chapter SEVENTEEN: Russian Oldies

"Questions? What questions?" Brant was still pinned in the corner in something of shock. The creature was watching out the window still, the blue and gray slowly bearing faint streaks of green and amber.

"You were in Spetsnaz," the creature breathed. Brant looked at him, appalled.

"You think I have secrets because I'm a former Spetsnaz? Russia has not been an enemy to the United States for years. What does my past have to do with any of this?"

The creature turned away from the window and looked down on Brant with that strong glowing red eye. "You're quite the find. Yasu Miatsuri, Peter Grant, Michel Haynes, Bruce Arden – all aliases. Enlisted in the Autrian military, spied for Great Britain, and fought in Spetsnaz. Then FBI desk-jockey, and now commander of FOX-HOUND, reinstated just before Solid Snake was released from the government's hands. Haynes, Arden, Miatsuri…you are like me. You have no name."

Brant still seemed unable to comprehend what the creature meant by all of this, but there was knowledge within him that he was hiding. He knew something that the creature wished, also, to know.

"Tell me, Mr. Brant, what are you doing as commander of FOX-HOUND?" Brant swallowed hard. He couldn't hide anything any longer.

Then, his Codec began to ring.

~*~

Mei Ling sat in a quiet room, a computer monitor starring at her in the darkness of a basement. It was dank and cold, but it was the only place she knew of that couldn't be hacked or monitored. It was far away from anything. She watched the monitor as she heard Brant's tired and worn voice come over the Codec. There was pain in her eyes, her brows bent oddly and sorrowfully.

"Mei Ling?" Brant managed, worriedly.

"Mr. Brant," she returned. Her voice was breaking, wavering. "They have you now, don't they?"

Brant waited to answer. "You know? How?"

Mei Ling seemed devastated. "We just need to ask you a few questions before we can carry on the operation. That's all…just a few questions." She waited for him to become angry, but it was worse when she heard the disbelief shaking in his response.

"You're with them? Who are they? Who are you?"

"I'm Mei Ling, Mr. Brant, you know that." She sounded hurt. "Answer their questions, Mr. Brant and then it will all be over."

"But –"

Mei Ling ended the transmission and starred into the computer screen as it glowed, lighting up a few feet of the room around her.

~*~

Brant looked up into that chilling red flashlight of an eye and tried to laugh at how ridiculously vulnerable he'd been. Desperado, even Mei Ling had been working around and behind him. 'How funny,' he tried to tell himself. But, he found other words coming out of his mouth when he finally spoke.

"By nature, I'm attracted to action. I seek out whatever job I can, anything new, anything exciting. I lost my flare a bit somewhere along the line while I was serving in Russia as a Spetsnaz. No place in this world has been safe for the last twenty years – everything has its risks. So, every time I entered a new country, searching for a new job, I had to take on another identity. I've been moving along the grapevine for years and it was when I came back to the States about five years ago that I saw it right to settle down. I'm forty-eight and I think that's certainly old for field work.

"So, I entered the FBI. I was there for a long time before a few agents from the CIA confronted me and invited me to a meeting with the President. I went and he told me what I was in for. Take command of a secret black ops division titled FOX-HOUND and work with the most well-known stealth agent to associate with the US government."

"Solid Snake," the creature muttered.

"Right," Brant paused here for a while. There were other things he hesitated to reveal, but as the creature passed the little window cut out of the wall and the blade it carried caught the light he continued, though reluctantly still. "I was requested to stay silent about all of our operations, and to make sure that I followed all reports to the letter."

"Reports?"

"Every mission we were assigned, every one I was to command, was handed down through the ranks. Each and every one was reviewed by the President of the United States before I could get my hands on it. I originally believed that they were assessing the assignments to figure out just which department to hand it off to, but I eventually got it – they wanted to keep an eye on Snake. And, they wanted him to follow a path they'd charted themselves. He was being lead to someplace. Lead, intentionally, for one reason or another."

"Lead where?"

Brant paused, tasted his stinking breath, and looked up again at the creature. "To Trinket." The words dropped on the room like a bomb exploding all around. "This is his last stop. He doesn't leave as long as those letterheads get their way."

~*~

Desperado was still sitting at the bench when he got the call. "Yes?" he began, seemingly distracted as he held that big blue balloon in his grasp.

"It's Fox," the creature said. "Questioning went smoothly."

Suddenly sitting up at the bench, Desperado said more interestedly into the phone: "What did he say? Did you learn anything?"

"There's no problem with the aliases. He says he's a sucker for action and I believe him. But," he paused, but only for a moment, "what he had to say about FOX-HOUND was new. He says big names in the White House administration picked the missions he sent Snake on. It's been designed to move Snake on a direct path to Trinket."

"What for?"

"Mr. Brant isn't too sure, but it's obvious so far that these big names – they don't intend for him to return."

~*~

Russian oldies were a lot like German Death Metal had been back in the 90s. Most music at the turn of the century had been slower, more reliant on vocals, but in the early 2000s heavier metal bands surfaced and made their way onto the music charts. A number of years later and they were dying out, but they were still on the radio every now and then. That's what was playing in the little black Jetta as it went down the street, long and endless, cars nowhere to be seen.

Daves sat in the back seat still, eyes closed but so much happening beneath the lids. Images flashed before his eyes, sounds flushed through his ears, smells drifted past his nose – all as they went along the road that stretched off to nowhere, ending over the horizon somewhere. He hated the Russian oldies music, despised German Death Metal when it had been famous years ago. But, it was only a low hum, not cranked up loud like it was meant to be. Only the heaviest instruments played through and could be heard, and Sears sat in the front seat, drumming his gloved fingers on the console beside him and bobbing his head.

Daves looked into the mirror mounted above the dashboard and caught the glance of those cold steel eyes, the eyes of former President Sears – so penetrating and stunning. Sears smiled and looked back over the road, putting both hands on the wheel and speaking over his shoulder to Daves. "You've been sleeping?" he said. Daves hadn't been sleeping at all. His eyes had been closed for a little over two hours as they rolled along. Seeing his Trinket folder laying open on the front seat it reminded him of where they were heading. It wouldn't be much longer now, and Sears knew it too. Soon, they'd be there.

"Not too interested in conversation, eh?" Sears laughed a little to himself for no reason and neglected Daves once again. He took one hand off the steering wheel and turned up the volume on the Russian oldies – an act that made Daves sneer against his own will and better judgment. "Not a fan of my music?" Sears inquired. Daves didn't respond. Turning it down momentarily, he reached into his jacket pocket and brandished a small black cell phone. Opening it up, he typed in a few numbers and lifted it to his ear.

"Yes?" a voice responded, machine-like but still human, just oddly monotone.

"It's Sears," he said briefly. "I'll be there with the American broker in fifteen minutes. Be ready."

"Yes sir," the voice answered again, and the line was cut. Daves looked through eyes squinted. 'The American broker,' he thought to himself. Sears was in on the deal, then. Interesting.

Daves smiled to himself, intrigued by this new twist, and closed his eyes, meditating to the Russian oldies. Sears still drummed on the console, hand gloved, head bobbing along to the music.