Ponizovje Warehouse

Mission Time: Day 2

1324 Hours

The warehouse was large, weathered . . . and abandoned. Snake had no trouble getting through it. He crept through aisles of ancient crates, heard the skittering of many-legged things on the linoleum. Dull orange light pooled under naked bulbs hanging from the vaulted ceiling, but there were no sentries, no guards patrolling the area.

It really was getting too easy, Snake thought with some worry.

There was a door at the end of the warehouse. Snake walked over to it and inspected it. It was a large loading door, painted with peeling and faded red. He tried it, but it wouldn't budge. There was a huge and heavy lock that looked brand-new. Snake's brow furrowed. The heavy-duty lock glimmered tauntingly.

He sighed and looked around the rest of the warehouse. There was a stairwell leading up to another door on the other side of the building. He started towards it.

He heard a frantic chittering sound and turned his gaze towards it. He saw a large, sleek rat dart from underneath some spilled crates. One of the crates had ruptured, spilling its cargo on the floor. No one had come by to clean up. The contents of the crate oozed out of the shattered remains of the box. They were field rations, tin cans with Cyrillic lettering stamped on the top.

As if on cue, Snake's stomach growled. He glanced around for a bit, then sifted through the wreckage and plucked one of the cans up. He peeled away the tin. His nose wrinkled. What lay inside was oily, with chunks of some colorless meat floating in it. He scarfed it down and almost vomited.

Disgusting. Why would The Boss want to defect to a country that gives this shit to its soldiers?

He flung the tin over his shoulder, still suppressing the urge to puke, and felt he needed to take his mind off the horrid taste. He keyed the codec.

"Major, there was a woman with Sokolov. A woman named Tanya. Do you know anything about her?"

"No," the major replied.

"Nothing?"

"Not a thing."

"Why not?" Snake inched up the stairwell. "You must have checked up on Sokolov when he defected two years ago. If he had a lover-"

"Make no mistake," Zero said, "we conducted a thorough investigation. But there was nothing about him having a mistress."

"Maybe you didn't notice."

"That's impossible," the major said curtly.

"Then he must have become involved with her after he was taken back to Russia."

The major mumbled something.

"What is it, Major? Something wrong?"

A sigh. "I just don't think Sokolov would take a lover."

"Why not?"

"I still remember him two years ago." Zero's voice took on a rather musing tone. "After we got him across the border, the first words he spoke from his hospital bed after he regained consciousness were, 'Are my wife and daughter safe?' And right up until he was taken back to Russia, he kept begging me over and over to take care of his family, almost as if he was delirious. Sokolov is a man who loves his family. Betraying his wife is something he'd . . ." He trailed off.

"Major."

Zero snapped out of it. "What is it?"

"People change."

The major sighed again. "Maybe you're right."

Yeah, maybe.

He switched off the codec. As he did, his eyes flickered up to the top rafter. He thought he saw a shadow there, but it was likely a passing cloud. He blinked, and it was gone, whatever it was.

Still, he couldn't help but shake that feeling . . .

He tried the door at the top of the stairs. Unlike the red loading door at the other end of the warehouse, this one opened easily at his touch. He pushed it open and stepped out into the jungle.

. . .

He was being watched, after all.

Snake had kept a watchful scan of the warehouse, had noticed every shadow and alcove in the place. He had, however, failed to notice the shimmer in the rafters. Or if he had, he'd discounted it as a rogue bit of sunlight glancing off some bit of metal. But once the man had exited the warehouse, the shimmer faded, and the spindly figure perched there became visible-or would have, if there had been anyone there to see him.

The Fear's left index finger (double-jointed, as all of his digits were) lovingly caressed the trigger of the weapon he held trained on the back of the CIA man's neck. It was a rather bizarre weapon to anyone who would've noticed it-a .45-caliber pistol grip, which flowered into a strange metal contraption that looked more like a stapler than anything else. Until you noticed the long, narrow bolt protruding from it. It was a crossbow, the "Little Joe," devised by the eggheads at OSS to act as a "silent crossbow." It used rubber strings to unleash its deadly cargo. More than a few of them had been deployed, but rarely were they used. In fact, it was The Fear who had been the original target demographic for the weapon.

At any second, he could have squeezed the trigger, and the bolt would have loosened, burying itself in the young man's medulla oblongata. Kill shot.

But instead, he watched the soldier creep to the far end of the warehouse, and after checking his six to ensure he wasn't being followed, he exited the door that led to the forest trail toward Granin's design bureau.

The door had scarcely closed back on itself but The Fear had already lithely slipped down to the floor. As he did, the shimmer seemed to fade back on itself, and anyone unlucky enough to see the man materialize would have seen his spindly, almost insectile form tuck into itself as he landed on the linoleum. He slipped the "Little Joe" in a special-made holster on his thigh and unslung the larger crossbow strapped to his back. This was another OSS creation, the aptly-named "William Tell." Just a normal crossbow, though it was affixed with sights that made it a prime tool for picking off prey at long distances.

If Volgin or even The Boss had known that The Fear had the American in his sights and had refused to take him out, there might have been consequences. Still, The Fear didn't like catching his victims unawares. He liked to toy with them, liked them to know they were being hunted. And after The Pain . . . well, the boy had killed one of their own, and The Fear wanted him to know he was being stalked.

And yet, the time wasn't yet right. The fruit, as it were, wasn't quite ripe to be plucked. The boy had a long way to go yet, and there was plenty of time to kill him.

The Fear licked his lips slowly. He was ravenously hungry; the specialized stealth-suit he wore ran on his own biological energy, and it depleted his stamina something awful. It made for an insatiable appetite. He stroked the William Tell. Perhaps he'd hunt something in the meantime, while he mulled over how to best deal with the American interloper.

The Fear cracked his knuckles. He'd undergone several surgeries over the years, in order to make his body more feral, more animal-like. He was naturally double-jointed, but now he could move about like a spider, and his natural speed had been boosted by steroid enhancements in his muscles. In addition to The Fear's constant hunger, he also relied heavily on several serum concoctions which he kept clipped to his belt.

He slipped a syringe from the pouch. He popped the plastic cap and jabbed the needle into his thigh. The corded muscles in his neck tightened as he felt the fluid hit his bloodstream like a highballing freight train. A lesser man would've keeled over, his heart exploded in his chest, but The Fear had developed an insanely high tolerance for the stuff.

He slipped the empty syringe back in the pouch-waste not, want not, wasn't that the old saw?-and straightened. There was no time to lose. The American would reach the facility by dusk. The Fear would follow him. He would lull the boy, yes. And then, when he least expected it, he would strike. And before the boy died, he would know what true fear was.

Ah, but that would come later. For now, he would feed. Then he would watch. And wait.

For awhile.