"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him."

- Revelations 6:8

CHAPTER FOUR

The jet bellowed roaring flames from the back of its large figure, and it began to lift above the bitter asphalt below. The waves of heat from the vehicle interrupted the wind as the wheels slowly pulled into the bottom of the aircraft. Boss looked around at his comrades. He knew all but one of them none of them very well at all, but started to analyse their appearances.

The gruff face of Jason Striker, stamped with a large moustache and a small, half-smoked cigar bobbing up and down out of his dry lips. His coat, rapping his body and brushing the floor, was a beige, suede trench coat. The hat he wore was a cowboy hat, like from one of those Western films.

Big Boss slipped a Cuban cigar into his own mouth. His hand fondled a matchbox in his side pocket, but as he pushed the small drawer out of it, he could find no matches in its compartment. Lifting his head ever so slightly, he looked over to Striker. His associate looked back with a squint, and threw over a box of matches as if he knew exactly what he was going to say. The dwindling light pierced through the window, and the sun reached past a cloud and hid behind it. The weather was going to change soon.

Apart from the rumbling of the engines and shake and shimmy of the equipment in the jet, all was silent. It was the first bit of quiet Boss had had for a long time. His eyes began to droop gradually, but he couldn't sleep. And of all times he had to pick to fall asleep, this was the worst. They were about to go into Vietnam; they were about to have America on their shoulders.

The jet was oily with human sweat but hot and dry. It felt like a sauna, and that's not what they needed.

Vixen through back her hair and tied it carefully, it was just like a child bored with the heat, the whole idea of sitting in a lower class aeroplane for five more hours made her hot and bothered.

A match was lit, breathing fire onto a brown tube in a man's mouth. Puffs of smoke smacked themselves at the ceiling, almost like they were trying to escape. Silence was still at large in the room, and Ocelot stood leaning against the bag rack on a side-wall stricken with rust and stains that just reflected the history of its structure.

Big Boss' radio beeped furiously and the frequency flashed on its screen. 145.56. Attaching his earphones carefully he answered the call.

"John, long time no see." Boss recognised the voice; it was Captain Lucius Paulman of the Green Berets. They had worked with each other on countless occasions, and his voice had become even gruffer.

"Lucius, what brings you into this situation?"

"They looked up my files and decided I was good enough for the job on informing you of your mission objectives. I'll be your adviser throughout the mission. Like old times, eh?"

Boss remembered when he was showing Lucius the ropes in the Green Berets. Lucius was never too good in hand to hand combat, but a brilliant marksman. His sight was like an Eagle's. He'd boast about his kills to others, and say how the poor bastard would fall. The Boss didn't approve at all at his behaviour. Usually he'd be carrying haystacks up and down the hill for miles on end. John sniggered.

"Yeah, like old times. Actually, my codename is Big Boss." They had only been mutual friends back in the Berets, their understanding of each other didn't surpass the level of contact out of the job. Hell, Boss hadn't a phone until a few years back. He wasn't with the times, but he had plenty of time to get used to new technology.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry about that, I'm just not used to this codename lark…My codename is Weasel, dunno were that came from…Hey, isn't it funny how I'm telling you what to do? Quite Ironic really." His parents were British, but he had emigrated to the US when he found he couldn't get a job in London. "Anyway, J- I mean Boss, I'll contact you again when it's fifteen minutes to drop-off. Good luck, and get the others to get ready."

"Thanks."

From a hunched position the FOXHOUND commander pulled himself up with a leap in his gut, telling him that this was going to be hard and long. This is going to be the bad old days all over again; this is going to be the unnecessary vast murders all over again. This was going to be war, and he was going to be in the middle of the crossfire, from whoever that firing's going to come from.

The cold thing in his stomach urges for him to sit down again, and he knows he should be used to stress, used to the cold stomachs, the shivering of backs, the urge to vomit…but those days had changed. Thiswas war. They were sitting there, on a highway to Hell, and no one's doing anything to soothe the tension.

"Anyone got any stories to tell?" Silence had been hit square in the eyes with a question that could have saved their journey. Ocelot seemed bemused at the question and sniggered.

"Me and Boss have our fair share of stories to tell. By the way, love the hat." Ocelot looked up at Hawk, who also seemed to have a knack for liking Western films. He had a certain persona about him, quite fearful and aggressive. It was a presence that seemed to make others scratch their heads and turn away without him looking. Good for battle, brilliant for protection, bad for sociability. Before the room could become endeavoured with quiet once more, Vixen began to speak.

"We've all got our stories to tell. And I don't see these five hours going quickly. I'll start with my little intro and you guys follow with yours." Vixen took a knife from her rucksack and pierced the arm-rest of her seat with its blade. She had a knack for that. Hawk listened in closely as he looked into those two sparkly eyes of hers; the angelic face that was there before him.

"My real name is Kitanya, and my parents and I emigrated from Japan when I was twelve years old." Hawk tapped the middle of his cigar gently, with cindered tobacco rushing from the end. He wrapped his fingers around his hat and placed it on the bag rack. This was no place for hats anyway.

"My Father was a fish merchant, and he had dealings with the Yakuza. Mum was quite furious about that, but she couldn't really speak her own mind anyway, she was either doing housework or working in the town." Her smile was like an angel's as she put her silky legs up on the seat next to her. She looked the perfect woman in Hawk's eyes. His eyes gave him away, he desired her with the deepest of heart's content.

Campbell continued to load his gun and unload it, clocking the ring hammer with a curved hand. He'd not said one word. Boss had remembered his file, and remembered that he was with the Green Berets. He could have been familiar with Lucius.

"Anyway, anyone else have anything to say about family? Someone back home?" With a frightening glare, Ocelot turned away to the window and stared constantly out the glass in front of his blue eyes- two marbles rattling in a box of thought. His glare looked furious like the sun in an African summer, but not an anger Boss had seen on him before. It was even deeper than a tantrum, it was a thing that went further than that. It was more of a deep sadness that no one could explain.

"I've got a younger Brother…" Campbell clocked the ring hammer again and sighed with a hesitation that signalled a great lot of guilt. The gun slipped serenely out of his hand and crashed to the hard floor with a bounce.

"His name's Mike."

--FEB 1969--

--Records extracted from the report of Malcolm Connelly, Alpha Squadron--

THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IS CONFIDENTIAL.

C12

Alpha squadron and I were to deliver a batch of weapons accordingly to S-Base 3279 (read subsection 89.9). We were transported via a jet flew by Captain John Brown (read subsection 56.6). By the time it was noon, we were on the landing pad and were provided with a forklift truck by Sergeant Yoji Shinkawa of the S-3279 site's patrolling guard (read C53 info paragraph). The batch of Armalite AR-10 1061mm assault rifles were transported in crates toward the rear warehouse when an explosion took off on the main deck. Swarms of guards began to sprint out of the sliding doors, fire on their backs and some rolling on the floor with severed limbs (read subsection 99.8 for more info).

C13

My squadron and I took action and Captain Harewood tried to contact HQ, there was no reply so we took the rifles from the crates and took to HQ. Captain's orders. A few seconds later guards coloured in all black moved in on the Warehouse (read subsection 76.6). A tall man led the group, with white eyes and from what we saw he had one arm. In his other hand he was carrying a weapon of some sort. Perhaps unruly, but I may of thought they had took control due to the experiment within the underground tunnel.

C14

Thankfully, the plane that transported us to the facility was undamaged, but the runway was soon broken apart by explosives of the sort. The assailant and his comrades had made their way to the Warehouse until another guard confronted them. From our distance, it seemed very vague but the man took his weapon and blasted him to the ground. The floor was soon bloody and darkly red.

C15

When they were out of sight we sneaked into HQ, and went to go to the South Wing to find the General. Shinkawa was shot down, along with Privates Timothy Holden and Matthew Brown (see subsections 50-63.9). A rogue squadron was hunting us down, and we made for the ventilation system. I used particular words to describe the Captain's misjudgement, and he went without me. I was without any one else. The noises were still at large for a while as I made my way back and forth through the ventiliation system. I found the Captain…he was in pieces when I found him.

C67

Potentially the base was going to be used for weaponry tests, but now it's been taken over and it has the potential to hold nuclear weapons. I escaped, but the way it's being changed I have no idea how we will fight this. The place is now like Hell. There's no way out.

The pages of the lousy copy of the report were dog-eared already. It looked like it had been fished out of a kid's text book from pre-school.

"This is garbage…" The Director of the CIA through the report onto his desk in front of Private Miles Kraneur. He frowned vigorously. "When this gets to Washington the shit's gonna hit the fan. Whose going to believe in a fairy story about a one-handed man with black ninjas armed to the ready with nuclear weapons?" His cough was a raspy one; it felt like swilling too much beer at once and finding there's a bottle cap that's made its way down your throat.

'I can take this, I've had far worse...' He kept telling himself. And it was unmistakably true.

The room was a hot and cramped office full of paper and filing cabinets. A desk was rooted to the carpet with another stack of papers and a rolled up newspaper hanging from the edge of the wooden unit. Night-time and all the workers were all angered with itchy necks and sweaty backs, taking walks around the huge facility whenever they could. Nothing had really changed in the appearance for the past few months, but everyone was raring to work with everything that had happened.

"Sir?" Kraneur went to his boss and handed him a tissue with a smile. The Director of the CIA, Colin Walker, was a man pushing his seventies, ill with war and the times. Surprisingly he never smoked in his lifetime, but he had a breathing problem, perhaps asthma. He was a married man, two kids that worked in paper merchant jobs. Not really a huge lunge forward in the line of family Colin always thought, but it paid quite well and kept the boys alive. His wife was called Martha, who was a good twenty years younger than him. She had always implied that he worked himself too hard all the time, and maybe she was right. They brought the house down with an angry row the night before. The way she screamed was like she was mourning over a dead relative. The argument was about this and that, money and how he puts himself in so much danger, how she was avoiding work…

The Director straightened up and threw the tissue from Kraneur to the ground. "I don't need this, you fag. Get back to work." Without a single word, Kraneur walked out of the hot office. It had been a slow week. A week you just want to skip and get to the end of. But that was what he had been thinking for a long time, and he thought the job was getting beyond him. He chuckled calmly so as not to bring back that bastard cough he claimed to be unholy back up.

'Remember, it's all for the money.'

With a crouch to the floor, the Director grasped the tissue and dropped it in a bin with too much garbage. If this carries on, he thought, he'll attract flies.

With a deep slurp of coffee, the white-haired tactician grasped the phone and placed his coffee mug on the already stained table. He dialled a number and took his spectacles off, grabbing the report and holding it up in the dim light of a hanging lightbulb on a wire.

The funding for the place was unbelievably cheap, for a government that put all of its faith in the CIA to investigate international terror. All Colin could do would be to thank old Harry Truman for the OSS. If that had never happened, he'd probably be on a lower paid job. The chairs were broken, the lights were dimly lit, the table was never replaced and the coffee tasted like watery milk. He thought someone had poisoned it, it tasted so bad. Walker shivered as the warm sensation of the substance crept down his throat. The phone was answered with a low voice.

"Yeah, Roark, it's Colin. Could you get Adam on the phone? It's important…

"Adam, good to hear from you… I think there's someone we need you might have to get me a report on…. An old friend…"

Author's Note: Okay, maybe I lied about it being action-packed, but you can tell that's coming soon. Please stay tuned and more will come. Thanks again.