Cpl. Maria "Anya" Allen
Task Force 141
Hidden Loyalist Safehouse – Kandahar, Afghanistan
When they had awoken, they did nothing but plan, and plan, and plan. On their various maps, she had told Price, MacTavish and Nikolai where Site Hotel Bravo was, remembering clearly where she and Makarov had discovered it. She had seen the entrance to that place before, but no further. "It's in a cave system below a freeway," she told them, right here," and marked a spot on the topmost map.
MacTavish looked at her and asked her, "How did you find out about this place?"
"That Intel came from one of Makarov's spies planted next to President Vorshevsky, and he sent me and one of his agents there to verify the claim. At that time, we weren't able to tell if Shepherd was leading the Americans there, but we knew that it was called Site Hotel Bravo. It was confirmed that Shepherd was using it as a base three days before the attack on Zakhaev International Airport."
A deep silence blanketed them as they started to look at the map again. They now had the location of Shadow Company's base, but they hesitated, not because they did not trust Anya, but because they knew that they were clearly at a disadvantage. They knew that they were going to lose their lives if they attacked Site Hotel Bravo, but if they were going to die, then they were going to die after they had achieved what they wanted. They would not die for nothing at all.
"Well, it's settled then," Price told them. "We either we stop Shepherd from making his own history or we hide in the shadows for the rest of our lives just to live." The implications were grim, and in fact, if death was part and parcel with either path, they already knew what they should choose.
"Correction," Anya harrumphed. "We take Shepherd down and not go down with him… Don't forget, Price, we still need to kill Makarov too." She wanted Makarov dead so badly, no, she needed him dead. Once he was out of the face of the world, there was no doubt that he would no longer be able to haunt her, to remind her of the dark days that she had spent by his side. Her place was with the 141, whether or not their faction was already gone. So long as the three of them drew breath, it existed.
MacTavish, however, saw things differently. "We've got one good UMP, and they've got a thousand," he proclaimed, stating the utterly obvious. "Even if the Intel was good…" At those words, Anya placed a hand on his shoulder, indirectly telling him that she knew what he was feeling. It was not indecision; it was the obscurity of the future that stayed his mind and his hand. It was the same thing that stayed her as well.
When they were spread so thinly, Price knew that he had to get MacTavish into the right mindset. "The healthy human mind doesn't wake up in the morning thinking this is its last day on Earth. But I think that's a luxury. Not a curse," he told the both of them. Within seconds, he found sapphire and ice-blue eyes trained upon him, and he continued, "To know you're close to the end is a kind of freedom. Good time to take... inventory. Outgunned. Outnumbered. Out of our minds. On a suicide mission. But the sand and rocks here, stained with thousands of years of warfare... They will remember us. For this. Because out of our vast array of nightmares, this is the one we choose for ourselves. We go forward like a breath exhaled from the Earth. With vigor in our hearts and one goal in sight: We. Will. Kill him." After saying those words, Price left the two of them to speak with Nikolai. They would have much to talk about anyways.
Anya, on the other hand, begged to differ. Ever since she had come back from Russia, her moments alone with MacTavish had been… strange. The air of camaraderie between the two of them had either disappeared, or, it had escalated into something else. Privately, she feared both outcomes, because she did not want to lose him at all. She did not know that if it was the same for him, but now… now when only the three of them remained, keeping him alive was her top priority, even before killing Makarov. She doubted that the latter outcome would be sweet at all without him to share it with.
"Anya," he barely breathed her call-sign. Very rarely did he call her by her real name, but it did not matter. She was not used to him doing that either. "If we don't make it out of Site Hotel Bravo alive… I want you to know that…"
"Don't say it," she told him, not even wanting to anticipate what he'd utter next. "We'll make it, I promise you." Her fingers were on his lips, and his expression softened. "MacTavish, we've worked so hard to get to this point… Once Shepherd is dead, Makarov is open to us. Please, I don't want to know that my past year beside that scumbag will be going to waste."
The Captain was silent. He drew Anya into his arms, and tucked her under his chin. He wanted to promise her what she had told him, but he knew that it was impossible. He did not want to get her hopes up, that they had a chance of survival. Moments passed, and when he looked down to lift her chin upwards, he found that she was crying again. A part of him sank when he saw her tears… he seemed to be the cause of them those days. With his thumb, he wiped off her tears and continued to hold her, content that their bond had changed from that of comrades to something more, something stronger, but he knew that it was something that was not love. It was more like… reliance. She knew that she was safe with him, and he knew that she would gladly risk anything for him and Price, but nothing more.
"Let's do this," he said to her, and was finally able to draw a smile from her. It was what Ghost would have said.
"Yes, lets."
Capt. John "Soap" MacTavish
Task Force 141
Site Hotel Bravo, Kandahar, Afghanistan
It was nearing sunset when Nikolai had dropped them a small distance away from Site Hotel Bravo. They were so close that MacTavish swore that he could smell the carnage that they would cause, and by the furrow of Anya's brow, he knew that they were at the right place.
"I'll wait for you at the exfil point, three hours," Nikolai told them, his tone somber, knowing what would await them once they went in.
"Don't bother, this is a one-way flight, mate," Price said, deliberately ignoring Anya's glare. The girl wanted more than anything to survive this mission because she still hung onto their mandate of taking Makarov down no matter what, and she was right to have thought so, but he was more realistic. They would have to make sure that no one would sic the US military on them first, or any other US allies for that matter, in the event that Shepherd had successfully managed to convince the NATO armies that they were no longer agents loyal to their cause.
Nikolai could do nothing, but sigh. "Then good luck, my friends," he said, before trying to invoke God's grace on them.
"It's time," Anya announced, and they threw off their desert camos when the sandstorm blew over them, enabling them to move onto the ridge overlooking Site Hotel Bravo undetected. After walking a short distance, she looked at her heat sensors and nudged at Price. "Look at this, Captain," she told him, showing her the reading.
"Soap, we're getting a thermal spike up ahead," Price told MacTavish, who was a few steps behind them. "The cave must be somewhere up ahead." MacTavish acknowledged the information, and they continued further, until they reached a road that led through the mountains. "Hold up, enemy patrol," he proclaimed, stopping the other two from advancing further. "You did it, sweetheart," he told Anya. "The Intel is solid."
"It always was," Anya replied haughtily, and winked at MacTavish as they slowly crept towards the patrol, still hidden by the rock-face to the road's side. The patrol had only just been deployed, and was beginning to disperse towards various directions.
"Good, they're splitting out," Price said, "Let them separate… This decryption code better be worth the price we paid…"
They quickly changed frequencies with the aid of the decryption code that Makarov had given them shortly after they had left the Boneyard, and were able to hear every single conversation from the enemy's comms. Apparently, there were at least three teams on patrol, each of them handling German Shepherds.
"Look, over there," MacTavish said, indicating the group nearest to them, with four men and a dog. They split their targets, and before long, the group fell onto the ground, dead. Now that the first group was down, they had to kill the others before they came back. In an instant, two more men and another dog were killed.
"We don't have much time before they find the bodies, let's keep moving," Price announced, reaching the railing at the side of the cliff. "Here we go," he said, spotting the cave entrance. "Hook up here."
Slowly and steadily, the three of them rappelled down the cliff, taking notice of the three guards below them. They had to kill them in the most silent way possible, and not only that, they had to do it with the greatest precision. The only way was to use their knives, and as Anya took hers out, she discovered that they of the Shadow Company, they too possessed a similar sign-language to that of the Task Force 141. There was even a chance that Shadow Company's would be even more refined than their version.
As the seconds passed they neared their targets, one by one, they quietly jammed the blades of their knives into the side of the guards' necks, killing them instantly. "Let's hope that we're as lucky inside as we were here," Anya muttered, receiving a slight squeeze on her forearm from MacTavish as a response to her words.
They entered the cave and discovered another guard who was facing a monitor of some sort. Price forbade them to engage him, for obvious reasons. Thus, they stalked behind his line of sight, covered by the shadows of the cave. They could hear the Shadow Company trying to sort out the locations of the men that they had just killed moments before, meaning that there would be more men at the entrance of the cave. They would have to go deeper into the caves before that happened to remain undetected.
Group by group, they took out the groups that start to emerge, each of them displaying their already widely-recounted accuracies. It was like a cycle of course, all of them had been designated sharpshooters, and Price was MacTavish's mentor, while Anya, well, MacTavish had guided her every step of her way since she had entered the 141.
Soon, they reached a steam room, where the power had already been cut and there were voices on the other side of the door. The Shadow Company was going to breach the door, and they swept across the room, looking for places to hide. "They're here, go loud!" Price instructed once a hole was blasted through the door, and the Shadow Company men began filing through.
"They're here!" someone from Shadow Company announced. "Open fire! Stay frosty and hunt them down!"
It was too late. Half of their number had already been taken down. It was only a moment of time before the other half had joined the rest, sending panic upwards of the enemy faction. Surely, they had known that someone else other than themselves were there in the caves with them.
"Disciple Nine, your rear just flatlined!"
"It's not possible, we just cleared that area!" Disciple Nine replied. "Nobody's…"
The next voice they heard was Shepherd's. "It's Price!" he concluded. "Backup priority items and burn the rest. Fire-teams, just delay 'em until we're ready to pull out!"
"We have to get to those files before Shepherd manages to burn them!" Anya said as they emerged from the steam room and got onto some catwalks that would lead them to the caves above their current location.
"Acknowledged," Price returned. "Grab a riot shield, we'll need cover out here." To their right, they spotted the resistance in the form of two F-15s, two helicopters and a UAV, all aiming to blast them into the ravine below. By that time, Shadow Company had already spotted them, and they were instructed to exterminate them with extreme prejudice before they were able to reach an area known as the Crow's Nest that was located at the far side of the catwalk.
With MacTavish taking point in front, they were able to reach the Crow's Nest, and they were met with troops armed with riot shields. "Riot shields," Anya commented, mimicking MacTavish's words in Petropavlosk. "I hate riot shields…" MacTavish tried hard not to grin, even if no one would see it anyways.
The men with riot shields posed only a small threat to them, it was their number that caused a problem, after all. If only they had more of their own men by their side, then this mission would not be a one-way suicide mission that it was now. Nevertheless, they were able to slaughter the enemy troops and get into the control room after breaching the door, only to find out that it was rigged with explosives.
"All units, this is Gold Eagle," Shepherd announced. "The Site has been compromised. I am executing directive one-one-six bravo. If you're still inside, your service will be honored. Shepherd out." There was no doubt that the explosives would be detonated soon, and the only way out was to override the controls of the door before the explosives went off.
There were three consoles there, two for the door controls and one computer. Instinctively, Anya headed for the normal computer and found that the files that Shepherd's men had backed up were already compressed, which made copying them easier.
"Anya, get off that computer!" Price shouted towards her as they overrode the controls of the door. "It's no use now!" The only way to expose Shepherd's crimes was by getting Makarov to talk, because Shepherd's web of lies would be too deeply ingrained into the US armed forces by now. They needed to chase Shepherd down, and they needed to do it fast. "Run, keep moving, this place is gonna blow!"
They were able to exit the control room just in time before the explosive went off, causing that part of the cave to collapse, shaking the ground around them. "Excalibur, this is Gold Eagle. Fire mission – target package Romeo, danger close."
The clearing outside of the control room was soon covered by artillery fire, killing more Shadow Company soldiers imaginable. It was the utter exemplification of Shepherd's utter ignorance towards the welfare of his own men, even the men loyal only to him.
"To the west, go!" Price shouted, and they charged towards the other cave, quickly destroying any resistance that they had been met with. It was at this time when Shepherd had been notified that there was a sandstorm coming, and that they were unable to use aircraft to escape.
"Understood, head for the tunnel," Shepherd said, "We'll take the Zodiacs!"
"There's a river down here?" MacTavish asked, shooting a man in the head as they entered the tunnel.
They did not know the geographical qualities of the area, so they did not how a river would have existed there in the mountains, but nevertheless, they would be more than one Zodiac there, and they had to procure one for themselves in order to pursue Shepherd. "Let's go!" Price encouraged, and they headed into the tunnel.