Capt. John Price
Task Force 141
Task Force 141 Land-base (Location Classified) - Mess Hall
They returned to their land-base after the fiasco in Petropavlosk, which proved successful, no matter how Shepherd was angry at their actions. They would have 24 hours to recuperate before their next mission, and it was a pivotal one. Shepherd only hinted at them that the new Intel would end their labors in locating Makarov, and Price sure hoped that it would be so. However, something else nagged in his mind, which was the fact that Anya claimed that Shepherd was the one who betrayed her to Makarov. He took those words with caution, but he knew that there was a chance that her claims were true. Until he really knew who was right and who was wrong, he could not put his full trust in either of them.
Of course, he had other issues to deal with Anya before Shepherd got to her. He had not told many of the others about how he had cracked the launch codes, but he knew already how Anya had reacted to it. Her face was neutral, but he could see from her eyes that she was in utter disbelief. The girl revealed practically nothing through her expression, but her eyes… they told everything.
The boys were all huddled around him and Anya, with MacTavish standing near them, all of them curious to know how he did it, how did Price manage to figure out the launch codes. It could have been anything, but how did he manage to crack it? "What gave you the inspiration?" Roach asked, butting in after countless incessant queries from the rest of the 141.
"Well then, you'd have to thank our girl right here," Price said, gesturing to Anya with his pointed thumb. She glared at him following his answer, and he just shrugged it off like it was nothing. "She's the key to everything that happened, the main reason why we had Intel to carry this mission out anways. Why don't you tell them, Maria?"
Anya sighed. When in the 141, you do not use anyone's real name unless you mean something of utter severity. There was no choice for Anya but to acquiescence his request, if it even was one in the first place. "I knew that there was a submarine here, but I couldn't get it out before the… airport incident," she clarified. That sentence was then trailed by several "oohs" and "ahhs", and she took a deep gulp of breath to add to her statement. "You all know that I came in just before Operation Kingfish, so when I met Price in the Gulag, it was the only thing that I could use to make him believe me that I was from the 141."
Not many of them remembered those days. Most of their recruits had not lasted more than five missions, and those had survived since day one really were MacTavish and Ghost. Price was in a gulag for a couple of years, so it did not count. "But what about the launch codes?" Ghost asked. It was highly unlikely that Anya could have hacked them from the systems in the Monastery.
"That was a spark of inspiration," Price said. "Actually, it only had four characters."
"No way!" the Americans amongst them shouted. Four characters?
Price nodded. "Yes, four: A, N, Y and A."
"ANYA?"
MacTavish somehow included himself into the chorus of surprise.
"What sort of shit-filled idiot would use a name as a launch code?" Chemo asked.
Anya's face was red now, really, really red. "How would I know?" she asked. That question was redundant and she knew it. It was her job to know. She was the honeypot, the spy, sent to into the lair of the beast to retrieve needed information like that. They all knew how she worked, and they all knew that her methods were the only ones that she could use. She had done great good to their cause, but everyone knew that it was not enough.
MacTavish sighed and walked towards her. "You've done well though," he told her, patting her on the shoulder. "It shows that you've successfully gotten into his head." Price could not help but detect that there was a subtle tone of bitterness when MacTavish said that.
Anya raised an eyebrow as she looked at MacTavish. It was strange for her to hear such words from him. She did not understand what he was trying to say, but when she turned towards him for clarification, he already walked towards the hallway. What did Makarov's using her name as the launch codes of his own nuclear missile have anything to do with her at all?
"Well, whatever it is that you did, Anya, you managed to get Makarov to take the bait," Price interjected, causing her focus to fall on him instead.
"No, he trapped me, Price," Anya explained. "Somehow, he knew that I was a spy all along… I don't know how he knew, but he did. He knew that I was going to seduce him, so he let me…" There was a silence all across the room when she stopped speaking. Realization washed over her, and she suddenly understood what Price and MacTavish had hinted. "Are you saying that Makarov has something for me?"
Price nodded. "I'm even insinuating that it's mutual," he said, lighting up another cigar. "What do you think, sweetheart?"
Anya was stunned. She did not expect this question at all, and from that, Price knew that she had never counted this possibility, this complication that was the first danger of her mission… She should never had used any emotion on Makarov, but then again, how was it even humanly possible not to grow any feelings towards the person you saw every day, sharing their beds almost every night?
"I… can't answer that," she retorted, her voice decreasing into a diminuendo as time passed. "I really can't."
"And what if Shepherd asks you?" Price added.
"He never will," Anya answered, and that was uttered with great confidence. "I already gave Shepherd what I had; he has no more use of me."
That was true. Shepherd minded little of what happened to his subordinates, so long that he had the results he wanted. Yes, he would take care of them, but it was only until he was sure that they could deliver. Frankly speaking, he had whored Anya to Makarov to retrieve their Intel, and when he knew that her progress was stagnating, not only did he did not call her back, he threw here there to scrape whatever she could find at the greater danger of her life. Anya would have come back to them a war-criminal, had Makarov not staged her death, for reasons that they did not know at all.
"Look Anya," Ghost offered, "We're all glad that we have our girl back, we really are. Even if you really have a thing for Makarov, you're still our girl. We'll help you get over him like a bad ex, I promise."
Finally, Ghost was able to coerce a smile from her in the least. "Thanks guys," she thanked them, and excused herself from the mess hall. She needed time alone, it had been a long time it seemed, even before that blasted attack on the airport, since she actually was able to think about hearing another's voice in her periphery.
Cpl. Maria "Anya" Allen
Task Force 141
Task Force 141 Land-Base (Location Classified) – Personnel Living Quarters
Due to the fact that she was the only woman in the 141, she had a four-bunk room all to herself, with an added attached bathroom, because they did not have the budget to build a joint bathhouse and toilet for women. It was also logical to do so, because there was no way Anya could share a bathroom with any one of the men, no matter who they were. It felt… different, going back to her own room. It was not the lack of luxury, as opposed to Makarov's apartment in Moscow, but there was something missing, and the thought scared her.
Placing her hands on each side of her head, she sighed. She did not know what came over her. She had spent one year working each day and night hoping that she could come back to all that was before her at the current time, only to catch herself thinking back about the past year.
Knowing that there was nothing else she could do, she stood up and walked around her room. Strangely, the boys had kept her room spick and span, taking great care not to move anything excessively. The boys… they might have been the deadliest soldiers that the NATO armies could gather together, but they were all softies, and she was the only girl who knew this little secret.
She lied down on her bunk, and exhaled deeply. The bed was a single bed, fit for only one person, but it felt empty… The thought never occurred to her when she was in the gulag, probably because she realized that she had started a war between the world's two greatest countries, and that she was also handling the fact that she had to deal with not only Shepherd's betrayal, but how to convince Price that she was from the 141… It was hard to imagine, that she was almost constantly with someone throughout the past year, and it scared her, because that someone was Makarov.
He was a monster, she tried to tell herself over and over again, but it was her failure to take things further, to gain better Intel that caused so many losses in the 141. The death of so many innocents…
But he….
Her train of thought was stopped suddenly by a loud knock on her door.
"Anya, are you in there?" It was MacTavish. She jumped off her bed and opened the door for him. The Scot was not known as a very confrontational man away from the front. He was more reserved, and quiet, delving only into the depths of his own minds.
"Hey," she greeted with a smile and invited him in. He nodded and entered. An awkward silence followed, and they looked at each other until she decided to ask, "So, what you wanted to ask me?"
He sighed and looked into her sapphire eyes. "I don't you want to get it the wrong way, but as a friend, I must ask you… Is there anything more between you and Makarov?" he asked, and immediately she sighed. How was she going to answer that question of his when she did not know the answer herself?
"What we have, MacTavish, is a deal," Anya told him after a moment of thought. "It's an exchange…" She had told them countless times on how she worked, and they understood. However, she knew that it would not be enough to satiate MacTavish. She would have to give him something more… substantial indeed. "Whatever is between us, it's gone now. I promise you, that the moment I realized that I was in the gulag, it all ended."
She did not think that it was a lie that she told MacTavish, because at that point of time, she thought that she needed only time to erase any memory and sensation that Makarov stirred in her heart. MacTavish, on the other hand, upon hearing her words, started to relax. "Anya…" he called her name, and it was so much different than how Makarov would call her: it was filled with care, sincerity. But when Makarov uttered it in his countertenor voice, it sent chills up her spine, filling her being with strange warmth… "Promise me that you'll never go back there."
She smiled and nodded. "I won't, MacTavish, I promise," she reassured him and sent him on his way. That promise she knew she could keep, and she closed the door, knowing that she would not ever break it, even if she really still had feelings for Makarov at that time…
Vladimir Makarov
The Inner Circle
Inner Circle Safehouse – Prague
"Are you still thinking about the girl?" Anatoly asked Makarov, catching him stealing a look at the sole photograph of him and Anya, taken together, that he kept in his wallet. It was taken by Yuri, of course, during his many hours spying on her. The photograph depicted them smiling with each other over a cup of coffee. There was no doubt that they were in Paris.
Makarov did not to answer. His slight scowl was a good indication that he really was. "I was wondering what would happen if we met during this conflict," he retorted. "How would she act?" In her days with him, he had made sure that he left a lasting impression on her, and she him, and even if their time together was an elaborate trap set by two countries and by each other, he knew (and he was sure that Anya would agree with him) that their time together in private was genuine. Every touch, every sound, he remembered it all clearly. She was a woman of paradox. An American soldier who had a viable intellect that he enjoyed, a woman whose talents superseded her beauty…
Anatoly laughed out loud. "She would just shoot you," he answered, taking a swig from the can of beer in his hand. Of course, he would say that. Anya's fiery, sarcastic temper her greatest tool; it was only a mask to hide her true self, the emerging strategist, the loyal soldier, and the shrewd scholar. Her talent would be wasted on the Task Force 141. She needed a more… deserving patron, one that would appreciate her abilities better than Shepherd, who only saw her as a means to extract information in exchange for sex. It was… enjoyable, he did not deny it, but he knew that if she were presented to him in her pure, unbridled form… The possibilities were endless.
Harrumphing, he kept his wallet back into his pocket, and turned to his old friend. "She would hesitate if it was me," he suggested. That was all he said to Anatoly, who went back into his quarters to rest, and so did he. He would meet her again, he was, and when that time came, he would make sure that she was his. She would be his.