Chapter 4

Mei Ling woke up, she couldn't move her hands or wrists much and she was sitting in a chair. She looked that and saw that her wrists and ankles have been cuffed and she also felt the sticky feeling on her mouth. The only light see could see was the light on the ceiling. The windows were all covered and she heard a door open. A man with dirty blonde hair, wearing a black and white suit with a black tie dressed like an agency man as he walked in and sat in an unoccupied chair.

"Had a nice nap."

Mei Ling just continued to look at him.

"I'll take that as a "yes". Just to make it easier to communicate with each other, I'll remove take the tape off your mouth. You can scream if you want to but it won't help. We're far away from the city as it is. So, I wouldn't waste your breath."

He then walked towards and removed the tape off her mouth quickly.

"OWWW!!"

"Sorry about that."

"What do you want with me?! What have I done?"

"It's nothing I want from you. It's something "they" want from you."

""They?""

"Just some people you don't want to know."

"What do you want?"

"A piece of information."

"Piece of information? What are you talking about?"

"You know what I'm talking about."

"What?"

"Man, these people are always this dumb. Um…how about information about the Shadow Moses Incident? Does that sound familiar to you?"

Mei Ling heard of Shadow Moses before it was a few years ago since that whole thing began. She was the data analyst for that mission. She was the one that developed the Soliton Radar system for Snake and she was noting his progress.

"Of course but if you know about it, why ask me?"

"Let's just say we knew from our inside people that you made a hardcopy of everything that happened on that mission. The Secretary of Defense wanting to erase the evidence, Campbell's daughter becoming a part of that secret military operation, Snake's venture into the facility, leaks of a dark, top secret experiment, all of that. The plan was to use it as a bargaining chip to keep you guys safe from government prosecution and from being harassed by the people that the government sends."

"And why do you want it?"

"Well, that's easy, without it, you, Campbell, and the people that were part of the incident are going to have some messed up lives pretty soon."

"So, why do you need my help?"

"Your laptop is has some very good security. Our hackers can't seem to break through your security locks. You must've paid some pretty good money to keep someone from looking at it. I wonder what else you're hiding in there. All we're just asking is that you cooperate with us. For the cooperation, you'll be set free and we'll make sure that no one bothers you but that's up to you. Either way, we'll get what we want one way or another."

Mei Ling looked at the man; she knows he wants her to betray the people she worked with including Snake and Otacon. She couldn't possibly know what will happen if she gave them all up, Campbell, Meryl, Nastasha, even Snake and Otacon.

"What's it going to be?"

"No! I don't even care what you say. You think I'm real stupid right now. I don't even think you plan on letting me live anyway and I don't plan on betraying my friends!"

"Well, I tried. It seems we'll have to "persuade" you to cooperate with us."

He got up from the chair and walks out the door. Mei Ling sees his head turn to the right and she could hear that he was talking to somebody else. She then sees him leave but sees two other guys come in and she saw what looked like to be a defibrillator along with sharp tools.

"What do you think we should start with?", the man asked.

"Let's shock her. Take her shoes off.", the other man replied.

Mei Ling looks in horror of what they're about to do.

In an apartment room in downtown Miami

Otacon was looking through his laptop for any sources that could help Snake and him find Mei Ling but after a few hours now, no luck. Snake was sitting in another room; he left his window opened so he could let out all of his smoking come out. He waited for hours. Hours of any news of finding Mei Ling. Many things were going through Snake's mind about now. Was it because of him, Mei Ling was kidnapped? Snake wished that he didn't have to put the lives of people he knew in jeopardy. He had already given up a love life with Meryl. He did it because he didn't want her to be a part of his problems. He wishes that all this would stop and he just continues to live in peace but it seems that fate has a cruel way with him. Snake still continues to smoke and look at the photo of him and Meryl when they used to been together. Then, he sees Otacon come in.

"Well, what do you got?", Snake asked.

Otacon looks at him.

"Well…"

CSI Miami Crime Lab

Horatio looks at the hotel clerk's witness report of the whole thing. The hotel's surveillance videos didn't do a thing because supposedly someone was smart enough to erase everything that happened last night. He looks that the witness said in the report that he saw two men came in. He said he stopped them, but they flashed their badges that said they were FBI and came with a warrant to talk to the victim. The two police officers investigating the 911 call. They said that they never saw any men from the FBI anyway. Horatio knew that those men are possible suspects that had something to do with the missing victim. He looks up on the computer on the two men and found something. "Bingo", he thought. The white skinned man, was Ben Madden, the dark-skinned man was Will Daniels. They are both part of the FBI and are partners but what they want with Mei Ling was the question. He plans to have a little chat with them whenever he could find the time.

A swamp area of the Everglades

The tropic environment was hot; the alligators were very wild in these swamps. Mosquitoes buzz around the area to find someone's blood to suck on. The local wildlife does what they do often. A figure moves through the swamp water avoiding the alligators, see as they can really hurt him. Two guys wearing regular clothes, with caps on their heads and scarves to cover their faces, holding the AK-47 assault rifle passes by. The figure holds out a silenced .45 Mark 23 SOCOM pistol and shoots them both in seconds. The figure stands out in the swamp and reveals to be Snake wearing his traditional bandana as always, with face paint on his face, the woodland uniform (The BDUs our Armed Forces are starting to abandon now over for their new uniforms) and wearing black boots that's now covered in mud. He gets out of the swamp water and runs to the trees. He goes prone to cover himself in the tall grass and gets his binoculars out. He zooms in on what looks like to be a group of huts and small cabins made out of brown wood. He then sees men wearing the same clothing as the last two he saw with guns. Then he zooms on a black car. He then notices that was the same black car that Otacon showed him, that left the Miami Sunshine's hotel in a hurry and the one where Mei Ling's kidnappers used. He then touches his ear.

"This is Snake; I can see the vehicle, now."

End of Chapter 4