor and a dark green jeep through the windows of which I could see a Russian sporting a large beard lighting up a cigarette. My heartbeat also picked up something just past the fence, two contacts. I noticed a small green building with an open door. Around that corner of the building I watched a man emerge from around one of the corners and make his way slowly through the storm towards the doorway. As soon as he was out of sight through the doorway I moved to take cover by the green jeep, opposite the side of the smoking Russian.

"He's mine." I suddenly heard Captain MacTavish through my ear-piece.

A moment later I heard the sound of a round making contact with a human target and peeked under the jeep to see the now dead Russian, the cigarette still dangling from his lips. I rose back up in to a proper crouch and continued past the jeep and fence, moving past the open door of the nearby building, and towards the corner where the second Russian had come from. We found ourselves between the building and the perimeter fence. We moved slowly from that building, past another one, and towards a third green building with another door in which my sensor detected two contacts. I looked back to Lieutenant Brook and waved for him to follow me as I went around the right side of that building, crouching low to avoid a pair of windows through which one of the two contacts might have been looking. Then we were able to rise up in to crouches once again, moving to an open and empty cargo crate which both hid us from sight and gave us a break from the snow-fall. We kept moving though, and came to face a large slope with a bright orange perimeter fence on the crest. I eyeballed it, looked to the left which lead across a relatively flat path in to the base, and then I figured that Lieutenant and I could easily mount the slope without too much trouble or hassle.

I motioned Lieutenant Brook towards the slope and moved there myself. I kicked in with my climbing boots, leaned forward, and dug in with one hand to support myself as I climbed up through a gap in the marker fence at the top. Lieutenant Brook was right behind me, following in the same fashion as I had climbed it. I crouched at the top, waiting for him, and keeping a non-physical eye out with the heartbeat sensor attached to my rifle. I detected nothing out in the blinding snow as Lieutenant Brook finally topped the slope to come crouch beside me, just inside the marker fence. I looked to him as he tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention, then pointed off down the other side of the slope.

"I have to head that way for my part of the mission, I'll catch up with the two of you." Lieutenant Brook said.

I nodded my understanding and watched him with my heartbeat sensor, the blue dot getting further and further away until it was out of range of the scope. I then looked away and continued going across the slope, towards the fuel, and then I suddenly heard the familiar beeping of my heartbeat sensor in my ear-bud again. I saw the very edge of a white dot at the farthest range of the scope, directly ahead of me, and I went prone in to the snow. I looked down the sites of my ACR and tried to peer in to the snow-storm so I could see the person coming from ahead. I saw the vague black sillouhette of somebody appearing in the snow ahead of me, moving at a steady walk, and keeping their head down. I watched that person walk closer, and closer, and closer still without noticing me.

"I got him." I heard MacTavish say through my ear-bud.

I watched a spout of pink mist as the head of the man in front of me kicked to the side, his knees buckled, and he dropped in to the snow like a rag doll. I rose up in to a crouch and moved on past the dead body, further yet to the fuel dump. I quickly reached the end of the hill on which I had been moving this whole time, crossed a thin road, and then I could tell before I even saw the planes that I was on the runway because spots of black stuck up through the snow, that and it was far too flat to be natural. When I did reach the planes I ducked under their wings but kept moving forward at the best possible speed I could manage without slipping on the powdery snow beneath my feet.

"Hold up: I'm detecting twenty plus foot-mobiles headed for your position." MacTavish said.

A spike of adrenaline went through my heart and I kept moving towards the fuel station until I saw it seemingly manifest itself out of the snow directly ahead of me. I moved for one of the pump nozzles, removed a pack of C4 that I had been carrying with me for the mission, and I set up the remote detonator. Feeling satisfied with my work I turned back towards the way I had came, scanning the area for any hostiles who might have followed me.

"No kills, no alerts: impressive, Roach." MacTavish complimented me before continuing, "I just hacked their comms: it sounds like the module is in the far north hanger, race you there: Oscar-Mike, out." Then he ended communications.

I started heading for what my wrist-mounted GPS tracker identified as north, unable to find it myself in this storm. I moved as fast as I possibly could without sprinting once again, keeping an eye on my heartbeat sensor this time in case I ran across any portion of those twenty or more soldiers that MacTavish had spotted earlier. I didn't want to run in to a force that large on my own without even knowing where they were, so I kept scanning in a ninety-degree arch ahead of me until I saw the hanger that MacTavish had told me about. It was two hangers, actually, with a wide alley between them, and so I slipped in to that alley. As I approached the drop-off at the end of the first alley, which would place me in a back path behind the two hangars, I thought for sure that I had beaten MacTavish by a long shot as I jumped down and landed in a crouch.

"Took the scenic route, eh?" I suddenly heard him to my left.

I looked over to see him standing by the back door of one of the hangars with a Kalashnikov in hand. I held in a sigh of defeat in front of the Captain, instead simply moving closer as he motioned with his head for me to follow him. He pushed the door open and we both stepped in, some of the snow from our boots falling to the cement floor of the hangar. We started down the hallway towards a group of lockers when we saw a shadow come through a doorway ahead and to our right: a Russian guard who must have been on patrol in the hangar or getting something from one of the lockers. He didn't even notice us as he stepped through the doorway and turned to one of the lockers. MacTavish and I had both broken out in to a run at that point, straight for the unfortunate Russian guard. MacTavish ran full-bore in to him as I moved in to the doorway with my rifle raised. It only took me a second to give the area a quick sweep of the area so I glanced over my shoulder just as MacTavish drove his knife in to the man's throat.

He only twitched once as MacTavish stood up again, sheathing his knife. and walking towards the remains of the satellite as if nothing had just happened.

"Roach, go upstairs, and secure the ACS module." MacTavish ordered.

I nodded and quickly bound up a flight of metal stairs, keeping my eyes on the area above me, and making sure that no Russians came out of the only doorway above me. I reached the top of the stairs in moments and moved through the doorway with my rifle raised, keeping an eye on my heartbeat sensor as I scanned the room, and turning left to approach a desk on which sat both a computer and our primary object: the ACS module sitting next to the computer, waiting for me almost. I snatched it up from the desk and stuffed it inside my coat...just as I heard a sound which sent a chill down my spine: I heard the sound of the massive hangar door opening up which meant that...

"Roach, I've been compromised." MacTavish said "Hold your position keep your head down."

I crouched down as I moved to the doorway from which I had entered, taking cover behind a small stack of crates and barrels. I was able to peer through a space between the crates and the barrel. At the doorway stood at least twelve or thirteen Russian soldiers who were all watching Captain MacTavish intently as he went to his knees with his hands above his head.

"This is Major Petrov!" A voice on a loud-speaker boomed "Come out with your hands up, you have five seconds to comply!"

I was tense as I watched the scenario before me.

"5...4..." Major Petrov started counting.

"Roach: go to plan B." Captain MacTavish whispered.

I didn't hesitate in retrieving my detonator from my vest and smashing down on the trigger as hard as I possibly could. Time suddenly seemed to slow down as the ground shook beneath my feet, the Russians began to turn around, and a massive pillar of fire and smoke rose up in the sky from the direction of the fuel depot. I raised my ACR as I rose to a stand, MacTavish and I both opening fire on the soldiers. They were gunned down with almost no trouble for us as I moved down the stairs, Captain MacTavish taking cover near the main door. From there on everything became a blur of fear and excitement for me as MacTavish and I both moved from the hanger. We rushed for cover behind a cement barricade, opening fire on the Russians firing at us from the strip. MacTavish ordered me to take cover near a MiG but before I could clear out the Russians near it to do so, it burst in to a cloud of fire and shrapnel. The enemy soldiers near it were consumed in the hell-fire before I rose up and ran for the jet's remains. I began firing at the soldiers I could see while MacTavish headed for the jeeps ahead of me. As he began to give me covering fire I started moving again.

"Snowmobiles!" Captain MacTavish called out.

I was caught in the open as the two-man snowmobiles came bounding up from a nearby slope. I watched as the man on the back of one raised his rifle at me but I reacted first, sweeping both him and his driver of the vehicle with one long stream of fire. It flipped as it was suddenly thrown off balance and I was able to follow MacTavish as we both ran for a break in a nearby perimiter fence. We jumped over the edge and slid down a slope before rising to our feet once again. We looked behind us for our pursuers just as a small group of soldiers came to the edge of the slope. We opened fire and the few who we didn't kill began to retreat back from the slope.

"Lieutenant Brook, where are you!" I heard Captain MacTavish call, obviously in to his radio.

"I've been compromised, you two will have to get there without me!" He replied.

My blood went cold as more snowmobiles came over the slope after us: Lieutenant Brook wasn't extracting, we were being forced to leave him behind. I didn't have time to feel much regret as MacTavish caught two of the men on a snowmobile with his axe, shooting the survivor with his pistol. He broke out running for the second one that stopped nearby as we shot it's occupants, ordering me to man the first one. I practically threw myself on to the seat of the snowmobile, slinging my ACR, and pulling my "survival gun" from my vest: a G18. I hit the gas and began moving as quickly as I could between the trees while Captain MacTavish radioed in for our extraction. I saw snowmobiles beginning to chase us and as one swept up in front of me I raised my Glock, opening fire, and watching as the driver was torn off from the stream of bullets that left the passenger to his painful fate of smacking straight in to a large tree at high speed. I turned with the cliff descent and I saw Captain MacTavish following me nearby as we began cutting through the trees, around a small patch, and then we hit the edge of an extremely short cliff. We both flew through a tree and came down amongst a large group of more soldiers running for snowmobiles to pursue us but we opened fire as we cut through them.

Then my heart practically froze as we began moving across a massive expanse of ice, most likely a lake in the summer, as I looked up. A helicopter came over us and turned to face us, trying to take us out with a flurry of rockets that exploded harmlessly on an island of snow a few yards to my right. MacTavish and I were going as fast as we could, occasionally opening fire on our Russian pursuers as we went in to a curve along what appeared to be a river...until we started going up-slope towards a gap in a line of trees. This geographical feature in itself didn't get any more adrenaline flowing through my veins, it was what happened when we crested the slope at well over eighty miles an hour, and came down on a nearly vertical slope. It was dotted with trees that Captain MacTavish and I both swerved to avoid to the best of our abilities while still maintaining high speeds. Captain MacTavish was talking with our helicopter pilot as we began to reach the end of the slope. I was sweating as I maxed out the throttle for the jump ahead. I hit a rise just before the gap and felt my stomach drop to my knees. Then I touched down on the other side with a massive thud that shook my whole body...and made my crotch particularly uncomfortable as I turned towards the landing helicopter.

"They have the ACS module, let's get out of here!" One member of the security team said as we pulled up.

Captain MacTavish and I almost dived off of the snowmobiles before we ran between the members of the security team. They were back inside before we even had a chance to sit down, the helicopter began to take off, and the rump shut: blocking off the cold and snow of Kazakhstan's Tian Shan Range. The crew chief of the helicopter came back to us, looked at the two of us, and gave Captain MacTavish a look of understanding...he knew what had probably happened to Lieutenant Brook.