Paul Ferenc – April, 2008

I spent a whole fucking day in the airfield. The cab arrived thirty hours late. But I decided to give the poor guy some slack. He then gave me a roadside tour of the war going on left and right. There was this one asshole who almost rammed into us on the road.

It could have gotten worse and it fucking did: my malaria peaked out of all times. The cabbie barely parked in front of the only working hotel in town when I started seizuring. I don't know how long I'll last here in this goddamn shithole but my joints ache, my head's starting to ache, and my hand is getting cramped from all this writing.

Paul Ferenc

Carver is back. Carver is the Jackal. The intel was right on.

Can't say either of us were surprised. It was late. I wanted to ask why, what the hell happened. Haifa felt like an eon ago. It was much more terrifying seeing him point the gun at my face instead of some Hezbollah radical.

I was scared the first time he nearly blew my head off. That was back in '95. Now, I'm just nonchalant at how he tried to look intimidating even as he nearly cut my head off with his goddamn machete.

I was too weak to do anything. Malaria had gotten me really good. My whole body ached. I had a fucking migraine. It was ripping my head apart. And then there's Jack pressing some bootleg Makarov into my temple. I could tell he was just as indecisive as I was, the lucky bastard.

The next thing I remember was waking up to an RPG ripping a hole in my hotel room. I don't know how many bullets I ate before I managed to escape Pala. Now, I'm sitting here in a safe house courtesy of the UFLL. Some guy named Carbonell had me running around doing errands but at least he gave me some leads to get some much needed medication.

Best not to fall down in the middle of the road.

Paul Ferenc

First, I "reunite" with Jack. Now, I find that old bear Idromeno drunk off his ass at this watering hole down by a literal watering hole called Mike's. I honestly didn't think Josip would make it out of Turkey on that one job. But now he's here.

And he helped me make some new friends; a journalist, a priest, and another merc who looks like he got kicked out of college. What a fucking life. I don't think the CIA is going to bother with me now that I'm presumed dead thanks to that incursion by the APR on the town.

Paul Ferenc – May, 2008

I took a walk around Pala. Overhead one of the mercs saying that his wife was pregnant, knocked her up back in Joburg. Said he wanted to get this tour over with as quickly as possible so he could get out of the country. Was more concerned about his baby.

I thought that he might not make it back given the way this war was going. I hoped I wouldn't be the guy who would have to shoot him.

Paul Ferenc

Not many people can have the pride of saying that they killed a king. But I can. Because I killed a fucking legit king. And I've seen a ton of gold stashed underneath his storage hut in the desert. So many ingots, stacked inside a crate, just waiting to be exploited.

And it all goes to the UFLL. I would have wanted that gold. But the diamonds were more valuable, I guess.

Still, damn... I killed a king. I killed a fucking king.

Snuck into the fort in the middle of the night. Had to dodge the two snipers on the towers. Only killed one guard. Feel sorry for the bastard. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I feel bad for the APR boys who tried to nab the gold from us.

Glad Josip survived that. He is one tough cookie.

I don't know if I can keep this up, though. My body is falling apart.

Paul Ferenc

It was an assassination job. Only one man had to die. His ten guards and the faction patrol coming down the road were collateral. I tried to keep it clean, simple. Get in, pop the bastard, get out, take the bus back to Pala.

The circumstances were perfect: bad weather, moonless night, isolated location. The airfield was right on the edge of the desert; no flights coming in or out for the next couple weeks. I went in, parked my getaway a few clicks from the runway. Then the whole thing went south.

I tried my best to minimize the damage, tried keeping the guards from getting involved. They were panicking which meant they believed the rumors. I could even hear them from behind the walls. There was this one guy who was whimpering. I think he was crying. He was hiding behind a bunch of barrels inside the first hangar. Guy was too scared to let go of his rifle, didn't even bother to shoot me even though I was standing a few feet in front of him.

He was whining on and on about how he wanted to go home. Said he didn't want to be here, said he wanted to be anywhere but here, said he wanted to go home. Felt sorry for the son of a bitch. Then the target jumped me and we got into this melee. He screamed at the merc to shoot. I didn't give either of them a chance.

When I was done, I planted IEDs on the fuel reserves for the planes. Got on the getaway and touched off. It was to cover my tracks. Just necessary collateral. Can't say the same for the guards.

I got back to the safe house. And cried myself to sleep.

I took the bus back to Pala as planned. Since then, I stopped taking assassination jobs until Prosper Kouassi hired me to kill Leon Gakumba.

Michelle Dachss

We left as soon as we heard that Gakumba had been assassinated. We sped through the checkpoints. We hurried as fast as we could.

By the time we reached Pala, the UFLL office was on fire. There were many dead fighters on the street. There appeared to be no one left to engage us. We were looking for the roof of the church but when we rounded the corner, we were worried that the church had gone. When we saw the rubble, Nasreen became frantic.

Flora and I helped her to clear the rubble. We were afraid to find bodies of children, the corpse of Father Maliya buried under a collapsed beam.

To our surprise, the only bodies were found were that of the UFLL. And then we found the Ghost.

He was not dead. I checked his pulse. He was still alive. Unconscious, bleeding. There was a detonator in his hand and it all made sense. Flora had picked up a few pieces of a land mine that she said came off the wall.

We decided to drag him out of there but then we heard trucks coming up from the bridge. They were APR reinforcements. There were too many of them. So we huddled out of the ruins and ran to the docks. We found an unused riverboat which we used to escape. We did not go to Mike's Bar as we believed the soldiers had seized the place.

We could only hope that Josip and the others had gotten away in time. I could say the same for the Ghost. He may be a man but the myth that he carved would not fade away as any of the casualties that we have seen.

Hector Vorhees

Found the Ghost resting in a hovel in the middle of the desert. We were retreating back to Sefapane and we ran into a sandstorm. I've been to enough field hospitals to know that someone else was treating him. Amazed the bastard is still alive. Survived getting annihilated by the UFLL and still strong enough to walk ten miles across the desert.

With all the trouble he caused us, I thought I had the perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone so I asked him to kill Kouassi at his troop rally up north. I didn't expect him to survive it. I badly underestimated him. Made me wish that my boys were just making up stories. As difficult as it is hard to believe that a single man can kill over forty men in less than an hour and still have enough time to literally scorch the earth, anything is possible in war.

I only heard the reports when we relocated to Mosate-Selao after the peace deal was scrapped. They said they found the venue of the rally all blackened up, torched, hit by a wild brush fire. Over a couple dozen bodies everywhere. They found Kouassi burnt all over and hacked up. Still had a face that preserved the look that someone gets when they see a demon. I saw the photographs.

Now, I'm wondering if I did the right thing picking up the Ghost. God help us if he decides to play both sides again.

Michelle Dachss – June, 2008

Our new lead was also informing on others. He said he was doing a few personal favors. We made sure he would not backstab us. Luckily for him, we did not have to cut any fingers to prove a point. He was wise enough to understand that.

But we had to meet his other clients. The Ghost survived the APR offensive in Leboa-Sako. No doubt, he would be here, responsible for the false-flag operation that was supposed to put this hopeless war to rest.

Paul Ferenc

Cheers for another wild rumor today!

They picked it up from the locals, that's for sure. Said I eat out the heart of my victims. Though they did get right the part about me wounding instead of downright killing.

Nicholas Greaves

Everyone is talking about it now. I don't know who started these ridiculous rumors but I can say for certain that we lost Seth to a pyromaniac. The poor sod barely had a chance to fight back.

The whole Polytechnique camp has been razed. Tambossa lost his nerve when the sentries manning the bridge a few clicks away admitted to having seen the whole disaster unfold. And they stayed put which was very, very smart. I was glad the hothead didn't have them shot. That meant that I could squeeze out of them everything they knew.

They all said the same thing over and over again though. Someone had snuck in through the back—came from the river—and started shooting. Then they saw fire bursting out from the central yard like burnt clouds.

All I can say is that the locals are too dumb to know a flamethrower from a malevolent tribal spirit.

Michelle Dachss

The checkpoint east of Mosate-Selao was razed. All nine men stationed there were killed including this one business executive from Frankfurt. The APR asked us to help them clear out the wreckage. I went over to check the bodies and I found poison darts on every one of them.

All the corpses were either too bloated or too heavy compared to that of a normal human being. Flora said time and again how this was a side-effect of a potent venom. I suspect that the killer mixed this venom with other poisons to make his concoction disable a full grown man quickly and completely.

Interestingly, this is a trademark of the Ghost. Most of his victims that we came across up in Leboa-Sako were killed in a similar manner. We found one corpse which had several bullet holes. Judging by the place where he was shot and the mass of nine millimeter shell casings buried in the underbrush, the Ghost resorted back to using an MP5.

Most likely modified with a sound suppressor. He toyed with them.

I was baffled at how many had to die but I assumed that it was because the Ghost was pursuing a contract. The Frankfurt businessman was no saint.

Then an APR sentry informed us that a particular case holding several thousand dollars worth of uncut diamonds was breached. The locks were shot open and the stones were missing.

I am amazed at the audacity of this man. Greed. Perhaps it is what drives him. His contractors must be paying him in stones as well.

Hector Vorhees

He's at it again. I almost died thanks to him! It was a roadside bomb but the boy at least had the smarts to keep driving. The guys behind us got shot instead.

I'm reinforcing the security details no matter what Mbantuwe says. It's my ass as much as his.

Andre Hyppolite

I heard from the soldiers that the ranger station to the west had been hit. It was in the dead of night and the snipers were the first to get shot. Then they were hit by mortars but it was too dark for them to see beyond the river. They were smart enough to know that the attacks were coming from across the river.

It is indeed a large coincidence that Paul began using night scopes on his rifles. It is an even bigger coincidence that Xianyong had a chat with him.

I lie to myself that the Ghost is active when he chooses to be. But I am afraid that we will see each other from the end of our own guns in the coming days. He spends too much time with those warlords.

Paul Ferenc

They didn't have to die. They were not involved. They didn't have to die.

Dammit, why am I still thinking like this? This is insane. They were in the way. I had to kill them. They were this close to spotting me in the grass and compromising the whole mission. They had to go.

I just wish they hadn't set up a roadblock by the railway. Then they probably wouldn't be dead. Because of me.

Nicholas Greaves

The Ghost has struck again. CNN says there are about a thousand dead now that the war has escalated to whole new level of violence. Death tolls are meaningless statistics now. What matters most at this period in time is survival. Survival of the fittest. And the smartest.

The Ghost didn't say much when I asked him to get rid of those two thorns in my side. He seemed content to go ahead with it. Interestingly enough, he appeared far more interested in doing the job than talk about payment. Not that it mattered now. Perhaps he knew just as well as I did that we have just about exhausted our diamond supply.

Michelle Dachss – July, 2008

I have not expected this much people to amass here but I am awed nonetheless. We have reached this far, we cannot fail here now. The factions have united but their goals are not to be celebrated of.

We cannot let them pass through the border. That is why we will be going back into the country in a few hours. The African Union is waiting on the other side. Standing orders are to hold position. Damn them. They want us to die first.

It does not matter, anymore. I would rather die saving these refugees than be shot like an animal for helping them. The plan is to try and stave them off for as long as possible for the African Union to properly mobilize by the edge of the border.

Hopefully, by then, they would be strong enough to resist the encroachment of the factions.

Paul Ferenc

I've been screwed over by everyone. Every fucking one in this godforsaken country!

Except Reuben. Haven't seen him awhile. And Doctor Obua too. Haven't heard from Father Maliya since Leboa-Sako though. Hope he survived.

First, Jack frames me for a massacre I didn't do, though I wish I was the one to have done it. Would have wanted to see those backstabbing bastards dead. Tambossa was scalped anyway. Then I get picked up and locked up in the shit cell. Andre happened to be on the other side.

I managed to break out. Killed some of the guards. Found Andre near death in one of their torture pits.

I tried dragging him out but he said he would rather stay. Whatever, Andre. I tried to help.

I swear I'm being followed. And I'm not being fucking paranoid here. I know I'm being followed. I saw the skid marks outside the safe house. I decided to bury a trip wire near the entrance. If that doesn't get them, well, I have more where that came from.

Michelle Dachss

There was nothing left of the bivouac when we found it. The stragglers we encountered were more desperate to get out than to kill a child. We let them go. May the African Union have mercy on them.

We found Carbonell scalded alive. It was obvious now. The Ghost was on his way to the border. Why, we don't know. We just hope he doesn't aim for the civilians.

Nicholas Greaves

Looking back on what we did during the war, I find it hard to believe that I had managed to survive the wrath of a crazed maniac.

Carbonell sure as bloody hell didn't. He was dead for sure. I played dead. I was hit but it wasn't lethal. I recall peeking a bit and seeing him pour gasoline everywhere, even on me. Then he walked a few ways off and tossed a lit match.

I wasted no time. I got up as soon as I thought the coast was clear and I jumped into the creek below the crevice. Above me, I could see the whole bivouac burn away. Pieces of flaming wood and debris fell into the creek and I made sure to stay wet and halfway underwater to keep myself from catching alight.

Before I realized it, it was already dark. I scrambled out of the bog, marching in the ash-strewn muck until I found a working flashlight. I had to pry it from Bondag's hand. I didn't want to look at his face. He once told me of how he wanted to go home as soon as this was over so he could find his prodigal son or some sort.

I hiked up the rocks and followed the trail. I heard an explosion. Big, loud. It knocked half the cliffside off and blocked the only traversible highway to the border. No one could get through. I was trapped. I was this close to the exit and I was trapped by a man-made landslide. I nearly went mad there. I started laughing, if I recall correctly, and then dancing.

The rest of it was a blur. But when I woke up, I was in a refugee camp, being tended to by Doctor Obua. He said the African Union found me when they marched in, UN-backed equipment and all. According to them, I was hunched over a log, passed out, blood pooling down my knees from the bullet I got to the rib.

Now, I'm sitting here on a cot under a tent with my leg chained to the bedpost. Just waiting for the UN police force to come and pick me up so I could be tried for war crimes.

What a fun life I have lived.

Paul Ferenc/Jack Carver

Paul Ferenc, Corporal, IDF, 1992-1995. Mossad informant, 1996. Born in Hungary, nationalized Israeli. When you find this journal, bring it to my family in Budapest. Mother, I'm sorry. I love you. Goodbye.

My turn, Paul. This is Jack Carver, otherwise known as the Jackal. US Navy marine, CIA agent, arms dealer and proud of it. We're both going to die for sure. So we're going to go out with a bang.

Jason Brody – March, 2015

My name is Jason Brody. I'm from Southern California. I found this journal. It is really important because it belongs to someone I'm tasked to find. So help me God.

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN: April, 2015

LAST EDITED: June 4, 2015