10: The Immortal
Ten hours ago, 0314 hours
Nightshifts were always twice as uneventful as their daytime counterparts. At least that was the view that George Winters—nom de guerre Nimble Gazelle—held since he volunteered for the Diamond Dogs two months ago. In between the combat deployments and solo infiltrations, guard duty was always a slog. At least during the day, guys came home from the field all the time, sometimes with a fresh catch of African wild pig. Man, those things were the best, Winters thought as he licked his lips at the memory of yesterday's chow. Perhaps one of the biggest regrets of Winters was not running across the boars during his deployments to Africa.
After serving his fair share of tours in Iraq—Winters lost count by the time he hit 28—he decided to join the Diamond Dogs out of nothing but sheer curiosity. The young vet wanted to know if all the myths surrounding the legend was true, if this "Big Boss" truly deserved the acclaim of being the greatest soldier who ever lived. After two months in, while he was not exactly as "revering" as the other guys, he could not help but be impressed. Notwithstanding his Boss' status, the man never showed a hint of arrogance. Winters always learned something new in every CQC session, a humbling experience for someone adept in Krav Maga, Jiu Jutsu and Kickboxing. The Boss was also the best marksman that Winters encountered in his entire military career. For crying out loud, a one-eyed man was casually pulling off long-range shots Winters never thought possible before with a handgun.
Add all that to his documented mission feats over the past two decades, and you have a certified living Legend.
The occasional helo still came in during the night, but they were comparatively fewer and farther in between. As Winters grabbed the railing in front of him, he could not help but notice his interesting companions for the night. The whirring of a distant crane and some heavy machinery; the aperiodic static emitted by his radio; the intermittent cawing of a passing seagull. What's not to like, right?
He called out to no one in particular, "Give me a mission already."
"There's one behind you right now," said a baritone voice behind him.
Winters wheeled around at the sound of the unfamiliar voice, MRS-4 carbine at the ready. Instead of seeing a suspicious figure, he saw one of his comrades lying motionless in a pool of blood. Others in his place might have rushed to the wounded's side without second thought, but his training told him otherwise. Switching on his rifle's tactical light, he scanned the area around him for threats, and continued doing so as he approached his comrade's side. Winters knew the man was dead and that something was terribly wrong, but he nonetheless kneeled and checked for a pulse.
Shit out of luck.
Dammit, the kid's barely out of college. It was one of the younger Diamond Dogs. Winters couldn't remember the kid's callsign, but he heard one of the other guys call him Jeffrey. From what he could see at the moment, the boy sustained two major wounds—a clean horizontal cut across the neck, and a spine-chilling diagonal gash that extended from the collarbone all the way to the hipbone. Fuck. Whoever the hell got him did not use your standard issue Army knife. With cuts as deep as those, the blade could not have been shorter than a foot. Either that, or the killer must have been exceptionally strong.
Reaching for his radio, he switched it on and was greeted by static. As if on cue, the entire FOB went dark, and all heavy machinery whirred more quietly until everything was silent. For the first time in those two months, the sound of the rolling Atlantic waves was not quite as soothing.
Not when it reminded you a hostile has infiltrated the base, with no way to call for backup.
He tried activating his radio again; it was a fruitless attempt. How the hell did an intruder take out communication? How could he have taken out our electricity? How could anyone even get past the redundant security measures of the base? He put all the unhelpful questions on the back burner for now.
He got up, and left Jeffrey where he laid. There was nothing he could do for the kid, and he did not have anything to cover the corpse with. If he moved quickly though, he still stood a chance of catching the bastard who did all this.
But whose voice did he hear earlier? You don't just happen to hear voices at zero dark thirty.
Holding his rifle at the low ready position, he started his rounds. The four-unit Command Platform was sprawling compared to the other substituent platforms, making a one-man search painstakingly slow. Not that Winters had anything better to do at the moment. As soon as he found the threat, he had the rest of his life to get a sight picture, and pull the trigger. Right now, he was looking for other Diamond Dogs, anyone who could help him fix this clusterfuck which happened so terribly fast.
He pied corners, moving from cover to cover. He switched his light on every now and then, using it sparingly. He swore at himself for leaving his night vision goggles in his quarters. The thing about tactical lights was that they had this propensity to light you up like a Christmas tree, particularly the ones with more lumens. Every time he illuminated the area in front of him, he half-expected a hail of bullets to come his way.
After an hour of searching—and that was just for the main unit of the Command Platform—Winters found someone. He found another Diamond Dog on one of the upper levels. It was only that he too was very dead, having sustained the same injuries as Jeffrey. Making up his mind, he took the fallen Dog's spare magazines and nods.
Doing his best to remain calm, he pulled out his binoculars and scanned the other platforms, looking beyond the Command Platform for the first time that day. From what he could survey, the other platforms were in full swing. The lights were still on, and heavy machinery was still operational. As far as Winters knew, this incident had only happened on the Command Platform.
Throwing caution to the wind, he raced down the stairs until he reached the ground level, and made a dead sprint to the nearest jeep he could find. Winters decided to head to the R&D Platform, home of the smartest guys on the PF, and the most badass weapons known to man short of a nuke. If Cipher sent Skulls to their home, Winters sure as hell wanted a high-grade ALM-48 on his side.
He started the engine, and drove at a steady 65 miles per hour to the R&D Platform. He was already driving as fast as the vehicle allowed, yet time still seemed to slow down around him. As he drove, he heard and felt something speed past him. It was barely perceptible, but he felt it. Recalling one of Miller's briefings back in the day, replete with the man's flair for vivid imagery, there was no mistaking it.
They were under attack by the Skulls.
(-)
"I know it's the Boss we're talking about, but taking on an entire armored regiment by himself? That's an entirely different level of badassery."
"Well, we don't know the exact details though. We could be missing out on some things. Maybe he had air support, or a shit ton of CGM-25s. Still impressive though, I'll admit. The same man took out a Metal Gear for cryin' out—what the?"
It was not everyday you saw a jeep coming your way 25 miles an hour at four in the morning.
The vehicle screeched to a halt, parking 10 meters away from the two Diamond Dogs. Though enjoying small talk just a couple of seconds ago, the two men subconsciously gripped their carbines tighter as the driver stepped out of the jeep, sprinted towards them at full speed, and hollered the last thing any night shift guard would want to hear.
"We're under attack! Raise the alarm!"
Everything happened so fast. Thin, red lines traced across the neck, and blood stains materialized on the fatigues of the guard closer to Winters. The man gurgled as he dropped to his knees, then lifelessly fell on the metal floor. Before the second guard could even bring his weapon to bear, he was hurled across the platform with inhuman force, crashing on a wall some five meters away and breaking his neck.
Swallowing the panic borne of facing an unseen foe, Winters dropped a smoke grenade at his feet.
As the smoke enveloped his immediate surroundings, he put on the night vision goggles he "borrowed," and hoped to God the intruder would have a harder time finding him. As Winters looked around, he saw an armored personnel carrier ten meters away on his left through the rapidly thickening smoke.
It was the longest ten-meter run of his life as he blindly rushed in the direction of the APC. From the looks of it, the R&D guys were probably testing out new toys for armored vehicles, but he could not think about that now. Winters, a Catholic, breathed a prayer that the geniuses around here forgot to lock the vehicle's hatch.
And by God, they had.
Winters clumsily clambered on top of the vehicle, pried the hatch open, jumped inside, and sealed the lid, all in a heartbeat. Thing was, he did not start the vehicle right away. He needed the armor, not offensive mobile capability. He groped for the vehicle's built-in radio, and found it laying haphazardly on the metal floor.
In a second stroke of luck, the radio worked.
"This is George Winters. To anyone who receives this, we're under attack by the Skulls. I repeat, we're under attack by the Skulls. Hit the alarm and don't go anywhere alo—"
The APC jerked forward, knocking Winters off his seat. He would have hit his head against the interior wall had he not braced the steering wheel. It felt like a damn battering ram collided with the rear of the vehicle. Desperately fumbling with the controls, the engine of the APC roared to life.
Only for the steel behemoth to get hit again with even more force, busting the railing in front of it.
With a quarter of the vehicle extending past the platform's edge and sweat running down his brow, Winters shifted to full reverse, but it didn't budge. One last earth-shattering crash was all it took to push the APC over the edge, rapidly descending to the Seychelles below. The massive splash it left in its wake hardly fazed the auburn-haired man standing at the edge of the platform, clad in the same outfit as the Skulls except from the neck up.
What should have been a set of ghastly features instead revealed a cruel, handsome face, with a hooked nose and prominent cheekbones. A clean-shaven chin resided beneath a rather compact face mask, supplying weakened lungs with more oxygen. A small price to pay for the gifts, the Immortal always thought.
Though no one could possibly see it, his lips curled upwards in a smug smile, "Parking their vehicles so close to the edge. At least this idiocy made decent entertainment."
He heard shuffling from his mindless companions behind him, "Set the charges?"
A throaty grunt came in reply. "Now to get the old man's attention. Detonate."