"It was the first time our government had authorized an assassination order since the second world war. I was under the command of Captain MacMillan." recounted Cpt. Price.

-15 Years ago-

'Its quiet' Price thought to himself. For as risky as it is to be here, he can't help but find himself relaxed. Just standing around in the breeze, watching the grass sway, he pulled out his M21 rifle and waited for the word from his Captain...speaking of which, where is he? Lt. Price in his moment of peace had completely lost sight of him.

"Too much radiation. We'll have to go around." said Cpt. MacMillan as he gets up from his prone position.

Oh, there he is. If these ghillie suits could make him lose track of his Captain three feet in front of him, he could probably act like a perfectly normal moving bush in plain sight and still not be seen by the enemy.

"Careful, there's pockets of radiation all over this area. If you absorb too much, you're a dead man." warned Mac as he pointed out the warning signs off to the side.

Following Mac up to a small shed, he tells me to standby while he checks the area ahead.

"Contact. Enemy patrol dead ahead. Stay low and move slowly. We'll be impossible to spot in our ghillie suits." said MacMillan.

Taking a page out of his book and crawling up, I line up a shot on the first enemy, only for his friend to somehow silently alert everyone in the span of half a second by just reeling back in shock. What the hell? OK, so maybe it hadn't been the best idea to shoot the guy standing five inches from him, but there's no way he could have alerted anyone when he died a second later.

"We've been spotted, Dogs in the tall grass!" Cpt MacMillan shouted.

This further had me on edge. How did they find us so quickly? My confusion forgotten in favor of trying to grab the dog that just pinned me, I make to grab its head only to miss. Time had stopped, flashing before my eyes, only to continue when a flash of pain gripped my throat. Everything slowed and went gray. Was this how it ends?

The next thing I know, I'm snapping out of a daydream just outside the shack. What just happened? Was I really that pessimistic to believe that I would mess everything up right away? Putting these thoughts to the back of my mind, I move up around the left side and see two familiar guards just wandering around.

"Contact. Enemy patrol dead ahead. Stay low and move slowly. We'll be impossible to spot in our ghillie suits." said MacMillan.

OK, this was a serious case of deja vu, but then a thought occurred to me; 'impossible to spot in our ghillie suits'? There's an idea.

"Mac, I'm moving up." I said as I crawled up, just waiting for them to turn their backs. My patience is rewarded with a free shot to the back of their heads. Mac nabbed the other one.

"Good night." With a job well done, Mac moves up to the next overhead patio and decides its better for us to go around.

As I round the corner, my heart nearly stops. Inside are four men, one sleeping, and the cause of my sudden panic, a dog sleeping on the couch. Ignoring my Captain, I walked in from the side knifing a couple in the back and shooting down the last one as one had walked out of the room earlier.

Walking past the dog sleeping on the couch, somehow aware there are more, I peer into a room ready to frag them to oblivion when-

"They're on to us. Open fire!" I had alerted the guy outside. With no time to think, one of the dogs knocked me over about to have an afternoon snack. Thankfully, the grenade and my reflexes has saved me from being lunch.

After that little episode, I hear gunfire outside...repeated gunfire. I step out and see a sight you have to see to believe. 'Why is this guy shooting at a wall?' I wonder to myself. I take a closer look to see Cpt. MacMillan hiding around the corner looking for a chance to take out his target; kind of hard when you're being shot at I'm sure.

I couldn't believe it. Is their aim really THAT bad? I mean, looking at this guy's shots, he's spraying bullets literally left, right, and clearly nowhere near where his firearms were being aimed. Not only that, but Mac is getting a couple of pot shots off with his rifle and hes not even hitting him.

One had even flew by my own head! After 30 seconds of watching this amazing display of marksmanship mastery, he pulls his AK back out and begins to fire it again.

'When is this guy going to run out of ammo?' I mused when all of a sudden he turns his attention to me! It wasn't long before he found my knife scraping across his chest and he dropped to the ground dead.

"We won't get very far trying to shoot our way out of every situation. Move up." ordered Mac. I suppose things could've gone worse.

As we come along to a set of trees, I notice a building to our left. Taking the time to investigate, I hear Mac pointing out a couple tangos ahead; one in a watch tower and another looking right at me! Not taking any chances, I quickly shoot them down from a safe distance before anything else can go wrong.

"That was close. You lead a charmed life leftenent. Move." I could see the rest of the day now. One bad luck streak after another. Its amazing we haven't been shot yet. Walking up to the building with the watch tower, Mac kicks in the door, probably out of frustration for how poorly the mission has gone so far. Seeing a couple of stinger missiles laying around, I grab one just knowing something is going to go wrong to the point that I would be glad to have it on hand.

"The coast is clear." Mac said. The relief in his voice probably said more than his words. Knowing we were good to go, I take a second to look around.

In front of me is a ladder to the watch tower. I climb up to find a nugget of good news. A laptop containing information on the troops deployments, scheduled patrol routes, and estimates of gains on the arms deal exchange with Zakhaev. Turns out that there's a large enemy force coming this way, but

before I can do anything with this information, a helicopter spots me; Damn it!

Suddenly very glad to have picked up a stinger, I climb down the tower only to have it be shot out from under me. Thankfully by then, I was low enough to the ground, but there was no time to be disorientated. I step outside prepared to take out the chopper. This was much more difficult than it sounds. This chopper is out for blood! It kept launching missiles everywhere to the point where I'm surprised there's any roof left. A couple of stingers later and I find myself relieved that the flying metal menace is spinning out of control.

"All right. Now you're just showin off. Lets go." Mac said tiredly. By now, everything is starting to wear down on him.

"Mac, I found a list of patrol routes in what used to be the watch tower. Some tanks and a large enemy force will be passing through here shortly." At this, he just stopped and stared at me. His eyes just hoping, BEGGING me not blow our cover again. You could just see how weary he was from this.

No stealth mission he's ever been on has ever gone so wrong in just seven minutes.

Playing it safe for his sanity, we move up through the cemetery to an open field. It wasn't long before we had to get down to hide from the patrol. At this point, after everything we've been through, I don't think he cared much for personal comfort as I was crawling almost on top of him. With one thing finally going right, we managed to sneak past the patrol allowing us a small reprieve. we crawled up the hill until we got to a safe distance and took cover behind a ruined tank and forklift.

"Looks like they already eliminated all the men they couldn't buy out. Lets move up for a better view." said Mac as he walked around taking in the sights. They're two men dumping bodies in the pond, one walking in the distance, one lounging by a container, and probably many more inside some of them. Deciding to press our luck, we slowly sneak by them. Alerting one was already a death sentence in a fire fight; at least this way we would have cover from the patrol behind us if we get caught further up ahead. Thankfully, these ghillie suits worked like a charm as we were all but visible to the soldiers just doing their own thing.

"We work as a team, remember? Wait for me." ordered Mac. In confusion, I get up and look around for him. Sure, I lost track of him shortly after we moved, but I apparently got there way quicker than he did. What the hell was taking him so long? After taking a second to look at my compass, I realized he was already past me. When did he get there? Anyways, I move up to him wondering what the next move is.

"Stay-back." Ordered Mac. Turns out there's a lone tango just wandering by. Mac takes the time to move behind him and tells me he has this one.

"Oi, Suzy!" whispered Mac. In a moment of confusion, the soldier turns around only to find a rifle bashing his skull killing him. If there was anyone who knew how to lighten the mood on a sniper mission, it was Mac.

While Mac moved up on the left, I noticed there was an opening on the right. OK now in my defense, my brain has shutdown, or maybe I strayed through a radiation pocket for too long, but I felt it was important to walk up and grab that laptop in front of three people.

"Are you daft?" Mac could only wonder what the hell Price was thinking walking up there and to his amazement, they didn't even see him do it!

"I'll give you one thing. You certainly have the minerals." he said just watching me crawl right past them mere feet away from them.

Glad that nothing went wrong from my actions this time, I took the time to look through the laptop while Mac moved up and checked the area ahead. Inside the PC was more information; this time being a roster list with many of the names being listed as 'Active', 'KIA', or 'Executed'. From our hiding space, we could see a convoy in the area. We knew that getting through here was going to be a challenge, but there was a conveniently long line of trucks parked behind each other that us walking bush-monkeys could use. Sneaking through this area wasn't so hard. Just like how people never look up, the same could be said for looking down.

"Patience, don't do anything stupid." he stated calmly. I wanted to feel miffed at this, but then I remembered what I had done not even two minutes ago. Deciding to wait it out, we hold; not long after, an opportunity to run emerges and we haul ass to the crates up ahead only to stop when we see an enemy sniper on the fire escape. Taking a good look at him through my scope, I see a rocket on his back giving me ideas Mac would probably kill me for later. I take him out and we proceed up the stairs, or at least I do; Mac went into the building. Sure enough, I find a stinger and another laptop with orders to get back to his post on it.

Grabbing the stinger, I take a shot at the helicopter and prepare for a firefight. In a cry of frustration, Mac prepares to fight for his life, or at least he would if all the enemies weren't all coming to me. A few dogs jump into my window and all the soldiers for whatever reason decided not to look first and just jump over and got filled with bullets from a g36c I found in the top floor room. After about a minute of shooting people who came into my window, it got very quiet. Too quiet. I look around wondering if that was everyone only to realize I haven't heard from Mac since this started. In a panic, I rush down the fire escape to check on him to find him just chilling on the other side of the wall, completely unconcerned with what just happened seconds ago.

"Move up" Mac ordered. OK, so I think he's reached the point of expecting this kind of behavior.

Reaching a large complex, we see a lone dog chewing on a corpse. In a fit of rage, I shoot the dog before Mac can say anything. The reward for my hunt? A distant howl, and a huge pack of dogs that would give me a heart attack. With the help of the machine gun I picked up earlier, I was able to gun most of them down and a couple of frags didn't hurt either. Nearing our objective, Mac began to muse about this place being a 'ghost town'. He did have a point considering its not the most livable place nowadays. There's no-one left between us an our objective. Its time to hole-up.

-after thoughts.

AN: Funny enough, I was playing MW Remastered on veteran and thought to myself. this is a mission i know well, perhaps i can make an interesting two shot out of it. yea well, it ended up being a bit more frustrating than i thought. the part near the end with the dogs, i ended up getting a save right AFTER shooting the dog, so i had to restart the entire mission. I tried numerous things like hiding on TOP of the slide in the playground, but the dog somehow jumped up 7 feet in the air and knocked me over anyway. Truth be told, i actually didnt have a g36c at that moment. i died at one point and never bothered picking it back up after writing that one bit. it is possible to gun them all down with 1 machine gun, but its easier to have the rpd and to start off with a couple of grenades. sometimes, you can throw them in a way to make mac run away from the dogs giving you more time to gun them down. be very careful not to shoot mac when you try to gun a dog off him. its very easy to fail in your mission that way.

turns out that IW didnt quite make this mission the same either. the helicopter in the convoy area actually no longer does anything and i couldnt even lock on to shoot it, so instead, i decided to have a little fun and instead of following mac, i actually sniped everyone and walked around the convoy.

by doing this, mac stayed back by the truck, no enemies spawned and i was able to just skip past everything.

the dead guy that the dog eats? because i got there so quick, he was still alive and the dog ran after me instead, but since mac was a good 200 meters in the other direction, it didnt spawn the horde either. funny thing about it that i wanted to write about, if you enter the area, go to the far right, and look around, grass and nothing around at all. shoot the dog and look around, about 2 dozen dogs that werent there are now suddenly at your feet waking up from their nap getting ready eat your face.