Chapter Text
He was on leave when it started. He wasn't even supposed to be in contact with Laswell, but here he was in front of his home laptop with his phone on speaker.
"Sending the live feed to you now."
Soap couldn't believe what he was seeing. The stream showed a man tied to a chair, still in full tactical gear. His fatigues sported a union flag on the arm, and Soap fought an odd nervousness that rose in the back of his throat. A black sack was tied over the head of the man, who sat hunched down and bound.
"Kate? Tell me what I'm looking at,"
"Live feed from Al Quatala. They're sending this to major news outlets in the US, Mexico, and England. I've got my people trying to track down the source as we speak."
"Anyone seeing this?"
"Nobody but us and the crew at the BBC, CNN, NBC, WXY, and Z."
"Cute," Soap huffed. "Do we have a positive ID on the captive?"
"Not yet, we don't have any English POWs on record from AQ."
"Then who is it? Why this guy?" Soap's eyes darted around the screen for any information he could find.
"You have all the info I do, Sargeant—movement on the left-hand side!"
Soap watched intently as his footage caught up. Two gunmen entered the frame. One stood guard as another removed the prisoner's hood. Soap felt his nails dig into his skin.
A pale white half mask—a skull—appeared.
"What the fuck?" He yelled, feeling for his gun, only to find unwashed jeans and a sad grey shirt. Civilian clothes.
"We've got the source of the video, it's a terrorist encampment west of Al Mazrah."
"I don't give a fuck! How did they get Ghost? He was supposed to be on leave!"
"He is on leave, or was, I don't know! We're trying to contact him now. If that is him, Price and I had no part in this."
The gunmen began speaking, the sound was crunchy.
"What are they saying?" Soap asked.
"A translation should be coming through any—"
"How the fuck did you let this—!"
A gunshot rang out. Soap was well acquainted with gunshots. He knew how they echoed around a space, how the flash burned a spot into your eye. The video sounded like someone had dropped something heavy, like a bowling ball. It was a single noise that blew out the microphone. Maybe that was why he didn't scream.
The voice of one of the gunmen clipped in right before the screen went black.
"Soap..." Kate all but whispered.
"What's going on?"
"Soap, we don't know. We have no intel on this, we didn't even know if that was him."
"Who else could it be?" He shouted down the phone. He looked around for his keys, finding them by the door. "Text me anything you find. I'm going to his house."
"I can't text you, this is sensitive information. Please, stay on—"
Soap put his cell phone in his pocket and stormed out the front door. The fire in his head roared as he started the engine of his truck and headed off down the road.