Desert Roses Have Thorns.
Chapter 5.
With a guest appearance of Johnny Sasaki!
Meryl could barely hear herself think but the sound of her own heart thudding inside her chest rang clearly in her ears despite the wailing of the carriers engines behind a couple of inches of steel.
Nobody in the hold spoke, they were either sitting down trying to prepare themselves for the mission, checking and re-checking their equipment, or they were napping to kill off the long flight.
Lieutenant Armstrong was awake and he gave Meryl a questioning thumb up from where he was sitting on the opposite side of the hold from Meryl. She nodded and smiled quickly as he got up to sit down next to her.
"We'll be there in about half an hour to the drop-zone. Before we harness up to the 'chute I'll just ask; you okay Meryl?" Armstrong shouted in her ear.
"I'm ready but a complete bag of nerves about the dive. Once I start looking for Snake and I find him, I'll feel better." Meryl called back.
"From what I heard, he's the man when it comes to tackling Metal Gear. I mean that's what…three he's taken out now…" Armstrong shook his head in amazement. "He's something special alright so no wonder this Ebony lady captured him."
Meryl squirmed a little, she wondered if Armstrong knew that in a way Snake wasn't a regular soldier like he was. Fine, Snake had put in as many years of training in boot camp and in the ranks of regular soldiers to get where he was now, like any of the men aboard the carrier, but they didn't have the advantage and disadvantage of having fighting genes in place from the start of their lives like he did.
"I was briefed on why you are involved in this mission and I don't blame Snake for having that attitude with these VR trained troops. I was trained the good old-fashioned way and nothing beats it. It won't matter how sophisticated they make these computer simulations, they still won't be able to match field exercises and all the unexpected things that can happen." Armstrong paused and switched to a softer tone. "Do you know him well?"
"I…uh…I was deployed on Shadow Moses island after some soldiers went missing and I was a replacement. I met Snake when he was on his mission and helped him out a little. One of those unexpected things I guess! That's how I came to know him." Meryl answered. She deliberately missed out the point that they were living together, but guessed that somewhere in the briefing the fact had been dropped in.
"And you guys have been living together ever since?" Armstrong asked.
"Yeah…" Meryl shied away from him.
"He-ey, don't worry!" Armstrong grinned. "Personally I think that's great and it doesn't matter what people think. You're happy right, so that's cool. Anyway your life is your business, but if my lady was kidnapped, I'd sure as hell do something about it!"
Armstrong grinned again and held up his left hand to let Meryl see a simple gold wedding ring on his wedding finger.
"That I got right after I came back home from the Gulf war. And now I've got two kids." He beamed proudly.
Meryl smiled; static buzzing over the communications system caught their attention.
"Twenty-five minutes until the drop-zone." The co-pilot said simply over the radio like a stripped down version of an announcement on a commercial flight but without the sugar poured on by the airhostesses.
"Yeah, we'd better start getting ready. I've got all my gear to think about too." Armstrong said as he got up and stretched before tapping a couple of dozing soldiers awake.
"Your harness is in that tactical vest right?" He called over to Meryl.
"Yep."
"Great stuff. Just give me a minute to get ready and then I'll get you attached onto my harness and we can go over the procedure again. Okay?" He smiled and began to load his sniper rifle and the back up M-16 onto his back, securing them tightly and out of the way of his parachute.
Meryl made a last few checks of her own. The SOCOM was strapped to her right thigh with her Beretta M-9 on her left. She wished she had a Desert Eagle instead, it at least guaranteed a kill practically every time, but stealth came first so the SOCOM and its silencer was more practical. She'd stashed some magazines for each gun in the pouches on her vest to help with reloading quickly, some rations and the small canteen of water on her belt. The rest of the equipment was in her backpack.
She looked up from tightening the laces on her boots to see the Lieutenant waiting for her. He waved his hand to ask her over. Now she didn't feel so good anymore.
≈≈≈≈≈≈
Ebony had only seen Metal Gear once before and she had been invited by Ocelot to view the completed prototype. It had still been in production but from the designs she'd seen, Ebony had suggested that it be christened Metal Gear Gryphus after the Latin word for griffin. The head part of it always reminded her of a big bird of prey, like the eagles that she would watch soaring over the mountains, diving for the rodents that they somehow picked out from the sky.
It had amazed her at how quickly the whole thing had been developed but Ocelot had certainly not skimped on hiring people to build it. They had more people than they really required but it had cut the time by half and also while they'd been constructing the necessary buildings to build, maintain and store Gryphus, it was being designed and the simple construction of it had begun from the day that Ebony had returned to base with Ocelot.
From where Ebony stood at the top of the hangar beside Gryphus' head, she watched all the engineers and technicians hovering around. It was so busy that there were blockages in the walkways further below with the number of people who had to make final preparations to the beast.
Ebony chuckled at them; it seemed that for all their intelligence and genius, they found a simple matter like working out how to undo the mess they got into with congested walkways, so taxing.
"Impressive isn't it?"
Ebony heard Ocelot's spurs long before he had said a word to her. She looked up at Gryphus again, felt dwarfed by the sheer scale of the thing standing, sleeping in front of her, the power and fear that it generated with its name alone.
"Yes. Yes it is. It's good to see that my money and resources have been put to good use." She turned around with a smile plastered on her face. Having Gryphus in her base was no comfort to having less control over her soldiers and the base. Her home.
Gryphus was quite similar to REX; the construction was still sturdy and chunky, but overall Gryphus had a much more creature like appearance to it. It was less jagged, a little smoother in its shape, perfectly suited to the desert, but could take anything.
Gryphus had been designed so that no terrain would stop it, any climate could be easily overcome, and few weapons could puncture the armour. It had a wide range of hi-tech weapons onboard and even an air defence system of its own.
"I'm glad to hear it." Ocelot grinned. "What was said in the last transmission?"
"Nothing. They won't give me the money that you demanded, but they seemed disturbed by the fact that Snake is in my hands. The next transmission I'll send will include a demand for recognition of this base as an independent nation and I'll press them again for money. That will be yours." Ebony explained.
"If we get it Ebony. If we get it." Ocelot sighed. "They won't give in so easily. They stood strong against Liquid remember and you know what a persuasive person he could be. I have tightened security. What's the news on Snake?"
Ebony laughed. She knew that her news would irritate him somewhat, but could not resist.
"He's out. Cold." She giggled. "He was begging for the torture to stop!" Ocelot smiled and began to chortle to himself.
"Now you've surpassed me in that. You will have to teach me how. I never got that kind of reaction from him the last time." He grinned.
Ebony took a look at Gryphus again, an idea began to form in her mind, starting small and felt it grow.
"That could be arranged Ocelot…" She smiled. Ocelot gave her a puzzled look on his old face, but the expression quickly disappeared.
"I'm willing to let you have a round of torture with Snake in exchange for something else. For nostalgia's sake, I know that you would like somebody to practise your hobby on and Snake isn't going to be around for too long…" Ebony bowed her head a touch.
"And what do you want in return for this?" Ocelot asked, his eyes narrowed and his voice took on a hiss that was almost like that of a wild cat, just like his FOX-HOUND name suggested.
"Let me be the one controlling Metal Gear. I want to do that for Liquid since he never got the chance he deserved." Ebony asked quickly, a hand on her chest, just above her heart. The gesture had been unintended but it seemed to add weight to her argument.
Ocelot was about to speak to her again but everybody fell silent at the sound of running on the walkway and a voice calling out. All eyes turned to the source of the echoes as a single soldier charged down towards Ebony and Ocelot.
"Ebony…Ocelot!" He gasped in between breaths. He skidded to a halt in front of them, a couple of engineers cursing and waving their fists at him as they picked up tools and odd bits and pieces he'd knocked over.
"What is it?" They both asked at the same time.
The soldier took a half step back, a little intimidated by the forceful question given to him in a double dose. He stooped over hands on his knees and caught his breath before standing up straight again.
"Scouts…scouts with eyes on the skies…" He panted. "They saw an American carrier plane coming towards us… twenty minutes away from us…"
"Thank you for the news. Go, get rested, and return to your duties. That is alright with you Ocelot?" Ebony said and looked over in his direction.
"Yes, that's acceptable. Dismissed." He blinked once and let the soldier leave who saluted him, smiled at Ebony and jogged away, taking a drink from his canteen and apologised to the engineers he had knocked over.
"Do you think this is them launching some kind of attack?" Ebony asked Ocelot as he began to stride away from Gryphus.
His brow was furrowed and it made him look five years older than he was.
"More than likely they will drop an operative from their Special Forces to find Solid Snake and infiltrate the base." He began to pace around. "I guessed that they'd try something like this, but had Snake still been in Alaska, they would have found him and sent him instead. It is their policy not to negotiate with terrorists first. They'll try to destroy us and leave talks as a last resort."
"So what are you going to do?" Ebony folded her arms. "I don't want to loose too many of my soldiers…"
"I'll up security just a little more. Not too much because if somebody does get inside, I'd like to play around with them a little while. I'll leave that to you however; I want to keep my involvement in this quiet for as long as possible." Ocelot answered after a moment or two.
"But we aren't terrorists either!" Ebony cried.
"To them we are, Ebony. That's what you will be known as from now on. A mercenary terrorist, think what that will do for you if this venture succeeds!" Ocelot tempted. "Anyway… where would they likely approach the base from?"
"Well…" Ebony stopped for a second, running over the landscape in her minds eye. She knew the area around her base for a good few miles in vivid detail; she had grown up here so it was only natural for her to call up an answer to the question. "…the best place is close to the mountains. There's more cover from there, wadis, fallen rocks…" That's the best place but also it's a good spot to post out some snipers to give them a welcoming." She added.
"We don't have anything that could shoot down the plane with the weapons we have and there's no telling if we'll find a use for them later. I'd say set up some scouts and snipers in the area as you said and wait." Ocelot grabbed his coat and pulled it on, pausing to check that all the chambers in his revolver were full, spun them around and reholstered the weapon with a flourish.
"As for your offer, I admit it is very tempting. I shall get back to you on it." He smiled thinly at Ebony over his shoulder, giving her a sideways glance, before turning right around and began to issue orders to soldiers on his radio.
≈≈≈≈≈≈
The rear door of the carrier began to open slowly with the hiss of the hydraulics. Cold air rushed in with a whistle and a howl messing up Meryl's hair. She put up a hand to ward off the light reflecting off the land down far below.
There were no clouds in the sky, only endless blue stretching far away. Down below, dusty brown, yellow, and beige coloured dunes. Thousands of feet below. Only a few steps away. Right under her feet.
"Oh my God!" Meryl thought. "I can't…I can't go!" She felt her body freeze up and go stiff. She had the vision locked in her mind that soon she would be dropping out of the plane like a stone, headed right for the ground.
Lieutenant Armstrong tapped her on the shoulder and asked with a thumbs up if she was okay. Meryl shook her head emphatically. She had completely forgotten that he was right behind her, she was so sucked up into her own world with her fear, and she believed that for a moment she was the only one there.
"Come on Meryl, we've come this far and you've done great. Snake needs you now and the only way to get to him is to take this jump." He said loudly in her ear. "Look…I'll bet when he asks you how you got here and you tell him you did a parachute jump, he'll be pretty darn proud of you." He laughed. Meryl smiled.
"Nothing is going to go wrong with the dive. You can trust me, Meryl. You can do this." Armstrong added.
Meryl tried to relax and took a few deep breaths, adjusted her goggles and shut her eyes.
"Can't back out now. I really want to see Dave again." She thought. Meryl looked out of the door into the sky again.
"I'm ready!" She shouted out finally and felt Armstrong put a firm hand on her shoulder.
"Good girl!" He smiled and slowly they began to waddle closer to the ramp edge, peeping out into the sky as it rushed by. Meryl resisted the temptation to take a tentative half step forward to lean out a little more, consciously noting that the Lieutenant was attached to her.
"Like I said when we went over this, everybody has a secondary chute. If anything goes wrong with the first one, I will have to cut the primary one loose and deploy the secondary chute. It's not the end if we screw up on the first go, but I don't have to tell you that it's better to get it right first shot. I'll have control of the fall; you just have to take care of our landing, which shouldn't be a problem. If you get stuck, I'll tell you what to do, okay. When we're down the cord to release you from my harness quickly is…" Armstrong explained.
"That one." Meryl finished for him pointing to the red cord.
"Right. You can never tell if you'll really need that so don't forget it." He answered as the jump co-ordinator edged to the ramps edge, safely harnessed into the hold.
"Approaching the drop-zone. Get ready to jump." The co-pilot called over the radio. There was a brief gap and a sound as the microphone was passed over.
"Okay, good luck guys!" The pilot chuckled and the radio cut off.
The jump co-ordinator listened to something on his headset and then held out a gloved hand, all his fingers out stretched and began to count down, tucking each finger in with each count.
"Five!" He yelled. "Four!"
"Three…Two…One." Meryl counted aloud to herself and watched as his fist waved down at zero.
"GO!" Lieutenant Armstrong screamed as they both leaped out of the plane.
Meryl gulped back a knot as her heart rocketed up into her throat against gravity. She wanted to scream with fright and joy, but she was too choked up. She opened her eyes again and saw the sky all around her, the wind singing in her ears as they dove down.
Eventually the other four soldiers were level with them all spaced far apart so nobody would hit each other in case there was trouble.
"WOW!" Meryl gushed loudly after finding her voice again. "What. A. View!" She said struggling to get the words out. Her voice sounded wobbly like a quivering jelly, and she was certain that was how her whole body felt too.
"Great isn't it?" Enjoy it while you can before the mission really starts." Armstrong called back. His voice was much clearer than Meryl's but he was more used to the experience and the pressure of the fall was all on Meryl with her being in front of him.
It felt silly for Meryl to imagine it, but she felt like she was flying instead of a body hurtling out of the sky. It was freezing cold but Meryl didn't care. She was so full of adrenaline to notice, but kept in mind that she would have to recover from it quickly before getting on with finding Snake. The feeling was similar to the combat high she remembered Dave getting onto her about on Shadow Moses when they first spoke on the codec. She felt all jittery and scatterbrained, a dangerous state to be in such a mission.
The tan coloured mountains slowly got closer, and Meryl had a look at her watch from where her arms were spread out for the free fall. It was fairly early in the morning she could tell, but was unable to get an exact time.
Meryl kept quiet for the rest of the dive. It was hard to breathe and she was more interested in what her next move would be. All she wanted was to find Snake, see if Metal Gear was there, and destroy it if there was one.
Armstrong looked at the altimeter on his wrist to see how far above the ground they were.
"Not long before we deploy the chute. We will open at the lowest possible altitude so it doesn't take too long to land. We are more vulnerable when the chutes are open. How you doing?" He bellowed to Meryl.
"Better, but my legs have turned to mush!" She laughed.
"You'll feel better back on the land." He chuckled and had another look at the meter.
"Get ready, this is the funny bit." He reached up for the cord and Meryl turned her head round to one side to see the parachute burst out. It rippled in the air for a second and was filled with air. Armstrong looked up to see that the lines were fine and everything was right.
"Great, everything is okay." He sighed. Meryl looked around and could see the other four soldiers dangling from parachutes too. There was a jolt as the parachute resisted against the fall and Meryl felt her insides jump around before they began to drift down to the ground. She watched it get closer with every second, something unusual in the land made her squint her eyes but ignored it; Armstrong was calling to her.
"Start running now Meryl to take us into land." He said. Meryl began to wave her legs in the air.
"Uh-oh! Shit!" Armstrong hissed. "Meryl, get yourself free! NOW!" He shouted.
Meryl looked up and saw soldiers appear out from behind rocks and foxholes, shooting at them. She fumbled for the cord and pulled it free even though she wasn't down on the ground. She fell a few feet and scrambled for cover behind the nearest rock she could find, bullets singing over her head.
"Get down! Everybody get down!" The Lieutenant roared and pulled out his M-16 to cover the remaining soldiers as they descended. "Meryl, me and the guys will cover you. Get the hell out of here when I tell you okay?" He added giving her a quick glance.
"Right…" Meryl panted. Gunfire continued to snap out from all directions, sending up clouds of dust and little sharp chips of rock everywhere. Meryl got down on her stomach and slithered into shelter surrounded by rocks. She watched the other soldiers touch down, gather up their chutes but never bothered to take them off. Her hand went to the SOCOM at her side, hoping that she could make a few silent wins for them.
"Don't be crazy! We'll cover you, we don't need you getting hurt now, or killed!" Armstrong yelled at her.
"Sir enemy snipers are shooting at us from the mountains!" A soldier called.
"Dammit! Brookes, take over for me; I'll pick 'em off. McDonald, cover me. Anderson, help Brookes with covering Meryl. Red, just keep on fighting." Armstrong looked over to Meryl as he set up his sniper rifle, a fifty calibre Barrett Model 82A1.
"See that rough line of rocks over there? Follow it to that wadi. Brookes and our medic, Anderson will provide you with cover fire all the way. When you get there and it's clear, we'll create a diversion. You will have to run like hell's dogs are after you to the base." If we can't, hide out in the wadi until this all blows over." He explained while he set the rifle down and steadied himself to start sniping.
"What about you?" She cried.
"We'll hold them off. Don't worry, but I'd keep that gun of yours handy." Armstrong turned to Brookes and Anderson. "Count in three and start firing in that direction. Make sure nobody gets close to Meryl. Got it?" They both nodded.
"Ready, Meryl?" Brookes called to her.
"Uh-huh." She muttered.
"One, two, three!"
Meryl got up onto her feet and began to run, ducking down out of sight behind rocks and boulders. She just let her legs carry her away to the wadi and stopped to catch her breath, waiting to make another run. She looked down to see that she was shaking all over.
"Incoming grenade!" Armstrong screamed. Meryl looked back to see the tiny thing flying through the sky, right over the lieutenant's head and wedging itself between Brookes and Anderson. She covered her ears and ducked down as it went off. Gunfire still rang out mercilessly punctuated by the loud crack-boom sound of sniper gunfire.
Meryl heard a beeping in her ear. The codec.
"Meryl! We've got casualties, Anderson our medic is alive, but Brookes took most of the blast." Armstrong spoke to her as he reloaded his rifle. "I can't spare anybody to cover you, I've got Red covering for them while Anderson fixes up Brookes, and McDonald is helping me. I'm trying to hold off the snipers for you. All I can say is right now we are far outnumbered. I hate to admit it but we're stuck here…" There was a scream close to Armstrong and it fell silent.
"We've lost Anderson. Meryl, get yourself out of sight…"
"But…" Meryl looked up to see another two grenades fly towards them. She threw herself down into the wadi and covered her ears at the explosion, forgetting that she could still hear it through the codec transmission. She gritted her teeth as she landed down with a hard thud and crawled into a small caved in part of the wadi. Meryl fumbled for the codec to try to call them but all she could hear was static.
"Oh my…" She whispered to herself, trembling at the revelation with tears in her eyes. Seconds later and there was a faint beep in her ear. Meryl put a hand up to answer the call.
"Meryl! What the hell happened there?" Roy Campbell cried. "We tried to contact the team and Doctor Naomi has lost track of their nanomachines signals."
"We…we got ambushed when we landed from the jump. There were snipers in the mountains and soldiers on the ground close to us. The team gave me cover so I could escape." Meryl breathed as she wiped her eyes. "A grenade got thrown into and injured some of them, Anderson the medic was killed…I think everybody is dead!"
"Oh Meryl…" The colonel sighed. "Are you alright?" He asked gently.
"A little banged up when I jumped into this wadi, but I'm okay. Nobody knows where I am…yet. I'm going to hide here until it's clear and think of a way to get inside the base."
Meryl was distracted by the sound of people talking getting closer. "I've got to go, there's somebody getting close." She hissed and ended the transmission.
Meryl tucked herself in the little cave, hugging her knees.
"This isn't a great start…I thought there'd be no problem in coming by plane." Meryl held her head in her hands.
"Always me…why does it always happen to me?"
≈≈≈≈≈≈
Snake opened one eye a little. Very slowly. He didn't move from where he lay face down on the floor. His body was crying at him in pain. His head pounded, his eyes burned at the dull light and the sand he still had in them.
Then Snake discovered his raging thirst. The back of his mouth and throat was thoroughly parched and raw with his screaming.
"Urgh…that was cutting it fine…" He croaked, his usual husky voice was much rougher and the words scraped at his throat.
Snake rolled over onto his back and knocked something over with his hand, the sloshing noise told him that whatever it was the object contained some kind of liquid. He twisted his head round and reached out with a stiff arm to retrieve the bottle, then pushed himself off the floor and slid along to lean up against the wall, cool concrete against his back.
Snake needed no reminder of what had happened; his skin still tingled insanely, around his wrists his skin had blistered and puffed up red where they had been in contact with the metal. A burning smell still lingered in his nostrils. He couldn't place a name to it but he knew that it wasn't the scent of a freshly lit cigarette; something that Snake desperately craved right now.
Ebony had been a little less harsh with her security and instead of immobilising Snake entirely; she'd put one of his wrists in a cuff and chained it to the wall. Snake could barely move anyway in his current state but was grateful for the extra freedom he had been given.
"One thing's clear…she really is serious about killing me." Snake thought as he unscrewed the bottle cap. Something that she and Liquid shared, they didn't go around the matter in circles before getting to the core, they just got on with it and told him straight what they wanted to do.
Snake took a cautious sniff at the water for any trace of poison, conscious of the fact that there were plenty of scentless toxins that Ebony could have used instead.
"Somehow I don't think Ebony would kill me that way anyway." Snake told himself. "If Liquid's attempt is anything to go by, Ebony will want to kill me with her own hands and be right there to enjoy it."
He took a tiny sip of the water. It tasted quite normal, a little warm, but it did the job and at least staved off his thirst for a while. A small sip turned into a mouthful, then into huge gulps as he drained the bottle until there was little over a quarter of it left. He waited for a minute to see if he felt anything. Still living, he didn't have the urge to bring it all back up again…he was fine.
He observed the contents of the container for a moment, the sand grains still irritated his eyes every time he blinked; the desire to claw them out was maddening. Snake tipped his head back, held his eyes open with his free hand, and poured the remainder out into his eyes. Before all the sand had gone, he had run out of water and only got a last few drips splash down onto his face. He sighed in relief, and wiped his face. His vision was a little better now, not perfect, and still a little unclear but he could live with it for the time being.
"You idiot!" He scolded himself. "How do you know that's the only water you'll get?"
Snake pressed his lips together in frustration, he'd left common sense and all basic survival rules behind and used the whole bottle in one go. He threw the bottle with a growl at the opposite wall and slouched down.
"How long can I go on like this?" He sighed. "I've had nothing to keep my energy up since I got here…" The thought reminded him of his last meal, breakfast with Meryl.
"And they might switch strategy. Instead of electrocution Ebony might start something else so I don't get too used to it."
Snake sat upright suddenly.
"What am I saying? I'm just about giving up and I came close to it when I asked Ebony to stop the torture. There has to be something I can do." Snake murmured as he rested his head on his knees.
"Sure. Even if you do break out of here, where do you go?" He heard his sub-consciousness telling him. "You've got to find more clothes, a weapon at least, sneak out of the base and then where? It's probably desert for miles around and who cares that you've gone?"
"Meryl does…" Snake told himself.
"But even if she does let anybody know that you're missing, the government and the military won't do anything about you unless they need you. All you are is a pain. An embarrassment. A dark secret but they need you."
Snake looked up and strained his ears to the noise that had alerted him. He could make out Ebony's Arabic lilt and Revolver Ocelot talking, getting closer to his cell. He would not openly admit it, even to himself, but Snake could feel a part of him dreading their arrival. The metal door was heaved open and the next time Snake looked up, he found Ebony and Ocelot standing on either side of him staring down at him.
"Well, here you are." Ebony smiled and looked in Ocelot's direction. "I am quite sure I want this trade, before you ask again. I won't change my mind."
Ocelot smiled cruelly at Snake and gave him a kick in the side, the spurs on his boot dug in, tearing at Snake's skin.
"Just make sure you don't kill him, you can leave that honour to me." Ebony added with a sigh.
"Don't worry; I'll make sure he comes back to you in more or less one piece." Ocelot replied his voice dragged slyly.
"That's what Liquid told you about that man…the DARPA chief. And what did you do? You killed him…" Ebony warned.
"Liquid again?" Ocelot snarled scornfully at her. "When are you going to accept that he's finished?"
Ebony bit her bottom lip and sighed huffily waving a hand at Snake.
"Just take him and go or I will change my mind. You can have your fun; I'm not coming with you. Just go and try out your new toy, I'm not interested." She growled. Snake looked up with worry on his face as four soldiers entered to escort them.
"New toy? I've got a bad feeling about this…" He growled to himself.
≈≈≈≈≈≈
Meryl looked down at her hands. They had stopped shaking and she had calmed down a little. She'd been sitting in the gorge for what felt like forever. In reality she found it had only been fifteen minutes, but she couldn't count the number of times she'd thought of what she could have done to stop it all from happening.
"What if I'd left the reservations until later? I would have been at home when Ebony turned up. Maybe I should have let Dave come with me. I should have stayed to help feed the huskies…" She shook her head slowly. "This is no use. If I've got anybody to blame it's Ebony!"
Meryl looked out of the wadi and saw sand falling in from the side accompanied with the sound of footsteps.
"Oh!" She drew back into her hiding spot and heard the soldier as he climbed down the side of the wadi to the bottom. She gripped her M-9 tighter and steadied her hands.
Meryl couldn't forget the first time she saw Snake. That was when she had escaped and unlocked the DARPA chief's cell. She had made the mistake of pulling her FAMAS on Snake when he emerged.
"I thought he was Liquid!" Meryl smiled. "And when he told me my hands were shaking, I almost died. He asked me if I could shoot him!" Meryl sighed. It was still something that the two of them joked about. That and when she sneaked up on him in the ladies' room. Since then, Dave had let her practise her shooting and she was a much better shot.
Meryl snapped out of her brief dream as the soldier's boots crunched in the sand and crumbled rock.
"What would Snake do?" She thought quickly as he got closer. Without thinking, she sprang out of her hiding place and pointed her gun at the lone soldier.
"Freeze!" She hissed at him. The soldier leapt up in the air and threw his hands in the air.
"Oh Jeez! Not again!" He whimpered, his voice muffled by the scarf he had wrapped around his face and head. Meryl looked at him for a second. Hadn't she seen this person before?
"Not YOU!" He wailed. "Man, please don't beat me up! I'm never going to live that down. Ever!"
"What?" She looked at the soldier carefully and smiled.
"At least I don't get cold here…" The soldier sighed. "Look please I'll do whatever you want, just don't take my uniform off me! I really don't want to get sunburned and have to put up with that either!"
"Okay, well you can give me that M-16 you got there." Meryl giggled realising who the soldier was. He dropped the rifle and Meryl picked it up.
"Now, one last thing. I want to get in the base and I want to know the best way inside." Meryl re-adjusted her aim. "And don't tell me any lies or I will steal your uniform and make you the laughing stock of the base!" She added.
Johnny rolled his head.
"Ah, alright. All right. There's a tunnel just behind those rocks and it leads right into the base. Nobody watches it anymore." He pointed to a heap of boulders just behind him.
"Can I go now?"
"You sure you won't tell anybody about this?" Meryl smiled.
"No! I mean yes! Um...no. Wait! I won't tell anybody! Honest!" He squealed again.
Meryl tightened her finger on the trigger and Johnny slumped down in a heap, his eyes slowly fell shut as the tranquillisers set in. She didn't have the heart to shoot the poor guy; he always seemed to have horrible luck as it was.
"Better hide him before anybody finds him." Meryl muttered as she holstered her Beretta and carefully manoeuvred the sleeping soldier into the spot where she had been hiding in.
"Right, let's see if he was telling me the truth about this tunnel or I'm going to have to give him a rude awakening."
Meryl kneeled down in front of the rocks and began to move them out of the way. Soon she could see the corner of a metal grid, securely screwed to the rock face. She hurried to clear the boulders away, looking up every now and then to make sure that nobody was watching.
"Phew, is it hot here!" She puffed and wiped her brow. She examined the grille. The spaces in between the strips of metal criss-crossing the entrance were wide enough for her to get a grip and pull back on it.
At first, the grid didn't budge and just sprang back into shape. The second tug stretched the metal. The third try and the screws began to work loose and suddenly let go. Meryl fell back, her hands a little sore with the metal cutting into her fingers but she was free to go inside.
She got down to have a look inside. The tunnel was big enough for her to crawl in. The bottom was covered in sand and bits of debris. Plus it was dark.
Meryl thought for a moment of the beasties that could be lurking in there, but it was the only sure way she had of getting inside the base.
"I'd better tell Dad what's going on." She thought and got up off her belly.
"Meryl, what is it?" Roy Campbell asked a fizz of static crackled for a second but soon cleared up.
"I'm fine I just about got discovered. I held up a soldier and he told me that there was an unwatched tunnel leading into the base. I don't know where it will take me inside the base but it's the only chance I've got left." She whispered. "Any word on the team?"
"We still haven't had any signal from them and Naomi hasn't got anything from their nanomachines yet. With the nanomachines for them, they are set to give a status report every hour, with you and Snake you're under constant surveillance." Mei Ling added.
"In any case Meryl, just trust what that soldier told you for now. Take care and don't make too much noise while you're in the tunnel." The colonel pointed out.
"Okay, expect a call when I come out at the other end." Meryl finished. She sighed and looked at the passages mouth.
"I bet it goes for miles and miles in the dark. I wish I had a torch or night-vision goggles…" She groaned while she gathered the M-16 and the magazines the soldier had dropped. Meryl got down on her stomach again and began to slither along on her stomach.
"Well here goes…" She breathed.
Continued in chapter 6.