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Chapter Text

It’s 1918, and John Price is standing in front of the cracked mirror hanging above the bathroom sink, shirtless and barefoot. 

He found out the hard way that the straight razor is still sharp. A thin line on his finger weeps claret. He waits fifteen minutes for it to stop bleeding, and once he’s scrubbed the sink he spends the rest of the day walking around with his hands behind his back whenever she comes into the room.

Mother didn’t begrudge him Father’s effects, because God knows he’s got no use for them any more and it would be such a terrible shame to waste them. 

There’s his sports almanacs, which chronicle mainly football but also horse racing, his wooden cigar box, his very favorite flat cap. 

There’s a metal lighter with a shiny new penny coin set into the metal; the portrait of King George has been defaced, somewhat amateurishly, in order to resemble a soldier with a pith helmet and a great big mustache.

There’s even his service pistol, one of the few personal effects that was returned by the army because, as he’d find out later in his life, it was a private purchase- a Colt 1911 with diamond-cut checker wood grips, the kind issued to American soldiers.

Above all else, John has always been fascinated by Father’s shaving kit. 

He remembers standing by the sink, watching the old chap applying the cream and scraping it away in slow, measured strokes while his little boy mimicked the action with a comb. Father always thought it amusing, but Mother warned him against the wicked edge of the razor after Father had left it on the edge of the sink and caught him wondering at it. 

Don’t touch it, Johnny. It’s sharp. You’ll cut yourself.

It’s 1931, and John Price is standing in line at the greengrocer’s on Woodgrange Road. Mother’s not been well lately, but Ernie always puts a little extra in for her. He always asks John how his old mum is doing, always tells him to look after her as though he needs to be reminded that he’s the man of the house now, don’tcher know.

One day, he fetches something from the top shelf behind the counter and tucks it beneath the bread, baking powder, wax paper and eggs with a conspiratorial wink and a grin.

Your old chap used to like these. Don’t tell your mother, now. There’s a good lad. 

He doesn’t smoke the cigar. Not at first. Instead, he squirrels it away in his sock drawer, where he knows Mother isn’t going to look, and occasionally takes it out and looks at it. 

The smell reminds him of Father, but he keeps it separate from the ones in the wooden cigar box. This one is his.

Eventually, he takes it around the back of the furnishings store on Oakhurst Road and lights it. It’s smooth, and surprisingly easy on the tongue. Ernie advised him to take it slow so as not to make himself sick, but the thing keeps going out. He goes through half a book of lucifers and ends up smoking about a third of it. The flavor changes each time it’s relit, but every time it manages to remind him of Father.

There’s a slice of cake waiting for him on the kitchen table when he gets home. 

It’s a quarter past eleven on September 3rd, 1939, and John is standing in line at the greengrocer’s on Woodgrange Road again. Ernie has the wireless on, dialed up loud enough for everyone in the shop to hear the Prime Minister’s voice come close to breaking as he addresses the nation from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street.

All the colour has gone out of Ernie’s rounded, usually ruddy face. A little boy in the line behind him asks his mum what’s wrong as she mops her eyes with a handkerchief. 

Ernie gives John back two shillings change from half a crown. His hands are shaking so much that the coins jingle in his palm. 

Get on home now, there’s a good lad. You look after your mother now, you hear? 

Mother is sitting at the kitchen table when he gets home, sobbing into her palms as a church bell rings in the distance. 

Not again, she keeps saying, and the words are almost a scream. Oh God, not again.

It’s December 2nd, 1939, and someone is fiddling with a wireless as the train departs from Forest Gate station. Half the town has turned out to see them off. Wives and girlfriends wave handkerchiefs and blow kisses, and old men look on with almost reassuring stoicism as mothers shed tears for their sons.

The opening strains of “There'll Always Be an England” filter out of the speakers, laced with crackly static and devolving into a discordant mess as someone fiddles with the dials. After almost half a minute of unsuccessful attempts to retrieve the signal, someone starts up a chorus of “We’ll Meet Again”.

One voice becomes three, becomes four, becomes a dozen and then some more, punctuated by the chuffing of pistons as Forest Gate station becomes a distant dot on the horizon.

After that, the rest of the journey is very quiet. 

It’s December 7th, and Private John Price, service number nine zero five one two one zero, has begun to become accustomed to life at Colchester.

Reveille is at oh-six-hundred, followed by a difficult shave standing elbow-to-elbow with other lads his age. Many of them are using cutthroat razors, and Private Price often thinks of his old man’s shaving kit, sitting at home in a little case bound with shiny black leather.

After a day of drilling with rifles, bayonets and Bren guns, five-mile runs and quick marching, Private Price stands in line for a meal of reconstituted potato, boiled beans and a piece of meat that has no identifying characteristics beyond being tough and stringy. 

It’s bitterly cold at Colchester, and Price can never seem to get warm. He comes to stop regarding food as something to be enjoyed, and often finds himself so hungry that he doesn’t care about anything except getting it down his neck. 

Memories of his mother’s cooking begin to fade, but he still finds himself craving the warm, smoky comfort of a Villa Clara cigar, if only to remember what it was like.

It’s February, 1940, and Private John Price is standing on a train bound for London in full kit.

The civvies make no effort to disguise their stares, but will not meet his gaze- all except for a little girl who points at him and insists to her mother that it’s her daddy. Look, mummy. Look. It’s daddy. 

The woman shushes her daughter, and mumbles an apology at Price without meeting his eyes. The little girl keeps staring at him until they reach London. 

It’s June, 1940. Corporal Price is a thoroughly sensible and well-spoken chap, respected by his subordinates and superiors alike. He has been offered the opportunity of a commission, and is sent to the 166th Officer Cadet Training Unit.

The training is frightfully dull, with more time devoted to polishing buttons and parade-ground drills than anything sensible. In his down time Price listens to the wireless, and wonders what it would be like to kill a man. 

Nineteen days later, the Germans drop a parachute mine on a technical school in Liverpool. One-hundred and sixty-six people die in an underground shelter as the school collapses, and Price decides as he’s listening to this that yes, he could most definitely kill a man.

It’s November 9th, 1940, and Corporal John Price has earned a commission to the rank of Lieutenant. A dull-witted platoon sergeant whose instruction on military strategy consisted mainly of waffling, tangential remarks and assurances that there was “nothing to it” shakes Price’s hand and observes that he’s going to have to salute him now. He seems to think this is the height of comedy. 

Price forces himself to smile as the man tells him that he’ll make a damned fine officer. The praise sets his teeth grinding, and he’s careful to keep his mouth shut.

It’s May, 1941, and Lieutenant Price’s mustache is the talk of the battalion.

Some opine- though never to his face- that the Lieutenant looks “an utter twit” with the handlebars stretching from one cheek to the other.

Many more have since requested permission to try and cultivate mustaches of their own.

It’s October 29th, 1942. Captain Price leads the men of the 7th Armored Division on an audacious raid on a remote enemy supply dump, drawing the attention of Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps away from Field Marshal Montgomery’s forces to the north.

Price commands his soldiers with distinction, but is careful to listen to the enlisted soldiers under his command. It’s a delicate balancing act; if he doesn’t take charge, the lads won’t respect his authority. If he doesn’t pay attention, he could get them all killed. 

It’s November 6th, 1942, and the skies are clear over El Daba. Spitfires and Stukas chase each other through the air, their engines scarce heard amid the guns below.

When the guns finally fall silent, Price wonders at the empty buildings that were once homes, the streets that once hosted markets where people would haggle over everything from their weekly grocery shop to expensive jewelry. 

He imagines that children once played in these streets, just as they did in the streets of London before Göring’s Luftwaffe came with their bombs. He wonders if this land will remember the men of the 7th Armoured Division and Rommel’s Afrika Korps. 

Probably not, he decides. This place has seen too much of war already.

It’s seven minutes after midnight on June 6th, 1944, and Captain Price has been assigned to lead the men of “D” Company, 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, in an audacious airborne raid.

The men of Ox and Bucks come from the night in the hours before the landings at Normandy, their faces darkened with gentian purple ointment supplied by their section’s medical officer. He can hardly fault the lanky German who first spots them for screaming. They must look like monsters. They are shadows come to life, only the whites of their eyes visible until their dark outlines are thrown into hazy focus by muzzle flashes. 

The battle to claim the Pegasus Bridge is swift, decisive and brutal. They lose two men in the process. A lieutenant with a wife eight months pregnant back in Blighty is struck in the back of the neck by machine gun fire, and a poor bloody lance-corporal who was thrown from his glider after a messy crash-landing drowns in the river below.

It’s June 11th, 1944, and Captain Price is standing with his finger on the trigger of his 1911 pistol as a terrified German soldier begs him not to shoot in heavily accented English. The man’s trembling hands reach skywards as his squadmates, none of whom speak any English, watch him explain that they have wounded here. 

One of his men suggests that they should slot the whole bloody lot of them. The Germans don’t need to speak English to know what that means. The language of hatred is as universal as fear. 

Price orders the lads to hold their fire, and they sullenly obey. Although he doesn’t realize it at the time, had any one of them defied that order he would’ve turned his own weapon on them without a second’s hesitation. 

The wounded are prisoners, around half a dozen Yanks who were captured storming the beaches at Normandy. Private MacGregor brings around a lorry and they stagger towards it in a bloody, limping conga line with an uneven number of limbs and eyes between them. The lame are leading the blind and the blind are carrying the lame. The surrendering Germans are permitted to help under the watchful supervision of Sergeant John Davis. 

Davis reminds Price a lot of himself when he was first called up. He’s the strong, silent type. Still fresh-faced but with a quiet intensity that belies his boyish features.

Later that night, Price gets word from brigade HQ that three of the prisoners were too badly wounded and didn’t make it. 

It’s July 10th, 1944, and Captain John Price has been recommended for the Special Air Service along with Sergeant John Davis. 

The unit’s exploits in Africa have made them famous among the Allies ranks and infamous to the Germans. Reputedly, Hitler has issued an order that any such “terror and sabotage troops” should be swiftly executed rather than taken prisoner.

Two days ago, at dawn, thirty captured SAS troops and an American pilot who’d attached himself to their unit after being shot down a month prior were executed by a Wehrmacht firing squad. Three more who had been wounded and hospitalized were killed in their beds by the administration of lethal injections.

Letters are sent, and Price and Davis’ transfer is approved. 

It’s September 1st, and Captain Price and Sergeant Davis are welcomed to 3 Troop, 2 SAS by Sergeant Waters, a smooth-faced young man with wingnut ears that he doesn’t appear to have grown into.

Waters looks to be about half Price’s age, and yet knows half as much again of war as Price. He has a rough manner of speaking, the syllables laced with the guttural twang of South London that Price’s officer training has all but scrubbed away, but when he speaks the men listen.

Price listens too. He’s not some Sandhurst boy who’s still wet behind the ears, but he’s spent enough time in the field to know that an experienced enlisted man is a damn sight more useful than an officer who thinks he knows better, so he jolly well keeps his mouth shut.  

It’s October 27th, 1944, and everything has gone tits-up.

Price’s uniform was enough to get them onto the Tirpitz, and his German was good enough to get them below decks. It was also good enough to realize that the forged documents the SOE provided them with wouldn’t hold up under scrutiny, and their excuse about the officer they killed on the boat ride over here being called to an emergency meeting would only arouse the Jerries’ suspicions further.

The 1911 pistol tucked into his waistband isn’t Kriegsmarine-issue either, but by the time he’s shot the two sailors who are trying to raise the alarm it hardly makes a difference. 

The front of his uniform wouldn’t pass muster now. It’s pock-marked with bullet holes, sticky and damp with blood. There’s dead Jerries all over the shop, and he’s not quite certain how many of the kills are his and how many belong to Sergeant Davis.

Davis is long gone. Not his fault. They got separated just before Price went and got himself shot. Bloody stupid. He’s drifting in and out of consciousness. Davis must have seen his bullet wounds and taken off. Can’t blame the old boy for thinking the Jerries had done him in. Frankly, even he’s a little surprised that he’s still breathing.

There’s a muffled boom from somewhere below the decks, and Price permits himself a small smile. 

Ah, yes. That’ll be the charges going up. He hopes Davis made it off in one piece. 

A pair of heavy boots goes thundering past his head, stamping claret prints onto the deck and yelling in frantic German.

Not to worry, old chap. The water will put the fires out.

He’s still grinning at a joke nobody will ever hear as the darkness takes hold of him again.

It’s November 1st, 1953, although John Price doesn’t know that.

He doesn’t remember the trawler scooping him out of the icy waters of the Sandnessundet strait, between the islands Kvaløya and Tromsøya. He doesn’t remember one of the fishermen uttering an oath as they watched the slow rise and fall of his chest, nor does he remember another inspecting his dog tags.

Jonathan…Price. Britiske…han er en britisk soldat?

Hvorfor faen er han kledd ut som en tysker?

He doesn’t know how he got here, because he doesn’t know where here is.

His arm hurts. The muscles are tender beneath the itchy spot on his skin, but he can’t scratch it.

Everything is…muddled.

Price. John Price. Nine zero five one two one zero.

Price. John Price. Nine zero five…nine…nine zero…

John. John Price. He’s a soldier. He was in the war. They were fighting. 

…Did they win? They must have won, surely.

Is the war over now?

John Price. 

Price.

Nine zero five.

Nine zero… 

Someone’s blowing smoke in his face. A red spot flares in the darkness. A cigar. Villa Clara?

How’s he taking it so far?

Better than the other subjects.

No shit.

Ashes. Ashes.

We all fall down.

Tough old buzzard.

The Brits aren’t gonna give us shit over this, are they?

Nah. They want results, same as us. Better us than the Reds, right?

Surprised they signed off on this.

Guy’s been listed as KIA since ‘forty-four, man. What do they care?

He’s a good catch though, right? Where’d they find him?

Cold. Itchy. Hot. The taste of smoke lingers on his tongue. Hungry. 

Time passes in the dark before cellophane flowers sprout at the yellow warmth of California sunshine, shining through the window pane. 

What’s he at right now?

Uh, hold on. One-forty-one. Damn. It was one-thirty-eight a minute ago.

Give him another twenty milligrams and get him prepped for phase two.

Static on the radio. He knows the song, but he can’t remember the words.

And get that damned silly mustache off of him.

Metal scrapes his face. Pins and needles lance up his arms. A great golden dragon takes a deep breath, and blows smoke into his lungs.

It’s October 30th, 1978.

MI6 have selected a prodigious young SAS operator named Jonathan as the lead operator for their contribution to Operation Charybdis. 

CIA analyst Ryan Jackson has been assured by the Secret Intelligence Service that he is absolutely qualified to lead the detachment, despite admitting in the same sentence that he is inordinately young for such a role. He has been described as a veritable prodigy, a rising star of the Regiment.

According to his dossier, he joined the infantry at the age of sixteen and is one of the youngest cadets to ever graduate the Royal Military Academy as a commissioned officer. 

He speaks fluent German, Russian and Arabic, and has served with distinction in the Falklands, Northern Ireland and the Middle East. He's described as a peerless operator who commands the respect of his men- unusual for officers in the Regiment, who are usually looked upon as secondary to a more experienced NCO- and his psych evaluation notes with interest that he appears to prefer the company of enlisted men, eschewing the officer’s mess in favour of a pint with the lads.

A picture of physical health, he neither drinks nor smokes to excess. More importantly, his mind is sharp. Keen and analytical, his willingness to adopt unconventional methods pioneered by the Regiment’s counter-terrorism specialists and uncanny ability to develop and maintain links to foreign assets make him ideally suited to operations of this type.

He is a phenomenal tracker, a brutal hand-to-hand fighter, and a supremely skilled marksman even by the standards of the Regiment. 

The only two indulgences he permits himself are the occasional Villa Clara cigar, and a broad handlebar mustache that has become his trademark over the years.

It’s May 5th, 1988. 

Bravo Team’s leader, call sign Bravo Six, abseils down the side of the embassy, decked out in full black kit- a gas mask, hood, and black overalls- and lands on the balcony gripping an MP5 submachine gun. Within minutes, the blown-in windows of the embassy are belching smoke and CS gas. 

The raid lasts seventeen minutes, and ends with five terrorists dead and one captured.

Two hostages have been wounded, and one killed- an embassy press attaché whose body was unceremoniously dumped into the street outside, the catalyst for the assault.

The sole surviving gunman attempts to hide among the hostages while they’re being searched. He is found, and dragged around the back of the embassy by a black-clad trooper who intends to execute him until Bravo Six seizes his shoulder and nods in the direction of the television cameras, at which point he thinks better of it.

It’s November 5th, 1996, and it’s a bitterly cold winter in Chernobyl.

The stock of the Barrett M82 bucks against Lieutenant Price’s shoulder. He’s taken wind speed and direction, bullet drop and even the Coriolis effect into account, but the shot is still just a little hurried.

The high-velocity round sloughs through Imran Zakhaev’s shoulder, spinning him around like a top and flinging him to the ground. Captain MacMillan reckons he saw the man’s arm fly off. Satisfied that shock and blood loss will do the rest, they exfil just before a Mi-24 Hind empties a salvo of missiles into the floor of the derelict hotel where they’d been laid up seconds prior.

The operation is MacMillan’s last. It’s not a gunshot or grenade that ends his career as a field operative, but a misstep as random and unlucky as any other battlefield injury. His knee is dislocated, hyperextending it and rupturing an artery. By the time Price has carried him to the extraction point, the medics aboard their extraction chopper can already tell that the damage is done. 

Three years of surgeries and physical therapy ultimately leave MacMillan with one leg shorter than the other, and by the time he gets out the process has done what fifteen years of field work failed to do.

John visits his mentor in the hospital while he’s not on ops, smuggling in cigars and malt whisky, and refuses to accept a promotion to Mac’s old rank until the old man tells him he’s earned it, along with a favour that John won’t call in for another twenty-two years.

It’s 2011, and the world is in great shape.

Civil war in Russia, government Loyalists versus Ultranationalist rebels and fifteen-thousand nukes at stake. A coup d’etat in the Middle East culminates in an execution broadcast on international television, and intel is keeping an eye on the man responsible: Khaled Al-Asad.

So what’s the bad news, Captain Price wants to know?

His oppo is a Cockney jack-the-lad, formerly of the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment and six years into the SAS. He’s never seen without a baseball cap, given to him as a tongue-in-cheek parting gift by a group of U.S. Marines while he was cross-training with them at Camp Lejeune, although he’s since swapped out the Stars and Stripes for a Union Jack patch. Whether he’s on ops or on the piss, earning his Parachute Wings at Camp Lejeune or running RTI drills at Hereford, he’s only ever known as Gaz.

We’ve got a new guy joining us today. Fresh outta Selection. His name’s Soap.

Chapter Text

It’s the F.N.G., sir.

Go easy on him, sir. It’s his first day in the Regiment.

F.N.G. is about right. Wallcroft’s grimace and Griffen’s smirk are hidden by black masks and darkened goggles, but Soap is treated to the full intensity of Price’s scowl as he steps into the hangar.

What the bloody hell kind of name is Soap, he wonders aloud, and how did a muppet like this pass Selection?

He watches as the F.N.G. runs a plywood approximation of the cargo ship they’re supposed to be raiding in less than twenty-four hours’ time, then watches him run it again. 

Fifty-two seconds becomes forty-eight seconds. An improvement, but it's not hard to improve on garbage. 

Forty-eight becomes forty-seven. Better. Not great, but better. 

Forty-seven becomes thirty-nine. Pretty good, but he’s seen better. 

Thirty-nine becomes thirty-four becomes thirty-three. Price decides Soap will do, but the F.N.G still isn’t satisfied.

Twenty seven point nine becomes twenty seven point three. Wallcroft suggests swapping to his sidearm instead of reloading, echoing Gaz’s instructions on the rifle range. 

Twenty-six point five becomes twenty two point five. Not bad, Price remarks. Not bad at all.  Twenty two point five becomes twenty-two point two. A small crowd has gathered on the observation deck, and even Griffen has stopped making snide remarks. 

Then twenty-two point two becomes fifteen point one, and Wallcroft looks up from his stopwatch in astonishment.

A new squadron record. Even Gaz is too impressed to be really pissed off about it. 

It's November 6th, 0123 Hours.

Captain Price takes a long drag on his cigar, which resolutely stays lit as the icy wind whips the rain almost horizontal, greedily snatching away puffs of smoke before Price tosses it and pulls his gas mask down over his face.

Soap’s eyes follow the glowing dot as it disappears into the darkness below the chopper’s flight path, and Price wonders if the F.N.G is imagining what Villa Claras taste like.

Full black kit is the flavour of the day. Gas masks with tinted lenses, MP5s and pistols with suppressors, flashbang stun grenades. Counter-terrorist gear. Christmas isn’t for another month, but they’re hunting for presents in the bowels of an Estonian freighter.

Between the mags and the flashbangs, they probably shed about five kilos worth of kit as they push down into the hold.

Then everything goes tits-up. The tub is under fire, and it’ll be underwater soon enough. 

Price orders everyone topside, but stops just long enough to scoop up Soap. Freezing ocean water splashes around Bravo Team’s ankles as they hurdle half-submerged bodies. Fire extinguishers and half-empty vodka bottles roll past as the deck becomes a slope.

Their ride is waiting for them, but between the shite weather conditions and the imminent threat that the MiGs might come back around for another pass and sink their chopper along with the ship, it’s all the pilots can do to keep it steady enough for Price, Gaz and Wallcroft to get on board.

Griffen screams at Soap to jump for it. Soap tries, lands half-in and half-out of the chopper, and starts to slip as his gloved fingers claw for traction on the rain-slicked ramp. Price catches him around the wrists and hauls him into the belly of the bird.

No words of thanks are exchanged, but Soap resolves to pick up a bottle for the old man next time they’re back at Hereford.

It's November 7th, 0142 Hours.

Price calls in a favor from an old friend as a favor to a new friend.

Even after all this time, he can still detect the stink of Kamarov’s cheap cigarettes from half a mile away. It’s not the smell itself that’s impressive so much as the fact that Kamarov manages to stink so strongly of tobacco when more than half the people in this country smoke.

He hasn’t forgotten Beirut. Evidently, Gaz hasn’t either. He’s chomping at the bit to give Kamarov a bloody good hiding. A nod from Price is all the provocation he needs to dangle the shifty little prick over the edge of a thirty-foot drop, and once the Russian’s done screaming and flailing, they get some actionable intel out of him.

True to form, Soap says nothing. He watches and listens.

Nikolai is in pretty bad shape, but he’s a hard bastard. His captors have clearly worked him over- his face looks like a piece of fruit that’s been in the bowl too long, and one of his eyes is swollen shut, but after being asked if he can walk, his first response is that he can still fight.

At the time, Price finds himself thinking that won’t be necessary. They get to the evac bird without further incident. As they’re taking off, Nikolai nudges him, wanting to know if the Americans have already commenced their planned invasion of the Middle East.

No, Price explains. Their invasion begins in a few hours.

Grimly, Nikolai shakes his head.

The Americans are making mistake. They will never take Al-Asad alive.

It's November 10th, 0240 Hours.

As he’s pounding Al-Asad’s face into hamburger, Price knows, on some level, that this isn’t going to work.

“Enhanced interrogation techniques”, as the Yanks prefer to call them, are unreliable at best. You torture a man, and one of two things is going to happen. A weak man will just tell you whatever he thinks it is that you want to hear, because he’ll do anything to make the pain stop. A strong man will hold out for as long as possible until his mates come and rescue him, or until such time as he’s able to effect an escape. 

This is the principle upon which the Regiment conducts Resistance to Interrogation (RTI) training. Every man present has undergone the same instruction and been subjected to the same practices. Hooding. Sleep deprivation. Prolonged nakedness. Sexual humiliation. Deprivation of warmth, water, food, and all the other lovely things you’re supposed to be entitled to under the Geneva Convention. 

Price has seen the Yanks emulate these techniques in Iraq and Afghanistan, turning perfectly good prisoners who could have become assets into useless lumps of meat who are in no shape to give sensible answers to anything. 

War is an ugly, evil thing, but even war has a high ground. The whole point of RTI training is to prepare you for these things, not to teach you to use them, because any SAS operator who is captured by the enemy can be expected to undergo this kind of treatment. The Bad Guys don’t give a shit about the Geneva Convention.

Then again, neither do the Yanks, except when it’s convenient for them.

Right now, Price doesn’t give a shit about the Geneva Convention either.

Al-Asad does not tell Price what he wants to hear, nor does he sit in silence. He bleeds and blubbers and insists over and over that he can’t tell Price where he got the nuclear weapon that killed thirty-thousand U.S. troops, plus however many poor bloody civilians were caught in the blast when he detonated it in a last-ditch attempt to save his own pathetic hide from the American invasion aimed at toppling his regime.

Price isn’t having it. He punches his knuckles raw against Al-Asad’s jaw and ribs, kicks over the chair he’s tied to and pulls him up by his belt after looping it around his neck.

Gaz, who like Soap had been watching in uncharacteristic silence, takes a step forward as a tinny ringtone bleats from within the recesses of Al-Asad’s pockets.

Price answers the phone, and for a moment he’s stunned, because the voice on the other end belongs to a fucking dead man.

Al-Asad sees Price’s expression change, and struggles uselessly at his bindings. 

Price drops the phone, draws his pistol, and puts a bullet in Al-Asad's head. Gaz and Soap exchange glances. A dial tone emanates faintly from beside his feet.

Who was that, sir?

Imran Zakhaev is still alive.

It's November 10th, 1500 Hours.

Captain Price takes a fat felt-tip pen and marks a great bloody red X over a black and white photo of Al-Asad. Staff Sergeant Griggs nods his approval.

Well, we got that bastard.

Price reminds him that he’s not the one responsible for killing Griggs’ mates, but his grim apology is met with an it’s cool gesture from the American. This is now a joint operation, but everyone here has a personal stake in it. Gaz earned his Parachute Wings at Camp Lejuene while cross-training with Force Recon. He and Price both raised a solemn toast to Lieutenant Vasquez when the big man’s name was mentioned among the buddies of those Griggs lost. 

A name that Price doesn’t recognize is Jackson, but Griggs speaks glowingly of him, and that’s no small thing. By all accounts, they lost a Cobra while they were trying to evacuate to the minimum safe distance (if there is such a thing, where nukes are concerned) and Vasquez ordered their Sea Knight to turn around after realizing one of the pilots was still alive.

Jackson had been the one to pull the pilot- Pelayo. they knew her as Deadly but her name was Velinda Pelayo- out of her crippled bird and carried her broke-legged ass (Griggs’ words) all the way to the extraction while the dregs of Al-Asad’s forces (those guys never got the order to evacuate, of course) were harrying him with small arms fire and RPGs every step of the way.

A tremendous act of heroism, forgotten against the backdrop of the worst loss in U.S. military history. More casualties than than they’ve seen since the end of Vietnam, wiped out in the blink of an eye after what should have been a routine snatch op. God only knows how many civvies also ended up caught in the blast, unable or unwilling to flee their homes after the initial invasion. Even if any of the poor buggers survived the blast, no rescue is coming. All that awaits them is a slow, agonizing death by radiation poisoning.

Even Al-Asad’s soldiers don’t deserve a death like that.

The intel lot reckon the man responsible has gone underground, but Price has a plan to find him.

It's November 11th, 0645 Hours.

Victor Zakhaev lies crumpled on the asphalt like a puppet whose strings have been cut. His finger is still wrapped around the trigger of the weapon that killed him.

Nobody is sad about this, but nobody is particularly happy about losing the only lead they had on Imran Zakhaev, either.

Griggs is dumbfounded. Gaz is despondent. Soap says nothing, but Price can tell he blames himself for not being quick enough to catch the scrawny little son of a bitch. Even for a bloke wearing tracky bottoms, he moved like the bloody clappers.

Price isn’t too fussed. He knows that old man Imran’s not going to be chuffed that his only son is dead. 

It's November 12th, 0820 Hours.

Griggs reckons it's just too hot, man. He says a beer should be ice cold, not room temperature.

Price has to disagree with that. Ice cold? A lager maybe, or a glass of water. But a pint of stout?

Griggs has a bit of a chuckle at that. Says he’s going to school them when they get back Stateside, but Gaz says they’re stopping by London first. There’s no objections from anyone when he says the first round’s on him.

Griggs is just happy the world didn’t end, and the rest of Bravo Team echo the sentiment.

None of them know it at the time, but for Gaz and Griggs, their worlds are going to end less than twenty minutes later.

It’s October 8th, 2013.

The RPG knocks MacTavish off his feet and flings him through the air like a ragdoll, depositing him in a bloody heap.

Sandman yells for cover. Frost and Ghost lay down suppressing fire while Roach gets a hold of MacTavish’s other arm. MacTavish is only carrying some sixty pounds of gear, and he lost his weapon in the explosion, but he’s six foot two and close to two hundred pounds. Sandman and Roach practically have to drag him to the Osprey. No way they’re carrying his big fat lardy arse to the evac.

Price orders Frost and Ghost to go, yelling over the rattle of his M4 as the stock kicks against his shoulder in precise, controlled bursts. Ghost curses under his breath, the words not quite muffled by his skull-print balaclava, but both men obey. 

More enemies swarm across the field, hesitant to advance over open ground but not satisfied with merely shooting down an AC-130 and leaving MacTavish with a gruesome shrapnel wound that stretches from just above his left eyebrow to the left side of his jaw. Eager to exact revenge for the ones that the strike team killed before Operation Kingfish went tits-up, they expend ammunition and explosives with furious abandon, bracketing the open ground with mortars and dumping bullets downrange. 

Sandman argues with the Osprey pilot, yelling that they still have a man on the ground.

Sir, our orders are to evacuate now-

We’re not leaving anyone behind!

Roach holds his CO down to stop him from hurling himself back off the ramp of the chopper, and hates himself almost as much as MacTavish does.

I don’t care what your orders are!

Price keeps shooting. Keeps killing. No cover. No chance in Hell. He retreats, he just gets shot in the back. He’s the only thing standing between the rest of the Task Force and every bugger on it. Only defense he’s got is a good offense.

An AK round rips into the meat of Price’s shoulder, knocking him to the ground and leaving a wound that will eventually become a scar the size of a tupenny piece. 

He rights himself, fires three shots, hits three targets, kills three targets, but the third one gets a shot off before Price’s own bullet gets him.

Shit. Bollocks. He's losing too much blood. He can feel himself going into shock. Darkness closing in. Feels cold. Someone screaming. English or maybe Russian, he can’t tell.

Sod it. At least the lads made it to the exfil.

It’s August 14th, 2016, but Prisoner 627 doesn’t know that.

He gave up counting the days a long while ago. Useless to try in this bloody place. There’s no natural light, which makes measuring the days impossible. The only semblance of routine is one he’s given for himself. Restless hours of sleep on a hard wooden bed frame with no mattress, followed by reveille, an icy shower with thirty or forty other gaunt, emaciated prisoners, and a ration of rye bread and water. His second meal of the day consists of rubbery vegetables- mainly lukewarm potato- and a piece of tough, stringy meat. 

Sound mind, sound body. He’s careful to make his rations last, for they are meagre, but at the very least they are regular. He sets a routine. He watches the patterns of the patrolling guards, learns to identify them by their voices. He pretends not to speak anything but the most basic Russian. The other prisoners here generally don’t make an effort to interact with him. He wonders how many of them, like him, were sold out by the country they fought and bled for.

He’s almost disappointed not to see Kamarov here.

The first break in routine he’s had in five years comes with the rumble of distant explosions, shaking the ancient foundations of the gualg. The shoddy Russian concrete groans, and sheds dust over his dinner tray. It doesn’t make it look any more or less appetizing. The colour remains mostly the same.

Prisoner 627 hears the other prisoners being bundled back into their cells, and a few gunshots tell him that at least a few of them decided they were going to try and fight back. Brave, but daft. Desperate. Ultimately futile.

He hears one of the guards talking about a zaklyuchennyy whose number is shest' dva sem' and realizes with a jolt that they mean him. 

Well, bugger that for a game of soldiers. 

Sun Tzu says in The Art of War that you should appear strong when you are weak and weak when you are strong, so that is precisely what he does. He pretends to not know what’s going on as he’s being chivvied through the shower block at the point of an AK, and when the shooting outside gets close enough that the guard’s attention is diverted for a fractional moment, he makes his move.

A pair of metal handcuffs makes a perfectly serviceable garrotte, in a pinch. The wall disintegrates in a shower of superheated rubble riding on the blossoming blast radius of a frame charge, and his human shield becomes a bludgeon. He’s acting on instinct, not thinking, simply reacting. It takes him three full seconds to realize the bloke in the wetsuit is decked out in NATO kit.

Drop it!

Those two words are the first English anyone's spoken to him in five years. The gun against the back of his head isn’t some refurbished crap from the Soviet days, but a relic of an entirely different era.

A Colt 1911 with diamond-cut checker wood grips.

…Soap?

…Price?

A Navy SEAL who’s been assigned the truly unfortunate callsign of Worm looks bemused as Captain MacTavish hands Prisoner 627 his sidearm.

This belongs to you, sir.

The weight of the pistol feels good in Price’s hand. His fingers close around the grip like a handshake, bridging the gap between his palm and MacTavish’s.

Who’s Soap?

It’s August 15th, and Gary “Roach” Sanderson and Simon “Ghost” Riley are dead, along with everyone else at Makarov’s safehouse.

Price tried to warn them, but the radio just spat static back at him. He refuses to dwell on the thought that if he’d got on the comms a few seconds earlier, if he’d been just a little quicker on the uptake, that the poor sods might still be alive. 

None of them could have seen this coming. He knew right from the start that Shepherd was a glory-hound, but to betray his own soldiers? Sending men to their deaths is one thing. Ordering their executions is another thing entirely. 

This isn’t just him being trigger-happy with Danger Close and blaming it on the U.S. Navy being a little overeager to get back at the Russians on account of the friends and families they have back home. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, but it wasn’t even Makarov who drew first blood. 

It was Shepherd. He’s been pulling the strings from the word go, like some kind of sick puppet master. 

Soap realizes it too, later. The shell casing at the Zakhaev Airport Massacre, the massacre that he ordered under the pretense of a CIA deep-cover op knowing full well how it would end: with hundreds of bodies dead at the feet of an American from Drexel, Missouri.

Allen was much a patsy as the rest of the One-Four-One. Poor bastard probably drank up all Shepherd’s bullshit about honor and patriotism and making the right decision even though it’s not the easy one to make, thinking that he’d be judged fairly for his sins when his military record, up to and including his induction to the CIA, was leaked to the media by what the internet would only refer to as an unknown source within the Department of Defense.

Another false flag, just subtle enough to draw attention away from the real culprit. The one who orchestrated this entire bloody war is the commander of JSOC himself, and clearly he couldn’t have been acting alone. He’s got his grubby little fingers in every pie under the jurisdiction of the U.S. military, up to and including all the three-letter agencies and whatever other units contributed to the One Four One. 

Price warns Soap over the radio to trust no-one. Once he’s secured them some evac, he changes the frequency and does the unthinkable.

He addresses The Devil directly, and asks to cut a deal.

More static. When a generous offer to do The Devil’s dirty work for him doesn’t get a response, he points out that he’s not going to last a week now that Shepherd’s got his ops playbook and a blank check.

And neither will you, The Devil says, as though that settles the matter, but Price knows The Devil. He knows that the devil you know is better than the one you only thought you knew up until he turned on you.

Price asks The Devil if he’s ever heard that old adage about the enemy of his enemy, and although they couldn’t be less friends if they tried, that gets a response.

The Devil says that Shepherd is using Site Hotel Bravo, and tells Price he’ll see him in Hell.

Price assures him that he’s looking forward to it, and politely asks that The Devil give his regards to The Fourth Horseman if he gets there first.

It’s August 16th, and the last casualty of the One Four One lies in an unmarked grave, somewhere in southwestern Afghanistan.

Rook got them to the extraction that Nikolai brought, and for that, at least, they owe him a moment. 

The rest of the Task Force is gone, publicly branded as traitors as Price and Soap were and quietly disposed of. Their replacements saw to that.

As private military contractors go, Shadow Company are among the nastier ones, an all-American favorite of the CIA. They’ve reputedly been involved in the forceful suppression of legal political protests and affecting third world elections through assassination, so it’s dim thinking to hope that some of the surviving operatives from the One Four One, the ones who escaped Shepherd’s initial purge, might have simply been RTU’d.

The one advantage that the two-man Task Force has over Shepherd is that they have nothing left to lose.

Nothing except each themselves and each other.

It’s August 17th, and Price is holding Soap’s guts in as his blood seeps through the cracks in his fingers.

They got Shepherd.

No, no. Soap got Shepherd. Got the bastard with his own knife, no less. Pulled it out of his own torso and nailed him with it from a distance of some ten or fifteen feet.

Hell of a throw. Saved Price’s arse and all. Shepherd was pushing seventy, but he didn’t get to where he was by being a slouch. He managed to get the drop on Price, beat him into the Afghan sand after Price made the mistake of thinking the old geezer would be a pushover in his ripe old age. 

Christ. Old age. That’s a laugh and a half, isn’t it, coming from a bloke who’s sixty-three, going on sixty-four if he’s bloody lucky. Daft bastard.

Shepherd was a crafty son of a bitch. Tough as old boots. But Soap is tougher. Oh, yes he is.

Not going to let a little thing like being stabbed in the gut keep him down, now is he?

It’s October 3rd. 

Like Soap, the world is in pretty shit shape but at least the bleeding isn’t getting any worse.

Operation BLACK VIKING is inactive, but the code still gets him access. 

Intel reported $ KIA, but in war, truth is always the first casualty. 

KINGFISH is still in play. 

There’ll be no sleep for the Sandman tonight, even as his laptop screen winks into darkness. 

It’s October 5th.

Price tells Soap to try and not die this time around as they wade out of a swamp that feels like it’s got more mosquitos in it than water. 

Without missing a beat, Soap tells the old man to worry about himself. 

That gets a grin from Price. His old mucker’s back on form. Bloody incredible how far they’ve come since Credenhill back in 2011, really. The world’s changed, and they’ve changed with it. 

Their new mate stays schtum. Speaks only when spoken to, and only then when he feels something needs to be said. Nikolai vouches for Yuri, and that’s good enough for Price, even if he doesn’t buy the bit about the bloke hating Makarov more than he does. He doesn’t think such a thing is possible. 

The heat and the humidity and the mud and the mozzies are bloody horrendous, but it still feels good to be working with Soap again. Having Yuri around is good, too. Always good to have an extra set of eyes. He’s no Gaz or Roach, but he’s no F.N.G. either. 

It’s October 7th, and Price is finally calling in that favor.

Mac tells him he’s on everyone’s shit-list, but a couple of ex-Regiment blokes on the run is small potatoes alongside everything else that’s happening, even for Interpol. 

It’s not just Russia and America at war any more. Shepherd wrote himself into the history books by orchestrating a massacre at Zakhaev Airport, but Makarov wasn’t to be outdone. Eleven bombs in eleven major cities around the world. Scores of soldiers and civilians dead. More killed in London in a single day than eleven weeks of bombing by the Luftwaffe and the most Regiment lads KIA in a single day since a Sea King crash that killed eighteen men back in the Falklands. 

Price can tell Mac never bought any of that bollocks about him and Soap being traitors. He doesn’t need to invoke Pripyat, but he does. He’ll feel bad about it later, but with Makarov in the wind and the world in flames, there’s no time for pissing about. 

Mac gives him a name and a location. 

Bosaso, Somalia. Waraabe. The name is Somali for hyena, and after a quick look at the dossier Mac sends his way Price can see why. The vicious son of a bitch makes Mohammed Farrah Aidid look like Princess Di, and he’s been on Interpol’s shitlist far longer than Price and Soap. Prior to dabbling in international terrorism, he cut his teeth on trafficking arms, drugs and people, and his preferred method of dealing with anyone who got in his way was throwing a tire around their neck and lighting a match. 

No wonder Makarov wanted the bastard on-side. What’s true of Saint Petersburg is equally true of Sierra Leone. Money talks and bullshit walks. 

It’s October 8th. 

Striped hyenas feign death; spotted will fight to the death.

Waraabe doesn’t fight. Doesn’t need to feign. With Soap pinning his leg to the ground, unable to get away from the chemical shite he was too happily hawking to Makarov, he folds. 

He never dealt with Makarov directly. His contact was a man named Volk. The little piggy squeals nicely, and now they have another target. They’ve traded in the hyena for the wolf, a consolation prize for missing Kingfish. 

In for a penny, in for a pound. For the price of a pint of milk back home, you could buy a half-dozen assault rifles in Africa and still have change left over for a packet of biscuits.

Price chucks him a gas mask. It’s an Avon S10 respirator, the kind the CT teams back at Hereford use. Nice bit of kit. It’ll save your eyes and lungs from smoke, CS gas, even whatever chemical shite they hit London and Paris and a dozen other places with.

Won’t stop a bullet, though. 

Waraabe finds that out the hard way as he’s fumbling with the straps. A small measure of justice for all the lads the Regiment lost in London, but they’ve not yet had their pound of flesh. The goose is already cooked. Only thing left to do now is carve it.

It’s October 10th.

Sandman’s birthday, but he’s the one handing out presents.

It’s also the anniversary of Operation KINGFISH, five years to the day. The wood anniversary. The intel he gives is fittingly solid. 

Volk folded as easily as Waraabe. He gave them names, dates, locations, even the front shipping company he used to distribute the bombs.

Many happy returns.

It’s October 11th.

Mission objective is the same as it’s been for the past three years: kill Makarov. 

Soap has a Villa Clara that he’s been saving, and he was thoughtful enough to get one for Price too. Bless his little cotton socks.

The smell is tempting. Price can’t remember the last time he had one, but he abstains. 

Not until the fat lady sings.

It’s October 12th.

There's a clocktower in Hereford where the names of the dead are inscribed.

Doyle. Ingram. Evans. Waters. Wilkins. Paulsen. MacGregor. Newcastle. Arem. Barton. Lovejoy. Garrick. Griffen. Riley. Sanderson.

MacTavish is the latest in a long line of friends whose names have wound up there before Price’s own.

Price doesn’t say anything for a few moments. MacMillan can already tell something is wrong.

What happened?

He manages to get the words out without screaming. 

There’s a barely audible sigh from the other end. No apology, no platitudes about how Soap was a good soldier and all that other fucking bollocks that Price already knows better than anyone else. Just the only thing that Price wants from him.

What d’you need from me, son?

Price doesn’t remember his father. Doesn’t remember much of anything before 1978, really, but Mac is there for him. Just like in the old days, his broad Glaswegian brogue is an anchor, grounding him, keeping him focused on the mission.

Yuri told him earlier that Makarov used to use an old castle near Prague as a weapons cache. A paltry scrap of intel, and hardly one that makes up for the opportunity they squandered earlier, the opportunity that got Soap killed, but it’s the only lead they have. 

It seems to ring a bell, but first Mac wants to know if Price can trust him.

Not if he does. If he can.

Price doesn’t see that he’s got any choice. He wants Makarov dead too. Price knows what it’s like to be betrayed.

Yuri’s on stag, sitting at the far end of the room with a rifle in his lap and refusing to meet Price’s gaze. Just as well, really, because he’s got half a mind to shoot the fucker dead. 

The other half reminds him that he might still be useful. He owes it to Soap to see this through to the end. 

Not just Soap. All of them. Griggs, whose mates died in a nuclear blast that Yuri says Makarov triggered. The men of the One Four One who died to cover up Shepherd’s treachery. The boys at Hereford. 

Even Kamarov, the tosser. Even Beirut and all his fanny-arsing about didn’t earn him the death he got. He pulled his weight in the end, didn't he? Coordinated the Czech Resistance against the Russian invasion almost single handedly, fought the country that turned his back on him the same way NATO turned its back on the One Four One, and led a bunch of civvies with Molotovs and a few looted Kalashnikovs against an army with tanks and helicopters with a reasonable degree of success. 

He pushes those thoughts to the back of his mind and focuses on the mission. 

Mac says intel ran drones over a castle southwest of Prague as far back as Zakhaev’s day, but the place was never really much more than a tourist attraction. The Russian invasion changed that, and now a stronghold that’s not seen warfare since 1422 is a military base once again.

Only one way in or out. Security office on the far side of the compound. Command center north of that. Heavily guarded. Bread and butter for an SAS operator. The kind of thing that made the Regiment renowned back in the last World War. The kind of suicide mission men like that deserved, not getting blown to bits or shredded by bullets or gassed in a fucking CT op in Central London.

What's this you're sending me?

An equipment list. Helmet-mounted AN/AVS-6 vision goggles times two. Standard issue parachute times two. C4 plastic explosive. Case of fragmentation grenades times one. MP5SD submachine gun times two. SureShot reflex sight times two. Heckler & Koch USP45 pistol times one, to replace the 1911 he left with Soap.

That's a lot of hardware, John. What d’you plan on doin'?

He’s going to do what Mac taught him to do, and by God he’s going to do it well.

It’s October 14th, and World War Three is over. 

Sandman, Truck and Grinch are gone, as well as McCoy, the poor sod who was willing in for their other man. Frost. 

Sandman mentioned in passing that Westbrook got himself WIA trying to save the Russian President’s daughter. A nice, cushty medical discharge, and now the poor bastard’s going to have to get the news secondhand that the rest of his team died on an op that he should’ve been on.

It’s Operation KINGFISH all over again. The Altay Mountains. The safehouse on the Georgian border. The Boneyard in Afghanistan. The church tower in Prague. 

Dimly, Price thinks that he should probably be used to losing friends by now, but it never gets any easier, does it. 

It’s January 21st, 2017.

Yuri has a piece of rebar sticking out of his chest and blood pouring out of his mouth. 

For a moment, Price hesitates-

Leave me! Don't let him get away!

-but it’s only for a moment. 

He’s running. Sprinting. Hurdling dead bodies and furniture and rubble strewn about by the chopper that’s now Makarov’s only ticket out of here.  

Makarov. He’s so close he can taste the fucker’s stink on the air. He has the scent. He’s hunting. He will not be denied his quarry. Move. Move. Come on, you useless old sod. Don’t you let him get away. Don’t you dare. Move your arse. Move! His bones feel leaden and his muscles feel like jelly. Jesus Christ, he’s so old. When did he get so bloody old? He can hear the chopper spinning up. Move, God damn you! 

Nikolai’s voice urges him onward. So close. So close. The chopper’s taking off. Flashes of the Bering Strait. An Estonian freighter swallowed by the threshing sea. An F.N.G. clawing for traction on a rain-slicked ramp. Two more feet and he’s lost to the ocean like the half-smoked butt of a discarded Villa Clara tossed from the bay of a chopper. 

Nobody ever makes the first jump. 

Come on, old man. You’ve earned your wings, now bloody well use them. Fly, you bastard!

His fingers wrap around the landing skid. Sky beneath his feet and cockpit above him. No gun, but he’s got his knife. The pilot sees him and just about cacks himself. He is Death. Something both more and less than human. The pilot squeezes off a shot, but Price draws on strength he didn’t know he had and the bullet goes into the chopper’s control panel. A second later, Price’s knife goes into the pilot’s neck. 

The pilot goes out the door with Price’s knife still in him. Tatty-bye. 

Now, there’s just the small matter of killing Makarov. For a moment Price is just tempted to let the sodding bird take a dive, but if you pushed Makarov into a pit of shit he’d probably come out smelling like daisies. How many times have they missed him by so little? There’s no guarantee he’ll die in the crash and it’d be a bugger if Price copped it and the son of a bitch went on living. 

He gets his hand on the joystick, but the chopper isn’t listening. Come on, you miserable fucker! Don’t you have any idea how far I’ve come? How much I’ve lost?! I deserve this. Makarov deserves this, he deserves what’s coming to him, what’s been coming to him since bloody 1996-

The bird goes down hard, and the world goes black. 

Bugger it all. 

He opens his eyes, and sees the face of an old man staring, dumbfounded at him. Blood drips onto the glass.

You’re still alive, John, you jammy bastard. Now get your arse up and finish the job.

A glint of metal on the blood-streaked glass. Makarov lost his sidearm in the crash. Desert Eagle. Big and showy. Piss-poor substitute for a Colt 1911, but it goes bang when you squeeze the trigger and that’s all Price cares about.

Makarov is suddenly there. Hurt, but still standing. Fucker. He sees the gun too. Staggers for it as Price crawls towards it. Ignore the pain. Not important. All that matters is killing Makarov. He coughs. Tastes blood. Too many Villa Claras or something else? He never gave much thought to dying of lung cancer. 

Makarov’s shoe stamps down on his fingers. Nice shoes. Expensive, no doubt. Filthy little rat bastard doesn’t just have a penchant for big, flashy guns. He likes his nice clothes, too. Tailored suits and black leather Oxfords. He trades lives for money. Whore. Callused fingers with perfectly manicured nails grip the Deagle, level the muzzle at Price’s face. Useless. Bollocks. It’s not supposed to end like this. God damn it all.

Makarov’s lip curls. Not quite a sneer. Not a smile. His head tilts ever so slightly. Almost a nod. An acknowledgement. Something approaching respect. 

Goodbye, Captain Price.

Fuck you, Makarov.

They say you never hear the shot that kills you, but Price hears the shot and immediately realizes what that means.

Makarov turns the gun on Yuri, his wounded arm hanging uselessly while the Deagle bucks in his other hand. He hits him with the Mozambique Drill, two in the chest and one in the head. One more friend to add to the list of reasons why Makarov deserves what happens next. 

Price launches himself at Makarov, and sees the fucker’s blue and green eyes go wide with astonishment right before his fist smashes into his little rat face. He gives him another, then another, and the temptation is there, to just keep pounding on him like he did with Al-Asad back at the safe house in Azerbaijan, to just keep punching until his ugly, hateful little face is just bloody mush, but he needs to do the job right. He needs to be sure.

For Soap.

His grasping fingers find a length of cord, and it goes around Makarov’s neck. The glass below them begins to splinter. Makarov chokes, clawing at the thin metal as it bites into the flesh of his neck like a joint of meat hanging in a butcher’s shop window. His eyes bulge out of his head like a fish. 

For Ghost and Roach. For Gaz and Griggs. For Yuri and Kamarov.

The glass shatters, and they’re falling. Price hits the ground. Makarov doesn’t. He bounces. Dangles like a car air freshener.

No judge. No jury. Scuffed, shiny black leather Oxfords kick uselessly in the air as perfectly manicured nails pick at the noose to no avail. He jerks. Spasms. His face goes purple. His limbs go slack. 

Glass tinkles and crunches as Price crawls back from the edge. He gives it a few seconds, just to make sure. 

It’s over.

He fumbles within the recesses of his tactical rig, produces a battered, old-fashioned metal lighter with a King George penny set in the side, and a Villa Clara. The one Soap saved for him.

Here’s to you, my son.

He strikes the lighter. Nothing happens. He tries it again.

For fuck’s sake.

He feels a small smile tugging at his lips, and he’s struck with the bizarre urge to laugh. 

Soap would probably get a kick out of this, he thinks. Gaz would definitely have a sarky comment to make.

Third time’s the charm. The end of the cigar crackles to life. Sirens wail in the distance.

He takes a long, deep drag, and closes his eyes. 

Ah, yes. That's the stuff.