Chapter One - Nowhere Left to Run
Mason struck a match to light his cigar. The Dutch certainly knew good food, not cigars though. Woods was outside, preparing their weapons while he and Adler waited to meet with their Police contact, Hans. So far, he liked Adler. He was calm, professional, and certainly knew how to talk to people. It probably helped that he got a psych degree before joining MACV/SOG. The two had reason to be in a bar in a foreign jurisdiction with enough firepower to take down a small platoon, they were hunting a terrorist. An Iranian terror cell held numerous Americans hostage in an embassy, and they killed some of them. This was the last straw for the Americans, so they sent the best to go find the one pulling the strings and take him out of the picture. They were in the Netherlands as they had intel that Qausim Javadi, one of the leaders, is in hiding and knows where Arash Kadivar, the other, is. Hans approached the two agents and leaned on their table.
"You have fifteen minutes to get your man, after that, you're on your own." Hans stated.
"That's all we need." Adler said in response. The two got up, Mason leaving a generous tip for the staff tolerating their loitering and refusal to purchase alcohol, and approached the back door.
"Are you sure we can trust this guy?" Mason asked. Adler nodded.
"I'm sure, he's done more for less." Adler confirmed. Leaving the bar, Woods greeted them with open arms.
"What took you so fuckin long?" Woods spat. "Been freezing my fucking ass off out here."
"Hans took longer than expected, Qasim is still there?" Adler responded.
"Yeah fucker's still there, first floor TV room. FIrepower's in the trunk, take whatever you want, FNC's for Mason." Woods gave back. Mason went to the truck and tossed Adler an MP5, taking the FNC for himself before closing the trunk. Mason unzipped his jacket, revealing the magazines he had tapped to his shirt underneath. Mason checked the chamber for a round, letting the bolt drive into battery after finding a 5.56 round in the chamber. The three slowly approached the yard of the apartment Qasim was hiding in. In the backyard, they could see into a window revealing a group of Qasim's men playing poker or something at a table, Qasim attentively watching a news report.
"Smoke em, but remember, we need Qasim alive." Adler stated.
"Yeah whatever." Woods muttered. "Let's go." Mason tore back the trigger, sending bullets into the room, ripping through the heads of the terrorists as Qasim ran back towards the stairs. Mason dropped his rifle, letting it hang from his sling as he swapped to his 1911. He rushed towards the stairs, taking out a terrorist as he ran out of the bathroom. Another stood over him at the stairs, taking two .45 ACP to the head before falling. Now on the roof, Mason grabbed a terrorist rushing towards him, throwing his rifle to the side, grabbing his shirt, and firing a bullet directly above his sternum. Mason then swapped to his rifle, shooting several more terrorists, then pushing towards the end of the apartments. Qasim stood with several body guards. Mason nodded at Woods and Adler, jumping a gap and shooting the bodyguards in the legs. Mason grabbed Qasim and held him over the edge. Adler tossed one of the guards onto a car below.
"Talk or that's gonna be you." Adler spat. What Adler lacked in subtlety, he certainly made up for in getting to the point.
"Please, I know nothing." Qasim begged. "Besides, you can't do this, you have rules."
"The rules changed when you killed hostages. So you better talk, because my friend here has a short temper." Adler spat.
"Where's Arash you prick?" Mason spat.
"Arash, he's meeting someone in an airfield in Turkey, that's all I know." Qasim pleaded. "Please let me go." Mason tossed him to the floor behind him, Woods swooping in to cuff him. Looks like they were gonna take a quick vacation to Turkey.
Mason plunged the knife into the guard's throat, cleaning it on his sleeve after ripping it out. Woods and Adler slid the bodies of their own marks to the ground after he finished.
"Remember, we're here to smoke Arash, anyone else is collateral." Adler stated.
"Yeah wouldn't want dead terrorists to rain on your fuckin parade." Woods spat. The trio approached the treeline, mason pulling out his binoculars as he braced himself on a tree trunk.
"We need a PID on Arash before we fire, got it?" Adler stated. "Try the truck coming in first. Mason upped the power on the binoculars before panning them to the truck. Sure enough, he sat in the back seat, looking over some files with a woman who was most likely from an asian country, likely Japan or maybe Laos, at least that's what Mason thought.
"Got a PID in the truck, he's talking to some woman." Mason stated. "Arms dealer maybe?"
"I see her, probably not, syndicates don't sell guns, they buy them. Unless she's solo." Adler stated. "Keep an eye on her." Though Mason couldn't hear the conversation, he got a feeling things were going to get ugly. Sure enough, Arash stepped out of the car and unloaded two bullets into the driver and the woman in the car.
"Shit, you guys see that?" Woods asked.
"Yeah, Mason, get the rifle out." Adler ordered.
"Copy." Mason responded, unslinging the M40 mounted on his back. He pressed the stock into his shoulder and flipped the sight open, peeking through the sope. Mason aligned the center of the scope with Arash, right in center mass. As Arash boarded the plane, Mason pulled the trigger, but the wind changed at the worst moment, sending his otherwise perfect shot into the head of what appeared to be a mercenary. A gunfight ensued, Mason swapping to his XM177E2, gunning down mercenaries.
"FUCK WE GOTTA CHASE THE PLANE!" Woods screamed as He jumped into the passenger seat of a truck. Adler ran to the driver's seat as Mason jumped into the bed of the truck. The truck lurched forward, tailing the plane as it's door slowly closed and other trucks chased them. Mason tried to destroy the trucks but he was on a moving vehicle firing at other vehicles.
"Fuck this, Woods drop the RC." Mason ordered.
"Thought you'd never ask." Woods said with a chuckle. Woods tossed an RC car with a brick of C4 strapped to it's roof. Mason controlled the car, steering it right under the plane's landing gear. Then the C4 detonated, seind the plane into wild spin, destroying multiple trucks and Mason's own. Shortly after, he found himself on the ground, being helped up by Woods.
"You good brother?" Woods asked.
"You thought you'd have to ask?" Mason countered.
"Heh, true." Woods laughed. "Egghead's interrogating Arash." Mason approached the interrogation, clearly, Adler wasn't happy.
"You think this will stop us?" Arash laughed. "You will find that we are far stronger than you think, Perseus-" Adler shot him right then. Arash fell to the ground as the sound of the gunshot rang through the air.
"You head to the extraction, I'm going to check the deal for any intel." Adler spat.
"Who the hell is Perseus?" Woods asked as Adler walked towards the site of the weapons deal.
Park was certain this woman was stronger than usual. She only had one piece of information about her. Her name was Minako. Off this information, she was able to get Adler to dig up an old file.
"Here it is, Arisato Minako, Japanese born, parents died when she was six, was taken in by a family of suspected Soviet sympathisers." Adler began. "At sixteen, her twin brother died while under medical monitoring by the Kirijo Group, it seems she thought they could help him, they couldn't. She blamed corporations for all the pain in her life, especially the Kirijo Group. Stole some information and classified objects from them and sold them to Perseus. And here we are now, she's been captured by me."
"Do the people you were with when this happened know about this, Mason especially." Park asked.
"No, they don't know." Adler assured her. "Especially not Mason." Park nodded.
"Good, because I have an Idea." Park began. "As you know, she's been uncooperative with interrogations, giving false information, even the woman we brought in who knows her got bloodied spit in her face. There is a solution to this though. The CIA has been successful with implanted memories, you see."
"Good thinking, make her think she's been working with us." Adler said with a slight smile.
"Exactly. I already have her set up for the implanting, all I need is for you to read the script. I based it off your experiences in Vietnam and added my own flair for anything else." Park smugly stated. Adler picked up the file on the table and started reading it.
"We fought and bled together in Vietnam, we had a job to do." He began.
Minako woke up in the hospital, a terrible dream plaguing her. She was still working for the KGB, and she was shot by her contact to get rid of the competition, thank god it was just a dream.
"Hey Bell, how's the rib?" A voice asked. Minako turned to face the source, it was Adler, finally coming to pay her a visit. Though it was odd, her memories of the earlier parts of her stay at the hospital were a bit of a blur.
"Sup Adler? It's doing much better." Minako said with a smile. She had been in a car crash just a week prior and spent the better half of the week in the hospital.
"Glad to hear, you think you're ready for an op?" Adler asked. "This comes straight from the top, Reagan wants someone with inside knowledge on this one."
"Ooh, what are we doing? Supporting a coup in GRU?" Minako jokingly asked. Adler chuckled.
"Not quite, remember Fracture Jaw?" Adler asked.
"I don't want to." Minako admitted.
"Well, you may have to, we're hunting Perseus." Adler informed her. Well then, things just got interesting.
A/N: Chapter one is here! Hope you enjoyed this one! So yeah, Woods and Mason don't know about Minako being a brainwashed member of Perseus, only Adler, Park, Hudson, Sims, and Lazar will know. Aditionally, Minako will have more memories implanted her to help her be convinced that she's been working for the CIA the whole time. For instance, in the campaign, if Bell is Ex-KGB, they won't remember anything about the Lubyanka, but Minako will, but it won't line up with her actual memories. Anyway, enough of that, hope you enjoyed!