THE BRIEFING
Hot spray poured over him, and he breathed in steam.
Standing in the shower, the man who had shed his old name like his new namesake shed its skin looked down at his body. I look like I just survived a plane crash.
The lumps on his head throbbed. His chest was scraped raw in a great swath down to his abdomen. Scrapes and bruises covered his shoulders. His left thigh was purple-red. His right hand was swollen and painful.
But then, everything was painful. He groaned, turning his face up to the water.
"Hey," the MP called. "Hurry up in there."
Snake grunted, and stepped out. The MP stood in the door, rifle lowered but his finger still on the trigger. Snake toweled off, and as he finished dressing, he winced as the MP prodded him toward the bed.
"Watch it, will you?" he grunted.
The MP said nothing.
Snake sat slowly on his bunk, feeling pain streak up his spine. Probably do better just to shoot me, he thought sourly, as the MP snapped the cuff over his wrist. He winced, and gingerly lay back on the bed.
He'd been strapped to this hospital bed for over a week, with tubes and wires running out of his body. He'd been half-dead when they'd hauled him out of Tselinoyarsk, and what he remembered-what he could remember-of the intervening time between then and now were only flashes, drug-soaked flickers of doctors busily working over him, machines chattering and beeping, of men in dark suits watching stoically from the corner.
He remembered the questions afterward, though. He remembered them well. Those same men had started in on him practically right after the doctors had walked out. Questions, accusations. About The Boss. About her betrayal. About the Davy Crocketts she had stolen. And whether a certain apprentice of hers had been complicit in her treason. They were merciless, and every time he denied any prior knowledge of what The Boss had done, they had accused him openly, directly, threatening him with the firing squad.
When they finally left him alone in this sequestered hospital room that was little more than a glorified jail cell, with an MP on guard at every second of the day, he was left with questions of his own and no one to answer them. The Boss . . . how could she, the greatest soldier in America's ranks, defect? Why would she even want to? And what would happen to her now? These questions cycled through his mind in a mad loop, and he didn't even hear the door open until he saw a man standing over him.
He turned his head. At first, he thought it was more of those CIA spooks with their hard-edged questions . . . or a bullet to put in his head. He didn't expect the steel-haired man in the black bomber jacket.
"Hello, Jack," Major Zero-or Major Tom, rather-said, closing the door behind him.
"Major . . ." Snake sat up in the bed and winced at the pain coursing through his body. His torso was a map of bruises and scars.
Major Tom looked him over. "So, how does it feel to be a patient in one of the most advanced ICUs in the world?"
Snake grunted. "Would you do me a favor and tell the suits about visiting hours? I'll never get better with them assaulting me day and night with their questions."
Major Tom shrugged. "Must be part of the top brass's inquiry."
"Inquiry, hell. More like an interrogation." Snake jerked the cuff that still chained him to the hospital bed. "According to them, I'm a traitor and an accomplice to The Boss's defection."
"They're just looking for a scapegoat."
Snake squinted at the man. "Does that mean they're after you, too?"
Major Tom sighed. "Let's just say neither one of us is going to be made a national hero out of this."
Snake rubbed his jaw. "Does this mean FOX is going to die?"
"No," Major Tom said sharply. "This fox is still one step ahead of the hounds."
"So why'd you want to see me?"
Major Tom walked over, and Snake saw he was holding a small key. He fit it in the cuff's lock, and snapped it open. Snake rubbed his sore wrist as the major reached for one of the chairs against the wall, set it in front of Snake, and sat down. "Jack, it's time to FOX to clear its name."
Snake blinked at the man in the crisp suit. "What are you talking about?"
"The situation has changed," the major said curtly. "We've still got a chance to come out of this one alive."
"Yeah?" Snake leaned forward. "What kind of chance?"
"Don't get too excited." Major Tom reached into his jacket and fished out a cigar, still wrapped in cellophane. He unwrapped it and handed it to Snake. "Here, have a cigar. It's Cuban."
Snake reached into his bedside table and summoned his Zippo. He touched the flame to the cigar and took a long, slow drag of smoke. It cooled his nerves, which had been on the fritz ever since the Virtuous Mission fell on its ass.
The major leaned forward. "This morning, I had a meeting with the CIA."
"Yeah?" Snake puffed on his cigar. "They decide when they're going to execute us?"
"No. Something even bigger."
Snake's brow furrowed. "Bigger?"
"Yes. Yesterday, the White House received an unexpected call."
He told Snake about the hotline call the President had received from the Soviet premier. He laid out what the CIA had told him, in no uncertain terms: We let you live. You owe us. Now whack The Boss. You fuck up, nukes will fly. Snake listened to the major, his eyes lowered, taking in every word while remembering the way The Boss had looked to him, in those last few moments before she had tossed him into the river.
"To put it simply," Major Tom finished, "in order to avoid a full-scale nuclear conflict, we have to prove that America was not involved in that explosion."
Snake blew a long jet of hot smoke and stared at the major. "And eliminating The Boss ourselves will prove America's innocence?"
"Right." Major Tom nodded. "The higher-ups have decided that you're the only one capable of pulling this off. You were her last apprentice."
He rose to his feet. "Screw this one up, Jack, and we'll both be six feet under. There's no choice."
Snake grunted. His arms still felt sore, even though the docs had shot him full of morphine. He couldn't believe that, just a week after being flung off a rope bridge over a hundred feet into a roaring river, then nearly drowning in said river before washing up more than a mile downstream, then managing to survive getting fried in a nuclear blast, the brass wanted him going back to Russia. No way it's cheaper than just lining me up against a wall, he thought sourly.
"What about the Russians?" he asked finally. "Are they gonna be helping us?"
"The KGB has promised to lend us one of their communications satellites so that you can I can talk to each other," Major Tom said.
Snake waited for more, but when he realized none was coming, he said, "That's it?"
"They've also put us in touch with a couple of insiders."
"Insiders?"
"Yes." Major Tom crossed his arms over his chest. "There was a defection in September 1960. Do you remember it?"
Snake drew in a long drag of smoke, thinking. He had heard something about that, it seemed. It took him a moment to pinpoint it. "You mean the two NSA code-breakers who went over to the Soviet Union?"
"Precisely. Since then, they've apparently been training with the KGB for exactly this type of situation. Their code-names are 'ADAM' and 'EVA.' I've been told that ADAM has infiltrated Volgin's ranks."
ADAM and EVA, huh?
"We've also arranged for him to provide you with an escape route," the major said. "You'll need to rendezvous with him when you get there."
"So what do I do?"
"Rescue Sokolov, same as before. Find out what's happened to the Shagohod. Then destroy it." Major Tom hesitated, then finished. "And eliminate The Boss."
Snake felt a sick feeling in his gut. "Eliminate The Boss," he repeated.
"This mission will be code-named 'Operation: Snake Eater,'" the major said.
"Because I'll be taking on The Boss and her Cobra unit, right?"
"Don't forget about Colonel Volgin," Major Tom warned.
Snake shook his head. "I'm not a hired killer."
"I know. But that was the Kremlin's demand."
"Demand?" Snake raised an eyebrow. "You mean, it wasn't just a request? What's it to us if the Khrushchev regime is threatened by the colonel and his faction?"
Major Tom sighed. "If supporting the current regime helps avoid a nuclear exchange, then that's what we'll do."
"And what about the CIA?" Snake wanted to know. "What are their demands?"
"Our priorities are the rescue of Sokolov and the destruction of the Shagohod," Major Tom said.
"Major?" Snake took a deep breath, winced at the pain in his chest and in his mind. "Why did The Boss defect?"
The major shook his head. "I don't know." He lowered his voice. "But I will tell you this: America is all too eager to get rid of her."
"What do you mean?"
"She knows too many of our secrets. If she were to relay all the top-secret information she knows to the Soviet bloc, it would put us at a severe disadvantage. It might even lead to the downfall of the West. Even if we survive, The Boss is still too much of a hero to us. With her in the Soviet camp, we'd suffer a fatal loss of morale at home. There are even whispers that some of the, uh, less stalwart elements of the military might follow her example and defect themselves." He blinked repeatedly. "I assume you're aware that since your last mission, several key figures within the CIA have been placed under house arrest."
Snake nodded. The suits had alluded to that in the course of their harsh inquest.
"The loss of The Boss has been a painful one indeed," the major said mournfully.
"And you?" Snake narrowed his eyes. "What do you believe?"
"Me?" The major pinched the bridge of his nose wearily. "I still can't believe it," he admitted. "As a comrade, I would have placed my trust in her before my own family, my own flesh and blood. But now that I think about it . . . The Boss always seemed to have an aura of mystery about her. I never would have expected to to manifest in this way, though."
Snake gave him a look, and the major steeled himself.
"Ah well. It won't do to get all misty-eyed about it. She's an enemy now, Jack, one worthy of nothing more than our contempt. Do you understand?"
Snake mock-saluted. "Roger that, Major Tom."
"Hold on, Snake."
Snake hesitated. "What now?"
"I'm changing my code name," the major said. "It turns out 'Tom' wasn't the most auspicious choice."
Snake was confused. "What do you mean?"
"Well, the truth is," Major Tom wheedled, "when I chose my code-name . . . I picked the wrong one."
"The wrong one?"
"Did you ever see that movie The Great Escape?" the major asked. "It came out last year."
"Must've missed that one," Snake muttered. He didn't have much time for the picture shows, not with all the wet-work the CIA kept dumping in his lap.
"Anyway," the major went on, "it's based on a true story about prisoners who escaped from a POW camp in Nazi Germany. The prisoners dig three tunnels as part of their plan. But the Nazis find two of the tunnels before they're finished. The prisoners succeeded in escaping by using the last remaining tunnel. The names of those three tunnels were Dick, Harry, and Tom."
Snake nodded. "I get it. You used the name of the tunnel they escaped in as your code-name, because you thought it would bring you good luck."
The major nodded. "Yes. That's exactly right." Then he sighed. "At least, that was the plan."
"But?"
"But I got the name wrong. The one they escaped in was Harry. Tom was one of the unlucky tunnels, discovered by the Nazis before it was finished. I watched the movie again just to make sure. In fact, I even ordered the actual film from the movie company."
"Yeah, it doesn't sound like the greatest name to use," Snake had to admit. "So what should I call you instead?"
The major tapped his chin. "You know, let's just use Zero, like we've been doing all along."
"All right then," Snake said, rising from the bed. "Major Zero it is. We'll start over from square one."
"From square zero," the older man corrected.
Snake took a long puff, exhaled smoke. "So when do we leave?"
As it turned out, Snake would be on a plane five hours later.