Last night sucked. A lot. Half the team got nabbed via a plan so stupid that it worked on principle and they all lost much needed sleep as a result. With the trucks refueled, they split up between the two vehicles and left the outpost at sunrise. The hope was that if they blended into regular traffic, they could avoid further trouble in case any more of these European arms dealers showed up to avenge their fellow sellers.

Did arms dealers have a union? Roach wondered, leaning back in his seat. He flicked his attention between the road in front of them and the side view mirror. They were driving behind Scarecrow and the others, and had only been on the move for about a half hour of the two hour drive. While Meat switched lanes, Roach glanced back and noted a car behind them (a nondescript white van) swap and maintain the same following distance it'd been keeping since they passed through the last town.

"Think we're being followed?" Roach asked finally. "That van's been behind us for a while now."

Scarab was about to glance back, but Ghost dropped a hand on her head and kept her facing forward. "If you look, they'll know we noticed." She nodded in response and nervously fretted with her gun.

"They might've noted our plates back in Berlin and been following us for a while if that's the case," MacTavish mentioned. "Meat, let's put them to the test. Take the next exit off the highway and we'll see what they do."

"Aye aye, Captain." Meat once again changed lanes, which that van did as well, and turned off as instructed.

No surprise, the van followed.

"Captain MacTavish, are things okay back there? We lost sight of you." Royce asked over the comms. He was co-piloting for Scarecrow in the other truck.

"We're possibly being followed and are detouring. Proceed to the nest as planned, but watch for anyone tailing," MacTavish responded.

They soon ended up in another town, and Meat took a series of turns down a bunch of one way streets and side roads. White Van was still behind them. "They're not very subtle, are they?" Meat remarked as he ran a red light that didn't seem to dissuade their pursuers, who also ran the red. A chorus of angry honking faded in the distance.

Roach watched the van intently through the mirror at this point. The passenger of the car rolled down his window and aimed a pistol out the window. "Meat! Swerve!"

Meat did as told and, almost as soon the car lurched right, the side mirror exploded into tiny pieces. "Fuck..." Another gunshot, punctuated by a resounding boom and whoosh of the front left tire popping, the shock wave of which reverberated through the floor of the car. Meat white knuckled the steering wheel as the truck immediately veered left. "Fuck! Hang on!"

They bumped up over the curb, rattling Roach in his seat before the truck slammed directly into a streetlamp. The seat belt barely kept him from face planting against the windshield as he and everyone else jerked forward from the impact. He hastily unbuckled, though the button really seemed to want to stick at that point, and ducked into the foot well. "Heads down!"

The cracked windshield shattered as another bullet tore through the rear window and the head rest of his seat. A second bullet followed and lodged into the brick wall. To his relief, there was no blood splatter.

Behind him, Ghost cursed, "Bollocks! We're sitting ducks in here, we need to leave!"

That was the real conundrum. So much as pick up your head and they'd cap you in an instant. There was no way to leave the car from the right side, since if they so much as opened the door, they'd be totally exposed. Being in the passenger seat though, Roach could slip out, in theory. "I'm going to see if I can't get a lock on them." He tugged the latch and shouldered the door open from the small space he was curled in, then dropped out with his rifle in tow.

Two of their pursuers had left the van and were approaching the truck at this point, the back doors were wide open too. Roach took out one of the two men, which caused the other to jump with alarm. This provided him crucial seconds to take him out.

He banged the side of the truck. "Go! Go!" He then sprayed bullets at the van, in hopes that the gunfire would keep them from breaking from cover. As the sides became pockmarked and the van tires blew, a mess of shouts flew from the car.

The others wasted no time in bailing from the crashed vehicle and booking it down the street. Roach unloaded a full magazine into that van before turning on his heels and sprinting after them. They'd dodged around a corner, but by the time Roach had reached it, he lost sight of everyone.

Hearing the angry shouts behind him, Roach wasted no time in choosing a narrow path between a couple apartment buildings and praying he could lose them. One turn, then several others, and he stopped to plant a hand on the wall and catch his breath. Being totally lost wasn't all that new to him, but unlike most other times, it wasn't like they had studied a map in advance. They weren't even supposed to be in this town.

Staying still for too long may just be a death sentence. With burning lungs, he pressed forward while forcing himself to breathe at a more steady pace. While he walked, he made attempt after attempt to get into contact with the others to no avail. Apparently his ear piece was damaged in the crash. He tried all the same. Before long, he ended up away from this complex alley network and near the road again, where he spotted Scarab passing by, somehow more aimless than he was.

She'd die if she stayed on the streets like that. Roach reached out and grabbed her to pull her into the alley with him, which prompted her to thrash and struggle. If she screamed, it could attract attention. He whispered, "Scarab, calm down!"

Immediately, her fighting stopped and she let herself be turned around. At this point, Roach more or less dragged her along behind a nearby dumpster so that they were out of sight from the road. She crouched beside him. "Roach, where the fuck is everyone else?"

"I don't know." Roach peaked around the corner of the dumpster. Not a soul to be seen. "I lost sight of them when we made a break for it."

"We have to find them. They couldn't have gotten too far on foot."

As much as he appreciated the optimism, he had to squash that notion. "This is the 141 we're talking about. They could've covered some distance."

Scarab sighed. "Point taken. Let's go." She then grabbed him by the arm and pulled him along. Once again, they dove in the spiderweb of alleyways he'd just barely avoided getting lost in the first time.

Now, to be completely honest, technically Roach could have pulled rank and had her follow his lead. After all, he was a Sergeant and she was a Private 1st Class. It was clear she had no more clue where they were going than he did, but he didn't have much better a course of action to propose at the moment. During this time while they turned down one narrow path to the next, he continued to fiddle with his comm and pray he could luck out and get the damn thing working again.

This wasn't as easy as he hoped. Ghost made electronics work look so easy...

"Scarab, have you tried-" Before he could finish his question, the woman shushed him.

"I think I hear someone," she said. Without any other warning, she sprinted ahead and banked a corner. Roach, of course, followed.

He wasn't too good at this leader business.

The voice turned out to be one of the pursuers, donning a light jacket and his face covered in mostly beard. He'd managed to knock Scarab to the ground and had a gun pointed at her head. "Don't move."

Not good. Not fucking good. He pulled the trigger to shoot the guy, only to be answered with a click. He never reloaded from before. He didn't remember to do the most basic action known to gun handling.

Hurriedly, he scanned around for a corner to duck behind while he dealt with his weapon. Before he could get the next mag from his vest, this guy lead Scarab his way. She passed him without seeming to notice. Giving up on reloading, Roach tackled the guy and the two of them collided hard into the wall. As soon as Roach's head tapped back, his ear filled with a cacophony of static and voices. He grabbed the assailant and cracked his face against the wall. Fortunately, this knocked him out cold.

Roach finally finished reloading his gun and turned to Scarab. "Never do that again." Fortunately, she had the grace to be ashamed for the trouble she'd caused. With his comm miraculously working again, he tuned back to the correct frequency. "This is Roach. I'm with Scarab in some alleys a few blocks from the crash. Does anybody copy?"

"Copy loud and clear." It was Ghost. Thank goodness. "Do you see the water tower?"

Water tower? Roach peered around. Beyond the roof of one of the lower buildings, off to the South, he spied one such structure. "Roger. I see it."

"Alright. Head towards that. There's a vacant business space we're hiding in not far from there. It's in eyesight of the tower."

"On our way!" Roach lead Scarab off towards the water tower. From there, just as Ghost had said, there was a string of buildings, one with a sign in the window and the lights out. It seemed pretty vacant. He approached with the Private in tow. "Alright, we're here."

Ghost opened the door for them and they both slipped inside. As Ghost moved out of the way though, Roach noted that he stepped rather gingerly on one of his feet, not even fully planting the foot on the ground. While Scarab passed him, Roach quietly asked if he was alright, which only got him a curt nod.

In fact, Ghost planted a hand on Roach's shoulder and said for the others to hear, "You really saved our skins back there, Roach."

The Captain, who had been in some very quiet conversation with Meat up to this point, acknowledged this with "Aye. Good work." It wasn't that Captain MacTavish's or Ghost's praises were rare, but all the same, Roach found himself mute and bashful.

Scarab sat down on a storage bin, her gun rested in her lap. "I can't believe we got lost... But at least we didn't die."

"Odds are that'll change real quick. It won't take long for them to track us down," Ghost said.

"Yo, Scarecrow, what's your ETA?" Meat asked.

"Five minutes. Traffic got diverted where you guys crashed. If you guys can meet us halfway, we can probably cut out of the town sooner and lose them on the freeway."

Without delay, everyone filed out of the abandoned store to rendezvous with the second truck. As it turned out, they were only a block away, so once they met in the middle, the lot of them all piled into the truck bed and Scarecrow banged out of the town.

"Do you think we lost them?" Roach asked, very cautiously eyeing the cars behind them.

"Maybe," Soap replied, checking his gun, "but we can never be too careful."

No further trouble came, however. At this point, perhaps the rest of that circle of arms dealers decided it wasn't worth it and gave up the chase. Another hour and a half, and they reached the U.S. facility in Hamburg, and then were on a plane back to their own base in the U.K.

Upon returning to base, the team split up to either find people or catch a bit of rest. MacTavish, on the other hand, caught Ghost by the hand before he could make his getaway. "Let's get that ankle checked."

The lieutenant paused and nodded stiffly. "I was starting to wonder if you noticed."

"Of course I noticed," MacTavish replied, leading him to the infirmary. He didn't carry him or try to pull an arm over his shoulder to help take the weight off. Ghost probably would have yelled at him for being over dramatic about a tweaked ankle. Instead, he walked by his side, just in case he needed help. Ultimately, Ghost didn't. Even though he was limping, he tended to tough out most injuries he got.

When the medic on base took a look, he immediately took note of the broken nose. Doc clicked his tongue. "What the hell did you do to get yourself banged up like this?"

"Door to the face and then I tripped getting out of a car," the lieutenant answered in brief. "It's not that bad, is it?"

The driest, least amused expression MacTavish had ever seen crossed Doc's face as he tapped his pen on Ghost's knee. "Your ankle's swollen. You're lucky you got your boot off without any problems, but you've clearly been running and walking on the damn thing all day. And what the hell is that dismissive 'door to the face?' Did you experience any dizziness, nausea, headache?"

Admittedly, MacTavish found it a little funnier than it should have been watching Ghost flounder through those questions. On top of that, he was hit with a few tests. Ultimately Doc concluded that, yes, he did have a mild concussion and he should take 24 hours to rest before they reassess that. On top of the day to rest, when Ghost would get back to work, it would have to be lighter duties so that he could be easy on his ankle. Thinking that his work was done, MacTavish turned to leave when the medic called him out with a sharp, "Hey!"

MacTavish stopped at the door, escape attempt foiled. "Is there a problem, Doc?"

"Don't think you're sneaky, Captain, I saw those bruises on the back of your head the minute you came in. I know you know concussion symptoms at this point." The medic crossed his arms.

Meanwhile, Ghost was still sitting in the chair with a grin that reached his eyes. Cheeky bastard.

"Aye, I got hit a couple of times." MacTavish sighed and rubbed at the tender spot on the base of his skull. Truthfully, that headache still hadn't gone away and he felt mildly queasy off and on throughout the day. "Lemme guess, you want me to take a day too."

Doc nodded and ran a hand along his buzzed head. "I swear, of the ninety people I need to take care of here and all my years in Fort Sam, you two are by far the biggest hand-fulls I've ever met." After running the same tests, he confirmed that MacTavish would need to rest as well. He shooed the both of them out so he could deal with the necessary paperwork.

At the end of the day, the base would run fine without its Captain and Second in Command. Responsibilities fall on the next senior officer; specifically Lieutenant Jim "Royce" Labbe in this case. If there was anyone MacTavish trusted not to burn the base down, more than even himself sometimes, it was Royce.

There was no rule saying they couldn't spend that day resting together. Ghost made himself comfortable and MacTavish tucked himself in by his side. Before he knew it, the both of them managed to sleep the whole day away. Around noon the following day, they were up and about again. Much of that headache and nausea had settled down by then, with only a very dull ache remaining when the lights were a touch too bright. Doc cleared MacTavish for regular duty. Ghost could, as predicted, resume light work.

It didn't take all that long for General Shepherd to get in contact and relay that they had another mission in the works. Apparently, thanks to Roach's debrief, they were able to trace the crates from those arms dealers back to another in South America, and then again all the way to Russia. Apparently they disrupted a weapons smuggling train that, odds were, spanned through several countries. Each of them sported a painted on logo with AWR printed over a high caliber bullet. None too subtle, but supposing they never went through any conventional cargo checks, regular authorities would've never noticed.

There was a manifest collected at one point earlier that made much more sense. There was an Ultranationalist base in Azerbaijan where one of these weapon shipments was sent. They were potentially components to make SAM sites and long range missiles. Considering the slippery situation in Afghanistan, it was possible that base was just another stopping point before said cargo reached its destination.

"We can, in theory, cut off the supply run there and make the fight much easier," General Shepherd said over the call. "I want you and one other person to sneak in that base and blow the weapons cache. If you can, find any documentation on where the shipment was headed. Any questions?"

"No, sir, but I do have a suggestion," MacTavish mentioned. "As you know, we had an informant codenamed 'Nikolai' in the Ultranationalist ranks five years ago."

There was a brief silence. "I think I recall reading about him in passing. He supplied the intel on the ship in the Bering Strait?"

"Aye. Since then, he's been coordinating with other splintered Loyalist factions to infiltrate Ultranationalist ranks and continue to feed intel on their movements. With the New Russian President's cleaning house to make the party more appealing, they've had an easier time staying under the radar."

"Where are you going with this, MacTavish?" Shepherd asked tiredly.

"Last time Nikolai's reported in, he was heading into Azerbaijan. He might be able to get us in quietly," MacTavish told him. "If things kick South, it could blow his cover, but there are at least fifty others spying as well. It's an option."

"If he can assist, then by all means. We'll offer him sanctuary if this puts him in any danger."

With nothing else to add, the call ended. MacTavish was then left to ponder who he'd take on this assignment. His first thought was Ghost, but he had to dismiss the notion. Ghost was restricted to light duty on account of his ankle, and that probably wasn't going to change in the next few days. Missions were definitely out of the question. The more time he could give him to recover, the better.

All things considered, MacTavish on his own was a demolition specialist. He also knew enough Russian to get by at this point. If anyone was coming with him, it was purely so he could have backup. After much pondering, he decided that the mission was pretty standard as far as covert operations go. It'd be good experience.

As it turned out, following that train of logic, the one with the least amount of field experience was actually Scarab. She'd had limited assignments up to this point, but highly impressive PFT and ASVAB scores, which landed her in the Task Force. In a less... professional sense, this could also be a good chance for him to clear the air with her where that huge misunderstanding was concerned.

Of course, when he told Ghost as much while bringing up the mission and who he'd chosen as back up, the lieutenant flinched away like he'd been slapped.

"You're choosing her?" He exclaimed. "Don't we normally handle these sorts of assignments together?"

"Yes, but you need to take it easy, remember?" MacTavish shot back. "Like I said, it's a good chance to give her field experience."

Ghost glowered him. "There's eighty-nine operators on this base, you could've picked anybody. Why does it have to be her?"

"I already explained myself. Why are you so twisted up over this anyways?"

"Why? I shouldn't have to spell it out. She's been hitting on you, and odds are she still will be on this mission. I let the whole snuggling in the car and the kiss slide, but this is getting stupid. When are you going to tell her no?"

Jealous Ghost had been an amusing discovery, but at this point, MacTavish was losing patience for it. He combed his hand through his mohawk and heaved a heavy sigh. "I'll talk to her, but this mission and that situation are completely unrelated."

"Do you think she'll see it that way? No." Ghost crossed his arms. "You're so focused on her feelings that you're not thinking about mine."

"I didn't think-"

"That's right, you don't think! You're being fucking stupid!" Ghost snapped. As those words left his lips, the room turned silent, cold. Much of the anger fled from Ghost's face, replaced with remorse. "John, I..." The words were stuck in his throat.

At that point, he'd said it though, and it was something one apology couldn't totally fix. MacTavish turned away. "I'm going to tell Scarab about the mission."

After MacTavish left, Ghost sat down on his bed and rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his palm. It wasn't like he never called MacTavish stupid before, but it had always been an affectionate prodding in the past for little, trivial mistakes. He never screamed it at him before, and the minute he did, he wanted to jam his tongue back into his windpipe.

He crossed a line.

He crossed several lines, actually.

Here he was, getting angry and showing no faith in the man. MacTavish said himself he would fix it. He needed to give him the chance to, right? Wasn't he supposed to trust the man to do the right thing?

Besides, it wasn't as if MacTavish's reasoning wasn't without merit. As a subordinate, Ghost had no right to question his decisions as Captain of this company.

Tugging on his mask (no way in hell was he showing his face after that display of his), he shuffled to the gym to watch some of the other men working out. Maybe he could get some crunches in and try to take his mind off the whole thing. Hopefully, he'd have the chance to apologize later.

In the little workout room though, he happened upon Scarab. Surprise surprise. She was practicing kick boxing while Heatstroke held up the pads for her to kick. Without exactly meaning to, Ghost ended up watching her reps for a short time. To her credit, she had excellent form and an impressive high kick. Her gym clothes did also place her lean, defined body on display. She must've trained for years to get like that.

As much as Ghost wanted to roll his eyes and pretend she wasn't all that and a bag of crisps, he couldn't quite stoop himself to that level of blindness. Still, he liked to think that if he wasn't nursing a sprained ankle, then he could take her in a spar.

The real blow was when she pulled a standing split while stretching afterwards. He wasn't that flexible. He wasn't sure if most the men on base were remotely that flexible. Were legs even supposed to spread like that? His hips hurt just watching it.

By the time she and Heatstroke had finished their respective workouts, Ghost realized he'd been sitting and stretching one leg through most of it. His knee gave a noisy pop as he bent said leg and stood up.

Maybe he was being just a tad too petty...

... Nah, Scarab needed to stop trying to kiss his boyfriend.

{—To Be Continued—

Summary of Plan B Chapters 5 and 6

5. They leave hotel to go back to base. "Alex's friends" give chase. They crash, try to lose Alex in town. Scarab is separated, then found by Roach. Mild trouble. They rejoin the team. Jump in car, drive away.
6. Return to base. Base hijinx? New mission to Azerbaijan. Stealth assignment, just Soap and Scarab.

This chapter was subject to some fun changes. For one, I expanded on the car chase, since it was originally a couple paragraphs long and kinda glossed over. Instead of Scarab's POV, we get Roach. The mission's gonna be messy, to put it lightly.
Hell, I preemptively dropped a few lines towards establishing what the frick Nikolai is doing there when he pops up seemingly out of nowhere to save Soap's ass in Plan B. I figure the Loyalists need something to do before they come back and become "important."