Capt. John "Soap" MacTavish

Task Force 141

The Boneyard, Kandahar, Afghanistan.

"Captain, duck!" Anya shouted towards him. He did not know whence she had appeared, but he knew that if her warning had come later, he would have already made his maker. The Shadow Company soldier that was behind him would have shot him in his vitals had he not ducked in time. She quickly killed that man with a round through the eyes and rushed to his side to pull him up. "He's not the only one," she told him, wincing slightly as he grabbed onto her arm for support when he stood up. Clearly, she had been grazed by a bullet.

This was not supposed to be happening. Shadow Company and the 141 were all under Shepherd, they were on the same side, why were they attacked?

"Price, we have to warn the others!" MacTavish commed Price, whom he discovered was not far from him and Anya as well. "They might be in danger!"

Price nodded. He knew what to do. "Cover me," he told the other two, and ran into one of the disintegrated airplane frames. The area that still had any form of covering was only enough for one person, so they would have to defend him as he contacted those of the 141 who were in Makarov's mountain safehouse. "Ghost, come in, this is Price! We're under attack by Shepherd's men at the Boneyard!" he exclaimed at first, hoping that there would be a response. He looked out towards Anya and MacTavish and then shouted towards them, "Watch the left flank!" advice which they promptly regarded. "Do not trust Shepherd… I say again, do not trust Shepherd!"

Not a sound came from their end. There was not even a frantic cry for Roach's clumsiness in the field by Ghost or Archer… Just utter silence. MacTavish refused to resign to the belief that half their faction had been decimated by their own leader. "Roach, Ghost?" he called to them. "Come in, Ghost, do you copy… Does anyone copy?"

There was no point of trying any more. "They're dead, Soap," Price told him, his voice more condescending than comforting, because in any case, he thought that the younger Captain should have already been used to this sort of loss. "Shepherd's cleaning house, I'm making my way back to you."

"Shepherd betrayed us," MacTavish spat, his voice filled with not only bitterness, but poison as well. He had never imagined that this day would come, but now that he thought about it, it seemed that Shepherd had planned everything, utterly everything, since Day One.

"It won't be the first time he's done that," Anya uttered under her breath. At that point in time, MacTavish thought that she had been referencing the fact that Shepherd would abandon personnel whom he had deployed at missions that he thought were lost causes, and did not give much thought to what she actually meant.

"Have to trust someone to be betrayed… I never did," Price commented on the issue. He knew that the Americans were always… cautious when around Shepherd, given his track record. However, there was no doubting that Shepherd could be a very, very, charismatic leader. If you were good at anything, this would be the man who would take good care of you because you would be a valuable asset to him as a subordinate… It had always been like this. Frankly, it was a little ironic that he would choose to believe the girl who had been a honeypot revealed by the enemy than his immediate superior, but that was the fact. He knew that he was going to continue to trust Anya as well, just as he had trusted MacTavish since their days with the British SAS.

The girl sighed. "You'd think that we would've learned that Shepherd would not drop us when he's already playing with new toys," Anya said, covering both men as they reloaded their weapons. Shepherd had never been a leader that she would follow, but he was one that she had to. Truthfully, she silently thought that Makarov was a slightly better one than Shepherd was.

Well, there was nothing else for them to do but to get out of that God-forsaken place to regroup and recalculate their options. "Nikolai," Price beckoned, looking into the skies for any sign of their faithful pilot and friend. "Do you have our location?"

Nikolai gave a positive answer. "Da, inbound, Price," he replied, "but I am not the only one. You've got Shepherd's men on one side and Makarov's on the other…"

"We'll have to just take them take them all out then," Price interjected, but Nikolai had something else better in his mind.

"Or let them take each other out… Either way, I'll see you on the other side, my friends."

Cpl. Maria "Anya" Allen

Task Force 141

The Boneyard, Kandahar, Afghanistan.

"Soap, Anya, Shepherd's trying to wipe us out and Makarov at the same time," Price told them over the comms, reiterating once again their precarious situation. It was decided that they should split up to prevent their chances of getting killed at the same time. Once again, Anya was on her own, but this time, Makarov was nowhere in sight. They would have to remain there in the Boneyard until Nikolai could arrive with their ride out, and with two factions taking one another out and them in between, it was an ordeal that would have taken anyone's soul, knowing that they were betrayed, outnumbered and outgunned. "Head for rally point Bravo to the west," he added a few seconds later, "trust no one!"

Anya obeyed Price's orders completely. In fact, she had already foreseen that this would happen ever since she realized that she was going back to the 141. Mentally and emotionally prepared for this, she knew what she must do. In all honesty, the only outcome that she had feared would be MacTavish's realization that she and Price already knew about Shepherd's betrayal.

As she advanced, she slowly let her emotions unravel, the first time she had truly let herself feel ever since she had been deployed in Russia. The dejection, the self-hate for allowing herself to be used by Shepherd to bring about outright war between Russia and the US, the guilt for not asserting that she would better serve the team at the Caucasus Mountains… She was silent, because she knew that if she spoke a word at all, her self-control would falter, and she would break, as she should have broken a long time ago.

"Anya, did you see Makarov at all?" Price asked her through the comms after she shot a man who had his laser sight on her. "Sweetheart, we need to contact him, there's only one way to do this!"

"Yes I did," she answered, and there was no hint of hesitation in her voice at all. It was a good sign to herself, because it was a sign that Makarov's presence no longer affected her in any way. "But first, we need to get Nikolai here or we'll be sitting ducks!"

It was apparent that Price agreed with her. "Already on it," he told her, and contacted Nikolai right after. "Nikolai, this is Price. Be advised, the LZ is hot, I repeat, the LZ is hot!"

"Ok, Captain Price," Nikolai replied, "I am on my way! Try to get the situation under control before I get there, ok?"

"Right, whatever you say, just get here sharpish!" Price answered rather haughtily. He was a little busy at the moment, trying to get a few of Makarov's men off his back. He was lucky that they turned their attentions to the ones from Shadow Company. "Soap, Anya, let Makarov and Shepherd's men kill each other off as much as you can. We can use their comms to listen on their radio traffic. I'm going to contact Makarov."

Both MacTavish and Anya were silent as they each progressed towards the LZ, both of them waiting for Price and Makarov's conversation. It would be brief, but she knew that it was necessary. Her sapphire eyes looked towards the horizon and she began to catch sight of the runway into the distance, and MacTavish as well. He patted her on the shoulder as they took cover in a cockpit between the firing lines where Makarov's men as well as Shepherd's were fighting it out.

"Makarov, this is Price. Shepherd's a war hero now, he's got your operations playbook and a blank check. Give me what you've got on Shepherd and I'll do the rest," Price coaxed Makarov, but still, there was no response. "I know that you can hear me on this channel, Makarov. You and I both now that you won't last a week…"

"And neither will you," Makarov answered, knowing that Price was right, to a certain extent. There was a hint of… annoyance in his voice, knowing that this time, he had no ability to crawl out of whatever Shepherd had planned for them alive and able to continue his plans.

Price, on the other hand, would have none of it. "Makarov, you ever hear the old saying, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend?'" he asked.

"Price, one day you'll find that this cuts both ways," Makarov warned, exhaling heavily. Anya knew it as the sign that Makarov was going to decide on something that he had already been weighing heavily. He was going to swallow his pride for that moment, and let them do the work. "Shepherd is using Site Hotel Bravo," he added. "Anya, you know where it is, I'll see you all in hell."

Still, Anya was silent. She did not wish to give any inclination that she knew about what Makarov had said. Price was the one who ended the conversation. "Looking forward to it, give our regards to Zakhaev if you get there first." The air was silent again, and no one said anything further, save for Price, rallying MacTavish and Anya towards the runway, westwards from their location. However, there in the horizon, they saw that the skies were not in their favor, and Price was worried that it would mar any chances of their escape. Nikolai had to be there as soon as possible. "Nikolai, where the hell are you?"

"Sandstorms around Kandahar, Captain Price," Nikolai explained ruefully. "I need to fly around them, I'm not being paid enough to crash my plane!" Moments passed, and he spoke again, "Price, I am approaching the Boneyard, I see that you do not have situation under control… Very unsafe to land, it looks like when I was in Afghanistan with the Soviets!"

"Nikolai, just shut up and land the bloody plane, we're on our way!" There was no choice for Nikolai but to do as Price said and trudged towards the runway.

MacTavish, on the other hand, kept his focus on Anya. She was one of his last remaining subordinates, the last remnant of the 141 that he held so dear, and yet, from Makarov's own mouth that Anya knew about Site Hotel Bravo… Why didn't she tell him? "You have a lot of explaining to do when we're out of this," he told her behind gritted teeth.

"I will, don't worry," she told him, the expression on her face unreadable. She had hidden the fact that she had helped Makarov discover Site Hotel Bravo's location because they had been notified that US soldiers were using the cave networks as a safehouse. She had no knowledge that in truth, it was a fully functioning base, much less, it was one to be used by Shepherd and Shadow Company… She had concealed it from the rest of them, only because she did not want to give Shepherd one more reason to kill her before she could stop Makarov.

It did not take a long time for them to reach the runway, but by that time, Price was already frantic. "Soap, Anya, we don't have much time, Nikolai's not gonna wait for us, hurry!" he shouted towards them when he caught sight of the both of them. They were in luck; Rook, who had been with Price all along, had been able to discover a useable jeep to secure their escape. "We're leaving, get in the jeep!"

The two of them jumped into the jeep, MacTavish at the front passenger seat and Anya at the back with Price. Together, they shot down whatever vehicles that gave chase as they headed towards Nikolai's landing plane. "Nikolai, drop the bloody ramp, we're coming in!" Price yelled when they were directly behind the C-130 that Nikolai was piloting, at the exact moment when Rook was shot in the head and killed. "Rook is down, Soap, take the wheel!"

With his left hand, Soap guided the jeep to ascend the ramp, stopping just when they reached the end of the hangar. "Good job, Captain," Anya wheezed, and got out of the jeep while Price jumped down to find some formaldehyde to preserve Rook's body. What she was met with, was nothing more than a glare on MacTavish's part.

"Talk, Anya," he snarled at her, "You obviously know more than we do. What did Shepherd do?"

Anya took a deep breath and looked at him in the eyes. "He was already in it with Makarov from day one," she told him, "Shepherd exposed me as a spy for the US before the massacre at the airport… He worked with Makarov to make this war happen…"

MacTavish's eyes widened. At that moment, he stopped speaking. He stopped because the terrible truth; that if Anya was right, then the 141 existed because Shepherd wanted to hunt Makarov down. Now that they've found him and his plans, all their efforts were no longer needed, and they had to be destroyed, because they knew too much…

It was all a lie...